Canadian Space Agency Astronaut Chris Hadfield is awesome, space is awesome, and everything he does in space is awesome. Proving once again that even the most mundane tasks are transformed into something incredible when performed in zero gravity, here’s Hadfield wringing out a soaking-wet washcloth aboard the ISS.
Not only is the wringing-out part cool, but so is the whole getting-it-wet-in-the-first-place part.
If this isn’t reason enough to find space programs, I don’t know what is.
Earlier this week, Bethesda teased its next game via Vine. Fans speculated it was Fallout 4 as work on Skyrim has now been completed. Bethesda says that’s not the case, and its latest Vine teaser seems to suggest they’re telling the truth on this one.
Over the past two days, Bethesda has posted two more Vine teasers on its Twitter feed:
— Bethesda Softworks (@Bethblog) April 17, 2013
mystery revealed tomorrow @ign vine.co/v/bUqveJ2uFeZ
— Bethesda Softworks (@Bethblog) April 18, 2013
As you can see, both of the above teasers look nothing like Fallout. If anything, it’s looking more and more like Bethesda is finally ready to reveal Zwei, a game from horror mastermind Shinji Mikami.
As the latest teaser reveals, we’ll find out more about the publisher’s next game tomorrow on IGN. It would be kind of hilarious if Zwei was Fallout 4 in disguise. That’s not to say Fallout fans should expect anything though. We’re probably still at least a year off from an announcement.
Google TV has long lacked one key feature: Free or fixed-price access to full episodes of shows the day after they air on TV. There is no Hulu Plus app for Google TV devices, and all the big broadcasters block the Google TV browser from accessing content on their websites.
But it looks like this may change soon: Google TV owners who visited NBC.com with the connected device have in recent days discovered a new splash screen, promising that “full episodes of this and other shows are now available for free” on Google TV.
The splash screen redirects Google TV users to Google Play, where the app is reportedly already being made available. However, users are reporting that it wasn’t listed as compatible with any of their Google TV devices — likely a precaution to prevent users from installing it on anything by development devices before it is officially announced.
The app also isn’t included in Google Play search results yet. But it seems like such an announcement could be imminent, given that the app and splash screen are already in place.
However, cord cutters in search for an easy way to watch NBC content for free on their TV shouldn’t get their hopes up too soon. It’s likely that NBC’s Google TV app is going to require authentication, meaning that users will have to log in with their pay TV credentials in order to watch. (One should note that Google TV owners have had the option to buy individual episodes of TV shows for some time.)
Google and NBC didn’t immediately respond when asked for comment for this article.
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More news from the Broadband Communities Summit in Dallas. Some very interesting stuff from the economic development track.
Michael Renders is the expert on FTTH and broadband survey research . He had some very interesting findings about the value of broadband and its impact on economic development. He estimates that a FTTH network brings $1600 per house/business passed per year in increased economic activity to a community. He also estimates that people will pay up to $5500 more for a house that is connected to a FTTH network than a similar house without such a connection.
Jane Patterson, former leader of broadband development in North Carolina said that 31% of rural North Carolinians made money off their network connection through home businesses and that another 14% are planning to start home businesses.
SNG’s Michael Curri talked about how doing business technology assessments provides great base data as well as a pathway for direct business assistance to increase business vitality. (Michael Curri did a webinar for Blandin Foundation within the last year.)
Christopher Mitchell provided a great list of success stories of how communities have spurred business growth by meeting local business’ bandwidth needs. He highlighted the variety of approaches that these communities have used, some community-wide, some business only.
Heather Gold, FTTH Council president, demonstrated their new FTTH Community ToolKit. It looks like a great tool! Check it out.
Greg Richardson of Civitium talked about his new concept – Crowdfiber. Essentially, this is using the Kickstarter model tied to the concept of Google Fiber. It combines the tools of social networks with the many online payment networks with the goal of raising funds to create fiberhoods, ala Google. Look at www.crowdfiber.com or follow him at @crowdfiber.
Andrew Cohill of Design Nine helps communities take control of their future. He believes that money is not the determinant factor. He says that there is plenty of money for broadband – cities and counties spend tons of money on all kinds of things with little thought and that plenty of money is spent on broadband in every community every month – the goal is to capture this money for locally owned and controlled projects.
