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Google is celebrating St. George’s Day 2013 in the UK with a doodle on its homepage.

The day represents the feast day of Saint George, and is celebrated by Christian churches in several countries, though the doodle appears to be unique to Google’s UK site.

Wikipedia provides a little more background on the day:

As Easter often falls close to Saint George’s Day, the church celebration of the feast may be moved from 23 April. In England, where it is the National Saint’s Day, for 2011 and 2014 the Anglican and Catholic calendars celebrate Saint George’s Day on the first Monday after Easter Week (2 May and 28 April, respectively). Similarly, the Eastern Orthodox celebration of the feast moves accordingly to the first Monday after Easter or, as it is sometimes called, to the Monday of Bright Week.

The doodle itself is interesting, showing St. George protecting a princess from a dragon. Here’s an oil painting called “Saint George and the Dragon” (via Wikimedia commons) depicting a similar scene:

More recent Google Doodles here.

It is refreshing to see a big Android manufacturer give something back to the enthusiast and developer community that supports its devices. After the Xperia S AOSP (Android Open Source Project) experiment, which came to life in August last year, Sony announces that the recently-introduced Xperia Z will also get an AOSP makeover through an open-source project available on GitHub.

“This is a way for us to continue our commitment to support the open Android community. It is also a tool for us to facilitate and verify contributions to AOSP on the MSM8064 Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro platform”, says Sony. “The software will be open for you as a developer to use and contribute to”.

As Google’s AOSP Technical Lead Jean-Baptiste Quéru told me in mid-November, the Xperia S experiment had some deeper implications which lead the search giant to improve the tools required for Android Open Source Project contributions. It is safe to assume that the same can be said about the Xperia Z AOSP experiment, which can further contribute to paving the way for faster Android updates.

The AOSP project for the Xperia Z is maintained by the same two senior software engineers who handled the Xperia S experiment — Sony’s Johan Redestig and Björn Andersson. The bits of open-source code are available on the Japanese manufacturer’s GitHub. Proprietary binaries can also be downloaded, only after accepting the EULA (End-User License Agreement) which details “how the files can be used and what limitations that exist”.

As you might imagine, the software is not ready for prime time at this point and therefore should not be treated as such. Sony’s distribution is able to boot and delivers “at least partially” working microSD card, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, LED and sensors. Also, “it does not include some apps and services that are part of standard phone software”.

Sony says that the camera and modem also work, but only internally as the company cannot release the proprietary binaries which are required to make both modules operational. The Japanese manufacturer will also release binaries for NFC (Near Field Communication) in the upcoming period, as well as “replace some of the binaries provided […] with source code”.

Photo credit: Marc Bruxelle/Shutterstock

On Monday, Netflix released their Q1 2013 earnings report and in it they boasted gains of 2.03 million domestic subscribers. This is important for two reasons. First, it boosts their total domestic subscriber base to 29.17 million, continuing a steady subscriber rise that they reported in Q4 2012. And second, it puts them past HBO in terms of total U.S. subscribers.

At least according to data from SNL Kagan. Variety reports that HBO ended 2012 with 28.7 million subscribers, which means that as of the last known report, Netflix is now beating HBO in the U.S.

That’s a pretty significant development in the streaming wars.

It’s important to note that this is only a U.S. victory for Netflix. Although the company reported 1.02 million new subscribers internationally, it only boosts their total to 7.14 million. HBO boasts over 114 million subscribers worldwide.

HBO and Netflix have a lot in common. They are both platforms which host TV shows and films. And with Netflix’s recent push, both companies now produce their own content (and it’s pretty well done). Both companies offer online streaming apps filled with said content.

But of course, the difference is that HBO is still in bed with cable, while Netflix is the top choice of cordcutters everywhere. It will be interesting to see whether HBO keeps up with Netflix in subscriber growth over the next year, or whether the tide continues to turn in favor of the true, standalone, streaming experience.

This nugget isn’t the only interesting thing to come out of CEO Reed Hastings’ letter to shareholders. We also learned that Netflix is planning on unveiling a $11.99 family plan that offers up to four simultaneous streams. We also learned that Netflix’s original series House of Cards was able to rope in subscribers and keep them subscribed after it was over.

Charles Jolley has joined Battery Ventures as an Entrepreneur in Residence in its Menlo Park office. Most recently, Jolley was Facebook’s Mobile Platform Head of Product and co-founder of  Strobe, a mobile software company that was acquired by Facebook.

