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I’m a huge fan of Zombies, Run! The original immersive app, which basically turns a real-world run into a journey through the zombie apocalypse, helped me get fit and lose weight when it first came out last year.

I’ve been really looking forward to Zombies, Run! 2 since it was announced, and the great news is it’s nearly here. The updated version, which comes as a free upgrade for current players of the game, will arrive on both iOS and Android on 16 April.

If you haven’t heard about Zombies, Run!, it’s a bit like a radio play that takes place through your headphones as you run, with the story unfolding in between tracks from your playlist.

You play the role of Runner 5, and are sent out on missions to achieve certain goals and collect supplies along the way. Occasionally you’ll encounter zombie hordes and will need to run faster in order to outpace them. There are 23 main missions to play through, and when you’ve exhausted those, there are supply runs to try, a radio mode to entertain you, and even 5K, 10K and 20K race missions. Runs can be uploaded and shared online through the ZombieLink service.

The new version of the app comes with an additional seven free missions (four main ones and three side-quests) and then there will be an additional three missions released every week. These episodic missions won’t be free — you’ll either need to buy them separately, or pick up a season pass — but if you don’t want to do that, other free missions will appear from time to time.

Another change in the new version is the addition of a Base Builder. In the first Zombies, Run! Items you collected on your runs — like an axe, tinned food, bottled water or a sports bar — were used to build up Able Township, where Runner 5 lives. You just drop the items on the relevant building, antibiotics onto the hospital for example, and eventually that building will be upgraded. The population of your base also grows.

In Zombies, Run! 2 you have much greater control over what the base looks like. You can add new buildings, upgrade or demolish existing ones and so on. The more you run, the more supplies you collect, and the more you can do in the game.

Zombies, Run! was originally crowdfunded through Kickstarter and generally retails for around $8 (it’s currently on sale at $3.99). It’s available on iOS, Android and Windows Phone, but the sequel won’t be making its way on to Microsoft’s mobile OS, because the developers say they can’t justify the time or money necessary to bring it to the platform.

Trive Capital, the Dallas-based private equity firm, is acquiring Michigan-based automotive industry part maker Huron Inc. The deal marks the third buy for Trive in eight months since it was launched. Donnelly Penman & Partners advised the company and Patton Boggs was legal counsel to Trive.

PRESS RELEASE:

DALLAS, Texas and LEXINGTON, Michigan – Trive Capital (“Trive”), the Dallas, TX based private equity firm, is proud to announce its acquisition of Huron, Inc. (“Huron” or the “Company”).

Huron, based in Lexington, Michigan and founded in 1943, is a leading supplier of value-added tubular assemblies and precision machined products for the automotive industry. The Company utilizes advanced technologies, vertically integrated processes, and state-of-the-art systems to engineer and manufacture a diverse variety of customized products for the automotive industry. The Company is a leader in working with automotive manufacturers to deliver fuel-efficient powertrain technologies.
Conner Searcy, Managing Partner at Trive, commented, “The Huron acquisition represents Trive’s third platform investment since launching the firm just eight months ago. We are thrilled to add such a strong business to our existing portfolio, and we look forward to partnering with the Company and its talented employees to capitalize on several tangible near term opportunities.”
Robert M. Bales, Huron’s President & CEO, stated, “The management team is excited about the opportunity to partner with Trive Capital. The relationship will strengthen Huron’s position as a top-tier industry supplier and will provide the financial and operational support needed to continue our business success. The future has never been brighter for our company, and the timing of this partnership positions us very well.”
Chris Zugaro, Partner at Trive, noted, “Trive aims to partner with strategically viable businesses on the cusp of a stepwise improvement in performance. We respect the long-standing relationships Huron has with its customers, suppliers, and employees and look forward to leveraging our deep experience within the automotive space to further enhance the business.”
Donnelly Penman & Partners served as financial advisor to the Company, and Patton Boggs LLP served as legal counsel to Trive with respect to the transaction.
About Huron, Inc.
Huron, Inc., based in Lexington, Michigan, is the leading supplier of value-added tubular assemblies and precision components used in automotive engine, transmission, fuel, and climate control systems. The Company is one of the largest independent producers of precision bar-turned products in the U.S. and has successfully expanded into specialized tubular fabrication. For more information about Huron, visit www.huroninc.com.
About Trive Capital
Trive Capital (www.trivecapital.com) is a Dallas, TX-based private equity firm focused on acquiring strategically viable, under-resourced middle-market companies with the potential for transformational upside. Trive utilizes proven operational best practices and identifies actionable opportunities that allow businesses, shareholders and employees to realize their full long-term potential.

