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Single Touch Systems, a Jersey City, New Jersey based company whose technology helps marketers reach consumers on all types of connected devices, has appointed Peter Holden to its board. Holden is currently the senior vice president of corporate development an investments at IPVALUE, where he is responsible for intellectual property investments and acquisitions. Prior, Holden founded the IP investment group at Coller Capital, the private equity firm.

PRESS RELEASE:

Single Touch Systems, Inc. SITO -1.49% , a technology based mobile media solutions provider, today announced that by unanimous consent, Peter Holden has been elected to its Board of Directors. He is widely recognized as a pioneer in leveraging intellectual property (IP) as a financial asset class. In 2011 he was named by the Intellectual Asset Management Journal as “One of the top-50 people, companies and other things that have helped to shape today’s IP market.”

Mr. Holden is currently Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Investments at IPVALUE where he is responsible for IP investments and acquisitions. Prior to joining IPVALUE, Mr. Holden founded the IP Investment Group at Coller Capital, a global Private Equity firm with over $14 billion under management in 2006. He has since overseen the investment in, and subsequent monetization of, many IP vehicles involving thousands of patents from leading corporations and research centers worldwide.

He formerly held senior positions at Panasonic, IPVALUE Management, University Patents, Inc., and Invisible Hand LLC, an IP venturing fund that he founded and ran with a former Board Member of Nokia. Mr. Holden holds Post-Doctoral, Ph.D. and undergraduate degrees from the United Kingdom and Japan. He also held positions as Senior Fellow at Wharton Business School and was awarded the Honda Fellowship at the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo, Japan. He has also advised several governmental and sovereign initiatives on IP fund formation.

“Peter has a tremendous track record in the IP space and his decision to join our team is a terrific validation of the strength of our assets and our ability to realize our Company’s potential value. Peter’s leadership role in the IP industry, his knowledge and his success will play a key role in helping our Company to craft, guide and execute on our IP monetization strategies for the benefit of all Single Touch shareholders,” stated Single Touch’s Chairman and Chief Innovation Officer, Anthony Macaluso.

Mr. Holden commented, “The scalability of Single Touch’s operating business provides a unique context to its portfolio of intellectual property. In building its business, Single Touch has developed an impressive portfolio of issued and pending patents that hold tremendous value in the streaming media ecosystem, an area undergoing substantial growth with a strong outlook. It’s exciting and represents a great challenge and opportunity for me to advise and support the team that will seek to unlock and benefit from the value of the Single Touch patent portfolio.”

About Single Touch Systems, Inc.

Single Touch Systems, Inc. is a technology based mobile solutions provider serving businesses, advertisers and brands. Through patented technologies and a modular, adaptable platform, Single Touch’s multi-channel messaging gateway enables marketers to reach consumers on all types of connected devices, with information that engages interest, drives transactions and strengthens relationships and loyalty. For more information about Single Touch Systems, Inc. visit: www.singletouch.net

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties and reflect Single Touch’s judgment as of the date of this release. These statements may include those regarding strategy, growth and future operations. Actual events or results may differ from Single Touch’s expectations. The risks and uncertainties include reliance on brand owners and wireless carriers, the possible need for additional capital, as well as other risks identified in Single Touch’s filings with the SEC. Single Touch disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements beyond the date of this press release, except as may be required by law.

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Tech Valley Communications, an Albany, New York-based company that provides fiber optic data, voice, and high-speed Internet services to enterprise, carrier and wholesale customers in Upstate New York and New England, has agreed to acquire the assets of Vermont-based TelJet Longhaul, a company that’s built among the largest fiber networks in Northern New England. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. Tech Valley Communications is a portfolio company of the middle-market private equity firm Riverside Partners.

PRESS RELEASE:

Tech Valley Communications (TVC), a portfolio company of Riverside Partners, announced today that it has signed a definitive Asset Purchase Agreement to acquire substantially all of the assets of Vermont-based TelJet Longhaul, LLC, including TelJet’s fiber network and colocation facility. The transaction will create one of the largest and most dense fiber networks in Upstate New York and Northern New England. Tech Valley Communications will have more than 190,000 fiber miles and nearly 1,100 lit buildings, and will operate a network that spans New York, Northern New England (New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont) and reaches Canada.

The transaction is expected to close within the next 90 days, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approval.

