Blog

The British federated cloud company OnApp has launched CDN.net, a new brand for selling pay-as-you-go content delivery network (CDN) services directly to companies around the world.

OnApp started out selling cloud orchestration software to hosting providers that wanted to get into the public cloud business. Over time, the firm built a sizeable federation of service provider customers, giving them the ability to use each others’ spare capacity – federated CDN launched in 2011; then came distributed storage; and federated compute capacity is next on the horizon.

However, until now OnApp’s game has been all about helping service providers make the most of their spare resources within the federation – one provider may lack a point of presence (PoP) in a certain location but be able to use that of a fellow federation member, for example. CDN.net is OnApp’s first attempt at selling that federated capacity directly to end users, in this case companies that want to boost the performance of their websites in various locations around the globe.

CDN.net offers access to over 150 PoPs, which is not as extensive a network as those offered by Akamai and Limelight, but way bigger than those from smaller players such as Yottaa, MaxCDN and CacheFly — it’s even slightly more wide-ranging than CDNetworks’ network. However, according to CDN.net marketing manager James Fletcher, the real selling point is CDN.net’s flexibility and pay-by-usage pricing:

“It allows the end user to be in control of what they are purchasing … We saw in the marketplace that you can buy CDN and get a one-size-fits all solution, but that doesn’t work for everyone. The end result is you pay for resources and locations you don’t use. The CDN.net vision allows you to spin up on the fly and provision and customize as you need to.”

At launch, CDN.net will only include 30 PoPs with a focus on Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific. However, OnApp is working to add locations in emerging markets and users will be able to add locations based on demand. “If the customer comes along and wants somewhere in South Africa, we can work with the service provider network to get one up and running,” Fletcher explained. Livestreaming capabilities will also go live soon.

Ultimately, OnApp is trying to “help line the pockets of the service providers”, as Fletcher put it, but it’s also quietly becoming one of Europe’s most significant cloud players, perhaps the most significant. Others have talked about or even attempted this kind of federated model, but no-one has achieved the sort of scale that OnApp can boast – scale that it achieved by stealth, but that it’s now starting to exploit in earnest.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Report: Delivering Content in the Cloud
• Infrastructure Q1: Cloud and big data woo enterprises
• Federated clouds: for when one cloud isn’t good enough

Enterprise cloud computing company Salesforce.com (CRM) announced its intention to offer $1 billion aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes, with the potential for $150 million more, in long-term convertible debt. The company recently announced 2013 fourth quarter and full year fiscal results, with operating cash flow totaling $737 million, up 25 percent year-over-year. Total cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities finished the quarter at $1.8 billion.

With $1.15 billion Salesforce.com intends to use a portion of the net proceeds for the cost of the convertible note hedge transactions, and fund possible acquisitions of, or investments in, complementary businesses, services or technologies, working capital and capital expenditures. The company has an almost $27 billion market cap presently.

Salesforce.com issued a sustainability commitment memo recently, citing a goal of becoming fully powered by renewable energy. It will work to steadily increase the amount of renewable energy used in its data center operations.  The company memo lists four steps that it will take this year towards achieving the goal:

• Adopting a data center siting policy that states a preference for access to clean and renewable energy supply
• Researching energy efficiency and renewable energy solutions for future data centers
• Encouraging data center energy providers to increase the supply of renewable energy
• Convening peers, sustainability specialists and energy experts around data center energy issues

Salesforce.com added more than 100,000 square feet of new data center space in 2012. The company currently houses much of its operations in colocation space from third-party companies, including Equinix, and thus is currently reliant on the power mix from these providers. Salesforce.com has said that it will evaluate building its own data centers as its infrastructure expands.

Celebrating its 14th birthday recently, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff reflected on the journey of turning a simple idea into a high-growth company.

To change the global mindset of any company, you have to brave the world beyond the boardroom.

That’s the theory behind our one-month relocation of Starwood’s corporate headquarters — across nine time zones — to Dubai. We’re here to be immersed in one of the world’s most dynamic regions, and to see our global business through a sharply focused local lens.

