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If you still want to experience the superb new drama House of Cards but aren’t a Netflix subscriber, you’ll have to wait until the summer.

A little over four months after it premiered as a Netflix exclusive, the Kevin Spacey-led David Fincher-produced policial series will get a physical release.

Amazon is now listing the complete first season on both DVD and Blu-ray.

You can snag the Blu-ray set on Amazon for $52.99 and the DVD set will run you $44.99. Both the DVD and Blu-ray sets will launch on June 11th, coming to you from Sony Pictures.

Back in 2011, Sony Pictures Television signed on to handle the distribution of the show once Netflix’s streaming window ended.

Just a couple of weeks after Netflix released all 13 episodes of season 1 to a hungry subscriber base, House of Cards became the most-watched thing on the entire streaming service. Shortly after that, the show topped IMDb’s list for the most popular show in the world. After about three weeks, we learned that around 3 million Netflix subscribers had streamed at least one episode of the show.

[via Engadget]

Note: Have questions about the BRAIN Initiative? Today, at 12:00 p.m. EDT, Tom Kalil, Innovation Advisor; Dr. Francis Collins, Director of National Institutes of Health; and Dr. Arati Prabhakar, Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will answer your questions. Ask on Twitter with #WHChat.

Today at the White House, President Obama unveiled the “BRAIN” Initiative—a bold new research effort to revolutionize our understanding of the human mind and uncover new ways to treat, prevent, and cure brain disorders like Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, autism, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injury.

The BRAIN Initiative — short for Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies — builds on the President’s State of the Union call for historic investments in research and development to fuel the innovation, job creation, and economic growth that together create a thriving middle class.

The Initiative promises to accelerate the invention of new technologies that will help researchers produce real-time pictures of complex neural circuits and visualize the rapid-fire interactions of cells that occur at the speed of thought. Such cutting-edge capabilities, applied to both simple and complex systems, will open new doors to understanding how brain function is linked to human behavior and learning, and the mechanisms of brain disease.

President Barack Obama is introduced by Dr. Francis Collins, Director, National Institutes of Health, at the BRAIN Initiative event in the East Room of the White House, April 2, 2013.

(Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

In his remarks this morning, the President highlighted the BRAIN Initiative as one of the Administration’s “Grand Challenges” – ambitious but achievable goals that require advances in science and technology to accomplish. The President called on companies, research universities, foundations, and philanthropies to join with him in identifying and pursuing additional Grand Challenges of the 21st century—challenges that can create the jobs and industries of the future while improving lives.

In addition to fueling invaluable advances that improve lives, the pursuit of Grand Challenges can create the jobs and industries of the future.

read more

A little humility can go a long way — and result in better PR. In the face of an incessant media campaign against its customer service policies in the China and a week or so of being called “arrogant,” Apple chose a response that included a small change to iPhone warranties and a big apology — from its CEO himself, Tim Cook. The effect was nearly instant: just a day later, China’s government-controlled media outlets and a government agency are singing Apple’s praises.

Reuters reports the reactions:

“The company’s apology letter has eased the situation, softening the tense relationship between Apple and the Chinese market … Its reaction is worth respect compared with other American companies,” wrote popular tabloid the Global Times, published by Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily.

The Foreign Ministry praised Apple for “conscientiously” responding to consumers’ demands.

“We approve of what Apple said,” spokesman Hong Lei told a daily news briefing on Tuesday.

It’s quite a change in tune. Over the past two weeks, Apple has been the subject of an orchestrated campaign that included local celebrities bashing Apple’s return and repair policies on social media; a series of editorials calling the company arrogant; and a demand for new warranty policies, including upping the standard one-year warranty to two years for the iPad.

Apple’s decision to have Cook put his name on an apology for the inconsistent warranty and repair policies in the country isn’t unprecedented — he’s apologized for the Apple Maps fiasco, and Steve Jobs apologized for the iPhone 4 antenna — but it’s rare. The outcome was positive for Apple this time: the apology had the immediate effect of changing the increasingly bad PR the company was getting in China. But it will be interesting to see what kind of precedent this sets for how Apple gets along in its No. 2 market with the Chinese media, and more importantly, the Chinese government.