PRESS RELEASE

Battery Ventures today announced that Charles Jolley, most recently Facebook’s Mobile Platform Head of Product, and co-founder of mobile software company Strobe (acquired by Facebook), has joined as an Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) in its Menlo Park office. Jolley is a well-known and seasoned technologist and entrepreneur, who will bring his deep background in mobile, software and tablet engineering to work alongside the Battery investment team.

Jolley will collaborate with the team on its research into the enterprise tablet space, to help further define the most compelling opportunities for investment. Battery’s fundamental premise is that as business users go tablet-centric, the workflows and business-critical applications must follow suit, and they are scrambling to catch up.

“Demand is exploding as tablets like the iPad Mini fall in price,” said Jolley.  “Just like companies had to quickly adapt as employees abandoned their company-issued Blackberries for personal smartphones, they will face a similar challenge as people drop their PCs in lieu of tablets.”

Jolley has a unique and important intersection of skills and perspective in the mobile universe:  He has hands-on experience with both iOS (during his tenure at Apple) and Android (during his tenure at Facebook), combined with direct involvement on companies’ move to mobile through Strobe, a mobile application development framework company he founded and sold to Facebook.  Jolley’s complete bio can be found here.

“Few people have spent more time in mobile than Charles, and he is particularly insightful around how users’ adoption of tablets differs from smartphones,” said Mike Dauber, Battery Ventures principal.  “We’ve been intently watching the rapid move of tablets from fun consumer gadgets to go-to devices in the enterprise, and agree with Gartner’s recent prediction that they will overtake laptops within a few years*.  We have believed for some time that this spells opportunity, and are thrilled to bring Charles on board to help catalyze our work here.”

Battery’s EIR program is designed to combine forces with unique individuals who bring complementary skills sets and can work closely with the team to see over the horizon.  EIRs may go on to found new companies, or take on roles within established companies in which Battery invests.  Examples of Battery EIRs who have founded companies include Vijay Manwani (Bladelogic, IPO then acquired by BMC Software) and Todd Papaioannou (Continuuity, a current Battery investment).  Read more about Battery’s EIR program here and meet the team of EIRs here.

*Gartner report titled, “Forecast: Devices by Operating System and User Type, Worldwide, 2010-2017, 1Q13 Update.”
About Battery Ventures
Since 1983, Battery has been investing in category-defining ideas and high potential companies and management teams worldwide. The firm views its investment as a true partnership, and works hard to help its companies carve out unique positions, dominate markets and reach business goals. Battery funds companies in technology and related markets at the Seed, Early, Growth and Buyout stage.  For a full list of Battery’s companies go to: http://www.battery.com/our-companies/list/
The firm has offices in Boston, Silicon Valley and Israel, and has raised more than $4.5B since inception.  For more information, visit www.battery.com and follow @BatteryVentures.

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It’s a well known fact that many automobile enthusiasts first taste of speed was done through the guise of a remote control car. Over the years I’ve had just about every variety of gas and electric cars you can think of. And even now, at four decades old, I find they’re still a helluva lot of fun. As kids, these RC cars taught us about counter steering, throttle control and overall suspension behavior. Things that many adult enthusiasts fail to ever learn about. In short, not only are these little machines fun, but they have the ability to educate the crap out of all those little petrol-heads who one day want to get behind the wheel of a real car.

Source: RalfBecker.com

Trilantic Capital Partners and Riverstone Holdings have invested in Trail Ridge Energy Partners II. Financial terms weren’t announced. Trail Ridge is a newly-formed oil and gas exploration and production company focused primarily in the Permian Basin in West Texas.  Stifel Nicolaus advised Trail Ridge in regards to financing.

PRESS RELEASE

Trilantic Capital Partners (“Trilantic”) and Riverstone Holdings (“Riverstone”) today announced an investment in Trail Ridge Energy Partners II (“Trail Ridge” or the “Company”), a newly-formed oil and gas exploration and production company focused primarily in the Permian Basin in West Texas.  Trail Ridge will be led by CEO Ron D. Wade, a petroleum engineer and experienced oil & gas entrepreneur with a track record of shareholder value creation.  Ron has assembled a management team of highly experienced and skilled energy professionals to help the Company pursue its growth strategy.  Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Commenting on the announcement, Ron Wade said, “On behalf of the team at Trail Ridge, we are delighted to be partnering with Trilantic and Riverstone, two leading investors in the energy sector.  I look forward to working together closely to execute on our shared vision for the Company and grow Trail Ridge into a leading player in the Permian.”

On behalf of the investors, Chris Manning, a Partner of Trilantic, added, “We are very excited to partner with Ron, the highly talented management team, and Riverstone to realize the growth potential in Trail Ridge and the exceptional opportunities in the Permian basin.”