The Dubai move is a sequel to the month we spent in Shanghai in 2011. Our relocation to China stretched our thinking. We saw what it’s like to have as many hotels under construction as open; to hire 20,000 associates in one year; to watch consumers use smartphones to book same-day hotel rooms. All this drove home the point that we need to be more agile in extreme-growth markets.

As a new crossroads of global travel, Dubai will soon be home to the world’s busiest international airport. It’s already a shining example of a new golden age of wealth and travel, just an eight-hour flight from half the world’s population. While we’re here, Dubai will serve as a hub for our own travel to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Qatar and India.

Our relocation is geared to shift our own mindset to being both a global and a “multi-local” company. To get there, we’re following three principles based on what we learned from our relocation to Shanghai:

1. Let the local team shine. While we’re here, the Middle East team is the master of ceremonies. They’ve crafted a varied schedule that will make the most of our time. We’ll meet face-to-face with hotel owners, partners, customers, and guests to build stronger relationships. The best part will be the extra time with our associates, seeing the world through their eyes. Our role is to support our local teams, not to oversee them.

2. Continue running the global business. Working 7,000 miles away has its challenges. Friday is a “weekend” here and Sunday is a “weekday.” But this is a relocation, not a business trip, so we must continue to do our day jobs balancing both schedules and time zones. Technology will allow us to push projects forward with emails, conference calls, and video conferences. Our teams back in Stamford still have goals and deadlines to meet. Our culture is set up to make decisions no matter where the senior team is sitting.

3. Engage the entire organization. Geographically we’re in the Middle East and our meetings are focused on this region. But we know great ideas that make sense globally can come from anywhere. We’ve invited over 200 leaders from Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Americas to join us during parts of the relocation to get a first-hand look. And our associates will follow our postings on Tumblr and Instagram . We are traveling locally and sharing globally to disperse the experience throughout Starwood.

Globalization is changing how companies need to think. A new style of leadership is emerging. In a “flat” world, we no longer think about being centralized or decentralized. Our relocations are helping to re-level our company, opening us up to more dialog, smarter decisions, and better results.

This last point is especially important. I strongly believe the best decisions happen when people with the same goals and values — but different points of view — speak frankly around the table. These trips set us up to have such discussions around the globe. We get to listen firsthand to what our leaders and associates are saying.

We’re ready for a month on the go — and look forward to listening and learning every step of the way.

“Abenomics” is the buzzword in Japan these days — it refers to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s aggressive reflationary fiscal and monetary policies that triggered the yen’s 10 percent decline against the dollar and 17 percent rally in Tokyo stocks this year.

So it’s no wonder that the Japanese mutual fund market, the second largest in Asia-Pacific, enjoyed the largest monthly inflows in almost six years last month, raking in as much as $11 billion.

With all that new money coming in, will you be late to the game if you haven’t gone in already?

French fund manager Carmignac Gestion does not think so.

Carmignac, whose fund already has a 10 percent allocation to Japanese stocks, says investors’ general loss of interest in Japan since the 1990s has resulted in very low valuations. It estimates Japan’s price-to-book ratio is less than 0.7 times.

So it would seem that the equity market’s 20 percent rise over three months has not exhausted investment opportunities in Japan, provided that currency risk is fully hedged.

Morgan Stanley, however, has this health warning:

PM Abe has started with all policy guns blazing. For 2014, in order to keep growth going and end deflation, he will need to reload. Micro reform policies are his only new bullets. Market stability depends on him firing more, larger calibre ones.

 

 

Intel Open Source Technology Center has released an Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean developer preview build of “pre-alpha quality”, which is also “buggy and not highly optimized”, albeit one that has a major trick up its sleeve. Unlike the common version of the green droid operating system, which mostly runs solely on the ARM architecture, the aforementioned developer preview build — dubbed Android-IA — is designed to work on Intel’s x86 processor architecture used on Windows-compatible devices.

So what would you need to run this “buggy and not highly optimized” Android 4.2.2 build? Intel says that Android-IA can only boot with UEFI mode enabled within the BIOS, which straight off the bat narrows down the list of compatible devices and therefore the ability to run this green droid build, and includes support for dual-boot alongside Windows 8. The chip maker also warns that even if your device is theoretically compatible, in order to dual-boot with Windows 8 onboard there are certain aspects to be considered beforehand.