“Acquiring TelJet’s fiber network and colocation facility is very exciting news for Tech Valley Communications. These assets are complementary to our existing footprint and further our goal of operating the largest, most advanced fiber network in Northern New England and Upstate New York,” commented Kevin O’Connor, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Tech Valley Communications.

Tech Valley Communications, founded in 1999, has been building and operating its own FirstLight(R) fiber optic network for over 13 years. Today, the TVC network serves carrier, wholesale and enterprise customers in Upstate New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Maine. TVC’s clientele includes national telecommunications providers, CLECs, and leading enterprises, including healthcare organizations, high tech manufacturing and research facilities, financial institutions, colleges and universities, K-12 schools, public safety agencies, as well as local and state governments.

TelJet Longhaul, LLC, founded in 2002, has built one of the largest fiber networks in Northern New England. With an expert team of experienced engineers, TelJet serves wholesale and enterprise customers in Vermont, New Hampshire and Montreal, Quebec. TelJet’s clientele includes CLECs and leading enterprises, including healthcare organizations, financial institutions, high tech development firms, colleges and universities, K-12 schools and media.

“TelJet’s mission is to deliver the solutions necessary for our clients to compete effectively on a local and global basis — and we will continue to hold true to that mission,” stated Greg Kelly, Founder and President of TelJet Longhaul, LLC. “Now as part of TVC, we will be better equipped to fulfill that mission. This transaction provides us the resources necessary to expand our service set and capabilities in Vermont and New Hampshire, which in turn will benefit our clients and help to create new jobs throughout the region. My staff and I are looking forward to joining the TVC team and continuing to provide the outstanding service and support that our customers have come to expect.”

“The growth potential created by combining the assets of TelJet with Tech Valley Communications is substantial, and we are very excited for what lies ahead not only for Tech Valley Communications, but the customer base as well,” commented Steven F. Kaplan, General Partner at Riverside Partners. “With over 25 years of experience in the telecommunications, Internet, and media industries, Greg Kelly is an industry veteran. He has worked hard to build TelJet into a premier telecommunications provider serving Northern New England, and his dedication to his customers will carry through to Tech Valley Communications. This transaction will expand TVC’s geographic reach and deepen relationships with both wholesale and enterprise customers.”

To learn more about Tech Valley Communications, please visit www.techvalleycom.com. For more information on TelJet, please visit www.teljet.com. For more information about Riverside Partners, please visit www.riversidepartners.com

About Tech Valley Communications Tech Valley Communications (TVC), headquartered in Albany, NY, provides fiber optic data, voice, and high-speed Internet services to enterprise, carrier and wholesale customers in Upstate New York and New England utilizing its own FirstLight(R) fiber optic network. TVC offers a robust suite of advanced telecommunications products, including dedicated Internet access, Metro Ethernet networks (E-LAN, E-Line), MPLS, traditional TDM solutions, SIP trunks, virtual PBX and audio-conferencing, managed commercial wireless systems, and Data Center Colocation. TVC’s clientele includes national cellular providers and CLECs and many leading enterprises spanning high tech manufacturing and research, hospitals and healthcare, banking and financial, secondary education, colleges and universities, MDUs (Multi-Dwelling Units) and local and state governments. Tech Valley Communications is the parent company of New Hampshire-based CLEC, segTEL. Tech Valley Communications is a portfolio company of Boston-based private equity firm Riverside Partners.

About TelJet TelJet Longhaul, LLC, headquartered in Williston, VT provides data, Internet and colocation services to enterprise and wholesale customers in Vermont, New Hampshire and Montreal, Quebec utilizing its own fiber optic network. TelJet offers Metro Ethernet services, Internet access, and Data Center Colocation. TelJet’s clientele includes wholesale carrier customers, medium and large enterprises, healthcare institutions, financial institutions, high tech development firms, colleges and universities, K-12 schools, TV and radio media firms.

About Riverside Partners Founded in 1989, Riverside Partners is a middle market private equity firm that focuses on growth oriented companies in the healthcare and technology industries. Riverside Partners is particularly experienced at partnering with founders, owners and management teams and it brings substantial domain expertise and operating experience to its portfolio companies. The partners at Riverside Partners have managed more than $500 million in investments in over 50 companies. The firm is currently focused on companies with revenues between $20 and $200 million and with $5-$25 million of EBITDA. For more information, please visit www.riversidepartners.com.

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If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to combine the sights of GRAND-AM and IMSA/DTM racing with the sounds of a full-fledged orchestra, well then, look no further. What you are about to witness is pure automotive track porn that could be headed to a North American track near you in 2015. Check it out after the jump.

