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Now that the S 4 is official, I’m sure everyone is wondering when their carrier is going to offer the device. We don’t have any official word on that yet, but like what we saw last night with a few Canadian carriers, AT&T and T-Mobile have launched pages letting you sign up to be the first to know when your new gadget becomes available, and how much cash it’s going to set you back. Hopefully we’ll get some preorder information out of the page in the near future as well. Hit the links below to check out the pages for each carrier.

source: AT&T

T-Mobile

Come comment on this article: AT&T and T-Mobile post sign up page for Galaxy S 4

The Conduit, a well-received first person shooter on the Nintendo Wii, has been remade for Android devices and is now on the Play Store, fully optimized for Tegra devices.

The game features an epic campaign centered around aliens occupying Washington DC. You play as a Secret Service agent named Michael Ford who gets caught up with a mysterious organization to stop the alien invasion and unravel a massive conspiracy theory that dates back a few hundred years. It’s a fast paced shooter with a pile of unique weapons to use and several different kinds of alien enemies to fight over the game’s campaign mode. And if you’re running the game on a Tegra device, you’ll get optimized graphics, including higher resolution and enhanced lighting effects. Possibly the best feature of the entire app is the fact that you can completely customize your touch screen controls to suit your device and playing habits, and it supports bluetooth controllers.

Sound interesting? Hit the source below to download the app and try out the first two levels of the campaign for free.

Play Store Download Link

Come comment on this article: The Conduit HD hits the Play Store with Tegra optimization

Dropbox has ambitions to become more than just an online storage & syncing company — it wants to be your online presence and the center for all your apps. And in order to make that vision possible, the San Francisco-based company snapped up Orchestra, the company behind the buzzy Mailbox app.

So how much did Dropbox pay for Mailbox? My sources are putting the number at north of $50 million. At least one source claimed that the final amount was a lot closer to $100 million. My sources say that the company was in talks with Yahoo but it was bested by Facebook, who in turn was beaten to the punch by Dropbox. Dropbox is valued at about $4 billion and has become an active acquirer of small teams and tiny startups.

Given that the Palo Alto, Calif.-based Orchestra had previously raised $5.3 million (from Charles River Ventures, CrunchFund and others) at a valuation that was somewhere between $15-to-$20 million, the $50 million (or higher) is a hefty return for its investors, considering that the company was a long way from becoming a real legitimate business.

Dropbox’s desire to become a bigger platform have been known for a while, but the company has yet to provide any concrete information about how well it is doing as it tried to become become our online hub.

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What if you could custom order furniture for your home while paying Ikea prices for it? That’s the goal of Fabsie, a U.K. startup that wants to take the promise of custom manufacturing enabled by 3D printing, laser cutters and CNC routers and match that with the needs of everyday consumers.

James McBennett, the founder of Fabsie, is hoping to act as an essential bridge between designers of CNC (computer numerical control) manufactured furniture that can be found on sites like Instructables and the average consumer who may want custom furniture but has no means to get it manufactured. CNC furniture is made of plywood on a CNC router, that allows a router to cut computer-designed shapes. The results can be surprisingly high end.

Currently Fabsie has a Kickstarter project that features a plywood rocking stool that can be made with a lot of rock, less rock, and no rock. Eventually, the company wants to do all kinds of furniture and maybe even branch out into household goods.

But McBennett’s hopes are bigger than one stool. He thinks the time is ripe for a company to act as a broker and quality assurance agent of sorts between the maker movement and people who have custom wants, but no desire to make. Fabsie, as he envisions it, would take designs from people and maybe even sites like Instructables, manufacture them, test the resulting physical product, and adapt the design if needed for a mass audience.

At the same time it will also develop a network of manufacturing sites around the world. Today these sites are usually university towns with hacker spaces or labs that have the machines to fabricate and cut plywood, but it’s possible that independent companies might step up to fulfill this niche if ideas like Fabsie and custom manufacturing take off. Currently, many of the facilities with CNC routers only use them a quarter of the time, McBennett said. His business could help put those machines to work full time, and help the maker spaces make money.