The installer will “not disturb” Windows 8 on EFI-based devices, but it needs unpartitioned space in order to carry on with the process and you will need to choose to dual-boot alongside Windows 8, because otherwise Intel warns that the installer will erase the entire disk. The company also says that users should back up their personal data beforehand and that the command line interface for the installer is somewhat “crude at the moment” and that it will be improved in the upcoming weeks.

The Android 4.2.2 developer preview build comes with the Linux 3.8.0 kernel and signed modules, interactive installer, Gummiboot bootloader, Mesa software library that is based on the freedesktop upstream and an unified installer. The unified installer, however, is touted to work for all compatible devices except the Samsung XE700T tablet, which needs a separate one that Intel also provides.

By and large, Android-IA has to be properly installed on an USB flash drive and the user must set up the device as to boot from the USB flash drive and choose “Install Android to hard disk” from the boot menu, in order to get the green droid distribution up and running. It’s not a complicated process but it requires a methodical approach.

The latest setback for the new HTC (2498) flagship model is the announcement by UK retailer Clove about the device’s British launch getting delayed from March 15th to March 29th. This come after a long series of brokerage research notes discussing the component sourcing problems HTC is having. It has seemed clear for months that early volumes of the HTC One are going to be thin through April; but it now looks as though March shipments could be minuscule.

Continue reading…

File-sharing Dropbox has updated its desktop client for Windows, Mac and Linux with the release of Dropbox 2.0 FINAL. The new build debuts a major revamp of the user interface, accessed when the user clicks the app’s menu bar or Taskbar Notification area icon.

At the present time, the new menu system is only available to Windows users running XP or later, and Mac users running Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) or later — it has not yet been implemented in the Linux build.

The new menu is more graphically pleasing affair than its predecessor, displaying a summary of recently changed or shared files complete with file type icon or thumbnail preview for identification purposes. Rolling the mouse over an item reveals a Share button, which whisks the user off to the Dropbox website for setting up a public file-sharing invite.

Users should also get notifications when other Dropbox users share items with them — in the case of files, it’s a straight link to the file itself via the Dropbox website, while folder invites can be accepted or declined from here. Once accepted, shared folders are accessible from the user’s own Dropbox folder.

The new build also provides real-time notification of invites and other sharing functions — via the program icon in Windows and the Notification Center in OS X, while shortcuts at the top or bottom of the pop-up menu provide quick and easy access to the user’s locally hosted Dropbox folder as well as their Dropbox account online.

Features displayed on the old menu bar — including how much space is left in a user’s account as well as the current sync progress — have been relegated to a new settings button. The update also fixes a bug where discrete graphics would be enabled on OS X laptops along with other small, unspecified bug fixes. Support for Brazilian Portuguese has also been added with this release.

In itself, the new features — while pleasing on the eye — don’t offer an awful lot to get excited about, but highlight Dropbox’s new focus on sharing as well as backup and syncing. They follow similar functionality appearing on recent updates to the mobile versions of Dropbox, including Dropbox for iOS 2.1.3 and Dropbox for Android 2.3.3.

Dropbox 2.0 FINAL is a freeware download for Dropbox users running Windows, Mac or Linux.

Photo credit: mojito.mak[dog]gmail[dot]com/Shutterstock

Aimed at the Android developer and modding community, Taiwanese company HTC has introduced a new iteration of the One smartphone that was introduced three weeks ago, called One Developer Edition. The two devices share the same underpinnings, except for two major changes in the software department.

The One Developer Edition is aimed at the US Android enthusiast as it features a carrier unlock and unlocked bootloader out-of-the-box, whereas the One will come without any of the two coveted specifications when purchased from local mobile operators. The price difference, however, may force you to reconsider acquiring the new iteration.

Although there is no official pricing just yet for the One it’s fair to assume that the handset will be around the $200-$300 mark, the same as with the One X or One X+. The One Developer Edition, on the other hand, is set to arrive in US stores “in limited quantities” for $649, according to HTC.