Source: Youtube.com

SlickTasks is a productivity app by Glam Software that helps users manage tasks on BlackBerry 10. Loaded with features, SlickTasks has a clean user interface that’s optimized for getting things done.

SlickTasks is a great productivity app for BlackBerry 10 if you like working from action lists. The intuitive touch user interface allows for the very rapid adding of tasks and other common gestures like pulling down your task list to sync. Syncing is handy if you’ve added or managed any of your tasks from the SlickTasks web interface.

The features go deeper than any first party ToDo apps, divide tasks into subtasks or add color to your tasks to give them some additional context. Tag your tasks for easy searches later on, you can also filter your searches to narrow down a big list. You can also share tasks with other people via email whether you’ve communication to a supervisor keeping tabs on your workday or if you’re delegating tasks to others.

Click here to buy SlickTasks for BlackBerry 10 for $4.99 from BlackBerry World.

Click here to buy SlickTasks for your legacy BlackBerry OS 4 and above for $9.99 from BlackBerry World.

ProcessUnity said it secured a $5 million Series C round in a deal led by Rose Park Advisors’ Disruptive Innovation Fund. The funding will support growth and expand marketing and sales.

PRESS RELEASE

ProcessUnity Raises $5 Million, Led by Rose Park Advisors

Funding to Boost Marketing and Distribution of Company’s Risk Management Solutions

Concord, MA — April 2, 2013 — ProcessUnity, a privately-held risk management software company, today announced that it secured $5 million in a Series C round led by Rose Park Advisors’ Disruptive Innovation Fund. The funding will support the company’s rapid growth and expand marketing and sales of its SaaS solutions.

The company offers two distinct solutions: Risk Suite and Service Delivery Risk Management (SDRM). To address increased information security threats and regulatory mandates, ProcessUnity offers Risk Suite,focused on strong governance and control, vendor risk management, and compliance management.

To address increased complexity, cost pressures, and delivery risk for financial service providers, ProcessUnity offers SDRM, focused on managing complex service offerings and the end-to-end client management process of what is offered and how it’s delivered.

“After three years of strong growth and validation from our customers, we are ready to expand our reach and deploy our solutions to broader markets,” said Todd Stone, president and CEO of ProcessUnity. “We are excited to work with Rose Park Advisors’ CEO Matt Christensen and Chairman Dr. Clayton Christensen, and extremely pleased that our existing stockholders also participated in this round.”

ProcessUnity’s customers range from large commercial enterprises to independent consultants all facing the same challenge of managing risk effectively. These organizations rely on the ease of use, instant global deployment, low cost of ownership, and highly responsive service associated with the company’s solutions.

“ProcessUnity’s platform and solutions represent a disruptive innovation for today’s service-based economy,” said Matt Christensen, CEO of Rose Park Advisors. “The company’s solutions automate critical jobs to be done around risk management and product and service management in a way that offers breakthrough cost savings and operating efficiencies. The resulting business improvements, reporting, and analytics allow ProcessUnity’s customers to capitalize on risk management for competitive advantage.”

About ProcessUnity, Inc.
ProcessUnity is a risk management software company headquartered in historic Concord, Massachusetts. ProcessUnity’s Software as a Service solutions provide financial services firms and other organizations with the visibility and control they need to assess, measure, and mitigate risk and to ensure the optimal performance of key business processes. Customers and partners benefit from the ease of use, fast deployment, and low total cost of ownership associated with ProcessUnity’s risk, compliance, and operational control solutions.

The post ProcessUnity Raises $5M In Deal Led By Rose Park Advisors appeared first on peHUB.

One great part of TEDGlobal in Edinburgh—events held in castles. Photo: Ryan Lash

Few sensations feel better than when your mind does a backflip and, all of a sudden, you are suddenly able to see things in new and unexpected ways. At TEDGlobal 2013, themed “Think Again,” you’ll have this feeling often. “The approach we adopted,” explains TEDGlobal curator Bruno Giussani, “is to take a closer look at the global remix happening before our eyes as power shifts, culture and technology intersect, and hopes and anxieties collide. Many things we think we know may have to be reconsidered — and that’s what this program is designed to explore.” With speakers including biologists, economists, neuroscientists, architects, technologists, activists, artists, a “gentleman thief” and the former Prime Minister of Greece, the program is packed with speakers who take bold new looks at the topics that most intrigue us.