Cohill believes that communities need to do the hard work of answering this question: What do we want our community to look like in 20 years? Vision drives the process and the results. Generally, this vision is similar between communities – new jobs, keep their kids, new businesses. The problem comes when people want these new results, but don’t want anything else to change!
In response to my question about examples of incumbents willingly partnering with communities, there were no great examples; the only examples were providers late to the initiative as an attempt to save some of their market share.
One interesting concept was the Reverse RFI: in essence, offering public assets like poles, right of way, fiber conduit, etc. available up for use by providers. The Reverse RFI is an opportunity to make better use of these public assets for better broadband.
This was one session of a very interesting day!
Every year, Time Magazine puts out their TIME 100 list of the world’s most influential people. The list is always populated with a wide range of figures from a wide range of fields – politicians, religious icons, actors, musicians, and yes, tech figures.
And this year’s list seems to be full of techies – more so than past year’s lists.
In no particular order, here are some of the tech names that grace this year’s TIME 100:
If you want to check out this year’s and previous TIME 100 lists, they’ve got every list all the way back to 2004 available on the Time 100 hub.
A study from the Journal of Power Sources indicated that by 2030 the grid could be powered almost entirely using a mix of wind (both on- and off-shore), solar and grid-scale energy storage, and that this grid would be both …
A group of researchers at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have created microbatteries that charge 1,000 times faster than normal batteries and can, feasibly, “jump-start a car” while powering a cellphone. The group, led by William King, is working on shrinking the batteries down to fit inside a “credit-card thin” device.
The batteries use a design that offers a much larger surface area for the cathode and anode which improves discharge as well as charge rate. While cathode (or plus side) improvements have existed for a while, this is the first one that also improves the “minus side” or anode.
In practice, the batteries could help create devices last 30 times longer or transmit farther distances – albeit with a hit in battery life. Many batteries either have a high power – the ability to pump out a lot of juice quickly – or high energy – the ability to store that juice and mete it out. Capactitors, for example, charge quickly but express their power very quickly as well. Li-Ion batteries hold energy but take a long time to charge. Because these batteries can hold so much energy and charge so quickly, you get the best of both worlds.
“Now we can think outside of the box,” said James Pikul, a graduate student on the project. “It’s a new enabling technology. It’s not a progressive improvement over previous technologies; it breaks the normal paradigms of energy sources. It’s allowing us to do different, new things.”
You can read the paper here but be warned it’s a bit nerdy and bit pricey to download.
The Cleveland Cavaliers announced today that the organization has fired Head Coach Byron Scott.
Scott took over as head coach of the Cavs in 2010, just before LeBron James left for the Miami Heat. Scott’s first season with the organization ended with a dismal 19-63 record, which included an NBA record 26-game losing streak. During his career with the Cavs, Scott coached the team to a 64-166 record.
“I want to thank Chris Grant, Dan Gilbert and the Cavaliers organization for the opportunity I had to coach this team the last three seasons,” said Scott. “I am certainly proud of the progress that many of our players have made and greatly appreciate the dedication of my coaches and our team in our efforts to attain the success we all desired.”
The Cavaliers have not named a replacement for Scott, but have announced that they intend to “immediately commence a search” for a head coach.
“I fully support the difficult move that was made today,” said Dan Gilbert, the majority owner of the Cavs. “Although we saw progress with young individual player development, we did not see the kind of progress we expected on the team level this past season. We understand it was challenging with the injuries, but when you are at our stage in the building process, you don’t only measure team progress in wins and losses.
“Our fans have been incredibly loyal and supportive during these transition years. They deserve better than we have been delivering as of late and it is our full intent to deliver them the kind of competitive team that they expect to see on the court beginning next season.”
(Image courtesy Erik Drost/Wikimedia Commons)
Archos, a French company that has been building inexpensive tablets longer than most, is now entering the smartphone market. On Thursday, Archos announced a trio of Google Android smartphones with dual-SIM capability that it will sell at full price. But don’t expect to pay the $600 or more that a flagship phone often lists for: these Archos handsets range in price from $99 to $249 without a contract.