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Allegan-Mich.-based Perrigo Company has acquired pet health company Velcera Inc. for approximately $160 million in cash. Perrigo is publicly traded.

PRESS RELEASE
The sale of privately-held Velcera, Inc. (“Velcera”) — a leading pet health company committed to providing consumers with best-in-class pet health products that contain the same active ingredients as branded veterinary products but at a significantly lower cost — to Allegan-Mich.-based Perrigo Company (Nasdaq: PRGO; TASE) closed today for approximately $160 million in cash.

Velcera and its FidoPharm subsidiary is best known for its flea and tick treatment PetArmor®, which is the No. 1 generic of Frontline® Top Spot containing the No. 1 vet-recommended active ingredient for flea and tick protection. PetArmor® is backed by 20 clinical trials to prove its effectiveness and safety. PetArmor’s® money-back “Protection Guarantee” promises to protect your dog or cat as well as Frontline® products or PetArmor® will refund the purchase price.

Velcera, together with major retail partners, has been instrumental in developing an OTC market for pet health products traditionally dispensed primarily by veterinarians. Retail sales of the PetArmor® franchise exceeded $100 million during calendar year 2012, the value-brand’s first full year on the market, having launched in April 2011.

Under Perrigo, the PetArmor® franchise brand will continue to enjoy the same broad distribution at retailers nationwide that pet consumers have come to expect since PetArmor® launched two years ago.

“The extraordinary synergies between Velcera and Perrigo means that even more pet owners can receive best-in-class pet health products,” said Dennis Steadman, Velcera’s president and CEO.

To learn more about PetArmor®, visit www.PetArmor.com Facebook: Facebook.com/PetArmor Twitter: Twitter.com/PetArmor YouTube: Youtube.com/PetArmor

Frontline® is the registered trademark of Merial Frontline® and Merial are not affiliated with PetArmor®

The post Perrigo Buys Velcera appeared first on peHUB.

When Google abruptly unified its privacy policies a year ago, data protection authorities in France reckoned the result broke EU law. The French regulator, CNIL, subsequently took up the cause on behalf of its peers across the various European nations, and sent Google a comprehensive list of questions about the change. Then, in October, following unsatisfactory responses from Google, the regulators came back with a series of recommendations for the company.

Google did not implement the recommendations within the allotted four months, even after a meeting in March with CNIL and data protection authorities (DPAs) from Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy. And now we see the result. According to a CNIL statement on Tuesday:

“It is now up to each national data protection authority to carry out further investigations according to the provisions of its national law transposing European legislation. Consequently, all the authorities composing the taskforce have launched actions on 2 April 2013 on the basis of the provisions laid down in their respective national legislation (investigations, inspections, etc.)

“In particular, the CNIL notified Google of the initiation of an inspection procedure and that it had set up an international administrative cooperation procedure with its counterparts in the taskforce.”

The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) also confirmed that it had opened an investigation to check whether the privacy policy complies with that country’s Data Protection Act (each EU member state transposes EU law into its own version, and there are sometimes variations in interpretation).

Google, meanwhile, said in a statement that its privacy policy “respects European law and allows us to create simpler, more effective services”. “We have engaged fully with the DPAs involved throughout this process, and we’ll continue to do so going forward,” the company added.

What did Google do wrong?

The main problems with the privacy policy, according to the regulators, are that Google doesn’t provide clear and comprehensive information about the data it collects and what it uses the data for, and that it also doesn’t give users control over the way data is mixed and matched across different services.

The DPAs want Google to give its users “the opportunity to choose when their data are combined, for instance with dedicated buttons in the services”, as well as a centralized opt-out for data collection. They also want Google to be much clearer with its users about the way it gathers and exploits their data, ideally “with three levels of detail to ensure that information complies with the requirements laid down in the [Data Protection] Directive and does not degrade the users’ experience”.

So what happens if Google fails to satisfy the DPAs? As this is now being dealt with on a national basis, that depends on the DPA. In the case of the UK ICO, Google could in theory be hit with a monetary penalty of up to £500,000 ($758,000), but it could also be forced to change its processes and practices.