Luckily the spec sheet is just as impressive as its pricing. The One Developer Edition comes with a 4.7-inch display with a resolution of 1920 by 1080 and a 468ppi (pixels per inch) density and is powered by a 1.7GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor and 2GB of RAM. The smartphone features 64GB of internal storage (it appears to be the only storage option) and support for 4G LTE on the 700/850/AWS/1900MHz bands within the US.

For developers, HTC also provides open APIs for “Bluetooth Low Energy, Infrared, and more” which should help towards releasing custom Android distributions for the One Developer Edition, among other things.

Ketchup maker H.J. Heinz Company has launched syndication of its $12 billion debt financing backing its buyout by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital, Reuters reported. JP Morgan and Wells Fargo are joint bookrunners on the deal and a number of banks joined the deal on a sub-underwriting basis including Banco do Brasil, Barclays, Citigroup, HSBC, Itau Unibanco, RBC and UBS among others, bankers said. Heinz will be bought for $72.50 a share, or $23.2 billion in cash. Including debt assumption, Heinz valued the deal at $28 billion, which it called the largest in food industry history.

(Reuters) – Ketchup maker H.J. Heinz Company has launched syndication of its $12 billion debt financing backing its buyout by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital, banking sources said.

JP Morgan and Wells Fargo are joint bookrunners on the deal and a number of banks joined the deal on a sub-underwriting basis including Banco do Brasil, Barclays, Citigroup, HSBC, Itau Unibanco, RBC and UBS among others, bankers said.

Heinz will be bought for $72.50 a share, or $23.2 billion in cash. Including debt assumption, Heinz valued the deal at $28 billion, which it called the largest in food industry history.

Lender meetings are scheduled to take place in New York on Thursday and London on Friday.

The debt package consists of a $1.5 billion revolving credit facility (RCF) and $10.5 billion in term loans split between a six-year TLB1 tranche and seven-year TLB2 tranche. The term loans include 8.5 billion denominated in dollar, up to $1.4 billion in euros and around $600 million in sterling.

The RCF will pay a margin of 50 basis points (bps) over Libor if it remains undrawn or 200 bps if drawn. The dollar TLB1 and TLB2 are guided to pay an interest margin of around 275-300 bps over Libor and the euro and sterling TLB1 and TLB2 will pay slightly more at around 300-325 bps over Euribor/Libor as the currencies are perceived to be less liquid than dollars, bankers said.

The TLB1 and TLB2 will be offered with a 1 percent Libor floor and 99.5 original issue discount.

The TLB-1 will have 101 soft call protection, while the TLB-2 will have soft call protection of 101 in years one and two.

Corporate family ratings are Ba3/BB-/BB-, while facility ratings are Ba2/BB/BB+.

“Heinz is big, well liked and popular credit and people will be very keen to go into it. Syndication is likely to go smoothly,” one of the bankers said.

Meanwhile, a $2.1 billion bridge to second-lien term loan, which is a component of the buyout debt, has been successfully syndicated. The bridge will be taken out by a high yield bond and roadshows for the bond are expected to take place in the next week or two, the bankers said.

Heinz also plans to roll over some existing debt that is not covered under change of control provisions for accelerated repayment.

(Reporting by Claire Ruckin and Natalie Wright in New York; editing by Christopher Mangham)

The post Reuters – Heinz Launches Syndication for $12B Buyout Deal appeared first on peHUB.

HG Data, a company that takes a big-data approach in providing salespeople with lists of potential leads on enterprise technology customers, has raised $2 million in venture funding. Epic Ventures led the round, which brings the total capital raised to around $3.5 million.

The company’s approach aims at disrupting the business of legacy IT market information vendors such as IDG and TechTarget, which count on employees to conduct phone surveys with IT people and generate statistics and reports. HG Data uses machine learning to update databases based on information that is or was available to the public and unstructured data from press releases, case studies, white papers and other documents. Customers can buy slices of the cleaned-up databases that HG Data keeps on its public cloud. For example, customers can drill down to see which companies use the 2000, 2003, 2007 and 2010 editions of the Microsoft Exchange.

HG Data stands out from other data-focused IT market data providers, such as DiscoverOrg, iProfile and RainKing, because of the granular detail on the specific products used at enterprises, CEO Craig Harris said. The company has signed up around 50 customers, including Fortune 100 tech companies and marketing companies such as Harte-Hanks, Harris said. Use cases include identifying the best venues to place ads that target users of certain enterprise software and hardware and pitch them on an alternative. Looking forward, Harris said the company will enter other markets.