All three devices offer the basic, native Android experience, just like Google’s Nexus phone line. That could appeal to many who prefer Android’s user interface over HTC’s Sense or Samsung’s TouchWiz interfaces, for example. Of course, at this price, you won’t get the hardware that’s inside a Google Nexus flagship. The internal components aren’t bad for the price, but you won’t find support for LTE. Instead, all three devices use 3G/HSPA networks with download speeds up to 7.2 Mbps.
For $99, the entry-level Archos 35 Carbon gets you a 3.5-inch IPS display with low 360 x 480 resolution. Internal memory is just 4 GB, which can be expanded with up 32 GB on a microSD card. The Android 4.0 device runs on a 1 GHz Qualcomm 7225A chip and includes aGPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0 and can be a hotspot. The two cameras — front and rear — only capture VGA quality images.
The $219 Archos 50 Platinum is a 5-inch handset with 960 x 540 resolution and IPS screen, running Android 4.1.2. The Platinum gets a big performance boost over the Carbon with a quad-core Qualcomm 8225Q running at 1.2 GHz paired with 1 GB of memory. Internal memory still tops out at 4 GB but can be expanded with removable storage. The same connectivity options from the Carbon are here. The two cameras, however, get a vast improvement: 8 megapixel on the rear camera with 720p video capture and 2 megapixels on the front.
An additional $30 moves you up to the Archos 53 Platinum at $249. A cursory scan of the specs shows me that the $30 gets you a larger version of the Archos 50 because the specs appear to be the same. The key difference is the screen, which is a 5.3-inch IPS panel using the same qHD resolution as the Archos 50. You do get a larger battery, however, than the slightly smaller, cheaper model.
Archos plans to begin selling the smartphones by the end of May in Europe. I haven’t seen any indication of whether the handsets will arrive in the U.S., but I suspect you can always order one from overseas if you want a low-cost, unlocked Android phone without a homescreen skin.
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If you’re like me, RogerEbert.com was a frequent stop on your internet browsing schedule. Every Friday morning (or Thursday night, occasionally), I would visit Ebert’s site to find out what he had to say about all the newly released films of the week. I, like many others, was greatly influenced by not only Ebert’s film reviews, but by his blogging and various other essay on politics, religion, and life in general.
Well, apparently Ebert and his wife Chaz worked to make sure that “was” remains “is.” They tapped a digital strategist to help ensure that the site, visited by millions, would remain a top destination for those hungry for film critique and discussion. And that new site is now live.
“Roger wanted to bridge film criticism and the community of fans like never before,” Chaz Ebert said. “The new site enlists many more critics, reviewing many more movies, displayed side-by-side with the most comprehensive collection of Roger’s Pulitzer Prize-winning content online.”
You may have noticed that the site has gone through a transformation since Ebert’s death earlier this month. And quite frankly, it’s a huge improvement. The old rogerebert.com was one of the best online resources for film lovers, but it wasn’t very easy on the eyes. The new site is cleaner and more visually impressive.
The new content will be powered by a network of contributors – nearly 20 listed on the site. They’ll provide the week’s reviews.
“The site focuses on three things: criticism, commentary and community,” said site designer Josh Golden. “Everything is aggregated in one place. It’s both library and playground for serious film buffs, but it’s easy to navigate for people who are just looking for a good movie.”
And of course, all of Ebert’s reviews and Great Movies essays are accessible on the site.
The plan is to keep people coming to the site for their reviews, even though Ebert has passed on. By the looks of things, they’ve got things going in the right direction.
During a vote in the House today, a majority of representatives voted in favor of passing CISPA for the second year in a row. Now the bill heads to the Senate where it will either live or die. Free Internet advocates and privacy proponents would much prefer the latter.
To recap, CISPA is a proposed bill that aims to boost the government’s ability to respond to cyber threats and cyber attacks by sharing private customer information between itself and companies. Its opponents claim the bill is a massive invasion of privacy that serves no use in combatting cyberattacks, but rather will be used to spy on American citizens by granting immunity to those companies that share information.