It’s not hard to see the benefit of Google unifying its services, but the DPAs do have a point about the levels of information and control afforded to Google’s customers. It must surely be possible for both Google and the regulators to get their way, although the variable there is the ability of the users to understand and act on the information and controls they are given.

In the new realpolitik required by the collision of big data and privacy, perhaps people will need to start getting used to this kind of granularity.

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With so many people drinking from the Twitter fire hose, it’s no wonder that some people have suggested that it can replace the soon-to-be defunct Google Reader. But that vision is based on the mistaken idea that Twitter, at its heart, is a news medium.

I believe there’s a better way to use Twitter: as a relationship medium, one that helps you find, connect, and converse with people. Being the first with a nugget of industry gossip is nice, but creating, nourishing and sustaining meaningful working relationships is far more fundamental to your professional success and career development.

And with thoughtful use, Twitter can help support those relationships. Instead of the self-organized sphere of Google Reader, you can use Twitter as a system where others do the filtering for you: a network you’ve assembled that is telling you to “check this out,” or better yet, “read this, and here’s why it matters to you.”

As I describe in Work Smarter with Twitter and HootSuite, published today by Harvard Business Review Press, the key to making effective, satisfying use of Twitter is to keep your attention focused on the people who matter most to you. You do that by using Twitter lists to organize your tweets, giving each list a name that prompts you to think about how you want to relate to each set of people you follow. A multi-column Twitter client like HootSuite (one of the world’s most popular Twitter clients) can help you focus on your lists rather than your home feed, so you’re much less likely to get overwhelmed. (Full disclosure: My employer, Vision Critical, built a survey app that plugs into HootSuite.)

Ironically, the book’s prescription for using Twitter and HootSuite also calls for using Google Reader to keep your own Twitter feed populated with news and links that will be useful to the people you care about; the book went to (digital) press before Google made its announcement. While much of the value of Reader can’t be replicated by the Twitter/HootSuite combo, when it comes to keeping your own Twitter presence lively, the combination of Twitter lists and a multi-column Twitter app can do the job.

Here’s how to set up HootSuite so that you can use it to find share-able news:

Organize the people you follow into Twitter lists; you don’t have to put everyone into a list, just the people you most want to attend to. Name each list in a way that reminds you of what you want from each set of people and relationships: “Learn,” “Collaborate,” “Laugh,” “Inspire,” and so forth.

Create a “Lists” tab in HootSuite. Set up each of the lists you’ve just created in a separate HootSuite column. If set up well, you’ll use this tab to focus your attention on the relationships that matter, instead of getting lost in your home feed.

Create a dedicated “News” tab in HootSuite. Add people to it that you want to learn from or be informed by. Then set up search and keyword columns (“streams”, in HootSpeak) to track news and links in your field. For example, the #MRX hashtag is used by people who tweet about market research, so I have a HootSuite column setup that includes any tweet with the keyword #MRX. I also have a column set up to track news about information overload, powered by the search string “overload (digital OR email OR information OR “social media”).”

Subscribe to RSS feeds from within HootSuite. While HootSuite has a built-in RSS feed tool, it’s designed for people who want to automatically tweet out their own blog posts. If you want to use HootSuite to subscribe to RSS feeds from other people, you’re better off using the RSS app, available for free from the HootSuite App Directory. Use it to subscribe to the RSS feeds of Google News and Google blog searches, constructing your search queries so they reflect the specific topic or niche you want to cover in your own Twitter feed.

Filter your “News” streams to show only links. The lists and keywords searches you’ve set up in your News tab will likely include a lot of tweets that don’t link to share-able news items. To narrow those feeds down so that they only show you link-bearing tweets, use the “filter by” option in HootSuite (in the top-right of each column, under the down-pointing arrow) and enter a slash (“/”); it will filter the column so it only shows you tweets that include the slash that is part of virtually any shared link. Now your column will consist almost entirely of links.