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Researching the Maha Kumbh Mela — the religious festival that takes place every 12 years near Allahabad in north India, at which over 100 million Hindus gather — has more than its fair share of challenges. (And I’m not talking here about a tragic railway footbridge collapse or the incessant rain that flooded the tent city last week.) Setting up a live experiment is never easy and always exciting. Our goal: to trace ground-up the emergence of a market, and figure out the structures and mechanisms that will allow it to work more efficiently.

Consider the numerous choices that my colleagues, Columbia Business School’s Emily Breza and Microsoft Research’s Arun Chandrasekhar, and I faced when we decided to study how information about demand and supply circulates, and how prices evolve in the huge market that springs up during the Kumbh Mela. Our focus was on the numerous vendors who move in overnight to cater to the millions of people who attend the Mela by selling food grains, vegetables, fruits, and other provisions.

We first identified the main sources of demand. One is the approximately 500,000 pilgrims, called kalpvasis, who camp on the festival grounds for its entire duration. Another, probably the biggest, is itinerant pilgrims, who spend a day or two at the Mela. Government officials managing the event, such as bureaucrats, security personnel, and healthcare workers, constitute another source of demand. And observers like us, attending the event to report on it or for research (and, in my case, a little bit of spirituality) also need to buy groceries.

On the supply side, we had to decide which vendors to survey so we ended up with a representative sample. We asked ourselves: Is the process of setting prices different for each product? We assumed it is, so we had to create a sample accordingly. Other issues quickly arose: How many of each kind should we survey? Since we are interested in vendor as networks, should we choose vendors who clustered together or ensure they were spatially separated? And so on.

After making some assumptions, we had to pick a large number of vendors, explain how they could help us, and convince them that it would not waste their time. We then employed some surveyors, whom we trained in data collection. Their job was to ensure the accuracy of the data that the vendors generated in the necessary formats and frequency.

We wondered if we’d have to oversee the monitors, but as it turned out, several of them had already participated in field studies conducted by the Institute for Financial Management and Research, and knew what they were doing. Another colleague, Vikas Dimble, heroically managed the on-the-ground data gathering process, making our lives infinitely easier.

Tracking several other factors helped us cross-check the data’s validity and interpret it correctly. For example, each commodity commanded a different price on the Mela grounds, but Allahabad’s wholesale market was the main source for most of them. The variations between wholesale and retail prices had obviously something to teach us.

One goal is to identify the factors that drive price changes, so we had to be creative. For instance, if the price of a Mela staple, such as sweet potato, shot up, was it because of a breakdown in supplies due to say rain, or was it because of a demand surge caused by a sudden influx of pilgrims? To find out, we could artificially boost demand for a while by handing out small sums of money, or we could augment supplies by offering vendors small subsidies.

If some information was hard to come by — the wholesaler’s location, for example —-its impact on price was obviously of interest. So we highlighted where the wholesalers were located to a randomly chosen subset of retailers, which changed the amount of products bought and sold as well as prices.

Building the data-set and making interventions requires the establishment of trust between buyers, sellers, regulators, surveyors, and researchers. Once we’ve crunched the numbers, we’ll not only be able to observe a market as it grows, but identify what practices helped it work best.

