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  • Zooey Deschanel Named As Suspect In Boston Bombing (In Captioning Error)

    Actress/musician Zooey Deschanel was named as the 19-year old suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing in an erroneous caption on FOX 4 in Dallas.

    Peter Ogburn noticed this, and tweeted the screencap:

    This was retweeted by Joel McHale:

    Then by Deschanel herself:

    The actual suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, is said to be responding to questioning by authorities, though he has to do so through writing, as a gunshot wound to the throat has left him unable to speak.

    [via TheFW]

  • 53 King Cobras In Car, Driver Arrested

    A man in Vietnam was arrested on Monday after officials discovered 53 King Cobra snakes in his car when he was stopped in Hanoi.

    The man says he was paid to transport them, but there are few details at this time as to where he was taking them or who paid him. Authorities say the snakes were taken to a wildlife rescue center before being released back into the wild and were unharmed despite being transported together in a large bag.

    Cobras are considered a delicacy in parts of Vietnam, so it’s possible the snakes were destined for a harsh fate before being rescued. They are also sought for their exotic skin, which is turned into items such as belts and shoes. The driver was paid $50 for his trouble, but was arrested since the hunting and trading of King Cobras is banned there.

  • Tumblr rolls out mobile ads, which will appear alongside posts in user streams

    Users of Tumblr’s mobile apps are noticing something new in their streams today: Ads. The company rolled out mobile ads for the first time Monday, after announcing that it would do so in March.

    The first participating advertisers are ABC, GE, Pepsi and Warner Brothers. AdAge described how the ads will work:

    “Users of Tumblr’s iOS and Android apps will see up to four ads per day, and they’ll be differentiated with a dollar-sign icon with beams shooting out of it, just as they are in the two existing placements. A Tumblr spokesperson said these ads will ultimately migrate to desktop computers but offered no timetable.”

    Tumblr tiptoed into ads last year with Radar, an ad unit that appears on a user’s dashboard. Tumblr founder David Karp said at the paidContent Live conference last week that the Radar initiative focused on “the type of advertising that creates intent. It gives room for the most creative advertisers to create their best work.” Tumblr is not yet profitable, but head of sales Lee Brown told Bloomberg last month, “We expect that the monetization will lead us to profitability this year.”

    Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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    • Google Enhanced Campaigns Get Social Annotations, Availability For Mobile App Advertisers

      Google announced social annotations and for enhanced campaigns and enhanced campaigns for mobile app advertisers today.

      Google announced enhanced campaigns earlier this year as the next evolutionary phase of AdWords. The move, which was designed to provide advertisers with the ability to manage bids across devices from a single campaign, has been a controversial one with some advertisers embracing it and others decrying it. Bing has even tried to capitalize on the controversy, telling advertisers it won’t implement the same strategy.

      According to Google, over 1.5 million campaigns have already been upgraded to enhanced campaigns.

      The new social annotations tie into Google+. “Starting today, enhanced campaigns will include social annotations when they can improve ad performance, without additional edits to campaign settings,” explains Christian Oestlien, Director of Product Management for the Google Display Network. All you need is a Google+ page with a significant number of followers and a linked website that matches the URL in your search ads.”

      Social Annotations

      Discussing enhanced campaigns for mobile app advertisers, Oestlien says, “Apps have become a significant part of people’s everyday mobile experiences. In fact, US consumers spend an average of 127 minutes per day using mobile apps. Advertisers can now reach app users, with ads in apps, based on people’s context like location, time of day and device, with enhanced campaigns. For example, if a certain mobile app has the most usage on Saturday evenings, you can increase your bid adjustments for mobile and this time of day to reach these users. You can also adjust bids across the key display signals like demographics, interests, topics and remarketing at the ad group level. All of these powerful bidding tools will enable you to reach the right people with the right ads.”

      Google has regularly been hosting webinars discussing how to get the most out of enhanced campaigns. Another one will take place on Tuesday.

    • Stealth startup Jelly announces ex-Twitter growth engineer as co-founder

      We’re still not totally sure what former Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is up to with Jelly, his stealth startup announced earlier this month. But it is clear now that Stone is looking to his last major venture for help in revealing his co-founder: ex-Twitter engineer Ben Finkel.

