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President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey hold a press conference in the Rose Garden of the White House, May 16, 2013.

(Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

Following their bilateral meeting this morning, President Obama and Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey held a press conference in the Rose Garden this afternoon.

President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey hold a bilateral meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House, May 16, 2013.

(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

The President highlighted three areas of focus the two leaders discussed: expanding trade and investment between the U.S. and Turkey, mutual security, and the issue of Syria.

Read the remarks here or watch the press conference below.

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There were a record number of solar panels installed in the U.S. on rooftops and on ground-mounted systems in 2012. Now both traditional financing companies and new types of investors are starting to get in on the trend of providing the funds for the high upfront costs of installing solar panels, in exchange for making some money back several years down the road. But the potential to make money in this way has only just started.

On Thursday solar installer SolarCity announced that it has signed up Goldman Sachs, and other investors, to create a $500 million fund to support leases for solar panels for home and business owners. With that much money, SolarCity can install some 110 MW worth of solar panels.

Solar leases are a contract between the building owner and SolarCity, whereby SolarCity pays the upfront cost of installing the system, owns and maintains the panels, and the building owner pays for the monthly electricity for the power from the panels over around 20 years. As Ucilia noted on GigaOM Pro today, the residential solar leasing market alone is expected to grow from $1.3 billion in 2012 to $5.7 billion in 2016, according to GTM Research.

Some banks and even companies like Google have been willing to put hundreds of millions into these types of funds. SolarCity has been able to raise $1.7 billion in funding over its lifetime to finance installations from groups like U.S. Bancorp, Google, PG&E and Credit Suisse. Other solar financing companies — and the competition is now getting fierce — include Sungevity, OneRoof Energy, Sunrun and Clean Power Finance.

There’s such a demand for solar leases and financing that even some companies are falling behind on getting funding for these businesses. SunPower said earlier this month that demand for its residential solar leases is far greater than the money available to finance them. Power company NRG Energy also wants to retry getting into this space, after trying out this market awhile back.

It’s not just banks and corporate do-gooders that want the opportunity to make a decent return — some 10 to 12 percent in some cases. Crowd-funding is starting to appear as an interesting blip on the radar. Startup Solar Mosaic says that it’s now raised $1 million from its crowd-funders for its solar panel systems, which offer around a 4.5 percent annual yield. Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates that commercial‐scale solar panel systems can reach returns of 8 percent to 14 percent in states like Hawaii, Texas, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.

As big power players, upstart solar financiers and even everyday crowd-funders grow these funds and receive the returns, this market will start to expand significantly. As a boom of solar panels continues to hit the U.S., various parties can make significant money off this transition. Bloomberg New Energy Finance expects that residential solar panels could be installed on 2.4 percent of U.S. houses by 2020.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• After Solyndra: analyzing the solar industry
• The fourth quarter of 2012 in cleantech
• Cleantech and investment in 2013

Will Smith and his son Jaden were in Miami to draw attention to their attempt to capitalize on the apocalyptic movie craze watch LeBron and his Miami Heat dispatch the Chicago Bulls. While Smith is famous for, among other things, a song dedicated to the city of Miami, the Fresh Prince of Hollywood was wearing a grey Philadelphia 76ers hat. Smith’s haberdashery choices were rendered moot, however, once sideline analyst/best dressed person on the planet Craig Sager decided he wanted to photobomb Smith and his son, all while the TNT cameras looked on. The result, as you see in the lead image, is pretty tremendous, if, for nothing else, Sager’s incredible suit.

Here’s a better look at what Sager was wearing below, courtesy of Twitter user extraordinaire, CJZero:

Recent reports have indicated that Google+ has struggled to keep brands engaging. It’s not exactly the first place fans think of for engaging with celebrities either typically (unless perhaps they’re trying to engage with Wil Wheaton or look at photos of Hugh Jackman).

Some celebrities just rehash the stuff they’re sharing on Facebook or Twitter. That doesn’t go for Rose McGowan. I think it’s safe to say she’s an active Google+ user – one of the 390 million Google boasted this week as it launched a slew of new features.