TEDGlobal 2013 will take place June 10 to 14, 2013, in Edinburgh, Scotland — one of the world’s best-preserved medieval cities. The conference is also watchable all across the globe with a TED Live membership. Here, the list of this year’s incredible speakers and performers. Click on their name to read much more or check out the full lineup, with bios, here »

Session 1: Moments of Truth

• John Kenny, Carnyx player
• Michael Sandel, Political philosopher
• Steve Howard, Corporate innovator
• Jose Miguel Sokoloff, Anti-guerrilla creative
• Manal Al-Sharif, Women’s rights activist
• Tariq Harb, Classic guitar virtuoso
• Uri Alon, Systems biologist

Session 2: Those Flying Things

• Raffaello D’Andrea, Autonomous systems visionary
• Lian Pin Koh, Drones ecologist
• Andreas Raptopoulos, Airborne logistics activist
• Daniel Suarez, Sci-fi author
• Elizaveta, Musical alchemist
• Greg Asner, Airborne ecologist

Session 3: Exquisite Enigmatic Us

• Hetain Patel, Visual artist
• Russell Foster, Circadian neuroscientist
• Elizabeth Loftus, False memories scholar
• Sandra Aamodt, Neuroscientist and science writer
• Kelly McGonigal, Science-help psychologist
• Natasha Bedingfield, Singer, songwriter 

Session 4: Money Talks

• George Papandreou, Former Prime Minister of Greece
• Annette Heuser, Rating agency reformer
• Toby Eccles, Social investment visionary
• Didier Sornette, Risk economist
• Apollo Robbins, Gentleman thief
• Mariana Mazzucato, Innovation economist

Session 5: Listening to Nature

• Bernie Krause, Natural sounds legend
• Marla Spivak, Bees scholar
• Sonia Shah, Science writer
• Greg Gage, Neuroscientist
• Yaron Herman, Jazz pianist
• Holly Morris, Explorer and filmmaker
• Carin Bondar, Wild sex biologist

Session 6: World on Its Head

• Nassim Assefi, Doctor, novelist, Guest Host
• Gabriella Gomez-Mont, Creativity Officer, Guest Host
• Juan Pardinas,Economic policy innovator
• Trita Parsi, Historian
• Tania Bruguera, Performance artist
• Dina El Wedidi, Singer
• Lesley Hazleton, Accidental theologist
• May El-Khalil, Founder of the Beirut Marathon
• Teddy Cruz, Architect and urbanist

Session 7: Regeneration

• Molly Stevens, Biomaterials researcher
• Siddharthan Chandran, Regenerative neurologist
• Grégoire Courtine, Spinal cord researcher
• Mark Kendall, Biomedical engineer
• Naomi Wolf, Author and social critic
• Le Trio Joubran, Oud trio

Session 8: State of the Nations

• Renata Salecl, Democracy thinker
• Eric X. Li, Investor and political scientist
• Shereen El Feki, Arab sexuality expert
• Lissie, Singer and songwriter
• Benjamin Barber, Political theorist

Session 9: Forces of Change

• Adrian Hong, Advisor, strategist, Guest Host
• Erik Hersman, Blogger, technologist, Guest Host
• Dambisa Moyo, Global economist
• Charles Robertson, Emerging-markets economist
• Toby Shapshak, Technology writer
• Just a Band, Funk band
• Mustafa Abushagur, Former Prime Minister-Elect of Libya
• Joseph Kim, North Korean refugee

Session 10: Imagined Beauty

• Gavin Pretor-Pinney, Cloudspotter
• Arthur Benjamin, Mathemagician
• Alexa Meade, Visual artist
• Stephen Burt, Poetry critic
• Zhang Xin, Builder
• Pico Iyer, Global author

Session 11: Tech Impact

• An Xiao Mina, Creative technologist
• Eben Upton, Raspberry Pi inventor
• Anant Agarwal, Education innovator
• Alessandro Acquisti, Privacy economist
• Tim Exile, Electromusician
• Abha Dawesar, Novelist

Session 12: All Together Now

• Chrystia Freeland, Plutocracy chronicler
• Charmian Gooch, Anti-corruption activist
• Michael Porter, Business strategist
• RuthAnne, Singer and songwriter
• Salvatore Iaconesi, Open-source engineer and artist
• Br. David Steindl-Rast, Monk

For a photo layout of the sessions » 

And for much more information on each and every speaker » 

A view of the beautiful Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh, where TED University at TEDGlobal takes place. Photo: James Duncan Davidson/Ryan Lash

Shell said it will invest several hundred million dollars in emerging technology companies over six to eight years with the goal of finding innovations useful to the company’s operations. Target technologies include smarter exploration processes and enhanced extraction techniques. Shell’s corporate venturing arm, Shell Technology Ventures, will make investments.