With CISPA’s passage in the House, the EFF vows to take its fight to the Senate:
“This bill undermines the privacy of millions of Internet users,” said Rainey Reitman, EFF Activism Director. “Hundreds of thousands of Internet users opposed this bill, joining the White House and Internet security experts in voicing concerns about the civil liberties ramifications of CISPA. We’re committed to taking this fight to the Senate and fighting to ensure no law which would be so detrimental to online privacy is passed on our watch.”
If history repeats itself, the EFF won’t have much of a fight in the Senate. CISPA died in the Senate last year as its members argued over its own law – the Cybersecurity Act of 2012. It was a marked improvement over CISPA, but it did have its own issues. The bill died after it failed a Senate floor vote and CISPA was never taken up.
For this year, the Senate will be debating the Cybersecurity and American Cyber Competitiveness Act of 2013. Like CSA, it’s a bit better than CISPA, but its lack of bipartisan sponsorship doesn’t bode well. It also doesn’t help that the bill still hasn’t even been picked up by its respective committee yet.
So, what happens if CISPA somehow makes its way through the Senate? It has to get signed into law by the president, and his administration just recently threatened to veto CISPA if it makes it to his desk. The administration suggested a number of common sense additions to CISPA that would make it far more pro-privacy, but the House ignored those suggestions. Now its up to the Senate to decide if it will actually listen to the thousands of people who are against CISPA.
One of the latest “At Google Talks” Google has shared on YouTube is actually a musical performance. Heathers, the twin sister duo out of Dublin, performed their song “Forget Me Knots” at Google Ireland. It actually took place bac, in September, but Google has just made the video available.
More recent At Google Talks here.
Remember that graphic? It’s from a campaign that Virgin Mobile launched earlier this month in an effort to combat T-Mobile’s new prepaid-style plans. Since Virgin is firmly entrenched in the prepaid sector, and has been since its establishment in the US, it has every reason to show consumers why its deals can be superior to T-Mobile.
We’ve already seen the Samsung Galaxy S II, one of Virgin’s best phones, discounted to $300, down 10 percent from its original price. Virgin is quick to point that out, since the same phone on T-Mobile will cost you over $400 (even if you can pay it off in installments). Add in that $100 credit for switching from T-Mobile and it’s hard to deny the deal that Virgin offers.
Not switching from T-Mobile? Then you still have a chance to save. It won’t be $100, but they are offering a free shipping promotion. Shipping costs can be a pain to everyone, of course. They’re one reason why many people choose to shop in stores — no one wants to wait, and no one wants to pay shipping. But if you could avoid shipping and just wait a couple of days, you’d probably take that trade-off, right?
If you’re thinking about taking the plunge, or if you’re a VM customer looking to upgrade, you can head to their site and check out the free standard shipping deals. It’ll be worth your wait.
The post Get a New Phone With Free Shipping from Virgin Mobile appeared first on MobileMoo.
Janney Capital Markets said Thursday that Brandon Eck and James McNaughton were made MDs of its investment banking group, while Brian Van der Waag and Andrew Kurz were named vice presidents. Eck and Kurz are both part of Janney’s technology & media group, while McNaughton works in the financial sponsor group and Van der Waag contributes to the infrastructure group.
PRESS RELEASE
Janney Capital Markets today announced it has named Mr. Brandon Eck and Mr. James McNaughton as Managing Directors and Mr. Brian Van der Waag and Mr. Andrew Kurz as Vice Presidents in its Investment Banking Group.
Mr. Eck will continue to be a key member of the Technology & Media Group, where he has been a senior leader, spearheading Janney’s outsourcing and financial technology efforts for the past four years. “Brandon’s promotion to Managing Director represents an acknowledgement of the fine work he has done for clients, the depth of his industry knowledge and his commitment to building the Janney franchise,” said Chris White, Janney’s Head of Investment Banking. Mr. Eck brings extensive experience in a wide range of corporate transactions, including public equity offerings, mergers and acquisitions, private placements, fairness opinions and other financial advisory transactions.
Mr. Eck is a graduate of Gettysburg College with a B.A. in Management with a concentration in Finance.