(Reuters) – A consortium led by Carlyle Group and company management has reached a deal to take Chinese economy hotel chain 7 Days Group Holdings Ltd private, after raising its bid by 9 percent to $688 million.

Chinese companies like 7 Days are delisting from U.S. bourses in increasing numbers as regulatory scrutiny mounts and the advantages of a U.S. listing slip away.

The consortium backing the 7 Days deal — Carlyle Group, Sequoia Capital, Actis and the co-chairmen of the company Boquan He and Nanyan Zheng — initially approached the company last September.

They have now agreed to pay $13.80 for each 7 Days American Depositary Share (ADS), up from $12.70 previously, a 30.6 percent premium over the Sep. 25 closing price, the last full trading day before the original offer was announced.

7 Days, which runs limited-service hotels under the 7 Days Inn brand across major metropolitan areas in China, had lost half its value since 2010 before receiving the go-private offer.

Almost $5 billion of private equity-backed deals to take China companies private have been agreed since late December, including the $3.7 billion leveraged buyout of display advertising firm Focus Media Holding Ltd, a target of shortseller Muddy Waters.

Private equity firms are backers on many of the bigger take-private deals, working with company management to take advantage of big discounts to peers on the Hong Kong and China stock markets.

Out of 40 announced deals since 2010, 18 are private equity backed, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters.

Funding for buyouts of Chinese companies is done through offshore holding companies but many banks will not finance such deals due to the risk of non-payment. Limited financing has restricted deal sizes, and increases the amount of equity that private equity firms must invest.

The 7 Days buyout is backed by a leveraged loan of $120 million, or around 17 percent of the deal value, from a consortium of mainly Taiwanese banks. Typical recent leveraged buyouts in Asia feature around 50 percent in leveraged debt.

(Reporting by Stephen Aldred; Editing by Richard Pullin)

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The German parliament has passed a controversial law that will force search engines and news aggregators to pay publishers royalties for providing short snippets of their articles in results.

The Bundestag passed the Leistungsschutzrecht für Presseverleger (LSR), or “ancillary copyright for press publishers” law, on Friday by 293 votes to 243. The coalition government was the driver behind the law, and the main opposition, the SPD, now says it will try to defeat the law in the country’s second legislative chamber, the Bundesrat.

The text that got passed in the Bundestag apparently exempts “small text snippets”, although it does not state how short a text snippet has to be to be royalty-free – if it is less than headline-short, this will probably mean the wholesale removal of all German news publications from Google’s search results.

Google has been a vocal opponent of the law, for obvious reasons. In France and Belgium the company has settled related disputes with publishers in deals that many have seen as tantamount to a payoff. However, it looks like the German situation is now beyond settlement.

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ISTANBUL, Feb 28 (Reuters) – Abraaj Capital, the Middle East’s largest private equity firm, plans to sell its 50 percent stake in Turkish health insurer Acibadem Sigorta, three sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

Acibadem Sigorta is a 50:50 joint venture between a holding company owned by Dubai-based Abraaj and Mehmet Ali Aydinlar, founder of Turkey’s Acibadem health group, and ranks third in the sector with a market share of just over 10 percent.

Turkey’s economy, the fastest growing in Europe in 2011, expanded by less than 3 percent last year but its young and growing population of 75 million is regarded as under-insured, with total premium income rising 12 percent to 19.8 billion Turkish liras ($11 billion).

Health insurance premiums were up 11.9 percent at 2.24 billion liras last year, with Acbadem Sigorta’s premium income jumping 35.5 percent to 230.3 million liras, according to official data.

Three global insurers – Allianz, Dai-ichi Life , and Zurich – are already vying to buy Yapi Kredi Sigorta, a joint venture between Turkish group Koc Holding and Italian bank UniCredit, banking sources said this month.

