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About 10 percent of the ethanol plants in the United States have stopped production because of decreasing demand for gasoline, and high corn prices generated by last summer’s drought and the increasing federal ethanol mandates required by law. Between 2007 …

Demand Media announced today that it is opening its largest international office in Dublin, which will serve as the company’s international headquarters for its domain business.

Last month, the company announced that it intends to split its content and domain businesses apart.

Demand Media’s international presence currently includes offices in Toronto, Buenos Aires and London. The company says the Dublin team is focused on preparing for the big new TLD push, which will come to market this year.

“We are excited to expand our business into the thriving tech scene of Dublin,” said Demand Media EVP of emerging markets, Dave Panos. “At such an exhilarating time in the domain services industry with the upcoming launch of new TLDs, we are eager to recruit creative and high-energy professionals who are up to the challenge of taking the lead in the changing Internet landscape.”

The Dublin operation will be led by the newly hired David Ryan from Electronic Arts.

“With his experience creating efficiencies inside of large operations, identifying and participating in high-growth markets, and creating value within smaller start up environments, David Ryan is certain to lead our Demand Media Dublin team to success in a new market,” continued Panos. “Our ramped up efforts internationally further illustrate Demand Media’s commitment to this historic TLD launch.”

Ryan served as senior director at EA.

In other news, Demand Media announced on Tuesday that it has acquired e-learning content site Creativebug, which it says will cater to the Etsy and Pinterest crowds.

A platform is only as strong as the applications built for it. That’s something Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 are both struggling with as some developers aren’t too keen on making apps for the Windows Store. Microsoft is hoping to fix that with some good old fashioned bribery.

Microsoft revealed a new initiative to attract developers by paying out $100 per app submitted to the Windows Store or the Windows Phone Store. Developers will be able to earn up to $2,000 by submitting 10 apps per store.

Fortunately, Microsoft has put some rules into place to prevent people from just slapping together an app to get money. For starters, apps can not be clones of previously released apps so it must be something that’s at least somewhat original. The other stipulation is apps must do more than open a Web page to be eligible.

Still, it’s a bit worrisome to think that Microsoft is essentially bribing developers to make content for the WIndows 8 platform. The Verge points out a blog post from former Windows Phone 8 manager Charlie Kindel where he said that “paying developers to target your platform is a sign of desperation.” While some may disagree with that statement, it doesn’t look good on Microsoft when it has to pay developers to bring apps to Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8.

While it may be a sign of desperation, cash strapped developers may want to take advantage of the promotion. To do so, you must submit apps through the Windows Store Dev Center. You also might want to act fast as Microsoft says the promotion will only last through the first 10,000 apps submitted to the store. I highly doubt that potentially earning $2,000 is going to bring that many apps to the Windows Store, but you never know.

Until the mid-20th century, a banker’s decision to lend money was based in large part on intuition and relationships. This changed dramatically with the creation of the FICO score — a single metric to decide if anyone was worthy of credit or not.

Today, the FICO score is starting to show its age. This is apparent from a new breed of financier who is capable of tapping thousands of  data sources to make more personal decisions, and who can offer credit in ways that traditional lenders do not. One example is ZestFinance, a new style of underwriting company that uses 70,000 data signals and ten parallel machine learning algorithms to assess personal loans.

Speaking at GigaOM’s Structure Data conference in New York, CEO Douglas Merrill explained that ZestFinance employs a host of untraditional signals — such as whether or not a would-be borrower has read a letter on its website — to determine if someone is credit-worthy.

The company’s tools have also allowed it to make a lively business from “dead” people. These are borrowers who banks believe are deceased on the basis of their FICO score. According to Merrill, these dead make up 10% of ZestFinance’s customer base and their rate of repayment is better than that of the living.

Small business lenders are also making use of non-traditional credit signals. The lending firm Kabbage, for instance, taps into data like a company’s UPS activity to assess their financial health — everything from the volume of shipping to the size of the parcels provide signals about how a firm is doing.

CEO Robert Frohwein, who also spoke at the GigaOM event,  said traditional banks simply do not seek out such signals in the first place, meaning they must rely on a much cruder set of metrics when they evaluate loans.