      “Ben Finkel is my co-founder here at Jelly. Ben and I have been friends and collaborators for many years. During one of our frequent walk-and-talks around San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Park, we accidentally came up with the idea for Jelly. It was one of those ideas that we couldn’t get out of our heads,” Stone wrote in a blog post on Monday.

      Finkel will join Stone at Jelly as CTO of the company, but there is still no word on when Jelly will open its doors. The company is backed by the Obvious Corp., the parent company created by Twitter co-founders and early employees including Stone to incubate a couple of content-related startups like Medium, Branch, and now Jelly.

      Finkel originally founded Fluther, a question and answer site that was seed funded by a group of angels including Ron Conway and Marc Andreessen. Stone served as an advisor to the company, and in December 2010, Twitter went ahead and acquired the startup, primarily for the engineering talent behind the company. Finkel then served as a senior software engineer and then engineering manager for Twitter, where he was in charge of user growth.

      “Ben managed New User Experience on the Growth Team at Twitter, helping grow an active user base from fifty million to more than two hundred million people,” Stone wrote. That’s certainly no small job, and according to his LinkedIn page, Finkel just departed Twitter last month.

      Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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    • Not Afraid Of Snakes? You Will Be After Watching This Severed Snake Head Move In For A Kill

      Snakes are terrifying. The good thing is that snakes are mortal. They can no longer harm us after its head has been lopped off, right? Right?

      National Geographic reports that Santa Cruz resident Thomas Scott recently found himself face-to-face with a rattlesnake. He valiantly chopped its head off, but found that nature is never that easy to subdue:

      Holy sh*t, did you see that? The head literally jumped a few inches forward. It even bared its fangs a few times. This is either a zombie snake, or a case of immortality being applied to the wrong animal.

      National Geographic says that it’s neither. Instead, reptiles, unlike mammals, retain their hunting reflexes up to an hour after death. That means that a severed rattlesnake head can still kill you after it’s been beheaded.

      Armed with this knowledge, I expect all hikers to be equipped with flamethrowers from now on. It’s the only to be sure that this hellspawn remains dead.

      [h/t: Geekologie]

    • Cricket shows off unlimited family plan, only $40 per line

      CRICKET COMMUNICATIONS LOGO

      Cricket has announced today that they will be offering a new family unlimited plan, complete with unlimited text messaging, unlimited calling, and unlimited data, and it’ll only run you $40 per line. What’s the catch, you’re probably asking yourself? The unlimited data is throttled after 1 GB of usage, and you have to opt in to the automatic bill pay. Oh, and it’s strictly for family plans, not individual plans. Still, it’s $10 cheaper than the single-line plan, and Cricket is throwing in a free subscription to Muve Music, so it’s an excellent deal, even with the relatively minor caveats.

      You can also go with a $60 plan that offers 2.5 GB of non-throttled data, and a $70 with 5 GB of non-throttled data. Both of these plans also include the mobile hot spot capabilities. If nothing else, it’s good to see some other carriers try to take on the big guys with better value bundles. Hit the break below for the full press release.

      Spring into Value with Cricket’s New Family Plan

      ~ Money-Saving No-Contract Plan Includes Two Smartphone Lines for $40 per Line per Month and Muve Music

      SAN DIEGO, April 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Cricket is providing added value for families this spring with an affordable family plan to go along with the coolest phones Cricket already offers. The new plan is available now to customers who purchase two or more smartphone rate plans[1] with Cricket’s Automatic Bill Pay feature. The new family plan is available in Cricket company-owned stores and select dealers nationwide.

      “The Cricket family plan is half the price of AT&T, and value like that makes this plan a great way for families to save money by spending a lot less on their wireless bill,” said Tyler Wallis, senior vice president, product and marketing for Cricket. “Each line includes unlimited minutes, texts, data and unlimited downloads from Muve Music. Cricket is the only carrier in the US to offer Muve Music, one of the leading on-demand digital music services in the country.”

      The family plan is available to new and existing Cricket customers and is also available to Cricket Lifeline customers.  Customers may choose which Cricket smartphone plans best fit their needs and still get a family plan discount. Each family plan line includes all the stand-alone features of the $50 smartphone rate plan.