If you want to see McGowan showing off her “fish face,” you’re going to have an easier time finding it on Google+ than you are on Facebook or Twitter.

Rose McGowan2 hours ago

The Eternal Fish Face

137    13 Powered by socialditto

Rose McGowan23 days ago

Afternoon fish face #naptime

345    41 Powered by socialditto

Rose McGowan65 days ago

Party (and fish) face

296    47 Powered by socialditto

Yesterday, at the Google I/O conference, Google unveiled their long-rumored subscription music streaming service and opened it up to the public with a free 30-day trial. The service, called Google Play Music All Access, is poised to challenge the likes of Spotify, Rdio, and Pandora for your music streaming dollars.

You can check out my (admittedly long-winded) hands-on walkthrough complete with initial thoughts here, you know, if you want to learn more about it.

Today, Google has released their first ever promotion for the new product. It channels Dracula, who just needs to make a night-themed playlist he can dance to. And then share it on Google+, of course. You can check it out below:

You can start your free trial today. Eventually, the service with cost $9.99 a month., but if you sign up before June 30th you can knock two bucks off that monthly price. There is no ad-supported free option for GPMAA.

Rogers Ventures, the venture capital arm of Rogers Communications Inc., joined Panorama Capital in a US$15 million Series E financing of New York-based Zoove Corp., which operates StarStar and StarStarMe, a mobile phone number service. The company also received investment from Worldview Technology Partners and Highland Capital Partners. The new funds will support Zoove’s continued growth, with emphasis on product expansion, business development and marketing.

PRESS RELEASE

Zoove Corp Secures Series E $15 Million Investment From Rogers Venture Partners, Panorama Capital and Others

New Funding to Facilitate Significant Product Expansion for Provider of StarStar Mobile Activation Solutions

NEW YORK, NY–(Marketwired – May 14, 2013) – Zoove Corp, the exclusive provider of StarStar and StarStarMe, a unique mobile phone number that connects people with the things they care about most — great content, favorite brands, and one another — today announced that it has secured a strategic investment of $15 Million from existing series D investors, Rogers Venture Partners and Panorama Capital, along with additional investment from the company’s early stage investors, Worldview Technology Partners and Highland Capital. This new funding will allow Zoove to expand significantly through all areas of the business, with emphasis on product expansion, business development and marketing.

After securing relationships with all four major mobile carriers — AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless, Zoove became the first and only organization to offer unique vanity mobile numbers that allow brands to provide any content experience to consumers via a simple phone call. The company has signed significant deals with major U.S. brands including AT&T, CBS Radio, Dunkin’ Donuts, Ford, Hyatt Hotels, NFL, Viacom, and many more. As mobile commerce and adoption continue to rise exponentially, more and more companies realize the indispensable need for simple and successful mobile marketing tactics. As a result, Zoove has grown rapidly across media, entertainment, retail, travel, financial services, and even non-profit organizations.

With the new funding in place, Zoove plans to continue enhancement and expansion of the StarStar platform — including solutions for both enterprise companies and consumers. Most recently, the company announced StarStar Me, which allows individuals to obtain their own vanity phone number, such as **CHLOE or **MOVIEGUY, through all major carriers. The company will continue to roll out enhancements to the StarStar Me mobile app and experience, as well as continue to expand their enterprise marketing and sales initiatives with an emphasis on demand generation.

“We invest in companies that are innovators in fast-growing markets, and Zoove is a clear leader in mobile marketing,” said Mike Lee, General Partner at Rogers Venture Partners. “Zoove has quickly attracted big name brands from many different industries, and is committed to expanding its portfolio across consumer and business brands.”

“As early Series A investors in Zoove, we have been immensely pleased with the company’s rapid innovation and growth to date, and we look forward to more in the future,” said Mike Orsak, General Partner of Worldview Technology Partners. “We are convinced that StarStar is a game-changer for the mobile industry, and the recent adoption, new clients and consumers signed shows the industry believes this as well.”