Share valuable links by posting them on Twitter yourself. If you’re planning to tweet or share a link that came to you through someone else’s Twitter feed, it’s polite to acknowledge the source of the link. If you’re using their tweet verbatim, acknowledge it as a retweet (beginning with RT @theirusernameI); if you’re writing your own tweet to share a link you discovered through someone else, thank them by finishing your tweet with HT @theirusername [as in “hat tip”] or via @theirusername.

Even if you’re not ready to make the leap to HootSuite, or set up custom columns, setting up a few Twitter lists can help you focus your online interaction on the people who matter most to you professionally, and focus your attention on the links they recommend. (You can also follow lists other people have curated by searching for lists on listatlas.com. It’s the best replacement I’ve found for Listorious, which also closed since I submitted my manuscript!) Beyond HootSuite’s own mobile apps, a tablet-oriented news reading app can give you a magazine-like way to read the news shared by your Twitter friends; in the case of the popular Flipboard app, you can even browse the latest news from specific Twitter lists.

None of these workarounds have dried my tears over the impending death of Google Reader, but they have shown me a silver lining. Every time a beloved web service closes, it gives us the opportunity to rethink the way we work and to reallocate our attention to what really matters. And if the term “social web” is to mean anything, what matters will always be not the information itself, but the people behind it.

The Hybrid Memory Cube consortium, a group that includes some of the largest memory manufacturers, has released a standard specification for the DRAM technology after 17 months in development. The goal of the consortium — and the spec — is to support a new form of computer chip that weds memory and processing in a dense cube structure that packs in more memory while consuming less power.

The resulting chips should find homes in high-performance computing, networking, gaming and other applications that require fast access to data stored in memory. And they should appear in physical products by the first half of next year. Eventually, this will have applications in cloud computing and even data analysis. According to the consortium, a single HMC offers a 15x performance increase and uses 70 percent less energy per bit when compared to today’s memory.

When I covered the launch of the effort in 2011, I explained the problem this new chip would solve:

The chip industry is really good at making a CPU that does calculations faster, but it hasn’t been able to make memory chips fast and dense enough to feed the cores enough information to keep up with the CPU’s capabilities. So what chips are left with is a massively large brain that stands idle sometimes while it waits for information to come to it. That idle time burns power and reduces the overall performance of a computer — and it’s becoming a bigger deal as both power and performance are being pushed to the edge.

Since that story was written, the consortium — founded by Samsung and Micron — has grown to more than 100 companies. The members now include big name vendors and users such as ARM, IBM, Microsoft, SK Hynix and HP as well as many smaller and specialty chip firms. The details of the announcement today are about how other chips will connect with the hybrid memory cube.

The structure of the chip is very different from traditional densely-packed DRAM modules. It’s stacked, which is a common way chipmakers have tried to pack in more memory — but instead of stacking the DRAM and connecting it via interconnects on the outside of the chip, the HMC has holes through the module with nanowires connecting the memory modules.

This process, known as Through Silicon Vias or TSV is of growing interest in the industry as it slogs down the path of making 3-D chips. But anytime you change a core silicon element significantly you have to figure out a lot of things –from the hardware layer all the way up to the applications. Today’s spec details how things will shunt bits to and from the hybrid memory cube. From the release:

“The achieved specification provides an advanced, short-reach (SR) and ultra short-reach (USR) interconnection across physical layers (PHYs) for applications requiring tightly coupled or close-proximity memory support for FPGAs, ASICs and ASSPs, such as high-performance networking, and test and measurement. The next goal for the consortium is to further advance standards designed to increase data rate speeds for SR from 10, 12.5 and 15Gb/s up to 28Gb/s. Speeds for USR interconnections will be driven from 10 up to 15Gb/s. The next level of specification is projected to gain consortium agreement by the first quarter of 2014.”

In short, the HMC will support 10 gigabit per second data rates at a minimum for both when they are the same board (short reach) and when they are packed even more tightly (around two to three inches) and get faster over time. Wicked fast.

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What’s Argentina’s Plan B?

President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has said she will sell the presidential palace in Buenos Aires, if need be, to keep paying creditors who agreed to restructure the country’s debts.  But it may not come to that. Warning: this is a complicated saga with very interesting twists.