      Cricket’s all-inclusive smartphone rate plans start at $50 for unlimited talk, text and data (1GB of full-speed) per month. The $60 smartphone plan contains up to 2.5GB of full-speed data per month and the $70 smartphone plan offers up to 5GB of full-speed data per month. The $60 and $70 plans come with Mobile Hot Spot capability so that, customers can attach additional wireless devices to their smartphone. All Cricket smartphone plans include unlimited music with Muve Music featuring unlimited song downloads, ringback tones and ringtones. Each family plan must include Automatic Bill Pay. With Automatic Bill Pay a customer’s monthly bill is automatically paid using a designated credit card, debit card, or bank account on file.

      Muve Music

      Muve is available on all Cricket smartphones and is included in the new family plan.  With Muve Music from Cricket, customers have millions of songs at their fingertips, will never pay per song and the music service is built in to Cricket’s no contract rate plans.  Muve Music customers have the added benefit of discovering new music through its monthly artist programs such as Muve First and Muve Headliner, where featured artists offer exclusive commentary, music and videos every month only available to Muve Music.

      Cricket Phones

      Cricket offers a full range of high-quality, affordable devices, with solutions for every budget. The device portfolio continues to expand with well-known brands including Apple, HTC, LG, Samsung and BlackBerry.  In 2012 Cricket became the first pre-paid carrier in the U.S. to offer iPhone to its customers.

      About Cricket

      Cricket is the pioneer and leader in delivering innovative value-rich prepaid wireless services with no long-term contracts. Cricket offers nationwide wireless voice and mobile data services over high-quality, all-digital 4G LTE and 3G CDMA wireless networks. Cricket’s innovative products and services, including the award-winning Muve Music® – the first music service designed for a wireless phone, are available nationwide at Cricket branded retail stores, dealers, national retailers and at www.mycricket.com. For more information about Cricket, please visit www.mycricket.com.

      Come comment on this article: Cricket shows off unlimited family plan, only $40 per line

    • Android predicted to beat Apple in China – thanks to its potential for ‘oppression’

      Android predicted to beat Apple in China because of its potential for 'oppression'
      We tend to think of an open source operating system as something that gives both smartphone vendors and end users more freedom to customize their experiences. But as Bronte Capital’s John Hempton points out, open source software can have a dark side as well if it is changed by authoritarian governments to limit the information that end users can access. Hempton says he bought a Samsung Desire HD off of eBay from a Middle Eastern country a couple of years ago and found that “it did not contain any access to the Google market place (Google’s equivalent of the App store),” that “it had limited apps and no possibility of adding more” and “it contained a non-standard web browser and a non-standard email client (leaving open the possibility of the State watching what I wrote and said).”

      Continue reading…

    • Biz Stone Reveals Twitter’s Ben Finkel as Jelly Co-founder and CTO

      Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is slowly pulling back the curtain on Jelly. Very slowly.

      Today, Stone has revealed the identity of the mobile-oriented startup’s co-founder and CTO: Ben Finkel, founder of Fluther and New Users Experience manager on Twitter’s Growth Team. Finkel’s Fluther, a Q&A app, was acquired by Twitter back in 2010.

      “Ben Finkel is my co-founder here at Jelly. Ben and I have been friends and collaborators for many years. During one of our frequent walk-and-talks around San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Park, we accidentally came up with the idea for Jelly. It was one of those ideas that we couldn’t get out of our heads,” says Stone on a post on the JellyHQ blog.

      What that idea is remains opaque. Reports that Stone was working on Jelly emerged late last month, and Stone confirmed it earlier this month.

      “News of Jelly emerged unexpectedly early so I’ll wait a bit to share more about the team. In the meantime, I’ll say this. Jelly will be for everybody, it will be developed first and foremost for mobile devices, and it will be free. But, it won’t be ready for a while,” said Stone, when announcing the startup.

      Little else is known about Jelly, except that it will be a mobile-based, free service of some kind.

      “Ben will serve as Jelly’s CTO, focusing on shipping fantastic products, attracting world class engineers, and in general, running a tight technical ship. We’re putting together a core “dream team” at the moment. Next, we’ll be heads-down on developing Jelly—the idea that we couldn’t get out of our heads.”