“This funding is a tremendous endorsement of our technology, growth and potential. I am extremely excited about the future for this company, the level of expertise and proprietorship behind the products and almost limitless opportunity for mobile marketing across the globe,” states Joe Gillespie, CEO of Zoove Corp. “We are proud that these venture funds have chosen to invest in Zoove, enabling us to accelerate our national growth.”

To learn more about the StarStar solutions, please visit www.zoove.com or simply call **STARSTAR from any mobile device.

About Zoove

Zoove Corporation is the exclusive provider of StarStar and StarStarMe, a unique mobile phone number that connects people with the things they care about most — great content, favorite brands, and one another. Enabled across all major U.S. carriers, the StarStar platform empowers marketers to leverage media, mobile and marketing through a single platform, in order to create any offline-to-online brand experience they desire. StarStar drives millions of calls every year for the world’s top brands including CBS, Dunkin’ Donuts, Ford, Hyatt, NFL and Verizon Wireless. With offices in Chicago, New York and San Francisco, Zoove’s solutions and mobile expertise enable marketers to deliver a more relevant on-the-go customer experience with unprecedented real-time metrics and media efficacy. To learn more, please visit www.zoove.com or simply call **STARSTAR from any mobile device.

About Highland Capital

At Highland Capital Partners, we have always been focused on one goal: to help great people build great companies. Since our inception in 1988, we have invested in over 200 seed, early and growth stage companies — 90 of which have gone public or been acquired to date. We emphasize a team-oriented approach in providing the right mix of strategic guidance, hands-on leadership and deep industry domain expertise in helping entrepreneurs and their teams to become market-leading organizations. Visit www.hcp.com for more information.

About Panorama Capital

Panorama Capital was founded in 2005 by a team of experienced venture investors who had worked together for many years managing the venture business at JPMorgan Partners. During our tenure at JPMP, we completed 25 IPO’s and successfully sold more than 20 companies to strategic buyers. Our investment philosophy is to seek out and invest in exceptional management teams building companies that can become market leaders in their categories. Whether a business is at the start-up phase or experiencing rapid growth, Panorama seeks to invest in entrepreneurs who are clearly passionate about their company and skilled at navigating the complex challenges that lay ahead. More at www.panoramacapital.com

About Rogers Ventures

Rogers Venture Partners (“RVP”) was established in 2012 as a newly minted $150M venture capital fund headquartered in Palo Alto. The RVP team brings a wealth of global operating and investing experience. At RVP, every one of the partners has an operating background and, most importantly, all came from the high tech industry. As a result, our partners are deeply rooted in the operating ecosystem, allowing portfolio companies to better develop key partnerships and establish meaningful customer contracts. We look to take active roles within each portfolio company and are committed to working towards a common vision of revolutionizing the status quo. For more information, please visit http://www.rogersvp.com/

About Worldview Technology Partners

Worldview Technology Partners was founded in 1996 and is a leading venture capital firm focused on investing in and building leading U.S. technology companies. Their comprehensive business development services help their portfolio companies succeed in U.S. and international markets. The Worldview team — now on their fourth fund — has both the experience and the resources to invest in a broad range of information technology markets, including communications, semiconductors, Internet/digital media, wireless, enterprise infrastructure and software. For more information, please visit http://www.worldview.com/

Contact:

Mark Ballard

212-680-0179

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Zoove Gets $15M From Rogers Ventures, Panorama, Other VCs appeared first on peHUB.

Google entered a crowded space when it launched its own music subscription service this week: Google Play Music All Access competes head-on with Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody, Muve Music and a handful of other offerings, all of which offer more or less the same catalog for the same price.

How can Google stand out from the crowd, and convince millions of consumers who haven’t warmed up to access models that they don’t need to own music to enjoy it? To find out, I’ve both tested the service since its launch Wednesday and met up with Paul Joyce, Lead Product Manager for Google Play Music on the sidelines of the Google I/O developers conference where the service was launched. Joyce politely declined to answer some of my questions, but the conversation gave me a good idea of what’s in store for the music service with the confusingly long name.