PRESS RELEASE

Shell ready to invest several hundred million dollars in promising technology companies

02 Apr 2013 — Shell is ready to invest several hundred million dollars in emerging technology companies, with the aim to accelerate the deployment of innovations that add value to the company’s operations. From smarter exploration processes to enhanced extraction techniques, Shell’s corporate venturing arm Shell Technology Ventures will make investments over the next six to eight years.

Gerald Schotman, Executive Vice President Innovation, R&D and Shell Chief Technology Officer, said:

“Ideas from outside the organisation are critical to our open innovation approach to R&D. We want to enable the brightest and the best to develop their ideas, and benefit from Shell’s expertise and global reach, so that we can get these technologies up and running in our projects as fast as we can.”

As well as promising technology companies, Shell is looking to invest in technology spin-outs and externally-managed venture capital funds. The company will look at areas including gas production and conversion; geophysical imaging; chemical manufacturing and conversion; novel materials; enhanced oil recovery; and water treatment. Various aspects of information technology (“Big Data”); oil and gas wells drilling and completion; sub-surface sensing; production in challenging environments; operational efficiency; and future energy technologies will also be sought.

Partners may be granted access to Shell’s technical experts, its global research capability and its customer, supplier and contractor base. Shell may look to enable field trials where appropriate and serve as a launching customer for these new technologies. Companies are encouraged to submit their proposals via the process as set out at www.shell.com/techventures.

Geert van de Wouw, Shell Technology Ventures Director, said:

“We are looking to develop long-term mutually, beneficial partnerships with emerging technology companies, venture capital firms and corporate venturing organisations. A good example of where this is already working is our investment in GlassPoint Solar Inc. Their pilot plant in the Middle East taps heat from the sun to generate steam for enhanced oil recovery. Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) contracted GlassPoint to build the plant, which is currently being tested.”

Shell Technology Ventures is the corporate venturing arm of Shell and follows the existing Shell Technology Ventures Fund 1, which is managed by independent Kenda Capital. Kenda will continue to commercialise its existing portfolio of oil and gas technology investments.

The post Shell To Invest Several Hundred Million In Emerging Tech Companies appeared first on peHUB.

Every business-to-business CEO and CMO I’ve met — most of whom came of age prior to the social media era — is trying to understand how to leverage social media to grow their business. They want to understand Twitter. They want reports on their Klout scores. They have marketing departments retaining outside social media consultants. They pay content marketing firms to write company blogs and produce YouTube videos. They hire 20-somethings to manage the corporate Twitter account, and they are in the process of spending untold dollars on social media monitoring systems.

Yet I’ve never once heard the question: Is this social network actually the one where our prospects and customers are influenced to buy?

While social platforms like Facebook and Twitter are massively popular, they’re so topically diffuse that they can be poor places to target and market products to your audience. When your customers discuss the actual business problems that your company solves, they are likely spending their time within a domain-specific social network. This could be an old-fashioned (by Internet standards) discussion forum, hosted on a dedicated website or with a vendor like ProBoards. In-depth topical discussion rarely happens on Facebook and Twitter, but you can find it on dedicated social networks with domain-specific features.

My company, ChartIQ, builds software to analyze and annotate stock charts. Our users — current and future — are, of course, on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, but when they want to discuss stocks, and the software like ours that they use to inform their trading decisions, they’re on domain-specific social networks.

The stock and forex trading marketplace is full of old-school discussion boards, but recently a new breed of truly domain-specific social networks has emerged. Looking to develop and launch our business, we set our sights on one particular network — StockTwits. It supports sharing of annotated stock charts, a key visual aid when discussing stocks — but far too esoteric to be found on Twitter.

We developed a strategy to accomplish three goals across this social network: customer development, brand awareness, and traditional marketing and customer acquisition.

Customer Development, a concept popularized by Steve Blank and Eric Ries, calls for spending time in the field with customers to understand their needs and develop product features to meet those needs, as well as to understand the market dynamics themselves. We immersed ourselves in the StockTwits community among our target users, listening, asking questions, and building relationships (some people became our beta testers and early adopters). Finding a large number of users that we could observe and engage with would have been extremely difficult without a community like StockTwits (we tried).