The trend toward custom products and the rise of cheaper manufacturing equipment such as home 3D printers and laser cutting machines, as well as the availability of more and more designs are creating new business models for companies like Fabsie, or Nervous Systems, which makes custom 3D printed jewelry that’s sold in the MoMA store.

Similar to how the digitization of content undercut the physical distribution systems of newspapers and print magazines — one of the primary advantages that print newspapers had — the digitization of product design holds similar promise if we can figure out how to package and consume those designs closer to the consumer on an on-demand basis.

But even with digital designs, physical objects have to at some point convert from digital over to the analog world. Pushing that point out closer to the end consumer of the product via fabrication plants closer to the home helps reduce costs associated with shipping and also delays in getting the item. And newer manufacturing makes doing a custom run a bit more economical. McBennett estimates he can produce stools at a cost of £20 (almost $30) apiece, but that prices drops to £10 if a manufacturer is making 10.

Clearly, those economies of scale vanish at the totally custom level, but that design is still stored and could be made again for other customers. With a material like plywood, which has a standard scale that measures the quality of the wood, it’s easy to control the end result. I might pay more for higher-quality plywood, but I will also know exactly what I am going to get.

As we embrace customization in our products, digitization of our designs and the new manufacturing technologies coming online, the distribution of physical goods will change. Fabsie may be one model for how that change will happen while still delivering quality products for consumers.

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I suppose we sort of already knew this. Ever since Microsoft turned on the firewall by default back in XP SP1, Windows is safer to use and improves with each new version. Perfect? Far from it, but the imperfections are more about what you add than what Microsoft provides. Secunia reports that the vast majority of problems experienced by Windows users these days are caused by third-party software.

In a new report Secunia tells us: “In 2012, 86 percent of the vulnerabilities affecting the Top-50 programs in the representative portfolio, infected third-party programs. This means that only 14 percent of vulnerabilities present in the Top-50 programs on the computers of the PSI users stem from Operating Systems and Microsoft programs. The 86 percent is a substantial increase from the previous year — 2011 — when vulnerabilities in third-party software represented 78 percent”. The number of third-party vulnerabilities is up from 57 percent six years ago.

Unsurprisingly, Oracle’s Java leads the way, followed by Adobe Reader. Microsoft is not entirely blameless, though, because Silverlight is surprisingly high on the list as well.

The report goes on to claim that the number of flaws targeting Windows users rose 5.5 percent last year. Eighty percent of those vulnerabilities had patches available, which puts part of the blame on the end user.

This is mostly good news for Microsoft. Though Silverlight needs work, the company is largely doing a much better job of protecting its customers, and Windows 8 is the best example so far. Now if only the company could better educate the end-user the internet would become a much safer world.

Photo Credits: maraga/Shutterstock

BlackBerry is kicking off the Formula One™ season in style as the Official Mobile Computing Partner of the MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team. Over the last few days, the team has been on the track practicing, meeting with the press, and of course using their new BlackBerry Z10 smartphones. They’re also celebrating the launch of BlackBerry 10 in Australia. The timing couldn’t be better! Check out this video to get your motor revving:

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

On top of the marketing initiatives, we’re also focused on the technical side. We will be working very closely with the team to integrate our technology with the car, the drivers and the crew as they ‘Keep Moving’ throughout the season.

Those of you who read the Inside BlackBerry Blog know that I’m completely obsessed with all things automotive and I’m a huge fan of motor sports, so “excited” doesn’t begin to describe how I feel about this partnership. You’ll be able to follow all the BlackBerry Racing action at BlackBerry.com/racing, where you’ll find a photo stream, race schedule, and exclusive footage for fans.