Stifel Nicolaus acted as exclusive financial advisor to Trail Ridge with respect to this financing.

# # #

About Trilantic Capital Partners
Trilantic Capital Partners is a private equity firm focused on control and significant minority investments in North America and Europe with primary investment focus in the consumer, energy, financial and business services sectors.  Trilantic currently manages four institutional private equity funds with aggregate capital commitments of $5.3 billion.

The firm and its principals have committed approximately $1.5 billion of equity capital across the energy and natural resources sector, with investments in oil and gas exploration and production, midstream, oilfield services, coal mining and mining equipment, and energy merchants, among others. Trilantic and its principals have managed significant investments in leading companies including Antero Resources, Enduring Resources, Pacific Energy Partners, Peabody Energy, TLP Energy, and Velvet Energy, among others.  For more information, visit www.trilanticpartners.com.

About  Riverstone
Riverstone is an energy and power-focused private equity firm founded in 2000 with approximately $23 billion of equity capital raised across seven investment funds, including the world’s largest renewable energy fund. Riverstone conducts buyout and growth capital investments in the midstream, exploration &  production, oilfield services, power and renewable sectors of the energy industry. With offices in New York, London and Houston, the firm has committed approximately $21.7 billion to 98 investments in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.riverstonellc.com.

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The post Trilantic, Riverstone Invest in Trail Ridge Energy Partners II appeared first on peHUB.

Richie Havens, who was well-known as the first performer at Woodstock, has died of a heart attack. He was 72 years old.

A folk singer with a love for guitar playing, Havens was first-billed at the enormous music festival after building his reputation in clubs around Greenwich Village and finding a following with his albums. He’d built a solid reputation by then and had signed on with Albert Grossman, who just happened to also be Bob Dylan’s manager.

Havens gained a huge audience when he took the stage at Woodstock, however, due in part to the fact that he played for nearly three hours as late performers trickled in to the show. The music festival would be a turning point, not just in his career, but in his life.

“Everything in my life, and so many others, is attached to that train,” he said.

Over his career, Havens released 25 albums and gained the admiration and respect of some of the biggest names in music, including Stephen Stills of Crosby, Stills and Nash.

“Richie Havens was one of the nicest most generous and pure individuals I have ever met,” Stills said. “When I was a young sprite in Greenwich Village, we used to have breakfast together at the diner on 6th Avenue next to The Waverly Theatre. He was very wise in the ways of our calling. He always caught fire every time he played.”

If you own a Lumia Windows Phone and don’t mind fiddling with experimental software then Nokia may have something available for you in the app store, kept away from prying eyes. Through the Beta Labs website, the Finnish manufacturer gives users the ability to grab and test software that is currently under development and not yet available inside Nokia’s exclusive app collection on Windows Phone.

Beta Labs is not new — in fact it was launched last decade — but it is frequently updated by Nokia with new software iterations and apps designed for its devices. Some of you may have even spotted news stories discussing various experimental apps for Windows Phone, so let’s take a look at what you can (and should) get on your Lumia today to enrich your user experience.

At the moment there are four major apps available: Lumia Storage Check, Nokia Conference, Place Tag and Play To for WP8. All four are designed with Windows Phone 8 in mind and can be downloaded, after logging in with a Nokia account or registering for a new one, straight on your Lumia smartphone by scanning the adjacent QR code. The QR code contains a link which opens up the app store on the device and allows you to grab the respective app from a trusted source — the Windows Phone app store. Let’s take them one by one.

Lumia Storage Check, which has now reached the second beta milestone, is a new iteration of the app that currently ships on Lumia smartphones (and sports the same name). Compared to the stable version, the Lumia Storage Check in beta trim also provides users with the ability to remove offline maps stored on the device (which can also be done through the settings of the Maps app) and even move the offline maps onto the microSD card to free some internal storage space.

Even though, based on my own experience, most beta apps are quite stable, the current experimental version of Lumia Storage Check may crash after five to 10 seconds upon launching it, according to Nokia. That was not however the case when I last used the app a couple of days ago. If a new beta is released, you can upgrade and will receive a counter under the Store live tile.

Nokia Conference is designed to make conference calls a breeze for Lumia users. The app forgoes “switching to the calendar app, remembering the ID/PIN codes, getting the right access number, switching to the phone app, making the call, and entering all the codes”. All that users need to do is tap on a single button or dictate a voice command — “conference join” — in order to join a conference call.

The company says that Nokia Conference automatically knows which meeting will start or is currently underway, then asks users for confirmation to join and connect them. The app supports conference calls for multiple companies. Users can also manually enter the settings.