We approached brand awareness, a traditional marketing goal, in a new way through social networks. As a bootstrapped startup, we couldn’t afford to launch a traditional branding campaign — no Super Bowl ads for us — but by contributing stock chart analysis to the StockTwits community and participating as members, we’ve driven thousands of eyeballs to our brand and products, while providing value to the community. As active StockTwits members, we’ve developed relationships with key influencers within the community who now use our product and publish stock charts across the network.

As our product matured, we again tapped domain-specific social networks for product integration and traditional marketing efforts. From our previous customer development work, we learned that allowing users to participate in StockTwits from within our app would be a differentiating feature, so we launched a deep integration between our products, building a full StockTwits client into our app. Aside from competitive differentiation, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in time spent per visit within the app (from 16 to 30 minutes on average). Finally, we launched a set of banner ads across the StockTwits site to attract the customers we had worked so hard to understand and develop a product for.

When we set our social media strategy we didn’t ignore Twitter and Facebook, but we focused our time, content strategy, and community building in the specific networks where people congregate to discuss stocks. By concentrating our efforts and key performance metrics on these networks, we free ourselves from vanity metrics such as “Likes” and “Followers,” focusing on what really matters: customer acquisition.

My definition of a great Opening Day: When your team’s pitcher hits a home run and throws a complete game shutout against your archrival. Major League Baseball executives are celebrating a different Opening Day milestone: the skyrocketing popularity of the league’s official mobile app, At Bat. On Tuesday, MLB announced that the At Bat app, which is available for iOS, Android and BlackBerry, was accessed 6 million times on Monday, the first day of baseball’s 2013 season. That’s double the amount of use the app saw on Opening Day 2012.

The league has offered mobile apps for several years and has continued to attract new app users each season by experimenting with pricing structures, adding new features and most importantly, giving fans ways to access its live and archived content on a phone or tablet. The audience has historically been made up of mostly iOS users, who account for 70 percent of the free At Bat app downloads and 85 percent of the paid app downloads. But MLB’s Advanced Media office, which develops those apps, says Android use has been growing recently.

Baseball’s mobile app audience is interesting because it’s not like the TV watching audience — MLB apps are not just used by fans who aren’t at a game. MLB has deftly built its online and mobile viewing audience by understanding that and embracing the ubiquity of mobile devices. MLB Advanced Media CEO Bob Bowman — who will be speaking at paidContent Live 2013 this month in New York City — told me recently that for younger fans, the smartphone “is the first screen, not second screen” and that any app the league makes “has to have everything” if they want to engage and keep those fans around for years.

Today MLB apps can be used as a mobile baseball ticket, and to check in, get coupons for merchandise, order food and even upgrade your seat during the game with MLB mobile apps — and, of course, to watch or listen to games when you’re not near a TV.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• Podcast: Mobile winners and losers in 2012 and what to expect in 2013
• Analyzing the wearable computing market
• How do developers ride the Siri wave?

We’ve already seen AT&T announce that they’ll start taking preorders for the Galaxy S 4 on April 16th, but if you’re just a really, really skeptical person, we officially have some information about AT&T’s version of the device from an FCC filing. A Samsung device with the exact same dimensions as the S 4 and AT&T’s LTE bands has gotten approval, so unless AT&T and Samsung have another 5-inch device lined up to show us, it’s a pretty safe bet that this is the S 4.

Are any of you picking up an S 4 on AT&T this month?

source: Engadget

Come comment on this article: AT&T’s Galaxy S 4 hits the FCC

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been nearly 8 years since eBay acquired Shopping.com. After all that time, eBay has decided to rebrand the property as the eBay Commerce Network in a move the company says will “better reflect its evolution from a single-destination” site to a “robust commerce network”.

The company said in an announcement:

Consumers’ shopping habits have drastically changed since 1997, when Shopping.com first launched. Originally, buyers had fewer online options to research and ultimately buy their products. Today, consumers can access many more options, with the average shopper visiting 10.4 websites during their purchasing process.

To keep pace with the changing nature of buying and shopping, the eBay Commerce Network has evolved into an active commerce ad network capable of connecting retailers with buyers at any stage of the shopping experience – from awareness to purchase.

Kristy Troup, GM of the U.S. Business at the newly branded eBay Commerce Network, says, “We are committed to enhancing and scaling our network so that we can deliver new customers and drive meaningful sales by offering our merchants the broadest reach across the web at the right ROI. As an eBay company, we are focused on connecting buyers and sellers through relevant digital advertising.”