Right now, it’s more or less like all the others

Google’s premise for Play Music All Access is simple, and you’ve heard it before: Play millions of songs, on your desktop and on the go, for one low monthly fee. That’s what Spotify and all of its competitors have been offering for some time now, and Google doesn’t mess with the basic recipe. All Access costs $9.99 ($7.99 if you sign up before the end of June), and it offers streaming access to songs from all three majors and most significant indie labels.

However, there’s one big difference: Google’s subscription music catalog seamlessly integrates with the company’s music locker, with which users can store up to 20,000 songs for free. That’s an interesting combination, and it hasn’t been offered by any of the other major subscription players before. It makes it possible to have Google generate smart radio stations based on your own music collection, or mix subscription tracks and CDs you ripped in custom playlists, and then access these on the go without having to worry that some of the tracks won’t be available.

Joyce told me that the locker is especially good for tracks that aren’t available through the subscription offering, or even as MP3 sales – mashups, imports and other kinds of rarities.

In the future, All Access will be a lot more social

But All Access isn’t just about filling the gaps left by other services. It also wants to be better at engaging you – which has been one of the problems of existing services. “People sign up, and then they don’t know what to do afterwards,” Joyce said. Having millions of songs at your disposal doesn’t exactly make choice easy, and there is some evidence that a good chunk of users simply tune out.

How does Google want to address this issue? Joyce gave me one hint: “There is more we can do to innovate in social,” he said.

Play Music doesn’t offer much of a social integration today – but that could change soon.

And we are not talking here’s a list of the unfortunate music choices of all the people you didn’t really care about in high school social, which has been Spotify’s original model of social discovery. “If you treat all your recommendations of all your friends the same, then that is a problem,” Joyce argued. However, he wasn’t convinced that the Rdio model – which is very much like Twitter in that it offers you to follow tastemakers – is the right approach either. It’s simply too much work to find the people who can give you good recommendations, he argued.

So how is Google Music’s approach to social going to look? Joyce didn’t go into details, only telling me that the goal was to give you “the right music from the right people at the right time.” However, one has to assume that it would be powered by Google+, which gives us some idea of how it could work: You could get music recommendations from circles and communities, with the ability to share circles of influencers with others. Instead of just curating albums, Google Music’s editors could curate circles of influencers, and users could simply follow the 50 most influential indie rock bloggers with one click.

What else does Google have up its sleeve?

There have been ongoing reports that Google is going to launch a separate music subscription service on YouTube, which makes about as much sense as having four separate messaging apps from the same company (but that didn’t really stop Google, either). Joyce didn’t want to go into any specifics. “YouTube is a great asset for Google,” he told me, and then added: “We will find exciting things to do together.” Maybe it won’t be two separate services, after all?

Google also plans to bring Play Music All Access to other countries “soon,” said Joyce. Countries that already have Google’s music cloud locker will be first on the list for an international expansion, and currently include the UK, France, Germany and Spain.

And finally, there is iOS. Joyce’s lips were sealed when I asked him about the potential of bringing the service to the competing mobile platform, but it would make a lot of sense, and follow Google’s overall theme of unification across mobile and desktop platforms. Of course, this would be the first time that any Play service was available on iOS – but I predict that Google will have to take that step if it wants to seriously compete with Spotify and Co.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• How social discovery is transforming entertainment
• Connected world: the consumer technology revolution
• How to compete with Facebook in 2013

Kevin Williamson is a theater critic and a writer for the National Review. This does not make him a hero. What does make him a hero is that he took action on an impulse that plenty of us have battled from time to time: physically separating the loud, obnoxious, moviegoer who won’t turn off their damn phone from said phone.

In Williamson’s case, we’re talking theatergoers here. But the principle remains the same: When you’re at a play, turn off your phone you self-absorbed butthole. I promise you that nothing you’re doing is that important. Promise.

As he tells it, the night began with a couple of annoying women who were “talking, using their phones, and making a general nuisance of themselves.” The audience was watching a performance of Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, and two women with “too much makeup and too-high heels, and insufficient attention span for following a two-hour musical” were preventing everyone from enjoying the show. Or at least preventing Williamson, as he was seated right next to them.

Williamson claims his date spoke to theater management during intermission, whose assurances that the situation would be taken care of wound up being hollow.