If HG Data can gain more traction while adding support for other industries and in other countries, the company could more quickly turn lead generation into yet another business function that’s done best with computers storing and processing information in the cloud. For now, though, old-school practices still play a role in lead generation.

Data scientists, chief technology officers and founders will take the stage to discuss myriad use cases for data science at GigaOM’s Structure:Data conference in New York next week.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Listening platforms: finding the value in social media data
• A near-term outlook for big data
• 12 tech leaders’ resolutions for 2012

Motorola Solutions Venture Capital has invested an undisclosed amount in BriefCam, a developer of Video Synopsis software for the rapid review and analysis of surveillance video. The money will be used for sales and marketing.

PRESS RELEASE
Motorola Solutions, Inc. (NYSE: MSI), through its strategic investment arm Motorola Solutions Venture Capital, has announced its investment in BriefCam, the developer and provider of Video Synopsis solutions for the rapid review, analysis and indexing of surveillance video. The funds will be used to expand BriefCam’s worldwide marketing and sales activities.

“We were happy to find a great investment like BriefCam to expand our exposure in the growing video space. The substantial growth in the amount of surveillance videos created each year provides new opportunities for public safety and other industries, and we’re glad to seize such an opportunity.”

BriefCam’s patented Video Synopsis technology enables the rapid review of captured video – with an index to the original source, whether video feed or archival footage – for on-the-spot event tracking, forensics and evidence discovery.

BriefCam fulfills the global unmet need to browse video, investigate and identify incidents rapidly, and take action. Its award-winning Video Synopsis technology gives users the ability to review rapidly, compacting hours of events into a “brief” that takes minutes to view. The company’s customers include police, military, border control and other Homeland Security agencies, as well as security operations at municipalities, transportation authorities, building and campus security offices, retail loss prevention and more.

This investment is Motorola Solutions’ second in the Israeli market and third in the surveillance video space since 2011.

“We have been looking into various companies in the Israeli hi-tech industry, specifically in the area of public safety technologies,” said Boaz Or-Shraga, managing director, Motorola Solutions Venture Capital. “We were happy to find a great investment like BriefCam to expand our exposure in the growing video space. The substantial growth in the amount of surveillance videos created each year provides new opportunities for public safety and other industries, and we’re glad to seize such an opportunity.”

“BriefCam is delighted to welcome Motorola Solutions Venture Capital as an investor and strategic partner,” said Dror Irani, CEO and president of BriefCam. “It is our hope that Motorola Solutions’ experience and global presence opens new opportunities for BriefCam in areas such as public safety, safer cities and law enforcement, as well as enterprise and retail. We expect Motorola Solutions’ global presence will also assist BriefCam greatly in accelerating penetration of new geographic regions where we have not been active to date.”

About Motorola Solutions

Motorola Solutions is a leading provider of mission-critical communication solutions and services for enterprise and government customers. Through leading-edge innovation and communications technology, it is a global leader that enables its customers to be their best in the moments that matter. Motorola Solutions trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker “MSI.” To learn more, visit www.motorolasolutions.com. For ongoing news, please visit our media center or subscribe to our news feed.

About Motorola Solutions Venture Capital

Motorola Solutions Venture Capital is the strategic equity investment arm of Motorola Solutions. Its diversified portfolio is focused on “new-idea” companies and opportunities that complement Motorola Solutions’ business strategy. Motorola Solutions Venture Capital invests at all stages in developing companies to accelerate access to new technologies, new markets and new talents. For more information, please visit www.motorolasolutions.com/ventures.