There are already 4,000 merchants working with the eBay Commerce Network. Merchants who partner with the network get placements on eBay, Bing and CNET, according to the announcement.

So far, the shopping.com homepage doesn’t have much in the way of new branding.

With mobile phones and tablets getting more advanced every single day, so does the hardware that goes inside them. Mobile chip designer ARM and TSMC have managed to create the first 64-bit Cortex-A57 processor. Even more impressive, they did it utilizing 16nm technology developed by TSMC. According to an official press release, the process took six months and is ARM’s most powerful processor ever. Cortex-A57 processors are the predecessor to the Cortex-A15 and deliver significantly more performance (pictured above). ARM doesn’t say when this next generation processor will be released and you can read the official press release below.

HSINCHU, Taiwan and CAMBRIDGE, England, April 2, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — ARM and TSMC (TWSE: 2330, NYSE: TSM) today announced the first tape-out of an ARM® Cortex™-A57 processor on FinFET process technology. The Cortex-A57 processor is ARM’s highest performing processor, designed to further extend the capabilities of future mobile and enterprise computing, including compute intensive applications such as high-end computer, tablet and server products. This is the first milestone in the collaboration between ARM and TSMC to jointly optimize the 64-bit ARMv8 processor series on TSMC FinFET process technologies. The two companies cooperated in the implementation from RTL to tape-out in six months using ARM Artisan® physical IP, TSMC memory macros, and EDA technologies enabled by TSMC’s Open Innovation Platform® (OIP) design ecosystem.

ARM and TSMC’s collaboration produces optimized, power-efficient Cortex-A57 processors and libraries to support early customer implementations on 16nm FinFET for high-performance, ARM technology-based SoCs.

“This first ARM Cortex-A57 processor implementation paves the way for our mutual customers to leverage the performance and power efficiency of 16nm FinFET technology,” said Tom Cronk, executive vice president and general manager, Processor Division, ARM. “The joint effort of ARM, TSMC, and TSMC’s OIP design ecosystem partners demonstrates the strong commitment to provide industry-leading technology for customer designs to benefit from our latest 64-bit ARMv8 architecture, big.LITTLE™ processing and ARM POP™ IP across a wide variety of market segments.”

“Our multi-year, multi-node collaboration with ARM continues to deliver advanced technologies to enable market-leading SoCs across mobile, server, and enterprise infrastructure applications,” said Dr. Cliff Hou, TSMC Vice President of R&D. “This achievement demonstrates that the next-generation ARMv8 processor is FinFET-ready for TSMC’s advanced technology.”

This announcement highlights the enhanced and intensified collaboration between ARM and TSMC. The test chip was implemented using a commercially available 16nm FinFET tool chain and design services provided by the OIP ecosystem and ARM Connected Community partners. This successful collaborative milestone is confirmation of the roles that TSMC’s OIP and ARM’s Connected Community play in promoting innovation for the semiconductor design industry.

Come comment on this article: ARM Teams Up With TSMC To Create First 16nm Cortex-A57 Processor

Firefox 19, which launched in the middle of February, shipped with a built-in PDF viewer. Its successor, Firefox 20, comes with something even better – an update to the browser’s outdated download manager.

Firefox 20 launched today, and the updated browser comes with a new download manager that makes Firefox much more visually appealing. If you used any previous version of Firefox, you’d know that the download manager was contained in a separate window. Now the download manager is contained within a drop down menu on the top right of the browser.

Another addition in Firefox 20 is per-window private browsing. In other words, you can open a new private browser window without having to restart Firefox.

Firefox for Android also gets an updated private window mode with the ability to open a new private tab without having to close the app. The Android app also adds the ability to customize the home screen with your most visited sites.

Finally, Firefox for Android is adding support for devices with ARMv6 processors. Mozilla says that popular devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Next, HTC Aria, HTC Legend, Samsung Dart, Samsung Galaxy Pop and the Samsung Galaxy Q all now support Firefox for Android.

You can grab Firefox 20 for desktops here. Firefox for Android is available on Google Play.

Diet company Nutrisystem today announced that actress Melissa Joan Hart has signed on as the “brand ambassador” for the diet system.

Hart rose to fame in the early 90s in her role as Melissa Darling on the Nickelodeon TV show Clarissa Explains it All. She went on to play Sabrina Spellman in the long-running ABC TV series Sabrina the Teenage Witch. She currently stars in the ABC Family TV series Melissa & Joey.