The extra data signals lead to more successful lending rates and are also making credit more affordable and available than it was before. ZestFinance, for instance, provides the 60 million American who use payday loan companies an alternative to high balloon payment fees. Meanwhile, Kabbage is offering more loans than banks to internet-based businesses and to companies whose executives do not match corporate stereotypes.

Check out the rest of our Structure:Data 2013 live coverage here, and a video embed of the entire session follows below:

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Are you tired of bloated disc burning suites? You’re not alone. Modern burning programs are mostly very overweight, packed with unnecessary functions which you’ll probably never use.

If your needs are very simple, though, there are some effective freeware burning apps around, and Folder SimpBurn is a particularly straightforward example.

The program arrives as a small download (560KB). And it’s portable, so easy to use just about anywhere: just unzip it and launch Folder_SimpBurn.exe.

Folder SimpBurn has all its options on a single dialog, and this makes it very straightforward to use. At a minimum all you need to do is choose your optical drive, select a folder which you’d like to burn, click Burn Option > Start Burn, and then watch as your disc is created (CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays are supported, as both single and multisession discs).

If you need more control, then it’s also possible to set the maximum burning speed and the disc name, as well as choosing the file system (your options are ISO9660, Joliet, UDF, or Joliet/ UDF).

There’s some ISO support, too. Click “Burn Option” and you’ll find tools to save your selected folder as an ISO file, or burn an existing ISO file to disc.

And other small touches include a “verify” option, some disc erase tools, and an “Info” box which displays your disc burner’s capabilities.

It’s not all good news. The interface is a little unconventional, with buttons which open menus; it really needs a little documentation (even the German language-only manual doesn’t tell you much); and the “Add to context” menu, which supposedly lets you create discs directly from Explorer, didn’t work for us.

Folder SimpBurn does well at its core tasks, though, reliably burning folders to disc and creating ISO images with ease. And if you’d like to be able to do this from just about any PC, without having to install anything, then the program should serve you very well.

Photo Credit: Kachan Eduard/Shutterstock

Apple quietly rolled out iOS 6.1.3 yesterday, which touts “improvements to Maps in Japan” and the fix of a bug “that could allow someone to bypass the passcode and access the Phone app”. Nothing out of the ordinary, really. But buried deep down in the more extensive changelog, almost hidden, the fruit company credits evad3rs — the team of developers that jailbroke iOS 6 — for a number of found bugs.

The extensive changelog is available in Apple’s mailing list and lists evad3rs as responsible for four bug findings related to the iOS dyld (dynamic link editor), kernel, lockdown and USB. The said bugs affect the way the operating system handles local user requests to “execute unsigned code”, “determine the address of structures in kernel”, “change permissions on arbitrary files” and “execute arbitrary code in the kernel”.

Even though it took Apple quite some time to wrap its head around the jailbreak, fixing these bugs — which closes the loophole exploited by evad3rs — means that iOS 6 is more secure from unwanted exploits. At the same time it also means that jailbreakers should steer clear from iOS 6.1.3 in case they still wish to have Cydia and adjacent unofficial apps and tweaks up and running. That is until evad3rs finds a way to update its evasi0n jailbreak for iOS 6.1.3.

Photo Credit: val lawless/Shutterstock

What goes into making a supercomputer? For Blue Waters, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) project at the University of Illinois, there will be more than 235 Cray XE6 cabinets, each with 24 blade assemblies. In this video, Cray’s Director of Manufacture Logistics Group Steve Samse demonstrates the assembly of the board and components that make up each blade. The work is being performed at the Cray facility in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. The video runs 2:49 minutes.

For additional video, check out our DCK video archive and the Data Center Videos channel on YouTube.

Singer Michelle Shocked cleared the house on Sunday after going on an on-stage rant against homosexuality in a San Francisco nightclub.

According to a report in the The Bay Area Reporter, Shocked played two sets at Yoshi’s nightclub in the Fillmore section of San Francisco on March 17. Though the first set went fine, after which she tweeted the following:

During the second set, Shocked reportedly began to rant against homosexuality and predicting the return of Jesus. The Bay Area Reporter story quotes her as saying, “When they stop Prop 8 and force priests at gunpoint to marry gays, it will be the downfall of civilization and Jesus will come back.” When asked for specifics on what she was trying to say, Shocked is quoted to have said, “You are going to leave here and tell people ‘Michelle Shocked said God hates faggots.”