I’ll let him take it from there:

The lady seated to my immediate right (very close quarters on bench seating) was fairly insistent about using her phone. I asked her to turn it off. She answered: “So don’t look.” I asked her whether I had missed something during the very pointed announcements to please turn off your phones, perhaps a special exemption granted for her. She suggested that I should mind my own business.

So I minded my own business by utilizing my famously feline agility to deftly snatch the phone out of her hand and toss it across the room, where it would do no more damage. She slapped me and stormed away to seek managerial succor. Eventually, I was visited by a black-suited agent of order, who asked whether he might have a word.

Williamson tells Gothamist that some rude Googling on the device is what eventually prompted him to remove it from her possession. He was eventually kicked out and says that “there is talk of criminal charges.”

Whatever happens, we salute you. No, I’m not going to suggest that every annoying movie or theater attendee who refuses to follow simple rules and courtesies should be separated from their iPhones – but if I happened to be one of the crowdmembers enjoying Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 that fateful night, well, let’s just say the play (which he says was quite good) wouldn’t have been the only thing to receive a standing O.

Of course, as of now, this is a one-sided story.

Below is a special feature and first post from Trace Cohen, our new Senior Director, Social Media Marketing at BlackBerry! Be sure to welcome Trace in the comments and stay tuned for more! — Donny

My first BlackBerry Live conference, and I’m definitely inspired. I’m in the enviable position of having recently joined in the company of a brand with a groundbreaking product platform, a disruptive marketing organization, a stellar social media team, and a global top 10 social fan base — ~32MM followers and fans that are not only rooting for our success in a volatile category, but have armed themselves as ambassadors for our cause.

Say no more than a recent tweet by world champion cyclist Mark Cavendish “Got an hour to relax, so playing around with my BlackBerry Z10. This phone is a monster! I love it! And no, this ISN’T a commercial tweet.”

Got an hour to relax, so playing around with my BlackBerry Z10. This phone is a monster! I love it! And no, this ISN’T a commercial tweet.

— Mark Cavendish (@MarkCavendish) May 9, 2013

But there’s an even more specific reason it’s so thrilling to be here at this point in time. Humility and Ambition. BlackBerry has a mega-challenge ahead of it driving adoption of BlackBerry 10, but the organization is humble enough to recognize what we’re doing wrong, curious enough to learn what we don’t know, and ambitious enough to make it right.

Ambition is at the core of the BlackBerry brand. And it’s who BlackBerry customers are — multi-taskers, fast-moving and ambitious. We’re balancing family, friends and professional lives, we’re ‘up to stuff’ in our day-to-day lives, work or play, we’re always on-the-go. More than just a tag line, ‘Keep Moving’ is a promise to support our customers in achieving their ambitions. Be it a personal ambition of climbing Kilimanjaro, spending more time with your kids, or a career goal to build the most social brand ever (yep, that’s mine), our role as the social team is to provide you with what you need to achieve your ambitions. Social Media is integral to what we do at BlackBerry, because while we’re mobile from the ground up, our device is social at its core too — connecting you to the people and information you need to keep moving. Our social marketing needs to reflect that ethos, to behave in the same way our product does, and it’s our commitment to bring you the social connections, experiences, content and even insights you need, to get where you’re going.

More than lip service, we made some announcements that support just this focus at BlackBerry Live this week. Alicia Keys announced the BlackBerry Scholars Program, a four-year scholarship fund to support young women in achieving their ambitions to make a mark on the world, while encouraging women to embrace careers in technology. Our newly announced Keep Moving Projects turns the celebrity endorsement model on its head. Rather than paying artists or celebrities to say what we want them to say about our brand, we’re asking artists to approach us with projects they want to do, and we’re asking them how we can support them in achieving their goals and ambitions. We know we’re going to get more authentic content and experiences this way, people who want to work with us and engage with our product for the right reasons.

Stay tuned for mobile social developments in this space. So glad to be here, and working for you and together with you, be sure to let us know what you’re up to in your lives, and what we can do to keep you moving. We’d love to learn more.