    • Futurama Has Been Cancelled (Again)

      Bad news, everyone.

      Comedy Central had decided not to renew Futurama for another season, according to a report from Entertainment Weekly. The show’s final 13 episodes will begin airing on June 19 and run until September 4.

      Futurama originally aired on network TV channel Fox from 1999 until 2003. The series was created by Simpsons creator Matt Groening, along with producer David Cohen. The show won many awards during its run, including an Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program for the episode “Roswell That Ends Well.” The show was cancelled by Fox and aired in syndication until 2007, when the first of four direct-to-video Futurama movies was released. In 2010, Comedy Central began airing all-new episodes of Futurama.

      Groening told Entertainment Weekly that Futurama producers are waiting to see the reaction from fans while considering moving the show to a new home. He stated that it would “be a shame if we all went our separate ways.”

      “I felt like we were already in the bonus round on these last couple of seasons, so I can’t say I was devastated by the news,” Cohen said to Entertainment Weekly. “It was what I had expected two years earlier. At this point I keep a suitcase by my office door so I can be cancelled at a moment’s notice.

      “As I said three times before, this is definitely the absolute end of the show. I don’t know why nobody believes me when I say that.”

    • Sprint says its weighing Dish’s offer but presses FCC to approve Softbank deal

      Sprint may be suffering from some indecision over its two suitors, Dish Network and SoftBank — or it could just be playing them against one another.

      On Monday, the Sprint’s board announced that it has formed a special committee of independent directors to “carefully evaluate” Dish’s $25.5 billion offer to buy up the company. But it also wants to keep its original $20.1 billion deal with SoftBank deal on track — despite Dish’s attempts to put it on hold.

      On Friday it asked the Federal Communications Commission to keep its official review of Sprint-Softbank going, keeping the deal on target for final approval this year. The FCC is already 140 days into its initial 180-day review, but the U.S. Department of Justice has asked the FCC to delay proceedings while its National Security division looks into foreign ownership issues.

      When Dish countered SoftBank’s offer last week it asked for a suspension of the regulatory review, but Sprint said there is no reason to stop clock even as Sprint negotiates with Dish. In fact, in its FCC filing Sprint accused Dish of political maneuvering to muck up the SoftBank deal. From the letter:

      “DISH wrongly suggests that it would be prudent for the Commission to derail this review while it waits until an alleged uncertainty – uncertainty that DISH itself is attempting to create by its unsolicited proposal – is resolved. DISH has this exactly backwards. The Commission has been working diligently on the pending applications, which now stand at day 140 of the Commission’s shot clock. The Commission must not be distracted by DISH’s latest maneuverings, just as it was not distracted by DISH’s original request, and, based on long-established precedent, continue the orderly processing of the applications to conclusion.”

      Meanwhile, the special five-director committee will weigh whether the Dish’s bid represents, or will likely lead to, a “Superior Offer” to Softbank’s. Dish may be offering more money, but as TMF Associates analyst Tim Farrar points out, Sprint has to look at other factors besides value to determine if a Dish-Sprint tie-up is worth the trouble.

      Dish may offer Sprint some strategic advantages — combining both companies’ spectrum with Sprint’s mobile network and Dish’s satellite TV service — but if SoftBank matches Dish’s offer, Sprint may figure it can buy whatever strategic advantages it needs with SoftBank’s cash.

      Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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    • Watch These Costumed Dogs Emit Hatred

      I don’t know if I’ve ever felt a greater amount of hatred radiating from a dog than that of each of the dogs in this video (and I’ve been bitten by dogs).

      [via The Bored Ninja]

    • Golden Gate Inks Buy of Springs Window Fashions

      Golden Gate Capital said Monday it agreed to buy Springs Window Fashions from Heartland Industrial Partners and interests of the Close Family. Financial terms were not announced. Middleton, Wis.-based Springs Fashions makes and sells custom and stock window coverings and drapery hardware to retail and commercial customers. The deal is expected to close in June. BofA Merrill Lynch served as financial advisor to Golden Gate Capital on this transaction. J.P. Morgan served as financial advisor to Springs.