Place Tag is a pretty cool app which is meant to enrich the photography experience on Lumia devices. The app, which can also be used as a camera lens, determines your location and displays nearby POIs (Point of Interest) on the screen, similar to HERE City Lens. Unlike the latter, Place Tag is designed to also shoot pictures and store the POIs from within the camera’s range in the photo, for which users can get a short description straight from the image.

Play To for WP8 has been released for Lumia users who own DLNA-compatible devices. The app can be used to share multimedia content, such as music, pictures and videos, from a Lumia smartphone via the Wi-Fi network to “that new big screen TV you have or maybe just your Windows laptop and/or desktop or XBox”.

The app was first seen on Lumia smartphones running Windows Phone 7, and now Nokia wants to bring it to its Windows Phone 8 device lineup as well. According to the Finnish company, both versions share the same functionality so don’t expect any new features just yet.

ARM Holdings, the U.K.-based company that architects the small chips powering most smartphones and tablets these days, is reaping huge benefits from the mobile market. On Tuesday, the company reported a 44 percent boost in pre-tax profits for the first quarter of 2013 and a 26 percent jump in revenues from the year ago quarter. Two data points explain the rise: 2.6 billion ARM-based chips where shipped in the first three months of the year while ARM’s Mali graphics chips have seen a five-fold increase in sales from a year ago.

Unlike Intel at the other end of silicon spectrum, ARM doesn’t build or fabricate chips. Instead, it designs the chip architecture and receives license and royalty fees from companies that use the designs. Apple’s A-line processors, Samsung’s Exynos and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips, for example, are all based on ARM designs. Essentially, every new smartphone or tablet — with a few rare exceptions — runs on a ARM-based chip.

As a result of high demand for mobile computers, the shipment of ARM chips is up 35 percent from a year ago. That figure shows a sharp contrast with higher-performance desktop and laptop computers: smartphone sales passed those of the PC sales in 2011 and I’m on record suggesting that tablet sales will do the same later this year. Is it any wonder that some are dubious about Intel’s future in the mobile market, given that ARM-based chips have it wrapped it up for now?

Intel is making some progress with its Atom chips but ARM continues to dominate and grow the mobile segment. The company now has 973 revenue-generating licensees, with 22 of them signed this past quarter. If the market for wearable gadgets takes off — as I suspect it will, although it’s really just getting started — ARM seems poised to continue powering most mobiles for some time yet.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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It’s a surprisingly rare treat to see inside a very expensive and very unique timepiece. Although the video below is a render, it shows almost every important part of this wild watch including something called the chain-and-fusee, a method used for centuries to improve the accuracy of watches by ensuring constant force is applied to the balance wheel over time.

The watch will be shown at Basel, the annual, 10-day marathon watch show in Switzerland. I’ll be bringing a few of the most interesting pieces to your attention.

Before we get into the science of this thing, just understand that the chain you see is handmade and assembled and each link is made of sapphire to (ostensibly) reduce fiction. It’s a fairly basic watch – it has a power reserve function and just tells the time – but the engineering is what’s most important. Expect it to sell for over $100,000 (although I could see this selling for a bit under the $100K mark).

Now for the watch nerdery. The fussee is a spindle attached to a chain that winds the mainspring barrel. The fussee allows the proper amount of force to be meted out to the “transmission” over time because as a spring uncoils it loses a bit of its power. This system, created by Breguet in the late 1700s, has been in use since then.

This new fusee uses a snail cam that unwinds as evenly as the spindle but allows for a thicker, more robust chain and smoother motion. It’s a very minor change but it’s the first time I’ve seen this sort of cam in a fussee watch.

Arguably this is not a cure for cancer or a moonshot, but R. Gauthier is a perfect example of a hardware startup that works in a very rarified sphere. Building a mar rover is cool, but redesigning something that has existed for 300 years is arguably just a tich cooler. At this price, however, you can either feed your family for most of a decade or visit the website for purchasing information.

What would have once seemed ridiculous now sounds completely logical – and better yet, smart. Pizza Hut and Microsoft have partnered up to put a Pizza Hut app on the Xbox 360.

According to Polygon, the new app will become available to download today, Tuesday April 23rd, and will even offer discounted pizza on first purchases using the app up until May 6th.

The app works a lot like Pizza Hut’s mobile ordering apps. Users will be able to build their own pizzas, and select anything off the menu (wings, breadsticks, drinks, whatever). Of course, the Xbox-twist on the app is that everything should work well with Kinect motion and voice control.