“Strong demand is expected (for Acibadem Sigorta) as it is one of Turkey’s biggest health insurance firms,” one of the sources familiar with Abraaj’s plans told Reuters.

Austria’s Raiffeisen Investment has been commissioned to advise on the sale by both shareholders, two of the sources said.

Just over a year ago Abraaj, which manages around $7.5 billion in assets, sold its stake in Turkey’s largest hospital chain Acibadem Saglik to Integrated Healthcare Holdings, a unit of Malaysian state investment arm Khazanah Nasional, in a deal which valued Acibadem Saglik at $1.68 billion.

($1 = 1.7977 Turkish liras) (By Asli Kandemir; editing by Nick Tattersall and Greg Mahlich)

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SRS Distribution, a Texas-based distributor of roofing supplies, has been sold to Berkshire Partners, the Boston private equity firm. Specifics on the deal were not publicized. SRS was previously a portfolio company of AEA Investors.

PRESS RELEASE:

Harris Williams & Co. Advises SRS Distribution in its Sale to Berkshire Partners

Richmond, VA, February 28, 2013 – Harris Williams & Co., a preeminent middle market investment bank focused on the advisory needs of clients worldwide, announces the sale of SRS Distribution Inc. (SRS), a leading national distributor of roofing supplies and related materials, to Berkshire Partners. SRS was a portfolio company of AEA Investors LP (AEA). Harris Williams & Co. acted as advisor to SRS. The transaction closed on February 28, 2013 and was led by Mike Hogan, Chris Williams, Ryan Nelson, and Brent Spiller from the firm’s Richmond office.

“SRS is a remarkable building products platform with an exceptional track record of growth and an outstanding management team. It has been a pleasure working with Ron Ross (CEO) and his team to find a new partner who shares the company’s vision for the future. We have a longstanding relationship with the AEA team and are delighted to have represented them on this transaction” said Mike Hogan, a managing director at Harris Williams & Co.

In 2012, Harris Williams & Co. also served as the exclusive advisor to Roofing Supply Group (RSG), another leading distributor of roofing supplies and related materials. “The SRS transaction is a further example of the strong investor interest in building products and materials companies. We expect the ongoing recovery in new construction will continue to drive M&A activity in the sector,” added Ryan Nelson, a director at Harris Williams & Co.

Headquartered in McKinney, TX, SRS is the fourth largest residential roofing distributor in the U.S. with 85 locations in 29 states under 19 different brands: Suncoast Roofers Supply (FL), Southern Shingles (TX/OK/LA/MO/AR), SRS Roofing Supply (AL), Rowe Supply (GA/SC), Atlanta Roofing Supply (GA), Cannon Supply (SC), Columbia Wholesale (SC), Midwest Roofing Supply (IL/MN), Gary-Hobart Roofing Supply (IN), River City Wholesale (KY), Superior Distribution (TN/MD/VA/NC), Shake & Shingle Supply (CO/KS/MO/NE/IL), Stewart Building & Roofing Supply (AZ), Roofline Supply (OR/CA/UT), Stoneway Roofing Supply (WA), Pace Supply (PA/CT), Burbank Roofing Supply Group (CA), ABCO Supply (MI) and Sierra Roofing Supply (NV).

AEA was founded in 1968 by the Rockefeller, Mellon, and Harriman family interests and S.G. Warburg & Co. as a private investment vehicle for a select group of industrial family offices with substantial assets. AEA’s active individual investors include an extraordinary network of more than 75 highly successful business executives, industrial families and former government leaders. Today, AEA’s over 60 investment professionals operate globally with offices in New York, Connecticut, London, Munich, Hong Kong and Shanghai. The firm manages funds that have over $6 billion of invested and committed capital including the leveraged buyouts of middle market companies and small businesses and mezzanine and senior debt investing. AEA Private Equity invests across four sectors: value added industrial products, specialty chemicals, consumer products / retail and services.