      PRESS RELEASE

      Golden Gate Capital, a leading investment firm with extensive experience in the industrial and building materials sectors, announced today that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Springs Window Fashions (“Springs”), the second largest provider of custom window covering products in the world, from Heartland Industrial Partners and interests of the Close Family. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
      Headquartered in Middleton, Wisconsin, Springs manufactures and sells custom and stock window coverings and drapery hardware to retail and commercial customers, as well as independent designers, franchisors and decorators. The company was founded in 1939 and has over 4,800 employees located at nine facilities located throughout North America. Springs’ management will remain with the company and will continue to maintain a minority ownership position.
      “Springs represents a terrific opportunity to invest in a market leader with proven competitive advantages and significant growth potential,” said Rajeev Amara, a Managing Director of Golden Gate Capital. “Our decision to partner with Springs was driven by the strength of the management team and their long history of delivering world-class products and services. We are fully committed to further investing in the company to support and accelerate its continued growth, both organically and through add-on acquisitions.”
      “We are excited to be working with Golden Gate Capital, which has a demonstrated track record of building long-term value for its portfolio companies,” said Scott Fawcett, President and CEO of Springs. “With Golden Gate’s financial and operational support, we will be able to bolster our leading market position through our differentiated manufacturing and service models and enhance our product offering for our customers.”
      “Springs Window Fashions has proven to be a successful investment for Heartland and the Close Family,” said Daniel P. Tredwell, Managing Partner of Heartland Industrial Partners and Crandall Close Bowles, the Chairman of Springs Industries. “The company has strengthened its relationships with retail customers and significantly built its business in the designer channel, ensuring that it is well-positioned for future growth. We wish the company continued success for years to come.”
      The acquisition is subject to customary regulatory approvals and is expected to close by June 2013.
      BofA Merrill Lynch served as financial advisor to Golden Gate Capital on this transaction. J.P. Morgan served as financial advisor to Springs.
      About Springs Window Fashions
      Headquartered in Middleton, Wisconsin, Springs is the second-largest global manufacturer and distributor of window coverings. With its highly recognized Bali and Graber brands, the company is a leader in combining interior comfort, energy efficiency, convenience and design. Through its complex, integrated manufacturing, logistics, and supply-chain processes, Springs ships thousands of custom products on a daily basis to more than 10,000 unique points of distribution in North America. For more information, visit www.springswindowfashions.com.
      About Golden Gate Capital
      Golden Gate Capital is a San Francisco-based private equity investment firm with approximately $12 billion of capital under management. Golden Gate Capital is dedicated to partnering with world-class management teams to invest in change-intensive, growth businesses. The firm targets investments in which there is a demonstrable opportunity to significantly enhance a company’s value. The principals of Golden Gate Capital have a long and successful history of investing with management partners across a wide range of industries and transaction types. Other notable Industrials investments sponsored by Golden Gate Capital include U.S. Silica, EP Minerals, ArrMaz and Atrium. For more information, visit www.goldengatecap.com.
      About Heartland Industrial Partners, LP
      Heartland Industrial Partners, LP is a Connecticut based private equity firm. Heartland and its affiliate, CoveView Capital Partners, have extensive experience investing in middle market manufacturing and consumer products companies. Heartland and CoveView focus on creating value through active corporate management and supplementing investments with enhanced operational, strategic, and financial resources.

      The post Golden Gate Inks Buy of Springs Window Fashions appeared first on peHUB.

    • Superstar investors give Upstart $5.9M for its first birthday

      Upstart, the company that hopes to encourage promising college students to get their degrees before pursuing the startups of their dreams, just celebrated its first birthday with a $5.9 million Series A round. The funding, from new investors Khosla Ventures, Founder’s Fund, Collaborative Fund, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff and serial entrepreneur Scott Banister, comes atop a $1.75 million seed round that helped kick off the venture in April 2012.

      David Girouard, founder of Upstart.com

      David Girouard, founder of Upstart.com

      The company also gets two new board members, Bob Kerrey, the former senator from Nebraska and former president of the New School, and Jessica Jackley, co-founder of Kiva, which helps organizations obtain microfinancing.