The club began to empty and the club’s manager came on-stage to announce that the show had ended. Shocked continued to sing, even when her microphone was cut and the stage lights were turned off.

Shocked became a member of the West Angeles Church of God in Christ choir in the mid-90s. In 2008 the singer told the Dalls Voice that she believes homosexuality is a sin.

Shocked found indie acclaim in the late 80s and early 90s with her albums Short Sharp Shocked, Captain Swing, and Arkansas Traveler. She has been nominated for two Grammy awards, one for Best Contemporary Folk Album for Arkansas Traveler and one for Best Contemporary Folk Recording.

(Image courtesy Sigmund/Wikimedia Commons)

Yesterday President Obama continued what's become a March tradition: For the fifth time, he sat down to fill out his brackets for the NCAA men and women's basketball tournaments — and shared his picks with ESPN.

The President has Louisville, Ohio State, Florida, and Indiana headed to Atlanta for the Final Four.

He picked the Hoosiers to top the Cardinals in the National Championship game on April 8.

Download the full predictions here.

We’ll share the President’s pick for the women’s tournament on Friday. Be sure to check back!

For women who may be “leaning out,” Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg’s urging to “lean in” requires some behavioral changes and deviations from how many women are expected to or accustomed to behaving. Fortunately, we have the power to do this for ourselves, through tiny tweaks that actually reconfigure our brains in ways that may make us more assertive, confident, relaxed, risk tolerant, and fearless.

Recent experimental psychology from Dana Carney, Pranjal Mehta, Robert Josephs, Jennifer Lerner, Gary Sherman, and our lab at Harvard suggests that the best leaders — both male and female — seem to have relatively high testosterone, which is linked to decreased fear and increased tolerance for risk and desire to compete, and low cortisol, which is linked to decreased anxiety. Effective leadership is associated with hormone levels, and with this hormone profile, leaders are confident and willing to take risks, but not overly threatened or reactive to stressors. Who wouldn’t want to work for this kind of leader?

This is not an argument for masculinizing leadership; it is an argument for providing people with the tools that will allow them to bring their strongest, most resilient and confident selves to stressful or uncomfortable situations, like being the only woman in the board room, pitching a new idea, or negotiating for a raise or promotion — the tasks that Sandberg refers to as “sitting at the table” and “speaking your truth.”

It turns out these two hormones, testosterone and cortisol, are very touchy, sensitive to social and physical cues and fluctuating a great deal over the course of a single day. As Sandberg mentioned in her book, our research shows that people can change their own hormone levels and behaviors, by “faking it” — by “power posing,” or adopting expansive, open nonverbal postures that are strongly associated with power and dominance across the animal kingdom (imagine standing with hands on hips and feet spread, like Wonder Woman). By holding these postures for just two minutes before entering a high-stress situation, people (both men and women) can increase their testosterone by about 20% and decrease their cortisol by about 25% (Want to do the opposite to your hormones? Adopt a low-power pose — wrap your arms around your torso, cross your ankles, lower your chin). Power posing also increases people’s tolerance for risk and pain, and their ability to think abstractly. This isn’t about what your body language is communicating to others; it’s about what your body language is communicating to you: your body language is changing your mind, which changes your behavior, which changes your outcomes.

This simple life hack — standing in a bathroom stall like Wonder Woman before a stressful meeting — has the potential to substantially improve women’s ability to lean in – to take risks, face fears and barriers, and to endure the stressors inherent to the kinds of changes Sandberg recommends.

According to a study from the University of Portsmouth, using Facebook as a gateway for a trip down memory lane may be the most positive thing you can do with the service.

For starters, the study’s makeup looks like this: 54% male, 80% of which own a smartphone and 94% who always carry that phone on them. 86% of the participants said they check Facebook more than once a day.