Once users link their Xbox LIVE and Pizza Hut accounts, they can save custom orders for quicker pizza shopping later. There’s also Facebook integration, if you’re the kind of person who wants to share with your friends that you just purchased a giant sausage pizza from your Xbox while playing Bioshock Infinite in your boxers. Maybe you are that kind of person, I don’t judge.

“We’re always looking at ways to give our audience more of what they’re interested in,” said Xbox’s Larry Hryb. “If you look at our audience, they love pizza. I mean, who doesn’t? It has international appeal, and Pizza Hut is a recognized brand that matches up well with the Xbox brand.”

Can you order pizza online via your smartphone or laptop? Sure you can. And yeah, there’s also that thing called a a phone call that involves talking to humans. But is a Pizza Hut app on Xbox LIVE useful and smart? Of course it is.

Google has penalized Mozilla.org, the nonprofit site of the organization that provides the Firefox browser. This doesn’t appear to be an accident like what recently happened with Digg. This was a real manual web spam penalty.

Mozilla Web Production Manager Christopher More posted about it in Google’s Webmaster Help forum (hat tip to Barry Schwartz), where he shared the message he got from Google:

Google has detected user-generated spam on your site. Typically, this kind of spam is found on forum pages, guestbook pages, or in user profiles. As a result, Google has applied a manual spam action to your site.

“I am unable to find any spam on http://www.mozilla.org,” said More. “I have tried a site:www.mozilla.org [spam terms] and nothing is showing up on the domain. I did find a spammy page on a old version of the website, but that is 301 redirected to an archive website.”

Google Webmaster Trends analyst John Mueller responded:

To some extent, we will manually remove any particularly egregious spam from our search results that we find, so some of those pages may not be directly visible in Google’s web-search anymore. Looking at the whole domain, I see some pages similar to those that Pelagic (thanks!) mentioned: https://www.google.com/search?q=site:mozilla.org+cheap+payday+seo (you’ll usually also find them with pharmaceutical brand-names among other terms).

In addition to the add-ons, there are a few blogs hosted on mozilla.org that appear to have little or no moderation on the comments, for example http://blog.mozilla.org/respindola/about/ looks particularly bad. For these kinds of sites, it may make sense to allow the community to help with comment moderation (eg. allow them to flag or vote-down spam), and to use the rel=nofollow link microformat to let search engines know that you don’t endorse the links in those unmoderated comments.

For more tips on handling UGC (and I realize you all probably have a lot of experience in this already) are at http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=81749

Also keep in mind that we work to be as granular as possible with our manual actions. Personally, I think it’s good to react to a message like that by looking into ways of catching and resolving the cases that get through your existing UGC infrastructure, but in this particular case, this message does not mean that your site on a whole is critically negatively affected in our search results.

Let this be a lesson to all webmasters and bloggers. Keep your comments cleaned up.

Mozilla still appears to be showing up in key search results like for “mozilla” and for “web browser”. It’s not as bad as when Google had to penalize its own Chrome browser for paid links.

If you’re a Verizon customer and you want to make sure you get your Samsung Galaxy S 4 on release day, you might want to head over to Best Buy because they are now taking pre-orders. They did a soft announcement in that they sent out text messages telling customers that you can pre-order now, but it’s in store only.

Verizon hasn’t even announced an official release date other than sometime in May, and they aren’t even taking pre-orders yet. If you remember, Verizon was the last major carrier to offer the Galaxy S III, so this is just history repeating itself. I’m expecting a late May release, but hopefully I will be wrong.

source: gottabemobile

Come comment on this article: Best Buy now taking pre-orders for the Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4

If you’re not sure whether the new Star Trek video game released today will be right for you, there’s still the Assassin’s Creed franchise to fall back on.

While waiting for Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, fans of Assassin’s Creed III have been enjoying the alternate-history version of American history told in the three-part DLC tale The Tyranny of King Washington. The first two parts of the story are already out, and today the final portion of the tale can be downloaded for Xbox 360 and PC. The PlayStation 3 version of the content will be available tomorrow, April 24, and the Wii U version will launch on May 16.

Titled “The Redemption,” the latest DLC will see Ratonhnhaké:ton journey to New York and break into Washington’s pyramid-shaped “monarch fortress.” Ubisoft also mentioned something about discovering the “power of the bear.”

Are you wondering when you can finally put your hands on the Samsung Galaxy S 4? Well AT&T made it official via Twitter that it will be in stores starting this Saturday, April 27. It appears they will only offer the 16GB version for now, and the 32GB version will arrive at a later date. Word is that if you pre-ordered it, you could get it as soon as tomorrow.

source: @ATT

Come comment on this article: Samsung Galaxy S 4 to be in AT&T stores on April 27

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is making a bet on 3D printing in a big way. On Tuesday 3D printing startup Shapeways announced that it’s raised a $30 million Series C round, led by Andreessen Horowitz, and also including existing investors Lux Capital, Index Ventures and Union Square Ventures.