      David Girouard, the former president of Google Enterprise, founded Upstart last year because he thought that the difference between a smart grad starting his or her own company or not often boils down to relatively small amount of money. “At Google, we hired hundreds of great young people who couldn’t put together $30,000 to buy a car if their life depended on it without going into credit card debt,” he told me last year.

      Goal: Helping  students stick with school, then launch

      Upstart’s goal is to match those students with backers/mentors — mostly tech industry veterans like Andy Palmer, co-founder of Vertica. The Upstart entrepreneurs agree to give up  a set percentage of future earnings — capped at 7 percent — in return for the backer or backers’ investment.

      “An upstart can have as few as 3 or up to 30 backers,” Girouard said in an interview. “How much they can raise can vary to over $100,000 but the sweet spot is $30,000 to $40,000.”

      In the past year, more than 80 grads have been funded and 135 backers signed on. And Upstart, which started out focusing on select universities, has now opened up the program to all comers. This is not a charity: Upstart gets 3 percent of the patron’s initial contribution. If the effort pans out and the entrepreneur repays the patron, it also collects a 0.5 percent service fee, down from 1.5 percent last year.

      Kicking the can down the road?

      Upstart, based in Palo Alto, Calif., stands in contrast to the Thiel Fellowship, which pays smart college kids to drop out and pursue their business objectives rather than staying in school. Girouard has said repeatedly that degrees have value and hopes his program will encourage students to stick with their studies until completion..

      Still, Upstart came under some fire — including from some GigaOM commenters — who said it just encourages students to incur more debt, “kicking the can down the road,” when they should just dig in and self-fund or take their first jobs to make money before setting out on their own.

      Girouard maintains it’s a creative and low-risk way for these would-be entrepreneurs to get funding that could mean the difference between founding a startup or not.

      Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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    • Tumblr Launches New Mobile Ads

      Users of Tumblr’s iOS and Android apps will begin to see ads in their streams – ones that look and feel like organic blog posts inside the apps.

      The new ad push marks a first for Tumblr – putting sponsored content in the same context as regular posts. First reported by AdAge, users will now see as many as four of the new ads per day. You’ll be able to tell the difference between the ads and the normal posts by a dollar sign that accompanies the sponsored content.

      You may recall that this dollar sign is the same way that Tumblr identified its current ads – the decidedly less-intrusive “Radar” ads that Tumblr debuted in May of last year. These ads appear on the “Spotlight” page, which highlights editor-selected blogs, as well as the Radar, which is seen on the sidebar of Tumblr pages. Back in May, the starting bid for these “Radar” ads was reported to be around $25,000.

      “This mobile advertising opportunity is native to how our consumers experience content on our apps; as a continuous stream,” said Tumblr sale head Lee Brown in a statement.

      Tumblr is launching the new ads with a handful of high-profile partners, including ABC Entertainment and ABC Family, GE, Pepsi, and Warner Bros. You can expect to see heavy promotion from Warner Bros, who will be serving up ads for upcoming films to the Tumblr mobile community.

      This is a mobile-only push, but only for now. Tumblr confirmed to AdAge that these new types of in-stream ads will eventually pop up on the desktop version of Tumblr, but they were unwilling to give a specific date.

      Tumblr recently announced that they had crossed the 100 million blogs milestone. As of now, there are over 48.6 billion posts on the site.

    • App-lifying USGS Earth Science Data Challenge Winners Announced

      Species range and distribution, taxonomic classification, and conservation status applications top the list of submitted Apps

      Just in time for Earth Day, the U.S. Geological Survey is pleased to announce the winners of the “App-lifying USGS Earth Science Data” Challenge. The USGS invited developers, information scientists, biologists/ecologists, and scientific data visualization specialists to create applications for selected USGS datasets, presenting them in innovative and informative new ways.

      The winner for Best Overall App is “TaxaViewer” by the rOpenSci group based out of California. TaxaViewer is a Web interface to a mashup of data from the USGS-sponsored Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS), the Phylotastic taxonomic Name service, the Global Invasive Species Database, Phylomatic, and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. TaxaViewer allows the user to view species-specific taxonomic data, invasive status, phylogenetic relationships, and species occurrence records.