Are you checking out the race this week? Be sure to root for BlackBerry and the MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS Formula One team and wish them luck in the comments below.

When word surfaced Thursday that EMC and IBM were kicking the tires of SoftLayer as a potential acquisition target, there were plenty of raised eyebrows. Now sources close to the matter say that EMC is not really in this hunt at all; but IBM may well be.

Reuters broke the news of a potential SoftLayer acquisition the day after EMC protege VMware announced plans for its Amazon Web Services competitor that would, in theory, give EMC a horse in that race without having to buy anything. So when a source close to the matter says EMC is not party to this competition, I’m inclined to believe it.

IBM, on the other hand, is (or at least was) very interested in SoftLayer, according to one former IBM exec who spoke on the condition of anonymity. This source, however, said as of a month or so ago, IBM was also looking at Rackspace, which is an OpenStack player and is thus more closely aligned to IBM’s OpenStack strategy than SoftLayer, which is not an OpenStack member. IBM joined the OpenStack Foundation a year ago and announced its first OpenStack-based products last week.

That IBM insider said IBM has lots of cash but struggles when it tries to develop products internally.

“Realizing this, IBM’s become a holding company of sorts, buying assets, integrating them and reselling them as an IBM brand,” said this source, who remains close to IBM. That growth-by-acquisition pattern may well continue in cloud.

“IBM does not want to fund its own development because past history shows we’re not very good at it. The internal OpenStack work may suffer from that tendency so there was an effort underway to just buy an OpenStack company,” he said. When prompted, he confirmed that Rackspace was on the short list of the OpenStack companies under consideration.

SoftLayer and EMC declined comment on this story. IBM and Rackspace officials said they do not comment on rumors.

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Nashville tech accelerator Jumpstart Foundry and nestGSV said they formed a partnership to allow Jumpstart Foundry startups to attend 12-week residencies at nestGSV’s Silicon Valley campus. Jumpstart will cover expenses for office and living space.

PRESS RELEASE

Jumpstart Foundry Opens Office in Silicon Valley ‘Ecobator’ nestGSV

Select alumni of Nashville tech business accelerator will gain access to dedicated Silicon Valley space, networking, and connections to investors and strategic partners

Nashville, TN and Redwood City, CA (PRWEB) March 15, 2013–Nashville tech business accelerator Jumpstart Foundry and Silicon Valley startup ‘ecobator’ nestGSV announced a partnership today whereby Jumpstart Foundry will rotate program graduates through 12-week residencies at nestGSV’s Silicon Valley campus. While JSF covers expenses for office and living space, startup teams will focus on raising capital and growing their strategic relationships, aided by facilitation and introductions by nestGSV’s professional staff.

Known specifically as a healthcare and music-centric city, Nashville has made a name for itself on nationwide lists of top entrepreneurial and startup cities. Jumpstart Foundry has capitalized on Nashville’s rise, inviting a select group of startup teams to participate annually in its 14-week cohort, which culminates in an investor showcase typically attended by more than 400 angel and venture investors.
Jumpstart Foundry COO, David Ledgerwood, talks about the investment Jumpstart Foundry makes in its alumni even after the accelerator cohort has graduated:

“Our alumni prosper in Nashville, and most of them want to stay here because it’s such a great place to live and work. Growing access to Silicon Valley’s funding and corporate infrastructure adds another meaningful dimension to the Jumpstart Foundry value proposition. Our startups can grow their networks in the Valley while benefiting from all that Nashville has to offer them as founders. It’s a win/win.”

The partnership offers much more than prime office space. nestGSV’s staff will facilitate the first 30 days of each company’s stay via a guided process that will make warm introductions to entrepreneurs, angels and VCs, corporate, tech and strategic partners who can help the companies get off to a fast start. Jumpstart companies will then spend the next two months following up and developing key relationships.