New York-based Shapeways sells 3D printing services to designers and makers and also has an Etsy-like marketplace for creators. The startup, a transplant from the Netherlands, was printing more than 100,000 products a month and had over 150,000 users inside its community last year, so has no doubt grown that audience and volume since then.

Last month Shapeways debuted their new API which enables developers to create consumer facing applications that can tap into the Shapeways printing network and marketplace. That’s important because, as GigaOM Pro analyst Mike Wolf explained it, the API gives Shapeways greater access to the bigger, non-maker audience who want access to 3D printed objects but don’t want to learn how to use sophisticated 3D design software.

Shapeways has been planning to expand through its new New York factory, which is supposed to occupy up to 30,000 feet in Long Island City. Previously, much of the printing work was being done in Europe at its Eindhoven factory in the Netherlands or through partners.

Check out our Field Guide to 3D Printing on GigaOM Pro (subscription required), which defines 3D printing as:

[A] process that produces physical 3D objects by adding layer upon layer of material. Direct from a computer model, objects are “grown.” These objects can be almost anything: engineering prototypes of automotive components, tooling for manufacturing, medical implants, architectural models and sellable goods for end users.

We’ll be digging into 3D printing more at our RoadMap conference on connected design in November in San Francisco. To be the first to register for this event sign up here.

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I was running late. My wife Eleanor and I had agreed to meet at the restaurant at seven o’clock and it was already half past. I had a good excuse in the form of a client meeting that ran over and I wasted no time getting to the dinner as fast as possible.

When I arrived at the restaurant, I apologized and told her I didn’t mean to be late.

She answered: “You never mean to be late.” Uh oh, she was mad.

“Sorry,” I retorted, “but it was unavoidable.” I told her about the client meeting. Not only did my explanations not soothe her, they seemed to make things worse. That started to make me angry.

That dinner didn’t turn out to be our best.

Several weeks later, when I was describing the situation to a friend of mine, Ken Hardy, a professor of family therapy, he smiled.

“You made a classic mistake,” he told me.

“Me? I made the mistake?” I was only half joking.

“Yes. And you just made it again,” he said. “You’re stuck in your perspective: You didn’t mean to be late. But that’s not the point. The point is that you were late. The point — and what’s important in your communication — is how your lateness impacted Eleanor.”

In other words, I was focused on my intention while Eleanor was focused on the consequences. We were having two different conversations. In the end, we both felt unacknowledged, misunderstood, and angry.

The more I thought about what Ken said, the more I recognized that this battle — intention vs. consequences — was the root cause of so much interpersonal discord.

As it turns out, it’s not the thought that counts or even the action that counts. That’s because the other person doesn’t experience your thought or your action. They experience the consequences of your action.

Here’s another example: You send an email to a colleague telling him you think he could have spoken up more in a meeting.

He replies to the email, “Maybe if you spoke less, I would have had an opportunity to say something!”

That obviously rankles you. Still, you send off another email trying to clarify the first email: “I didn’t mean to offend you, I was trying to help.” And then maybe you add some dismay at the aggressiveness of his response.

But that doesn’t make things better. He quotes the language of your first email back to you. “Don’t you see how it reads?” He asks. “BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT!” You write back, IN CAPS.

So how do you get out of this downward spiral?

It’s stunningly simple, actually. When you’ve done something that upsets someone — no matter who’s right — always start the conversation by acknowledging how your actions impacted the other person. Save the discussion about your intentions for later. Much later. Maybe never. Because, in the end, your intentions don’t matter much.

What if you don’t think the other person is right — or justified — in feeling the way they do? It doesn’t matter. Because you’re not striving for agreement. You’re going for understanding.

What should I have said to Eleanor?

“I see you’re angry. You’ve been sitting here for 30 minutes and that’s got to be frustrating. And it’s not the first time. Also, I can see how it seems like I think being with a client gives me permission to be late. I’m sorry you had to sit here waiting for so long.”

All of that is true. Your job is to acknowledge their reality — which is critical to maintaining the relationship. As Ken described it to me: “If someone’s reality, as they see it, is negated, what motivation do they have to stay in the relationship?”

In the email back and forth I described earlier, instead of clarifying what you meant, consider writing something like: “I could see how my criticizing your performance — especially via email — feels obnoxious to you. How it sounds critical and maybe dismissive of your efforts in the meeting.”