A pair of hedge fund litigants demanding $1.3 billion in payments and a New York court are making it hard for Kirchner to keep paying international bondholders. But she might contemplate asking those existing creditors to swap into Argentine law bonds, to which the writ of the New York court will not extend.

First some background. Argentina is due to pay bond coupons this week and in June. Looks like the hedge funds will decline the payment proposal Argentina made last week; this could lead to a default.

Most investors reckon this week’s payment is safe and that the crash will fall in June.  Argentina pleaded in the NY court that its own laws prohibit it from paying more to the hedge funds than it pays other creditors. Out of court it is less polite, calling the two hedge funds vultures. See here for more.

So, back to a putative Plan B. Deputy President Amado Boudou said this weekend Argentina would find a way to pay the exchange creditors irrespective of the outcome of the court hearing. That has supported bond prices. But it also suggests he may resort to local law bonds. That option, in principle, may look attractive to creditors who might otherwise find themselves holding defaulted debt again. In reality, the switch may be tough to do. Why? Here’s what Stuart Culverhouse, head of research at Exotix in London says:

1. Changing a bond’s payment terms and jurisdiction would by itself constitute default.
2. U.S. domiciled funds may balk at helping Argentina circumvent the ruling of a U.S. court. That would apply also to clearing houses and paying agents because the U.S. court order warns that any intermediaries assisting Argentina to re-route payments will be in contempt of Court.
3. Local law bonds are not an attractive proposition. In effect you will be giving away some of your bondholder rights. This is because bonds will be subject to Argentine rather than New York laws, which have (so far at least) been considered the gold standard in so far as creditor protection goes.

The other problem is that local law bonds could automatically fall out of JPMorgan’s EMBI Global index of sovereign emerging debt, which 80 percent of investors in the sector benchmark to. Argentina makes up 0.9 percent of the index but going off-benchmark is not an attractive proposition, says Jeremy Brewin, a fund manager at Aviva Investors in London. He also says:

I don’t think Argentina have been sitting quietly for months and not working on Plan B… But under local law you hold all the risk… it all falls to Argentina’s ability to keep up payments in future.

Furthermore Plan B carries the risk that there will be a Plan C somewhere down the line. For instance if Argentina runs into economic difficulties it will be hard to resist pesifying the new local law bonds, ie swapping them from dollars into pesos, Brewin reckons.  And Kirchner’s problems will not end there. It is likely that many existing creditors will turn down Plan B if that involves switching to local law bonds and that means Buenos Aires risks a repeat of  the whole legal nightmare. As Brewin puts it:

Whoever refuses to take part in Plan B now will have elected to be the holdouts of the future.

AT&T squelched rumors of a $249 price tag on the HTC One smartphone on Tuesday, announcing the official price of $199.99 with contract. That price is for a model with 32 GB of internal storage, which can’t be expanded with a memory card. For more memory, customers will have to pay $299.99 with contract for the 64 GB model: AT&T says it will be the only U.S. carrier at launch with the higher capacity version.

Pre-orders for both models begin on April 4, with general availability of the phones on April 19. Pre-ordering may make sense if you’re set on owning the HTC One because of a special offer that expires on April 18: AT&T is throwing in a free HTC Media Link HD wireless HDMI adaptor worth $90, so you can wirelessly share content from your phone to your HDTV.

As a reminder for what this year’s HTC One offers over the prior version, the LTE phone runs on a 1.7 GHz quad-core processor and has a 4.7-inch 1080p display. The handset is built with an aluminum unibody design, runs on Android with HTC Sense and has 2 GB of memory. A unique camera sensor with large pixel size is paired with an f/2 28 millimeter lens for capturing low-light images and video.

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A single robot can accomplish great, and terrifying, feats. What happens then when the robots start working together towards a common goal? One researcher aims to find out.

Dr. Roderich Gross, Head of the Natural Robotics Lab at the University of Sheffield, and his team have created 40 robots that can work together through the use of advanced artificial intelligence. The robots are programmed to meet up and work towards a common goal, even if they’re initially separated. For now, the robots can only perform basic functions, like moving a box, but the hope is that they can one day used in military, medical and science applications.