“I love working with Nutrisystem,” said Hart. “The Program is really delivering results for me and I look forward to long term success, staying motivated and helping others do the same.”

Hart gave birth to her third son with husband mark Wilkerson last September. She has also written a memoir titled Melissa Explains It All: Tales from My Abnormally Normal Life, which is scheduled to be published in October 2013.

Nutrisystem in a statement claimed that Hart has lost twenty pounds on the company’s diet.

“We are thrilled to be helping and working with Melissa,” said Keira Krausz, CMO at Nutrisystem. “She mirrors our values and will resonate with our customers as authentic. Moving forward, you’ll see us have an appropriate mix of inspiring celebrities and real life customers who have also enjoyed success. We think dieters are savvier than ever and really appreciate someone who – above all else – is relatable.”

Google has announced a new partnership with two companies that provide social sign-in tools to a wide range of major websites and apps, including Nike, NPR and Fox. The move is designed to make Google+ become a more commonly used registration tool alongside Facebook Connect and Twitter, and might even inject some life into the search giant’s social network.

In a Tuesday blog post, Google announced that infrastructure platforms Janrain and Gigya will start including Google+ in their product suites; the tools provide a way for publishers to let visitors log-in through existing social media passwords rather than creating a new account from scratch.  The news comes a month after the company rolled out the Google+ log-in tool with a handful of partners, including The Fancy and Open Table.

Seth Sternberg, who is director of product management at Google+, said in a phone interview that the log-in option provides Google+ users with a secure way to log in to websites without having to worry that the sign-on will lead to over-sharing and spamming friends on the social network (this has been a problem for Facebook in the past). Sternberg also touted the log-in tool as a way for publishers to garner data about Google+ users and to take advantage of the “over-the-air” app feature for Android — a tool that allows publishers to beam their app directly to a mobile device.

The widespread availability of Google+ as a log-in tool may prove convient for some users, but it also raises questions about Google’s overall strategic goal for its social network, which has in the past been derided as a ghost town (the characterization may be fair — I visited for the first time in a while yesterday and discovered none of my friends had posted there in months). While the company boasted in December that it had 135 million active users, it’s far from certain that most of those are treating Google+ as a full-fledged social network — as my colleague Janko Roettgers pointed out, many of them may just be dropping by to use the video chat service

Increasingly, it’s coming to seem that Google+ may never become a popular social network in its own right, but that it’s most valuable role may be as as a piece of backend infrastructure for Google’s other properties — search, YouTube and so on. In the meantime, tools like the log-in function will serve to drain at least some data and users away from rivals Facebook and Twitter. And on this front, the company may be having some success. According to Gigya CEO Patrick Salyer, Google is the second most popular social sign-in option after Facebook.

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After a slight dip in popularity, WWE star Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock, seems bent on making a comeback in the cultural psyche. Starring in the new G.I. Joe: Retaliation movie and the upcoming reality/contest TV series The Hero on TNT will help, but there was still one thing needed to make the effort complete – a video game. That last box can now be checked with the release of WWE Presents: Rockpocalypse in the Google Play Store. 

The new title takes place on a Hollywood soundstage when the folks on the lot start changing into violent, angry beasts due to some unknown pathogen. At least, that is how the setting is described. Screenshots make the enemies The Rock battles appear as regular goons. The goal of all the action is to guide The Rock through the movie lot, punching, kicking and slamming along the way, to find the source of the infection. The game includes hidden clues, upgrades to health, stamina, attack and slam capabilities, and five different combat skills.

Rockpocalypse requires Android 4.0 or higher, clocks in at 226MB and it is free. If you feel like taking a turn as the People’s Champion and want to lay the smack down on some bad guys, use one of the download links below to grab a copy for your Android device.

Google Play Download Link

Come comment on this article: WWE Presents: Rockpocalypse now available in Google Play Store

Ronan the sea lion knows how to keep a beat. Just turn on some disco or some late 90s Backstreet Boys, and she’ll nod her head and keep time. Incredible.

Here’s what the University of California Santa Cruz’s Pinniped Lab had to say about Ronan:

One of our resident sea lions, Ronan, is the first non-human mammal shown able to find and keep the beat with musical stimuli. This challenges earlier evidence from humans and parrots suggesting that complex vocal mimicry is a necessary precondition for flexible rhythmic entrainment.

All I know is that she’s a much better dancer than I am.

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