“The partnership with Jumpstart Foundry is in line with our vision of supporting the Global Silicon Valley. We are excited about the opportunity to work with different accelerator programs, such as Jumpstart Foundry, to help them join us in developing a global standard around entrepreneurship so the focus is less about where companies come from and more focussed on identifying the best companies by sector, thus taking the bias out of geography,” said nestGSV CEO Kayvan Baroumand. “As opposed to saying that all startups need to move to Silicon Valley, we are encouraging companies’ core teams to continue building their companies at home while leveraging key elements of the Silicon Valley ecosystem for fundraising and strategic partnerships.”

JSF recently partnered with F6S to launch a more interactive, socially connected application which potential teams can access at jumpstartfoundry.com. The new application lets teams and individuals connect via LinkedIn, start and complete the application during different work sessions, and submit it for evaluation. The F6S platform also allows startups to access some $300,000 in perks and deals.

Jumpstart Foundry Managing Director, Marcus Whitney, talks about the bigger picture that can come from the mixing of startup ecosystems:

“Cross-pollinating the Nashville and Silicon Valley networks will strongly benefit our alumni. We want to help them access the capital and relationship assets available on the West Coast as an additional benefit to joining the Jumpstart program.”

Managing Director, Vic Gatto reminds applicants how competitive the Jumpstart Foundry program has become, “We anticipate fewer than 5% of applicants will be selected this year. Getting an application in early helps us focus on your team and your plan before we get inundated with hundreds of applications in the final week. We highly recommend submitting early, especially in light of these new benefits, which are sure to enhance interest in our program even further. We believe this partnership will add incredible value to our high potential alumni.”

About Jumpstart Foundry

Jumpstart Foundry (JSF) fast-tracks successful technology businesses from launch to investment through a 14-week, mentor-driven acceleration program capped by an Investor Day showcase. JSF startups– principally comprised of healthcare IT, data systems and social engagement tools –capitalize upon resources and guidance from a hand-selected group of professional mentors who bring a wealth of experience from a variety of fields. Jumpstart Foundry is a proud partner of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center and the Global Accelerator Network.
For more information, please visit http://jumpstartfoundry.com

About nestGSV

nestGSV is more than just a place; it’s a way of doing business. As the world’s first “ecobator”, nestGSV furnishes a rich ecosystem of services essential to the success of emerging technology companies. We bring together entrepreneurs, investors, large corporations, professional service providers, governments and educational institutions to drive collaborative innovation, successful market adoption and growth. Our ecobator model fosters supportive relationships between players in the innovation economy that create mutual benefit for all involved parties.

For further information, visit the nestGSV website at http://www.nestgsv.com. 
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/joinnestgsv and Twitter: @nestgsv

The post Jumpstart, NestGSV Strike Accelerator Partnership appeared first on peHUB.

Facebook has appointed Mike Schroepfer as its new chief technology officer, AllThingsD reported Friday. Schroepfer has been vice president of engineering since 2008. Before coming to Facebook, he was vice president of engineering at Mozilla.

Schroepfer is keenly aware of Facebook’s hardware and software needs. In 2009, a few months before Facebook opened up about building its own data centers, he spoke about Facebook’s uniquely high user demand, saying that users were spending 8 billion minutes on the site a day at the time. Since then, he has worked on launching the Timeline product and adding a Facebook engineering New York outpost.

Facebook’s Jay Parikh, who spoke at our Structure:Europe conference last year, has also made a mark on Facebook’s infrastructure improvements, such as cold storage and abundant use of flash memory.

Facebook’s previous CTO, Bret Taylor, said last June that he would leave the company. It’s not clear yet who will take up the title Schroepfer is vacating.

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A federal appeals court has allowed the New York Times and other media outlets to argue against sealing documents in the “patent trial of the century” between Apple and Samsung that took place last summer.

In a short order issued on Thursday, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted the media groups fifteen minutes to participate in a hearing scheduled for March 26. The groups also include Bloomberg, the Washington Post, Dow Jones and the First Amendment Coalition.