Check out the video below to see the robot swarm in action:

What’s interesting is that these robots may one day be shrunk down to the microscopic level and be inserted into the human body. The robots would then work together to improve functions of the body. Of course, the hard part would be convincing humans to let doctors inject hundreds of tiny robots into their bloodstream.

[h/t: Telegraph]

It turns out that Heidi Klum has skills that go beyond hosting and modeling. The 39-year-old host of TV show Project Runway has told US Weekly that she had a hand in saving her family from drowning.

According to the report, Klum was on a beach in Oahu, Hawaii this week when a riptide swept two nannies and her seven-year-old son Henry out into the water. She and her bodyguard, Martin Kirsten (who is also her boyfriend), were able to play Baywatch and save the stranded swimmers. Heidi admits, though, that Henry was able to swim back to shore by himself.

Klum and her family had been vacationing in Hawaii for the Easter holiday. Before the incident occurred, Klum had posted a picture to her Twitter feed depicting Easter eggs sitting on the black volcanic rock of a Hawaiian beach:

Follow @heidiklum

Heidi Klum
@heidiklum

Frohe Ostern …..Happy Easter! http://t.co/IP20yTTGm5

 Reply  ·  Retweet  ·  Favorite
1 day ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto

Algenetix, an industrial biotech company, has raised $2 million in Series A-1 financing, the company announced Tuesday. The company’s funding is led by Two Oceans and unnamed San Diego, Calif.-based investors.

PRESS RELEASE
Algenetix, an industrial biotech company incubated from the pipeline of Kapyon Ventures, LLC, is pleased to announce it has closed $2.0M in Series A-1 funding to further commercialize its PhotoSeed platform. The groundbreaking technology vastly improves oil productivity in microbes by accelerating oil accumulation and subsequently preventing its degradation in the cell. The company’s funding is led by Two Oceans and local San Diego investors, and supported by Algenetix’s Executive Chairman, Dr. Jerry Caulder. With this funding, Algenetix will further advance its PhotoSeed program and develop renewable oils that can sustainably replace petroleum for fuels and chemicals without compromising land and food production resources.

“Unlike other similar technologies, Algenetix is charting a path to economically produce feed stocks that use low cost inputs and existing fermentation capacity under a very capital efficient business model, which is fitting for the current funding climate.”

“We have created a compelling IP portfolio and, with the support of Two Oceans and our existing investors, we are able to develop the technology more broadly than previously possible,” says Han Chen, CEO of Algenetix. “In addition to the capital, the investment has also expanded our visibility and engagement with new partnerships in North America, Australia, the Middle East and South East Asia – all of which are important markets.”

“Algenetix is an exciting new player making valuable feed stocks for chemicals, food and materials utilizing single cell organisms, such as yeast and algae,” says Arama Kukutai, Managing Director, Finistere Ventures GP II. “Unlike other similar technologies, Algenetix is charting a path to economically produce feed stocks that use low cost inputs and existing fermentation capacity under a very capital efficient business model, which is fitting for the current funding climate.”

Algenetix will be conducting the development in partnership with the laboratories of Dr. Janet Donaldson at Mississippi State University.

Algenetix (www.algenetix.com):
Algenetix is an industrial biotech company incubated from the Kapyon Ventures pipeline. The company develops single cell petrochemical alternatives using its proprietary PhotoSeed technology, which improves lipid productivity in industrial microbes.

Two Oceans:
Two Oceans is a Family Office based in Sydney, Australia, and is a potential limited partner in Finistere Venture’s Fund II.

Kapyon Ventures (www.kapyon.com):
Kapyon Ventures is a San Diego based incubation firm focused on the development of technology startups from global research institutes. Kapyon’s areas of focus include agricultural biotechnology, industrial biotechnology and cleantech. It works closely with U.S. and international research partners as managers for an investment portfolio of several biotechnology joint ventures.

The post Algenetix Raises $2M appeared first on peHUB.