Emma Watson is playing a certain kind of girl in her next movie, “The Bling Ring”, and she says she was inspired by the Kardashian girls when she was trying to get into character.

The “Harry Potter” actress has clearly moved away from her iconic “Hermione” character in playing a girl so fascinated with Hollywood celebs that she breaks into their homes and steals their belongings. The character is based on real-life accused thief Alexis Neiers, who allegedly broke into the homes of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Orlando Bloom–among others–with a group of friends. Neiers was the subject of the reality show “Pretty Wild”, which was being filmed right when she was busted. She ended up pleading no contest to the charges against her after word got out that Orlando Bloom would be testifying in court.

“I watched a lot of Keeping up with the Kardashians and The Hills, and I tried to understand the psychology of this kind of girl as much as possible,” Watson said. “I didn’t want her to be just a parody. The accent was hard as it was a particular kind of dialect. I also thought a lot about what her parents must have been like.”

The film, which is helmed by Sofia Coppola, opens in June.

Editor's Note: This is a cross post from the Administration for Children & Families blog of the Department of Health & Human Services. You can find the original post here.

President Barack Obama hugs students during a visit to a pre-kindergarten classroom at the College Heights Early Childhood Learning Center in Decatur, Ga., Feb. 14, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

As a working mom, I know how hard it is to find good child care so that I can have some peace of mind when I come to work. At ACF, we’ve been working hard to strengthen the nation’s child care system so that moms and dads, especially moms and dads with the fewest resources, can have better child care choices while they work to support their families.

In his 2013 State of the Union address, President Obama made a historic commitment to young children, making it a priority to ensure that “none of our children start the race of life already behind.” Improving child care is an important part of this effort and a key component of the President’s Plan for Early Education for All Americans.

Today, HHS announces a big new step in this direction – new proposed regulations for the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), which is administered here at the Office of Child Care. CCDF supports 1.6 million children in child care each month and invests over $1 billion each year in quality improvements like teacher training and grants to child care programs. All over the country, child care providers are dedicated to preparing children for school success. Despite the terrific efforts of public and private organizations around the country, there are some critical gaps in our child care programs. Some children are in child care settings that don’t meet basic health and safety standards. Often, there is a lack of useful comparative information for parents choosing child care. The new regulations are intended to close some of those gaps.

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Canadian venture capital firm Vanedge Capital has made a US$3 million Series A investment in OpenGeo Inc., a New York-based provider of commercial open source geospatial software. At the same time, the company spun out from its incubator parent OpenPlans, and is now focused on growing its product and consumer-support initiatives. Vancouver-based Vanedge invests in interactive entertainment and digital media businesses.

PRESS RELEASE

OpenGeo Completes $3 Million Series A Financing and Launches as Independent Open Source Company

New York, NY, May 15, 2013 — OpenGeo, the creators of the OpenGeo Suite, the world’s leading open source geospatial software platform, announced a $3 million Series A investment from Vanedge Capital of Vancouver, British Columbia. Simultaneous with the funding event, the company has spun out from its incubator parent, OpenPlans, and is boosting OpenGeo’s product and customer-support initiatives.

“We are thrilled to be working with Vanedge.” said Eddie Pickle, OpenGeo CEO. “The Vanedge team understands the huge opportunity in the geospatial software space. Their investment is very timely given the tremendous demand for open source, Spatial IT solutions among government and commercial enterprises worldwide.”

The OpenGeo Suite is widely used for managing and sharing spatial data. OpenGeo has led the industry shift toward flexible, interoperable geospatial software infrastructures and will use this Series A funding to further enhance its industry-leading product and training offerings and reach a broader array of customers.

Moe Kermani, partner at Vanedge Capital, noted, “OpenGeo has developed an impressive customer roster who are using its product offerings in mission-critical software applications. The paradigm shift toward web and mobile geospatial services is well underway and is permanently altering the Spatial IT landscape. We believe this shift heavily favors open source and the OpenGeo Suite, which is ideally situated to become the de facto geospatial platform.”