About BriefCam

BriefCam®, Ltd. is the developer and provider of Video Synopsis®, an award-winning technology that summarizes hours of events into a “brief” that takes just minutes to watch, whether direct video feed or archived footage. BriefCam products interface with a wide range of DVR/NVRs, advanced IP cameras and complement existing surveillance solutions. The company’s mission is to enable the Total Video Review of all footage recorded for safety and security. BriefCam is winner of the 2012 Israel HLS Technology Innovation Award, the 2011 ASIS Accolades Award – Surveillance, the 2010 IFSEC Security Industry Award – Best CCTV System Product, the 2010 Wall St. Journal Technology Innovation Award – Physical Security and others. Founded in December 2007, BriefCam, Ltd. is headquartered in Neve Ilan, Israel, operates a US subsidiary, BriefCam, Inc. and maintains sales offices in Connecticut, USA and Shanghai, China. For more information: www.briefcam.com. Updates: twitter.com/BriefCamVS.

MOTOROLA, MOTO, MOTOROLA SOLUTIONS and the Stylized M Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Motorola Trademark Holdings, LLC and are used under license. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. ©2013 Motorola Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.

The post BriefCam Scores Investment from Motorola appeared first on peHUB.

It’s another edition of the weekly call-in show where we answer your tech questions. We start off the show with some commentary on Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S 4 smartphone and then answer questions about handset battery life, free cloud storage included with Google’s Chromebook Pixel and display resolutions. We also have a call-in voice-mail comment about a prior show topic.

To be a part of the show, just call in and leave a voicemail at 262-KCTOFEL. If you do, we’ll play back the question on the show and answer it. Or you can tweet me at @kevinctofel on Twitter. Each week, I’ll answer as many questions as I can while keeping the podcast to a manageable amount of time: 20 to 30 minutes at most.

(download this episode)

Subscribe to RSS

iTunes

Stitcher Radio

SHOW NOTES:

Hosts: Chris Albrecht and Kevin C. Tofel

• What should we expect in Samsung’s Galaxy S 4?
• How can my phone and my HDTV both have 1080p screens?
• Voicemail from Frank about the coming contextual web.
• Why is battery life so poor on Android compared to other platforms — and how can you improve it?
• If I buy a Pixel from a retailer instead of Google, do I still get the free 1 TB of storage?

SELECT PREVIOUS EPISODES:

Podcast: Facebook’s feedin’; Lean In’s meanin’; and everyone’s Hadoop-in

IoT: When devices can talk, will they conspire against you?

Call-in show: Why the “I’m leaving iPhone” trend?

Internet of things Podcast – Almond+’s nutty idea: Making sensor connectivity a snap

Yahoo’s WFH Boo-Boo

PlayStation Snore?

Podcast: Why the internet of things is cool and how Mobiplug is helping make it happen

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Analyzing the wearable computing market
• LTE changes everything; LTE changes nothing
• Updated: Forecast: global mobile subscribers, 2010-2015

Group messaging, photo filter apps, and now … calendars? A schedule of your daily appointments might be one of the most inherently boring app categories, but judging by the number of pitches hitting my inbox, it’s also cropped up as one of the latest iOS app trends. More than five years after the iPhone debuted with a built-in calendaring app, third-party developers are still trying to one-up each other on who can build the best mobile calendar interface.

Fantastical has set the bar for iPhone calendars; for simplicity and ease of use it’s one of the best and basic ways of adding events to your calendar — for a price ($3.99). Sunrise is the most fun and easiest on the eyes and, crucially, it’s free. Both were released in the last three months. The App Store is littered with lots of not-so-great calendar apps, but there are several other really good ones too.

On Wednesday comes another entrant; this one is simply called Calendars. This effort is from one of the most popular iOS productivity app makers, Readdle. That’s the same Ukrainian development shop behind Scanner Pro, Remarks and PDF Expert. Readdle gets good exposure in the App Store and its apps are often among the top downloaded, so if you’re in the habit of scanning the iOS App Store, you’ll likely see this one when it goes live on Wednesday.

Calendars is free and works on the iPhone or iPad. The interface isn’t anything fancy but it’s easy to understand if you’ve ever used Google Calendar. The app isn’t the best I’ve used in the category, though you can’t argue with the price. It supports either your iPhone calendar or a Google Calendar — but only one at at a time. If you want more, you can upgrade to a more feature-heavy version.

Yes, Readdle actually already has a calendaring app, called Calendars by Readdle. With the introduction of the new, free app, the old paid app will henceforth be called Calendar+. It costs $6.99 and has a lot more features, such as text or email alerts for appointments and the ability to invite attendees to meetings. That app already has 500,000 users, according to the company.