I said this was simple but I didn’t say it was easy.

The hardest part is our emotional resistance. We’re so focused on our own challenges that it’s often hard to acknowledge the challenges of others. Especially if we are their challenge and they are ours. Especially when they lash out at us in anger. Especially when we feel misunderstood. In that moment, when we empathize with them and their criticism of our behavior, it almost feels like we’re betraying ourselves.

But we’re not. We’re just empathizing.

Here’s a trick to make it easier. While they’re getting angry at you, imagine, instead, that they’re angry at someone else. Then react as you would in that situation. Probably you’d listen and let them know you see how angry they are.

And if you never get to explain your intentions? What I have found in practice — and this surprised me — is that once I’ve expressed my understanding of the consequences, my need to justify my intentions dissipates.

That’s because the reason I’m explaining my intentions in the first place is to repair the relationship. But I’ve already accomplished that by empathizing with their experience. At that point, we’re both usually ready to move on.

And if you do still feel the need? You’ll still have the opportunity, once the other person feels seen, heard, and understood.

If we succeed in doing all this well, we’ll often find that, along with our relationships, something else gets better: our behavior.

After that last conversation with Eleanor — after really understanding the consequences of my lateness on her — somehow, someway, I’ve managed to be on time a lot more frequently.

In-memory database startup MemSQL has come out with a distributed version of its database, enabling customers to work with much larger data sets stored in memory while ensuring that speeds stay high. It’s a nod toward the fact that users still want answers to queries right away, even while the amount of data companies store just keeps on growing even as .

With this release, users will be able to scale MemSQL data sets across multiple commodity nodes to enable processing of big workloads at hyperscale. Previously, the MemSQL database was limited to implementations on a single box. The new version is really just the original one modified to scale out to more machines, said Eric Frenkiel, the company’s CEO and co-founder.

The new version also comes with the MemSQL Watch dashboard to keep track the performance of the database cluster.

MemSQL Watch dashboard

The sweet spot for MemSQL, which takes SQL queries and converts them to C++, is comparing fresh data with recent historical data. What does that look like? One company that has been using a beta version of the distributed MemSQL distributed database in recent months, Zynga, looks at how games perform from week to week. Gradually, they expanded their cluster to check across larger time frames.

MemSQL might not be the answer for everyone — different companies have different needs when it comes to databases — but it should at least pique the interest of a lot of companies. No one has ever asked for a slower, less-scalable database.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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Honeywell has agreed to buy RAE Systems, a Vector Capital portfolio company, for $340 million. San Jose-based RAE Systems provides gas and radiation detection systems for safety and security threat detection. The deal is expected to close in second quarter. Citigroup advised RAE/Vector. Shearman & Sterling was their attorney.

PRESS RELEASE

RAE Systems, Inc. (“RAE Systems” or “RAE”), a Vector Capital portfolio company, has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Honeywell, for $340 million in cash.

RAE Systems, Inc. is a global provider of rapidly-deployable connected, intelligent gas and radiation detection systems that enable real-time safety and security threat detection. RAE will be integrated into Honeywell Analytics, a part of Honeywell Life Safety in Honeywell Automation and Control Solutions, to create a leading global manufacturer of fixed and portable instrumentation and sensing technologies.

In June 2011, Vector Capital partnered with the RAE Systems management team to take the company private. As a private company, RAE was able to focus on building long-term value, and has emerged as a rapidly growing global instrumentation and systems business by expanding product offerings and focusing on solutions to better serve customer needs.

Commenting on the transaction, Robert Chen, CEO of RAE Systems, said: “With the full support of Vector Capital, we have broadened our product offerings, expanded our global presence, and optimized our internal operations. Our range of products, innovation in photo-ionization detection and wireless technology are highly complementary to Honeywell. As part of Honeywell, we will enjoy the scale and global presence to expand the reach of our portfolio, including in high growth markets like Brazil and Russia. This transaction will also be beneficial to our customers and distribution partners, providing them access to an expanded portfolio of gas and sensing technologies and a comprehensive range of additional life-safety solutions. Most importantly, Honeywell shares our commitment to saving lives.”

David Fishman, a Managing Director at Vector Capital, agreed, “We have had a very successful investment in RAE and partnership with the founders and management team.  We are pleased to have selected a buyer for RAE that will continue to invest in the company and its products to further grow the business. RAE Systems is the most recent example in Vector’s long history of partnering with management to realize significant value by growing and transforming technology companies.”

The closing of this transaction is expected to occur in the second quarter of 2013. Until that time, RAE Systems will operate as an independent company and will continue to serve its customers, distribution partners and markets.