Researchers found that the Facebook activity that generated improved mood in the most people was looking back on old wall posts, followed closely by looking back at photos posted users’ walls (76% and 73%, respectively). 71% had improved mood from looking back at old photos they posted.

Compare this with the only 32% who said they had improved mood from playing games and the 58% who did from simply updating their status.

“[T]he results of the study do indicate that activities involving reminiscing have a positive impact upon wellbeing. Moreover, looking back on photos and wall posts was seen to provide a greater self soothing effect, when participants were feeling low in mood, than other Facebook activities. This is further supported in that a significant number of participants were not able to easily access “favorite‟ wall posts and photos, and yet would like to be able to do so. In addition, the activity of looking back on photos and wall posts was carried out more frequently by participants than other activities, such as playing games, updating status and using messenger. This suggests that the activity of looking back upon photos and wall posts is a popular activity, as well as having a positive impact upon emotional wellbeing,” said the researchers.

The study also looked at what users want from Facebook in terms of mechanisms for accessing their old photos and posts. 88% said that they would like to be able to access old photos, but 84% said it is not easy to do so. Graph Search should help with that, once Facebook completes its slow rollout.

[Looking back at Facebook content and the positive impact upon wellbeing via AllFacebook]

Google has a new March Madness feature for basketball fans. When you search “NCAA Bracket” in Google, the search engine will return a bracket on the actual page, so you can see where all the teams are at in the tournament.

Google’s Dan Vanderkam announced the feature in a tweet (via Search Engine Land):

Here’s what it looks like:

Google has offered March Madness tools in the past. Here’s what they did last year. And the year before that.

When it comes to creating a successful app, human interface designers and lead engineers have to work closely together from the beginning, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Michael Abbott said at the Structure Data conference Wednesday. That can mean thinking about apps in a new way.

“More and more products are being built by having great pairings of those two players,” Abbott, the former VP of engineering at Twitter, told GigaOM founder Om Malik. Engineers need to understand a user’s experience with the app, Abbott said, but designers also have to “understand the limitations of the environment they’re building. It shouldn’t just be a great experience in one small segment,” but an app should work “whether you’re offline or have a bad connection.”

Abbott often sees a “lack of real empathy” between designers and engineers. “The tension on the design side is that it’s never good enough,” he said, “and on the engineering side he or she wants to ship…How do you get that balance? Because you still need to ship.”

Malik raised other issues about apps and empathy: “Uber managed to piss off people every single time they did something interesting — surge pricing, or charging more at the time of Hurricane Sandy…I keep saying, if we are going to build this future driven by data, how do we bring this empathy and humanity into the data?”

“We might be forced into it by some of the reactions we’re seeing to Uber,” Abbott answered. But he pointed out that, when it comes to services like Uber, the way that a user rates a driver is also unique to that user — and that brings up empathy on the user’s end. For example, Uber could infer from data on what a driver’s rating should be, based perhaps on the start and end times of a trip. “Your rating of that driver,” he said, “also ends up building an implicit rating on you, and your ability to rate.”

Check out the rest of our Structure:Data 2013 coverage here, and a video embed of the entire session follows below:

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Bridge Bank, a San Jose, Calif., subsidiary of Bridge Capital Holdings, has provided $13 million in funding for several solar installations located in New Jersey, Rhode Island and North Carolina.

PRESS RELEASE
SAN JOSE, CA, Mar 20, 2013 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — Bridge Bank, a subsidiary of Bridge Capital Holdings BBNK +2.93% , a full service professional business bank headquartered in Silicon Valley and with offices located nationwide, announced today it recently closed $13 million in funding for several major solar installations located in New Jersey, Rhode Island and North Carolina.

“As a private equity investor in the distributed solar generation space we needed to project finance several commercial roof-top solar installations in one facility,” said Panos Ninios, partner and CEO at True Green Capital Management. “Bridge understood this concept and was able to structure, conduct due diligence and close multiple facilities under one loan agreement in an efficient, cost effective and client friendly manner.” Bridge Bank’s Energy and Infrastructure Group (EIG) provided $7.2 million in funding to True Green Capital Management for the construction of a series of solar facility installations located in New Jersey, and for a solar installation project in Rhode Island that will supply energy to a major international utility that provides power to the consumer and commercial markets in the Northeast.