——
Mr. McNaughton will continue to play a significant role in the Financial Sponsors Group, coordinating the firm’s relationships across the U.S. “Jim’s efforts and work within the financial sponsors universe as well as his extensive advisory expertise continues to be invaluable to Janney’s success and we know that our clients benefit from his hard work and dedication,” said Mr. White. Mr. McNaughton brings extensive experience in a wide range of corporate transactions, including public equity offerings, mergers and acquisitions, private placements, fairness opinions and other financial advisory transactions.
Mr. McNaughton is a graduate of the The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. in Economics and NYU’s Stern School of Business with an M.B.A in Finance.
——
As Vice President, Mr. Van der Waag will continue to contribute to the Infrastructure Group. “Brian has made a strong impact within our group over the past few years and deserves to be recognized for his valuable contributions,” said Joe Culley, Janney’s Head of Infrastructure Investment Banking. Mr. Van der Waag’s promotion further strengthens Janney’s infrastructure and industrials coverage.
Mr. Van der Waag is a graduate of Georgetown University with both a B.S. in Finance and an M.B.A.
——
Mr. Kurz, a member of Janney’s Technology & Media Group, has been named a Vice President. His promotion strengthens Janney’s technology sector coverage. “Andy has been a key member of the technology group, whether taking the lead on deal execution or working with other bankers to provide client solutions,” said Peter Blackwood, Janney’s Head of Technology & Media Investment Banking. “We are excited to see him take this next step, and look forward to his continued contribution to the team,” commented Mr. Blackwood.
Mr. Kurz is a graduate of Hamilton College with a B.A. in Economics.
The post Janney Capital Announces Promotions appeared first on peHUB.
Fits.me said it raised almost $7.6 million in a Series A round from existing investor SmartCap and new investors Conor Venture Partners, Fostergate Holdings Limited and The Entrepreneur’s Fund. The company in May 2009 and August 2010 received seed and early-stage investments of slightly less than $2.67 million from Smartcap and angel investors.
PRESS RELEASE
Virtual fitting room provider Fits.me takes £5m in Series A funding
London, UK – April 18th 2013 – Fits.me today announced total Series A investment in the company of close to £5 million. Series A investment has been subscribed by existing investor SmartCap, with new participation from Conor Venture Partners, Fostergate Holdings Limited and The Entrepreneur’s Fund.
Previously, in May 2009 and August 2010, the company received total seed and early-stage investment of just under £1.75m from Smartcap and angel investors, and £0.5m in grants.
Fits.me develops, markets and operates virtual fitting room solutions on a software-as-a-service (SaaS) basis for online clothing retailers, helping them to overcome the problems of low online conversion rates and high garment returns rates caused by doubt over fit and poor fit respectively.
The company counts many well-known retailers among its clients, including Adidas, Avenue32, Barbour By Mail, Boden, Ermenegildo Zegna, Hawes & Curtis, Henri Lloyd, Hugo Boss, John Smedley, L.K.Bennett, Mexx, Nicole Farhi, Otto, Pretty Green, Superdry and Thomas Pink.
Fits.me will use the new funding to support accelerated Sales and Marketing programmes – including international expansion into the France, Germany, other EU countries and the USA – and to continue to scale up its Operations to meet predicted demand.
Conor Venture Partners’ Manu Mäkelä said: “While large swathes of retailing already takes place online, there are sectors for which the real online growth has yet to come. Apparel is chief among those sectors, primarily because buying clothes is such a subjective process – most obviously when it comes to ‘fit’. Fits.me has a sophisticated solution that works, delivers provable results, is easy for retailers to deploy and has been signed up by a growing band of respected retailers and brands, on an international basis. From an investor’s point of view, there is tremendous growth potential.”
In February 2013 the company launched Fit Advisor, a complementary version of the company’s flagship Fits.me Virtual Fitting Room solution which delivers fit information and recommendations without the need for photography.
Heikki Haldre, co-founder and chief executive at Fits.me, said: “We are in a market that has started to move very quickly as retailers look to overcome their high street difficulties by focusing on online performance. It should be clear to everyone that we mean to do very good business by helping online clothing retailers to solve one of their most pressing problems.”
[ends]
About Fits.me Fits.me’s virtual fitting room solutions helps boost the revenues and the profitability of online clothing retailers by enabling them to overcome the online fit problem, increasing conversions and reducing garment returns.