Citigroup Global Markets Inc. is acting as financial advisor to RAE Systems and Vector Capital, and Shearman & Sterling LLP is acting as RAE and Vector Capital’s legal advisor.

About Vector Capital
Vector Capital is a leading global private equity firm specializing in spinouts, buyouts and recapitalizations of established technology businesses. Vector identifies and pursues these complex investments in both the private and public markets. Vector actively partners with management teams to devise and execute new financial and business strategies that materially improve the competitive standing of these businesses and enhance their value for employees, customers and shareholders. Among Vector’s notable investments are Aladdin Knowledge Systems, Cambium Networks, Certara, Corel, Gerber Technologies, Register.com, SafeNet, Technicolor, Teletrac, Tidel, WatchGuard Technologies, and WinZip.

About RAE Systems
RAE Systems, Inc. innovates, designs and manufactures gas sensors and radiation detectors. The company offers a full line of fixed and portable gas detection solutions, including handheld and personal chemical, compound and radiation detection instruments. RAE Systems’ real-time safety and detection systems have been deployed by organizations in the oil and gas, fire and hazmat, industrial safety, national security and environmental markets, helping save lives and maintain safety in 120 countries. The company’s industry-leading gas sensors and radiation detection solutions are widely recognized for their performance and reliability. Learn more at raesystems.com.

Contacts
RAE Systems, Inc. (“RAE Systems” or “RAE”), a Vector Capital portfolio company, has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Honeywell, for $340 million in cash.

RAE Systems, Inc. is a global provider of rapidly-deployable connected, intelligent gas and radiation detection systems that enable real-time safety and security threat detection. RAE will be integrated into Honeywell Analytics, a part of Honeywell Life Safety in Honeywell Automation and Control Solutions, to create a leading global manufacturer of fixed and portable instrumentation and sensing technologies.

In June 2011, Vector Capital partnered with the RAE Systems management team to take the company private. As a private company, RAE was able to focus on building long-term value, and has emerged as a rapidly growing global instrumentation and systems business by expanding product offerings and focusing on solutions to better serve customer needs.

Commenting on the transaction, Robert Chen, CEO of RAE Systems, said: “With the full support of Vector Capital, we have broadened our product offerings, expanded our global presence, and optimized our internal operations. Our range of products, innovation in photo-ionization detection and wireless technology are highly complementary to Honeywell. As part of Honeywell, we will enjoy the scale and global presence to expand the reach of our portfolio, including in high growth markets like Brazil and Russia. This transaction will also be beneficial to our customers and distribution partners, providing them access to an expanded portfolio of gas and sensing technologies and a comprehensive range of additional life-safety solutions. Most importantly, Honeywell shares our commitment to saving lives.”

David Fishman, a Managing Director at Vector Capital, agreed, “We have had a very successful investment in RAE and partnership with the founders and management team.  We are pleased to have selected a buyer for RAE that will continue to invest in the company and its products to further grow the business. RAE Systems is the most recent example in Vector’s long history of partnering with management to realize significant value by growing and transforming technology companies.”

The closing of this transaction is expected to occur in the second quarter of 2013. Until that time, RAE Systems will operate as an independent company and will continue to serve its customers, distribution partners and markets.

Citigroup Global Markets Inc. is acting as financial advisor to RAE Systems and Vector Capital, and Shearman & Sterling LLP is acting as RAE and Vector Capital’s legal advisor.

About Vector Capital
Vector Capital is a leading global private equity firm specializing in spinouts, buyouts and recapitalizations of established technology businesses. Vector identifies and pursues these complex investments in both the private and public markets. Vector actively partners with management teams to devise and execute new financial and business strategies that materially improve the competitive standing of these businesses and enhance their value for employees, customers and shareholders. Among Vector’s notable investments are Aladdin Knowledge Systems, Cambium Networks, Certara, Corel, Gerber Technologies, Register.com, SafeNet, Technicolor, Teletrac, Tidel, WatchGuard Technologies, and WinZip.

About RAE Systems
RAE Systems, Inc. innovates, designs and manufactures gas sensors and radiation detectors. The company offers a full line of fixed and portable gas detection solutions, including handheld and personal chemical, compound and radiation detection instruments. RAE Systems’ real-time safety and detection systems have been deployed by organizations in the oil and gas, fire and hazmat, industrial safety, national security and environmental markets, helping save lives and maintain safety in 120 countries. The company’s industry-leading gas sensors and radiation detection solutions are widely recognized for their performance and reliability. Learn more at raesystems.com.

Contacts

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