Bridge Bank also recently provided over $6 million in funding to MP2 Capital for the development and construction of solar power plants located in North Carolina that provide energy to a large investor-owned utility in the U.S. “Bridge Bank’s Energy and Infrastructure Group has been a great partner,” said Jeff Glavan, managing director of MP2 Capital. “The group’s ability to listen, understand, commit and get to financial close differentiates them from other banks. Their willingness to consider and create solutions based on customer needs is what makes them a great partner,” he added.

“We were very pleased to partner with True Green Capital Management and MP2 Capital on their recent projects — both are experienced solar developers who challenged the bank with a complex set of issues,” said Scott Reising, senior vice president in the bank’s Energy and Infrastructure Group. “This recent issuance of credit reinforces the bank’s commitment to providing flexible and creative solutions to businesses across a wide variety of sectors.”

EIG was formed in 2011 to provide funding to solar developers whose projects typically fall within the one to ten megawatt range. Since its founding, EIG has issued over $75 million in loan commitments to developers with projects throughout the U.S. Over the past seven years, Bridge Bank has built a presence in the alternative energy sector. In that time, over $150 million in loans and credit commitments has been extended by the bank to firms engaging in renewable energy and solar projects. Scott Reising, head of EIG, will be speaking at the upcoming Solar Power Finance and Investment Summit on March 20, 2013 in San Diego. For more information, visit http://infocastinc.com/events/solar13.

About Bridge Bank, National Association

Bridge Bank is a full-service professional business bank founded in the highly competitive climate of Silicon Valley in 2001. From the very beginning, our goal has been to offer small-market and middle-market businesses from across many industries a better way to bank. A less bank-like way to bank. We provide a surprisingly broad range of financial solutions, enabling us to meet our clients’ varied needs across all stages — from inception to IPO and beyond. It’s how we go about doing so that differentiates us from our competition.

Learn more at the new www.bridgebank.com. Follow us @BridgeBank.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain matters discussed in this press release constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and are subject to the safe harbors created by that Act. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts. They often include the words “believe,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “plan,” “estimate,” or words of similar meaning, or future or conditional verbs such as “will,” “would,” “should,” “could,” or “may.” Forward-looking statements describe future plans, strategies and expectations. Forward-looking statements are based on currently available information, expectations, assumptions, projections, and management’s judgment about the Company, the banking industry and general economic conditions. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, nor should they be relied upon as representing management’s views as of any subsequent date. Future events are difficult to predict, and the expectations described above are necessarily subject to risk and uncertainty that may cause actual results to differ materially and adversely. Forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties and actual results may differ materially from those presented, either expressed or implied, in this press release. Factors that might cause such differences include, but are not limited to: the Company’s ability to successfully execute its business plans and achieve its objectives; changes in general economic, real estate and financial market conditions, either nationally or locally in areas in which the Company conducts its operations; changes in interest rates; new litigation or changes in existing litigation; future credit loss experience; increased competitive challenges and expanding product and pricing pressures among financial institutions; legislation or regulatory changes which adversely affect the Company’s operations or business; loss of key personnel; changes in accounting policies or procedures as may be required by the Financial Accounting Standards Board or other regulatory agencies; and the ability to satisfy requirements related to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other regulation on internal control.

The reader should refer to the more complete discussion of such risks in Bridge Capital Holdings’ annual reports on Forms 10-K and quarterly reports on Forms 10-Q on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly revise these forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.

The post Bridge Bank Provides Funding for Solar Installations appeared first on peHUB.

Buyout shop Paine & Partners has made an investment in SGF Produce Holdings the parent entity of Sunrise Growers~Frozsun Foods. As part of the deal, Paine & Partners is taking the stake previously held by Sun Capital Partners, according to a press release. Terms of the deal were not released.

PRESS RELEASE
Paine & Partners, LLC (“Paine & Partners”), a global private equity investment firm focused on investing in food and agribusiness, today announced that it has made an investment in SGF Produce Holdings, LLC (“Sunrise” or the “Company”), the parent entity of Sunrise Growers~Frozsun Foods, which was an affiliated portfolio company of Sun Capital Partners, Inc. (“Sun Capital”). Following the closing, Sunrise will no longer be an affiliated portfolio company of Sun Capital.