At the hearing, the tech companies will ask the Federal Circuit to overrule a lower court’s order that granted the media companies’ initial request to unseal various filings in the patent dispute. The documents are significant because they are likely to disclose sales and revenue figures that Apple and Samsung would prefer to keep secret while they hash out damages figures related to a massive $1 billion jury verdict.

Although court filings are public, companies sometimes ask to file confidential information under seal. In recent years, however, Apple has asked to seal documents on a nearly routine basis, which led the Reuters news agency to mount a successful court challenge this summer.

The controversy over the sealed documents has led other news agencies to take an interest in the issue. The media outlets’ participation at the upcoming hearing is likely to draw more attention to the Apple-Samsung documents, an unwelcome development for the companies.

This week’s order is below. Here’s the full list of media outlets who signed the application to attend the hearing: the New York Times, Bloomberg, the Washington Post, Gannett Co., Dow Jones, the First Amendment Coalition, Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, the Society of Professional Journalists, and the American Society of News Editors. The filing was first spotted by Reuters.

Fed Circuit Grants NYT Permission to Intervene in Apple Samsung

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Buzzfeed is launching a business section next week, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

What might that section look like? A selection compiled from Twitter and GigaOM/paidContent staff:

This Llama Hissing Looks Exactly Like Meg Whitman—
Matt Lynley (@mattlynley) March 15, 2013

29 Signs Your CFO Might Be Drunk

12 CEOs who have Dennis Rodman on speed dial. #BuzzFeedBusiness—
Neil (@NPSusa) March 15, 2013

This Was The Worst Leveraged Buyout Takeover Ever

VC sideboob: Slideshow #BuzzFeedBusiness—
Matt Harris (@mattcharris) March 15, 2013

Spot The Corgi Hiding In This Pile Of Hundred Dollar Bills

12 Puppies Owned By Facebook Millionaires—
Matt Lynley (@mattlynley) March 15, 2013

Check Out All The Weird Things For Sale On This Japanese Website

13 CEOs Who Look Like Cats. #buzzfeedbusiness—
Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) March 15, 2013

17 Adorable Pictures of Tax-Deferred Bond Investment Products

21 Things That Are Much Easier When You're Richard Branson #buzzfeedbusiness—
Andrew Nusca (@editorialiste) March 15, 2013

Grumpy Cat Makes More Money Than You Do

41 Puppies Disappointed About SEC insider trade settlements #buzzfeedbusiness—
Ivan Lajara (@ivanlajara) March 15, 2013

This Office Fridge Has An Epic Amount Of Beer In It

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In the first foreign trip of his second term in office, President Obama will visit Israel, the West Bank and Jordan. The trip is an important opportunity to meet with the new Israeli government and speak to the Israeli people, as well as meet with the Palestinian leadership and the King of Jordan.

We asked Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications, to preview the upcoming trip and some of the issues the President would be discussing in his meetings. Check it out below or watch the video on YouTube. Learn more about the trip here. 

Watch the West Wing Week here.

International Courage Awards: Last Friday, the First Lady joined Secretary of State John Kerry at the State Department for the International Women of Courage Awards—where nine different women were honored. The event was a celebration of the strength and sacrifice of individuals who have worked tirelessly for the advancement of women’s rights for all.

Trade Export Council: On Tuesday, President Obama touched base with business and government leaders at a meeting of the President’s Export Council.

“The good news is we are well on our way to meeting a very ambitious goal that we set several years ago to double U.S. exports,” said the President. “And what we know is, is that a lot of the growth, a lot of the new jobs that we've seen during the course of this recovery, have been export-driven.” 

To maintain and ignite growth, President Obama discussed finishing new trade deals with Europe and the Asia-Pacific. The Administration passed legislation in 2011 supporting free trade agreements with Korea, Colombia, and Panama which has kept America competitive in foreign trade, while creating jobs for Americans.