NetSocket, a provider of network service assurance technology, has raised $9.2 million in Series B funding. The round was led by new investor Venture Investors, with participation by existing investors Sevin Rosen Funds, Silver Creek Ventures and Trail Blazer Capital.

PRESS RELEASE
NetSocket, a leading provider of network service assurance solutions for unified communications (UC), announced today that the company has secured $9.2 million in Series B funding. The round was led by new investor Venture Investors, with participation by existing investors Sevin Rosen Funds, Silver Creek Ventures and Trail Blazer Capital.

“NetSocket has been innovating in the Unified Communications (UC) service assurance solutions space, as evidenced by the traction generated from our recently announced expanded collaboration with Microsoft. NetSocket’s Cloud Experience Manager (CEM) now optimizes Microsoft Lync UC service management and user’s experience”

The new capital will be used to accelerate the launch of a new solution, aimed at the dynamic and growing Software Defined Networking (SDN) market. The product announcement and launch are planned for this summer. “NetSocket has been innovating in the Unified Communications (UC) service assurance solutions space, as evidenced by the traction generated from our recently announced expanded collaboration with Microsoft. NetSocket’s Cloud Experience Manager (CEM) now optimizes Microsoft Lync UC service management and user’s experience,” said John White, president and CEO of NetSocket. “We plan to apply that same innovation and focused vision to the SDN market which we expect to experience explosive growth this year.”

Joining the Board of Directors at NetSocket will be Jim Adox, managing partner at Venture Investors. “NetSocket has the right mix to become a major market force; a proven leadership team experienced in service assurance and networking technologies, an incredible portfolio of intellectual property and patents, along with a strong communications-focused syndicate of investors,” commented Jim. “I’m very excited about how the new solution will apply the power of NetSocket’s service assurance, routing and policy control software into virtualized networks in an SDN architecture.”

About NetSocket
NetSocket is a leading innovator of network service assurance solutions, providing a trouble-free unified communications experience in enterprise and service provider environments.

The post NetSocket Closes On $9.2M appeared first on peHUB.

Over the weekend, we told you that the HTC One X would get the Sense 5 update along with Android 4.2.2, but that can’t be the only device can it? Although this information isn’t confirmed by HTC, it comes from @LlabTooFeR, who has a very good track record when it comes to updates. If you own any of the following phones, you can expect to see Sense 5 with Android 4.2.2. Unfortunately we really don’t know when the updates will take place, but all things point to the summer. Just like any other update, expect further delays for the carrier-branded ones, but this is good news for a lot of consumers still in contract. Hit the break for the complete list.

• DROID DNA (DLX_WL)
• Butterfly – Taiwan (DLXB1_U)
• One X (Endeavor_U)
• One X+ (ENRC2B_U)
• One XL (Evita_UL)
• One X+ USA (Evitare_UL)
• DROID Incredible 4G LTE (Fireball_WL)
• EVO 4G LTE – (Jewel_CL)

It is also believed that the One S (Ville) and the Butterfly (DLX_U) will also get the update, but it hasn’t been confirmed.

source: @LlabTooFeR

Come comment on this article: Want to know if your HTC phone will get Sense 5 with Android 4.2.2? Here’s the latest list

Last month, online comedy site Funny or Die announced that they had already made their own Steve Jobs biopic and were planning on launching it on April 15th.

The film, called iSteve, is set to run over an hour – much longer than most Funny or Die projects. The film stars Justin Long as Jobs (Dodgeball, Accepted, Waiting, and the “Mac” in those old PC vs Mac Apple ads). Lost‘s Jorge Garcia stars as Steve Wozniak.

Today, Funny or Die has dropped the official teaser trailer – and it doesn’t seem all that funny. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, of course. Just, unexpected.

iSteve will be the first of three noteworthy Steve Jobs biopics to land, premiering on April 15th. Jobs (formerly titled jOBS), or the Ashton Kutcher one, was originally slated for an April 19th release – but was recently pushed back for additional marketing. Then there’s the biggest-budget Steve Jobs biopic, Sony’s still untitled project based on Walter Isaacson’s bestselling autobiography Steve Jobs. That’s currently being penned by The Social Network and The West Wing‘s Aaron Sorkin.