      The Popular Choice App award goes to the “Species Comparison Tool” by Kimberly Sparks of Raleigh, N.C., which allows users to explore the USGS Gap Analysis Program distribution and/or range of two species concurrently. In addition, the application’s “swipe tool” provides the ability to make visual comparisons of the maps. The application also incorporates ITIS data and provides external links to NatureServe species information.

      “These applications provide us and, more importantly, the public with easy-to-use tools for accessing and viewing taxonomic and biogeographic data,” said Kevin Gallagher, USGS Associate Director of Core Science Systems. “The innovative and thoughtful ideas represented in these applications are great examples of how complex data can be made more accessible.”

      The Challenge was open for submissions from January 9, 2013, to April 1, 2013. Entries spanned a cross-section of topics including taxonomic classification, conservation status of species, the range and distribution of animals, and one innovative app integrating social media with species occurrence records.

      “We were extremely impressed with the caliber of applications we received for this Challenge,” said Cheryl Morris, Director of USGS Core Science Analytics and Synthesis (CSAS). “The hard work and innovation that went into these applications is evident in their popularity, usability, and goal of making USGS data more readily accessible to all users.”

      Winners were selected based on relevance to the USGS and CSAS missions, innovation in design, and overall ease of use of the application. Utilizing the Challege.gov platform, the general public chose the winner of the Popular Choice App award.

      More information about the winning applications can be found at the CSAS Challenge site. All of the submissions can be accessed on the App-lifying USGS Earth Science Data Challenge site.

      Learn more about USGS Core Science Analytics and Synthesis programs and activities.

    • Undeveloped Sagebrush Habitat Important for Maintaining Sage-grouse

      BOISE, Idaho— Among the diverse array of western habitats available to them, greater sage-grouse require sagebrush-dominated landscapes with extremely minimal levels of human land use according to USGS researchers who detailed the scientific results in a recently published report about the ecological conditions needed by this large, ground-dwelling bird.

      The science, published in the journal Ecology and Evolution, was done to describe and accurately map the basic combination of factors necessary to support sage-grouse across large expanses of its range. Scientists compiled and analyzed information about the environment surrounding 3,000 active breeding areas, known as leks, within a 355,000 square–mile portion of the sage-grouse’s historic range. Environmental factors examined within a 3-mile radius of each lek were climate, land cover, and densities of roads, power lines, pipelines, and communication towers.  

      Ninety-nine percent of active leks were in landscapes with less than 3 percent of a developed category of land cover, and all lands surrounding leks were less than 14 percent developed. Further, most leks were in regions characterized by broad expanses of sagebrush and containing less than 25 percent agricultural activity. The location of leks relative to some specific types of infrastructure also was documented. For example, the average number of communication towers per square mile was 0.2 for the study area as a whole, 0.04 for active leks, but 7.1 for locations where sage-grouse occurred historically but not presently.

      “We knew, from previously published science, that human activity affected sage-grouse, but our results in this new research showed that most leks were even absent from areas that had very low levels of human activity,” said Steve Knick, a USGS scientist and the lead author of the report.

      The importance of sagebrush as habitat for sage-grouse also was affirmed by this study. The vast majority of leks occurred where at least 40 percent of the surrounding landscape was dominated by sagebrush. Furthermore, almost all leks were in areas containing few conifer trees or few grassland expanses. These results are consistent with other evidence that sage-grouse are vulnerable to decreases in sagebrush due to the spread of invasive grasses in some areas and due to the encroachment of junipers and other conifer trees in other areas. 

      Leks also occurred in drier-than-average regions within a small temperature and precipitation range, suggesting that predicted changes in climate may cause lek locations to change depending on where there are optimal arid conditions.

      Ecological connections among sage-grouse populations across the large study area also were described because species with multiple interconnected populations are more likely to persist than those with isolated populations. Large populations within the interior of the sage-grouse range were highly interconnected. In contrast, smaller populations along the range periphery often were connected to only one or two neighboring populations. Habitat changes in the connecting corridors that limit or disrupt sage-grouse movement could further isolate these peripheral populations, putting them at increased risk of loss.