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Sunrise is a leading value-added frozen fruit processor and marketer. The Company, headquartered in Placentia, California, was founded in 1977 and operates high quality processing facilities in Oxnard and Santa Maria, California, which are strategically located in the leading strawberry producing regions of the United States. Sunrise’s products include frozen strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, cherries, peaches and fruit blends in multiple product specifications and packaging configurations. The Company is a leader in the growing markets for retail frozen fruit and foodservice frozen strawberries, and it also markets fresh strawberries to leading retailers throughout the U.S. Sunrise’s consumer products are sold primarily under customers’ private label brands and also under the Sunrise Growers brand name.

Edward Haft will continue to lead Sunrise as President and Chief Executive Officer, along with the rest of Sunrise’s senior management team.

Kevin Schwartz, a founding Partner at Paine & Partners, said, “We are excited about our investment in Sunrise, a leader in the retail and foodservice frozen fruit markets that is well positioned to capitalize on the growing demand for healthy food options and quality frozen fruit products. We have been impressed by the Company’s capabilities and the strong strategic relationships it has with its grower and customer partners. Together with the Sunrise management team, we have identified opportunities to enhance the Company’s product offerings, including expansion into new fruit categories and markets. We look forward to continuing to work with Ed Haft and the rest of the Sunrise management team to execute on these exciting growth opportunities.”

Edward Haft, President and CEO of Sunrise, said, “With Paine & Partners, we will continue to build on our diverse portfolio of quality products, state-of-the-art processing facilities and industry leading food safety practices. Our strong relationships with our leading retail and foodservice customers and grower partners are due to our product capabilities and quality, supply certainty and flexibility, and we will look to continue to expand those capabilities in the future. We look forward to working with the Paine & Partners team, whose experience investing across the food and agribusiness value chain and resources will help us achieve our long-term potential as we continue to develop and expand our business.”

About SGF Produce Holdings, LLCSunrise Growers~Frozsun Foods is the leading strawberry processor in the U.S. and one of the top marketers of frozen fruit and fresh strawberries. Recognized for their award-winning private label retail and foodservice programs, the Company is vertically integrated allowing control of product throughout the supply chain. From specialty toppings to beverage bases and smoothies and a full line of innovative frozen fruit products, Sunrise Growers~Frozsun Foods services a wide range of retail, industrial and foodservice customers.

About Paine & Partners, LLCPaine & Partners provides equity capital for management buyouts, going private transactions, and company expansion and growth programs. Paine & Partners engages exclusively in friendly transactions developed in cooperation with a company’s management, board of directors and shareholders. The firm currently makes investments through its $1.2 billion fund, Paine & Partners Capital Fund III, L. P. and related entities.

Paine & Partners focuses on the food and agribusiness industry globally, and its principals, through a predecessor fund, have made successful strategic investments in Seminis, then the world’s leading global developer, producer and marketer of vegetable and fruit seeds; and Advanta Netherlands Holdings BV, at the time, the largest independent agronomic seed company in the world. Paine & Partners also invested in Icicle Seafoods, a leading producer, harvester and processer of salmon, pollock, halibut, cod, crab and other seafood products with operations in North and South America and sales globally. Paine & Partners’ most recent investments include Eurodrip, a global manufacturer and supplier of drip irrigation solutions; Verdesian Life Sciences, a U.S.-based plant health and nutrition investment platform; Scanbio Marine Group, a leading Norwegian producer of fish protein concentrate, fish meal, and fish oil; and Costa Group, Australia’s largest integrated grower, packer and marketer of fresh fruits and vegetables. The complex investment opportunities in today’s rapidly evolving agribusiness environment play to the strengths of Paine & Partners’ differentiated approach.

The post Paine & Partners Backs SGF Produce Holdings appeared first on peHUB.