But just as the market for well-designed calendar apps is growing, Readdle is introducing a free version. As for why something as perfunctory as mobile calendaring seems so hot right now, Readdle’s Denys Zhadanov says it’s because the perfect formula hasn’t been found yet and developers are striving to make the interface as easy as possible to use and “natural” for users.

I’ve heard the same from the makers of other popular calendar app makers: that even now after many years and many other more interesting capabilities of the iPhone already conquered, one of the most basic things is still not as good as it could be. So developers are going back to the basics of what these devices in our pockets are primarily supposed to do. (You could say the same dynamics are at work with iPhone email, which partly explains the recent flurry of activity around mail with apps like Mailbox, Tempo, Taskbox and others.)

The idea that the iPhone calendar could be improved isn’t exactly new. Two years ago, some saw basic functionality missing: it didn’t have a week view option, which prompted the developers at Week Cal to make an app to fill in that gap. It’s now one of the most downloaded iOS calendaring apps.

Based on the recent calendar apps efforts we’ve seen, the improvements left to make today are more granular: improving ways to add events, creating the least overwhelming way to view multiple calendars, or combining appointments with other needs like task management, location information or social networking. It’s not the sexiest app development work out there, but it’s the kind of improvement that make the iPhone a real tool for work and not just an entertainment device.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Development strategies for the app-developer community
• Mobile 2012 and beyond
• A near-term outlook for the mobile app marketplace

Want to know what U.S. smartphone adoption might look like next year? You’d do well to start by taking a look at today’s teenagers, who are owning smartphones and accessing the internet through mobile in increasing numbers.

A new study set to release Tuesday night from the Pew Research Center finds that one in four American teenagers accesses the internet primarily through mobile; about three quarters of those teens own cell phones, and half of that group uses smartphones. The report, titled “Teens and Technology 2013,” surveyed 802 teenagers (ages 12-17), as well as their parents, to better understand how U.S. teenagers are using technology.

The major mobile carriers in the United States found that adult smartphone adoption in the United States hit 50 percent in August 2012, and teenagers aren’t far behind, nearing almost 40 percent at this point.

Here were some statistics we found most interesting from the report, which can be found on the Pew Research Center website:

• Almost all teenagers — 95 percent — use the internet, and 93 percent can access a computer at home
• 74 percent of teenagers get on the internet somewhat occasionally via phones and tablets, and one in four of them access the internet primarily through mobile
• 78 percent of teenagers own a cell phone and 47 percent of those teenagers have smartphones specifically
• 37 percent of all teenagers in the United States own smartphones, an increase from the 23 percent in 2011
• Tablet computer ownership marks 23 percent of teenagers, which is about the same percentage among U.S. adults
• While girls and boys are equally likely to own smartphones, girls aged 14-17 are much more likely than boys of the same age to get on the intenret primarily through mobile (34 percent of girls versus 24 percent of boys)
• Interesting, teenagers from lower income families are more likely to access the internet primarily through cell (30 percent of teens from households earning less than $30,000 per year, compared to 14 percent from households earning $50,000-$74,999 and 24 percent from households at more than $75,000.)

And probably to no one’s suprise, teenagers are the age group most likely to be accessing the internet, still out pacing older users, particularly those over 65, by a wide margin:

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• 12 tech leaders’ resolutions for 2012
• Dissecting the data: 5 issues for our digital future
• Connected world: the consumer technology revolution

XL Hybrids, Inc. said it raised $4 million in a Series B round of private investment with previous investors participating in the round. The company did not name its investors in a release. It said only that its investors include entrepreneurs and business executives from multiple industries, including automotive, energy, software and finance.

PRESS RELEASE

XL Hybrids Secures $4 Million In Series B Investment

Financing Will Support Product Growth Throughout North America

BOSTON, March 13, 2013 – XL Hybrids, Inc., provider of a low-cost hybrid electric powertrain designed for class 1 to 3 commercial fleet vehicles, today announced that it has raised $4 million in a series B investment round led by private investors, with previous investors also participating in the round. After developing its hybrid powertrain technology and validating it in the field with multiple Fortune 500 companies, XL Hybrids will use this funding to ramp up the delivery of its hybrid electric powertrain to existing and new customers.