The subjective nature of “fit” as it applies to clothing and fashion has inhibited online apparel sales for years – in 2012 the overall proportion of garment sales from online channels was still only 14-15%. The essential problem is the inability of shoppers to try on clothes to check the fit before they choose their size, while ‘fit’ is a matter of personal preference rather than mathematics. According to Mintel, widespread inconsistencies in sizing between different brands and retailers make online clothes shopping a challenge for six in ten shoppers.
At the heart of Fits.me’s software-as-a-service solution are sophisticated robotic mannequins, both male and female, with artificial muscles that enable it to mimic any size or shape of body. To populate the database of any given brand or retailer, these mannequins are dressed in representative items from the retailer’s range, in each available size. Each permutation of garment/size is then photographed while the robotic mannequin morphs through thousands of body shapes, whether for a dress or a shirt. The output of this process is a comprehensive image database – and, for each image, the precise dimensions of the mannequin are recorded.
On a retailer’s site, Fits.me displays the photograph from the database that shows exactly how the garment the shopper is looking at will fit their body size and shape, simply by asking that shopper for a few common measurements.
With further clicks, the shopper may check how they will look wearing other sizes, before choosing the size that fits them the way they like it. The Fits.me Virtual Fitting Room will even alert the shopper to where the fit of the chosen garment may be wrong – for example, in arm length or collar size – just as a shop assistant would do in a bricks-and-mortar store.
Data from online clothing retailers using Fits.me shows an improvement in conversion rates of up to 62% compared to shoppers using a traditional size chart and a reduction in returns for reasons of fit of up to 77%.
The post Fits.me Raises Close To $7.6M From SmartCap, Conor, Others appeared first on peHUB.
Android may be the most used mobile operating system, but to get their ads in front of their preferred customers, advertisers are continuing to rely heavily on iOS devices. According to the Mobile Advertising Marketplace report published by MoPub on Thursday, 75 percent of spending on mobile advertising during the first quarter of 2013 was on devices running iOS.
MoPub Mobile Advertising Marketplace Report Q1 2013
MoPub, which is an ad-serving platform for mobile app publishers, found the iPhone was the strongest performer during the quarter; the report says the share of ad buying on Apple phones increased 12 percent between January and March. The iPad experienced a drop-off in spending in February but rebounded a bit in March.
The share of Android tablet spending was negligible at less than 1 percent, according to MoPub. Android phones, which took about a quarter of all mobile ad spending, saw the reverse pattern from the iPad: spending on the platform increased in February before dipping back down in March. MoPub explains that “In Q1 2013, many ad buyers discovered the increase in user value on Android devices was offset by a poor conversion rate of users from these ads.”
As for the kinds of ads being placed, things swung more toward interactive ads, with the share of spending on them growing from 15.7 percent to 79.1 percent during the quarter.
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There’s gold in them thar telecommunications networks, and Guavus wants to help carriers find it. On Thursday, the San Mateo, Calif.-based big data company announced it has raised another $9 million in funding — from new investors Goldman Sachs and TransLink Capital — bringing the company’s total investment to $87 million and helping to finance acquisitions and a global expansion into Asia.
In a nutshell, Guavus is trying to make telcos — including “all tier-1 mobile operators” — smarter by letting them make sense of the data they’re networks are generating. Those companies are historically alright at using their demographic and billing data to improve their marketing efforts, but they’ve been largely blind to what’s happening on their networks, Founder and CEO Anukool Lakhina told me during an interview a few months ago. However, he said, “The magic happens in marrying and infusing that network data with the demographic and billing data.”
To get a better sense of how Guavus does what it does, I suggest reading Stacey Higginbotham’s October 2012 interview with Lakhina. You can also watch his presentation from our Structure: Data event just last month.
Guavus has actually been rather busy lately. In January, it closed a $30 million funding round and then bought mobile-analytics startup Neuralitic Systems less than two weeks later. When I spoke to Lakhina about that acquisition, he said the plan is to use Neuralitic’s marketing and application expertise to help customers automate business processes, promotions and other functions based on their newfound insights into what’s happening across the entire company.
Feature image courtesy of Shutterstock user Pavel Ignatov.
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