OneHealth Solutions Inc. has raised $9 million in Series B financing. The Solana Beach, Calif.-based company will use the new funds for sales and marketing expansion. Lemhi Ventures led the round. OneHealth uses game mechanics, social networking, peer support communities and clinical protocols to help people achieve health goals.

PRESS RELEASE
OneHealth® Solutions, Inc., the leading behavior change platform company improving health outcomes and the cost of care for patients, providers, payers and employers, today announced the successful closing of a $9 million series B funding round.

The company will use the new funds for sales and marketing expansion to capitalize on its current business opportunities and expand the platform to support more of the total medical and behavioral spend related to chronic conditions that drive the largest costs to the health system. To date, the company has raised a total of $16 million in equity capital.

The round was led by existing investor Lemhi Ventures, a venture capital firm specializing in healthcare services companies that use innovative products to drive disruptive change in the delivery of healthcare.

OneHealth uses a series of game mechanics, social networking, peer support communities and clinical protocols to engage and empower participants to achieve health goals related to modifiable risks, behavioral health and chronic disease. The private, HIPAA-compliant Social Solutioning® platform provides support for a wide range of chronic behavioral and medical conditions, and includes access to peer health coaches, community managers, expert discussions and live online meetings to drive positive behavior change.

Jodi Hubler, Managing Director at Lemhi Ventures and Chairperson of OneHealth commented, “Integrating behavioral and medical chronic conditions into a single technology-enabled service platform where patients can manage the multiple conditions that affect their own health has proven to drive significant benefit to the health system. OneHealth is solidifying their leadership position in this rapidly emerging market, and Lemhi is committed to OneHealth’s goals of reducing the costs of healthcare in terms of operational and medical savings.”

Added Bruce Springer, CEO of OneHealth, “This additional capital investment by our existing investor team is an exceptional vote of confidence in OneHealth. The company has benefited significantly from their insight in building healthcare technology companies, and we look forward to continuing to lead the market adoption of behavior change solutions. This latest round of funding will allow us to move rapidly to continue expanding the platform to support additional chronic medical conditions, accelerate revenue growth in our core business, enhance the support for our channel partners and take advantage of new market opportunities.”

Numerous leading U.S. health plans, employers, and provider organizations, including Aetna, Magellan, Memorial Hermann, Amerigroup, Safeway and Carlson are using OneHealth’s integrated behavior change platform to engage and empower thousands of people to make healthier decisions.

About OneHealth Solutions, Inc.

OneHealth is the leading behavior change platform for the healthcare industry via a technology-enabled services model that lowers the costs of care management and provides greater outcomes for chronic patient populations. Our web and mobile-based Social Solutioning® program influences positive behavior to improve health and deliver measurable value through a patented combination of social-networking technology, evidence-based clinical principles and engaging game mechanics.

The post OneHealth Solutions Inks $9M Series B appeared first on peHUB.

Kobo has begun selling its devices directly through its website in the U.S. and Canada instead of making customers in those countries go to third-party retailers, the Toronto-based company announced Tuesday.

Kobo makes four devices: The 5-inch Kobo Mini e-reader, for $79.99; the touchscreen Kobo Touch e-reader, for $99.99; the front-lit Kobo Glo e-reader, for $129.99; and the Kobo Arc Android tablet, for $199.99. Until now, they were only sold through chains like Target and Best Buy as well as the independent bookstores that Kobo partners with through the American Booksellers Association.

“Pre-Christmas we focused on in-store availability and we’ve now pushed sales online,” the company told Digital Book World. It’s not clear why direct sales haven’t been a priority until now, but worldwide Kobo focuses on partnering with independent bookstores and selling its devices through them.

Kobo says it has 13 million readers worldwide. The company launched in Brazil, Portugal, Italy, Japan, Spain, South Africa and the Netherlands in 2012 and plans to head to Russia, India and China in 2013. In the United States, its share of the ebook market is small and lags behind Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Apple.

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