The Vanedge-led investment enables OpenGeo to complete its separation from tech incubator OpenPlans, which founded OpenGeo in 2002. “We are proud that our incubation with OpenPlans has been so successful,” noted Chris Holmes, OpenGeo’s founder. “We look forward to growing our contributions to open source communities as a dedicated open source geospatial software company.”

About Vanedge Capital
Vanedge Capital is a Vancouver, B.C. based venture capital fund focused on investments in interactive entertainment and digital media businesses. The fund managers have extensive experience and relationships in this sector and have built and led world-class companies in video games, computer animation and enterprise software, among others. For more information, visit www.vanedgecapital.com.

About OpenGeo
OpenGeo is the world leader for commercial open source geospatial software. Our global customer base uses the OpenGeo Suite, a complete open source geospatial web services stack, to deploy solutions for web mapping, transportation, telecommunications, open government and a huge range of other solutions. The OpenGeo Suite provides the best, continually updated geo web services platform along with maintenance agreements that include support and training. These agreements provide our customers with superior value and the growing functionality of continually enhanced open source geospatial software.

OpenGeo supports open source communities by employing key developers of PostGIS, GeoServer, and OpenLayers. We are committed to the ideals of open source and aim to bring the best practices of open source software to organizations around the world.

Media Contact
David Dubovsky
OpenGeo
+1 917-388-9077
[email protected]

 Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Vanedge Provides $3M Series A Funding to OpenGeo appeared first on peHUB.

The Minnesota Vikings this week officially revealed that backup quarterback Joe Webb has been moved to a wide receiver position.

Vikings head coach Leslie Frazier confirmed the decision in an interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune. A move for Webb had been rumored since the Vikings signed free agent quarterback Matt Cassel for the backup position. Frazier stated that the decision was made shortly after this year’s NFL Draft, during which the Vikings drafted wide receiver Cordarelle Patterson in the first round.

Webb was reportedly informed of his new position on the first day of team workouts. He told the Star Tribune that the move will be “very interesting,” as he has not played wide receiver since his rookie minicamp. Webb also played wide receiver during his college sophomore season with the University of Alabama at Birmingham, during which he had 30 receptions and three touchdown catches. Webb stated that he believes his quarterback experience and knowledge will help him and his fellow teammates.

Vikings offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave told the Star Tribune that Webb may be used on special teams and “in other ways.”

A video of a bus crash with a deer is gaining some viral steam. According to the video’s description, the white-tailed deer crashed through the CamTran bus on Tuesday evening. It shows the deer crash through the windshield, then flail and run around like a maniac.

Eventually, though we don’t see it in the video, the driver reportedly let the deer out of the bus through the door, and it went back out into the wild. The incident reportedly happened in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

Google Glass Explorers have been busy developing apps for the device with the Mirror API that launched alongside the hardware. Developers may have found themselves running into some limitations, but that will be fixed in the future.

During the Developing for Glass session at Google I/O, Timothy Jordan, Senior Developer Advocate for Project Glass, announced that the Glass team is working on a Glass Developer Kit. Unlike the Mirror API, which only supports apps that push content, the Glass Developer Kit will allow for the creation of offline apps.

More importantly, the Glass Developer Kit will also give developers access to the hardware itself. Some hackers have already gained access to the hardware through software exploits, but there hasn’t been any official way to get at the hardware yet. There is no word yet, however, as to how deep the hardware access will go. Hackers have shown that Glass can do some pretty scary things so I’m a little unsure of how deep Google will let developers go.

So, when will the Glass Developer Kit be available to developers? Google says it will be out sometime in the future. We don’t know when that future is, but we’ll let you know when the future becomes now.

Jordan’s Developing for Glass session is not up on YouTube yet, but the live feed that originally aired it is. Jordan’s session starts at the 1:06 mark:

In other Glass news, Twitter has just launched an official app for Glass. Other services like Facebook, Tumblr, CNN and Evernote have also launched official apps today.

[h/t: Engadget]

We already knew that Surface Pro was coming to Europe, but what we didn’t know was exactly when. The company today announces the dates for availability, and the rollout begins in France on  May 17, continuing to the United Kingdom on May 23. It wraps up with a broad May 30 release in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland, and one more big day in Germany on May 31.