Back in January, before we introduced BlackBerry 10 to the world, I wrote a blog post about Five Reasons to Tune in for BlackBerry 10. I had been writing so much about BlackBerry 10 that I wanted to show you that I wasn’t alone, and that tech bloggers and media were already posting positive BlackBerry 10 reviews. Well, it’s time for an update. Now that more tech bloggers and media have a BlackBerry 10 device in their hands, I wanted to recap some of their great feedback on our new device and updated OS.

Here are some snippets from the tech blogosphere on BlackBerry 10 features:

1. “There’s no question here that BlackBerry knows just how important app selection is the future of its company, and as such, has been working overtime to make developers a key focus, with a hundred or so members of its evangelist team.” – Engadget.com

2. “I spend much of my time on my smartphone and tablet devices writing emails, IMs and texts, which means as accurate as I try to be when I’m typing, I probably make more mistakes than I would like to admit. The keyboard on the BlackBerry Z10 is one of the major highlights of the device as the more I typed with the keyboard, the better it was at predicting text that I was in the process of writing.” – Ubergizmo.com

3. “I am really excited by the message hub in (BlackBerry) 10, I think there are some serious innovations there that any power smartphone user would find really beneficial.” – Blogs.CIO.com

4. “BlackBerry, the company formerly known as Research in Motion, has made [a] reinvention, resurrecting the …BlackBerry platform in its new BlackBerry 10 OS and the BlackBerry Z10 smartphone that runs it. Now shipping in the United States, the BlackBerry Z10 is a good smartphone, one worthy of consideration for both personal and business use.” – Reviews.Techworld.com

5. “The BlackBerry Z10 is an otherworldly treat, a combination of blood, sweat and gears combined into a user-friendly smartphone that is fast, accessible and brimming with a heady catalyst of ideas. Here’s a BlackBerry you can finally be proud to own…This phone is more than specs, it evokes a feeling of joy.” – Gearburn.com

6. “The benefit of the [Time Shift Camera] is to eliminate group photos that are spoiled because one person blinked or had a goofy expression. Just zoom in on [someone’s] face, rewind a second to where his eyes are open and his tongue isn’t hanging out, and you have the perfect family photo. In my review of the Z10 , I found the feature, made possible by the phone’s dual-core processor and BlackBerry 10 software, to work as promised.” – Mashable.com

The reviews keep coming. Tell us what you think of the BlackBerry Z10 in the comments below.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo is in talks to buy a controlling stake in the popular video site Dailymotion, based on information from “people familiar with the talks.” The report says Yahoo’s in for as much as 75% of the company.

Neither company is commenting on the alleged talks.

Last year, Yahoo and Dailymotion struck a content syndication deal. At the time, Dailymotion VP, International Content, Daniel Adams, said that the site was getting 120 million unique monthly visitors.

According to the Journal, citing comScore numbers, it’s the 12th-largest video site in the world by unique users, with 116 million in January.

France Telecom currently has a 100% stake in Dailymotion.

Is it really possible to recreate a legend? Some people out there may say yes, but I think the majority would agree that legends are born, not created. When asked to come up with a successor to the iconic 1953 Mercedes-Benz 300SL, designer Paul Bracq had a decision to make. He could try to improve upon a design that was, in the eyes of many enthusiasts, flawless. Or he could craft his own shape and thus, create a new legend. Bracqs’ vision was the Mercedes-Benz W113 SL, a car that made its debut in 1963 and continued production until 1971. More than 48,000 cars where produced and in that time a new audience was found to take up the reigns and help write the next chapter of the Mercedes-Benz roadster.

Source: Source: crankandpiston.com

BlackBerry 10 is a stark departure from BlackBerry 7 and other aging versions of the BlackBerry (BBRY) operating system, which is a very good thing in most regards. But in one key area, the company may have strayed too far from its roots. The U.K.’s Communications-Electronics Security Group, which evaluates IT solutions and determines whether or not they may be used by the U.K. government, has decided that BlackBerry 10 is not safe for essential government work, The Guardian reported. Earlier versions of BlackBerry’s OS had received security clearance. The report claims this rejection could cost BlackBerry millions in lost revenue, even if rival devices don’t fill the void — with tens of thousands of handsets currently deployed, the U.K. government is one of BlackBerry’s biggest customers in the U.K.

Continue reading…