Berkshire Partners, the Boston-based investment firm, has invested in over 100 middle market companies since 1986 through eight private equity funds with aggregate capital commitments of $11 billion. Berkshire has developed specific industry experience in several areas including consumer products and retail, business services, industrial manufacturing, transportation and communications. Berkshire has a strong history of partnering with management teams to grow the companies in which it invests with the goal of consistently achieving superior investment returns. The firm is currently investing from Berkshire Fund VIII, a $4.5 billion fund raised in 2011. Berkshire seeks to invest $50 million to $500 million of equity capital in each portfolio company.

Harris Williams & Co. (www.harriswilliams.com), a member of The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE:PNC), is a preeminent middle market investment bank focused on the advisory needs of clients worldwide. The firm has deep industry knowledge, global transaction expertise and an unwavering commitment to excellence. Harris Williams & Co. provides sell-side and acquisition advisory, board advisory, private placements and capital markets advisory services.

The firm has the leading middle market building products and materials practice, having closed over 75 sell-side M&A transactions, with a focus on a broad spectrum of related sectors with expertise that spans from lighter building products used in residential and commercial markets to heavy construction materials used in infrastructure applications. For more information on our building products and materials experience, contact Mike Hogan at +1 (804) 648-0072.

The firm also has the leading middle market specialty distribution practice, having closed over 60 sell-side M&A transactions across a spectrum of industries. For more information on our specialty distribution experience, contact Bob Baltimore at +1 (804) 648-0072.

Investment banking services are provided by Harris Williams LLC, a registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC, and Harris Williams & Co. Ltd, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. Harris Williams & Co. is a trade name under which Harris Williams LLC and Harris Williams & Co. Ltd conduct business.

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Feb 28 (Reuters) – Bushnell, an outdoor products manufacturer, is up for a sale in a deal that could be worth $1 billion, three sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday. Bushnell’s owner, private equity firm MidOcean Partners, is finalizing advisors for the process, said all the sources who declined to be identified because the talks are private.

Based in Overland Park, Kansas, Bushnell has about $100 million in annual earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), the sources said. It has annual revenue of roughly $450 million.

MidOcean Partners declined to comment.

Founded in 1948, Bushnell makes outdoor accessories such as binoculars, telescopes, night vision equipment and GPS devices. It sells products under various brands such as Butler Creek, Final Approach, Hoppe’s, Millett, Night Optics, Primos, Simmons, Stoney Point, Tasco and Uncle Mike’s.

It was acquired by MidOcean in 2007 from private equity firm Wind Point Partners. Last April, Bushnell acquired Primos Hunting, a hunting products maker.

(Reporting by Olivia Oran; Editing by Richard Chang)

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San Francisco-based video chat company Rabbit has raised a $3.3 million seed round. Michael Birch, founder of Bebo, CrunchFund and Google Ventures all participated in the investment, as well as angel investors.

PRESS RELEASE:

Video Chat Innovator Rabbit Raises $3.3 Million Seed Round
Google Ventures, CrunchFund and Bebo founder Michael Birch join existing investors to fuel transformation of video chat into social communication and sharing
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 28, 2013 — Rabbit today announced that it has raised a $3.3 million seed round of funding. The round includes new investors Google Ventures, CrunchFund and Bebo founder Michael Birch as well as existing angel investors. The funding round was raised concurrent with the release of Rabbit in private beta earlier this month. The company plans to use the funding for continued investment in Rabbit’s revolutionary video chat and content sharing technology, and launch it out of private beta to users around the world.
Rabbit is the first and only application that allows you to watch videos, listen to music and share any type of content together while video chatting with your friends.
“Rabbit’s design and user experience is unlike anything I’ve seen,” said Kevin Rose, General Partner at Google Ventures. “Video chatting is always designed for utility, but Rabbit has created an online social experience that is closer to hanging out with your friends in real life. I can’t wait for the world to see it.”
Rabbit was founded by four videogame pioneers who saw a need in the market for a new approach to online communications: one that allows synchronous, real-time video chat and sharing of content with small or large groups. By combining current internet infrastructure with cutting-edge gaming, social and VOIP frameworks, as well as applying the principles of massively multiplayer online gaming (MMOGs) and new innovations in product design, Rabbit has delivered an application that is a quantum leap in video chat and social networking.
“Rabbit is one of those things that should have existed before but couldn’t because the technology simply wasn’t where it needed to be,” said MG Siegler from CrunchFund. “In the age of always-on internet, we’re ready for a paradigm shift in online communication and interaction. And this is the team to deliver on that promise.”
Rabbit is available in private beta today for Mac OS X (10.7 or higher) and will roll out to additional platforms in the coming months. For updates on general availability of Rabbit, please follow Rabbit on Twitter @LetsRabbit, or Like Rabbit on Facebook at facebook.com/LetsRabbit.
About Rabbit
Rabbit revolutionizes video chat: watch movies and TV shows with your friends, listen to music together, chat with an unlimited number of people, and even meet new ones — all in a single application.

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NEW YORK, Feb 28 (Reuters) – SunTrust Banks Inc has found at least three private equity firms interested in buying its Ridgeworth Investments asset management unit, sources said, in the Atlanta-based bank’s third attempt to sell the firm in as many years.

The price is likely to be $250 million to $300 million, one of the two sources said.

The prospective bidders include New York-based Lightyear Capital and Crestview Partners, and Chicago-based Thoma Bravo, LLC, said the sources, who declined to be identified because they are not authorized to talk to the media.

The regional bank in the past few weeks has reached out to a handful of private equity firms about buying Ridgeworth, the sources familiar with the situation told Reuters this week.

Ridgeworth has $48.1 billion in assets under management, according to the company’s website.

The bank has provided a handful of buyers updated information about mandates that Ridgeworth has won recently from institutional investors, and it expects to get final bids in the next few days, one of the sources said, declining to elaborate.

A Lightyear spokeswoman did not return requests for comment. A spokeswoman for Thoma Bravo and spokesmen for Crestview and SunTrust declined to comment.

SunTrust, which suffered large losses during the financial crisis, was one of the few large U.S. banks whose capital plans such as raising dividends and initiating stock buybacks were rejected by the Federal Reserve Board last year in its stress-test reviews.

SunTrust tried to sell its asset management business, which includes six managers and its own Ridgeworth Funds, to Henderson Group Plc in 2010, but those talks fell apart. At that time the purchase price was estimated at $300 million to $400 million, according to media reports.

Last spring, SunTrust tried to sell its business again , but failed to cement a deal, the sources said.

If Crestview wins the Ridgeworth business, it would mark the second bank-owned asset management acquisition that the private equity firm makes this year.

Last week, Crestview teamed up with employees of Victory Capital Management to acquire Victory from KeyCorp for $246 million.

(Reporting by Jessica Toonkel; Editing by Richard Chang)

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Stitch Fix, the San Francisco-based personal shopping platform, raised $4.75 million in its Series A. Investors Baseline Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round and Western Technology Investment also participated.

PRESS RELEASE:

Online Styling Platform Stitch Fix Raises $4.75 Million in Series A Funding
Baseline Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners Investments Help Scale Consumer Business and Extend Product Offerings for Stitch Fix
SAN FRANCISCO — Stitch Fix, the personal shopping platform bringing the world of personal styling to a new, more accessible market, today announced the closing of its $4.75 million Series A funding round led by Baseline Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Western Technology Investment. This funding news crowns a year of rapid growth and product development for Stitch Fix, which has more than doubled its revenue since December 2012.
“We’ve created and armed our team of stylists with the best analytical tools in fashion to help them select and accurately identify the wardrobe items that best fit each client’s unique taste, lifestyle, size and budget,” said Katrina Lake, Founder and CEO of Stitch Fix. “This new round of funding will help us significantly scale our business and product offering to ensure we can meet the exciting growth we are experiencing.”
Stitch Fix has developed a suite of proprietary tools and services used by the team to physically deliver personal styling to more than 10,000 clients across the United States. This round of funding will enable the company to invest in and extend its offerings of retail tools, while scaling the company’s operational system by increasing inventory and logistical components to better service an expanding client base.