There’s more to come, but Brian Hall, General Manager of the Microsoft Surface team concedes that “some markets are still confirming timing so aren’t included here”.

Yesterday my colleague Wayne Williams reported that Microsoft was offering a free cover to UK residents who purchase Surface RT before the end of June, but it turns out Microsoft will be offering the same deal to purchasers in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Making Surface available in Europe is a giant step for Microsoft’s hopes of getting its first tablet to the masses and making the device, and the operating system, a success.

While Microsoft continues to attack Google using its “Scroogled” campaign, the company also adds to its corporate user base at a steady, and perhaps increasing, rate. Ironically, less than a week after taking on Google Docs with not one, but two videos, Microsoft adds another major corporation to its Office 365 subscriber list, this time in the form of Telefónica, a major provider of integrated communication solutions.

Telefónica will add 130,000 employees to the Microsoft cloud solution, not only using Office 365, but also Yammer. “Over the past 18 months, we have built very strong foundations and are now ready to move to the cloud,” said Adrian Steel, the European production hub lead and global director at Telefónica. Steel goes on to explain “Deploying Office 365 and Yammer is this next step in bringing our global workforce to the forefront of seamless communication and collaboration while still operating at the level of speed and execution we’re known for”.

Following a successful proof of concept that was carried out last year, Telefónica has commenced initial deployments across Europe, The communications giant prepares to later continue in Latin America. It also claims plans to utilize Microsoft Cloud Vantage Services to assist in the migration to the cloud.

The company is spread across 24 countries and eight languages and has cited the translation service as one of the main attractions in this decision. Yammer, Lync and SkyDrive were also mentioned. And all of this comes smack in the middle of Google I/O — perhaps intentionally.

Photo credit: Pressmaster/Shutterstock

An aerial view of the new CyrusOne data center in Phoenix. The company today launched a national Internet exchange. (Photo: CyrusOne)

Colocation provider CyrusOne continues building up its connectivity story, introducing its National Internet Exchange (IX), an on-net platform deployed across CyrusOne facilities in Texas and Arizona. The platform enables high-performance, low cost data transfer and accessibility for customers, uniting 12 CyrusOne sites in Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, and Phoenix, with other locations coming on soon.

CyrusOne first entered the interconnection market back in February 2012. Earlier this year, it launched a Texas IX, and now is focusing on a wider build-out of the exchange.

“With the launch of our Texas IX earlier this year, and with the recent opening of our data center site in Phoenix, CyrusOne has completed the important first steps in building out the CyrusOne National IX,” said Josh Snowhorn, vice president and general manager of Interconnection for CyrusOne. “No matter what kind of scalability our customers choose, the National IX will deliver robust, national connectivity and enable content and ISP peering that brings the heart of the Internet closer to CyrusOne data centers. Enterprises benefit from core access to the most powerful networks in the world—opening the door to facility-to-facility interconnection at costs and performance metrics that were previously not available to them.”

The interconnection play is a great business, complementing existing assets while not requiring a great deal of capital.  National IX delivers interconnection across states and between metro-enabled sites within the CyrusOne facility footprint and beyond.  CyrusOne customers have the ability to “mix-and-match” solutions to unite top-tier data centers within and across metro areas for both production and disaster recovery needs.

The CyrusOne IX gives customers choice when building out capacity to transport large amounts of data. Customers may choose CyrusOne’s bandwidth marketplace, its Internet Exchange platform, or cross-connect to cloud services. Customers using the CyrusOne National IX have the ability to connect between CyrusOne facilities region-to-region at greatly reduced wholesale cost via terabit-class capacity. This capability can also provide cross-connection with any on-net third-party facility within metro regions for a minimal charge.

“CyrusOne remains ahead of the multi-site deployment curve by continuously anticipating needs and changes while aggressively building and integrating data centers throughout the U.S.,” said Snowhorn. “We are excited about the opportunities associated with our new CyrusOne National IX.”

While it’s billed as a national exchange, CyrusOne currently doesn’t have data centers in several major Internet markets, including Silicon Valley, northern Virginia and the greater New York market.