Sultan of Brunei: On Tuesday, President Obama welcomed His Majesty the Sultan of Brunei to the Oval Office for a bilateral meeting to share their desire for “a strong, peaceful, prosperous Asia-Pacific region.”

Brunei, a small country in the South China Sea, will be holding the ASEAN East Asia Summit meeting in October. The visit is a symbol of the President’s goal of working towards a peaceful and prosperous presence in the Asia-Pacific region.

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In January, Cisco announced that Belkin would acquire its Home Networking Business Unit and its leading brand, Linksys. Today, Belkin announced that the Linksys acquisition is complete.

Belkin now possesses Linksys routers and other Smart Wi-Fi products. They will be managed as a separate brand and product portfolio.

Belkin CEO Chet Pipkin had this to say: “Linksys has a rich heritage, a passionate customer base and a wide product line, all of which fueled our decision to acquire the company and our plan to maintain the Linksys brand. The Linksys portfolio will continue to exist and evolve to include even richer user experiences and network management functionality. Smart Wi-Fi is an innovative and easy way for consumers to stay connected to their home network and we look to continue investing in it by adding more features and products.”

“A lot of exciting things are happening in today’s connected lifestyle segment, and we are honored to continue the Linksys brand and enable new connected experiences,” said Pipkin. “Linksys and Belkin are now one team. We are ready to do fantastic things as a team and deliver products that delight consumers and support the increasingly connected, mobile world.”

Customers can expect more Linksys-branded products coming out of the pipeline, and support for existing products will continue through the existing channels.

Terms of the deal were never disclosed.

Noodle, an online recommendation engine for education led by Princeton Review founder John Katzman, has acquired Lore, a small New York-based startup that provides a learning management system for college professors and students.

When we last wrote about Lore, the company had recently changed its name from Coursekit and was planning to take on Blackboard and other learning management systems with software that was more like a consumer-facing social network for education. Instead of trying to sell to the schools, Lore targets professors and students directly with a free site that lets them create an online community for sharing updates and other comments about content.

In a post on Noodle’s blog, Katzman, who is the company’s founder and chairman, said:

“Lore is already the best learning management system; fleshed out with a full suite of assessment, synchronous, and mobile tools, it will be an important part of our efforts. Further, its community shares our core values: to get each student the educational resources that best connect to his or her passions and needs, and then get out of the way.”

The company also said that both Lore and Noodle will remain free. But Noodle, which lets learners of all ages search for recommendations on tutors, colleges, graduate programs and other educational needs, has additional plans for Lore’s technology.

According to Inside Higher Ed, Noodle plans to use Lore to build another business model around “Noodle Launch,” a new service intended to help colleges expand deeper into digital education. While he didn’t appear to share too many details, Katzman said it will offer “a la carte” digital services — from instructional design to marketing to a learning management system — that help colleges cut costs while expanding into online learning.

Given Katzman’s track record — first Princeton Review, then online learning company 2U (formerly 2tor) — Noodle is a company worth watching. Since launching last May, the startup has been relatively quiet, but it looks like the company will have more to share soon.

Lore, which was founded by a trio of friends who dropped out of the University of Pennsylvania to launch the company, is a TechStars company and has raised about $6 million from investors including the Founder Collective, Peter Thiel and IA Ventures.

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Few areas hold more promise for creating good jobs and growing our economy than how we use American energy, and today President Obama visited the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois to talk about the progress we are seeing from his all of the above approach to energy independence and the risk that this important sector faces from the arbitrary cuts being imposed by the so-called sequester.

As President Obama noted in his remarks, these cuts do not distinguish between wasteful programs and vital investments. "They don’t trim the fat; they cut into muscle and into bone," the President said. "Like research and development being done right here that not only gives a great place for young researchers to come and ply their trade, but also ends up creating all kinds of spinoffs that create good jobs and good wages."   

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