      Greater sage-grouse currently occupy approximately half of their historic range across western North America. They are a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act because of habitat and population fragmentation coupled with inadequate regulatory mechanism to control development in critical areas. Most of the sagebrush habitat used by sage-grouse is under public land management, with 50 percent managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

      The publication is Knick, S.T., S.E. Hanser, and K.L. Preston. 2013. Modeling ecological minimum requirements for distribution of greater sage-grouse leks: implications for population connectivity across their western range, U.S.A. Ecology and Evolution.

    • You’ve Got The Whole World In Your Hands As Leap Motion Gains Google Earth Support

      leap-motion-google-earth

      Leap Motion’s gesture-based controller launch is less than a month away, but so far we’ve heard relatively little about app support, besides the fact that the company is working hard on filling out its Airspace app store. Now, Leap Motion and Google are announcing support for Google Earth for Leap Motion tech, which will be built-in to the desktop Google Earth app for Windows, Mac and Linux as of version 7.1 (out today).

      That’s a good initial user pool for Leap Motion, since Google Earth has been downloaded by over 1 billion people according to Google’s stats. The endorsement by Google is crucial because of the company’s stature, and the fact that it builds a whole lot of software, including the Chrome browser, and because it gives potential Leap Motion owners a very tangible, natural and commonplace app to test out Leap Motion’s utility with.

      And we won’t have to wait until mid-May to find out how effective it is – 10,000 developers arleady have access to Leap Motion Controller hardware as it is. Leap motion is looking for devs to try it out and submit their own YouTube videos of the experience, by flagging the posts with #LeapInto. Those will go into a playlist the company will share to show off its tech.

      Leap Motion continues to rack up the pre-launch hits, with major retail and OEM partnerships. The HP arrangement that will see its 3D gesture tech built-in to future laptops and other devices in particular is huge news. But all that hype means it will face high expectations at launch, and Google endorsement drives those expectations even higher.

    • Star Trek The Video Game Launch Trailer Released

      Movie tie-in video games can generally be dismissed by gamers as cynical attempts to cash in on the hype surrounding the release of a movie. The titles are, most of the time, thrown together and unpolished, pushed onto the market to coincide with the movie release date.

      This week, the Star Trek tie-in video game will be released, less than one month before the premiere of Star Trek Into Darkness, one of the most anticipated summer blockbusters of 2013. Star Trek The Video Game, however, could buck the trend of terrible tie-ins, if the game’s launch trailer is any indication.

      The game features its own story, which isn’t directly tied to the story of Into Darkness. Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the enterprise crew will be facing off with the Gorn, which classic Star Trek fans will be familiar with.

      Star Trek The Video Game will also feature characters with different gameplay options, such as Spock’s stealthy ability to use a Vulcan nerve pinch to take down enemies.

      Even if all of these elements don’t add up to a great game, they do appear to at least make up parts of a game that had some care put into its development. The game’s developer, Digital Extremes, has attempted to bring something original and fun to the movie tie-in concept, and there’s not really much more gamers could ask for.

    • Who uses Bitcoins? It’s not exactly the hedge-fund set

      Rather than speculate on the future of the Bitcoin, the online-audience-describing people over at Quantcast got a novel idea: trying to figure out who actually uses the international digital currency.

      In case you were wondering, it’s not just the super-rich who appear to engage in Bitcoin. While 26 percent of Bitcoiners rake in $150,000 or more in annual income, the biggest group, 52 percent, makes less than $50,000, according to findings visualized Friday on the Quantcast’s I.Q. blog.

      Income of Bitcoin users, via Quantcast I.Q. blog

      Income of Bitcoin users, via Quantcast I.Q. blog

      Age and income of Bitcoin users, via Quantcast I.Q. blog

      Age and income of Bitcoin users, via Quantcast I.Q. blog

      Bitcoin users are overwhelmingly male — 88 percent. The biggest age group is 25-34. It’s possible they attended engineering-heavy schools like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Rochester Institute of Technology. Tech terms such as “Raspberry Pi,” “open source” and “command line” are popular with Bitcoiners.

      But that’s now. Perhaps the core Bitcoin audience will shift if the currency’s volatility ever levels out.

      Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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