Investors in this round include successful entrepreneurs and leading business executives from multiple industries, including automotive, energy, software and finance. While massive government loans and other sources of funding dry up for many cleantech companies, XL Hybrids has proven its ability to deliver fuel savings with a cost-effective technology, sell to large Fortune 500 companies and implement a capital-efficient business model. XL Hybrids’ hybrid electric powertrain reduces fuel consumption by 20 percent and can be installed in both new and existing vehicles. This type of system is ideal for companies operating commercial vans, box-trucks and shuttles in and around major urban markets.

“This round of investment enables us to start scaling our business and expanding our geographic reach.  We are working with customers that have large national and international fleets, and we can now help them save fuel and money at a larger scale,” said Tod Hynes, president and founder of XL Hybrids. “With support from our investors, XL Hybrids will continue to expand the availability of our hybrid powertrain and meet the demands of commercial fleets looking for a proven return on investment and reduced emissions.”

This latest investment round brings the total amount of funding for XL Hybrids to approximately $8 million. Earlier this quarter, XL Hybrids expanded its product line to offer hybrid powertrain technology for Ford E-Series vans; the company can now offer a compelling return on investment and significant emissions reductions to more than 75 percent of light duty van fleet buyers. XL Hybrids also signed an installation partnership and distribution agreement with Leggett & Platt Commercial Vehicle Products (CVP), providing its customers with ship-through ordering.

For more information on XL Hybrids technology and availability, visit www.xlhybrids.comor email info [at] xlhybrids.com.

About XL Hybrids
XL Hybrids designs, manufactures and installs hybrid electric powertrains for commercial vans and trucks. The company’s patent-pending hybrid electric powertrain can be installed on existing vehicles or as an upfit on new ones. By storing energy wasted in braking and reapplying it during acceleration, XL Hybrids technology decreases fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions by up to 21.2 percent on urban routes, while operating with the same durability and reliability as traditional vans and trucks.  XL Hybrids was founded by MIT alumni and is based in Boston. For more information, visit www.xlhybrids.com.

The post XL Hybrids Raises $4M In Series B Round appeared first on peHUB.

There are some areas where Apple (AAPL) thrives and some areas where it continues to struggle, and social networks definitely fall into the latter category. Apple’s failed Ping service is the biggest piece of evidence that the company isn’t quite sure what users want from a social network, so the company now relies on deeper Twitter, Facebook (FB) and Yelp integration for most of the social aspects of iOS. Apple is still toying with its own social features behind closed doors that may enhance various third-party social services though, and a new patent reveals some interesting functionality that Apple is developing.

Continue reading…

Google X Labs is where products are rigorously tested and often kept shrouded in mystery. Examples of innovations that have come from X Labs is Project Glass and self driving cars. This week at SXSW, X Labs division head, Astro Teller, spoke of an upcoming “moonshot” product to be released in a few weeks.

One of the many interesting rumors surrounding Google’s X Labs is the notion that Google had been working on a “space elevator”. Teller quickly debunked this rumor during a Q & A session stating that the idea had become more of a mascot for the X Labs division and is the basis of the term “moonshot” project. Teller said that there would be one of these “moonshot” projects released later this year, giving little detail about the project except that control systems would be the focus.

Teller says upon approving the project, Larry Page instructed the team to move at a pace such that five prototypes would break. With such a rapid working pace, it’s hard to tell exactly what Google is working on. All we know is that whatever the case may be, Google is planning to deliver yet another innovation to the world.

Source: The Next Web

Come comment on this article: Google X Labs to announce new ‘moonshot’ project soon

The dire threat of public broadband lives on in Georgia. Consumerist reports that Georgia’s state legislature has shot down a bill that would have barred rural municipalities from building their own public broadband networks in areas where at least one residential building had an Internet connection speed of 1.5Mbps or higher. The Macon Telegraph reported last month that legislators from some rural towns in Georgia were “up in arms” over the proposed legislation and claimed that they needed to build their own broadband networks because “companies simply will not bring the highest-speed Internet to their residents because it doesn’t turn a profit.”

Continue reading…