“The Stitch Fix team is pioneering a new wave of ecommerce and addressing a multi-billion dollar market opportunity that bridges the gap between the fashion industry and the consumer’s desire to access new and hard to find brands,” says Steve Anderson, Founder of Baseline Ventures. “The company’s early success with women across the country is proof that consumers are ready for truly personalized fashion delivered regularly to their doorstep.”
Stitch Fix’s team of expert stylists and engineers work together to capture the quintessence of fashion and design in a fundamental way. The company has created the first retail intelligence approach to closets comprised of deep data analytics and complex algorithms that recognize and match personal aspects of each client to specific aspects of clothing items and fashion trends. These efficient and effective styling tools enable Stitch Fix to deliver personal styling to the ‘everyday woman’s’ doorstep, helping her discover and incorporate on-trend looks into her wardrobe without leaving the house.
“Stitch Fix is the true marriage of the science of data and analytics with the art of fashion. By understanding a woman’s personal attributes, and understanding the attributes of fashion items, Stitch Fix can truly pack a perfect box of fashion items,” says Julie Bornstein, SVP of Digital at Sephora and Stitch Fix Board Member. “I’ve worked in ecommerce for over a decade and haven’t seen anything this exciting in fashion and technology.”
Since launching in 2011, Stitch Fix works with more than 200 contemporary women’s fashion brands and has delivered tens of thousands of Stitch Fixes – the company’s curated boxes of hand-selected garments and accessories.
About Stitch Fix:
Founded in 2011, Stitch Fix is the premiere online personal shopping platform, introducing the world of personal styling to women throughout the country at an accessible price point. Combining the art and science of fashion, Stitch Fix has built a suite of proprietary tools and style-matching technology used by the company’s expert styling team to identify the clothes and styles that best fit each client’s taste, budget and lifestyle. Clients receive Stitch Fix deliveries of five hand-selected garments to try in the comfort of their home, keep what they like and return what they don’t. Stitch Fix’s headquarters and warehouse are based in San Francisco, California.
For more information, visit www.stitchfix.com.

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We already know that data is integral to finding the cure for cancer, but some of that data needs the attention of human rather than machine eyes in order to be properly interpreted. To that end, the charity Cancer Research UK has teamed up with Amazon, Facebook and Google to create a mobile game for analysing genetic mutations.

The aim of the game is simply to harness more eyes – cancer researchers already trawl through genetic data to try to pick up on subtle irregularities, but the task would be a lot easier if more people were involved. The charity has already created a web-based game called Cell Slider for looking through archived tissue samples, but the new game is supposed to make the search for a cure more fun, and more suitable for on-the-go usage.

Cancer Research UK is holding a hackathon called GameJam this weekend, through which 40 coders – including Facebook engineers — gamers, graphic designers and “other specialists” will hopefully come up with a suitable format (the goal is a game that can be played for just 5 minutes at a time). The result will be hosted on Amazon Web Services, and Google is hosting the event and providing financial support for the scheme.

“We’re making great progress in understanding the genetic reasons cancer develops. But the clues to why some drugs will work and some won’t, are held in data which need to be analysed by the human eye – and this could take years,” Professor Carlos Caldas, senior group leader at Cancer Research UK’s University of Cambridge facility, said in a statement.

“By harnessing the collective power of citizen scientists we’ll accelerate the discovery of new ways to diagnose and treat cancer much more precisely.”

According to Cancer Research UK, Cell Slider has already reduced the analysis time for some clinical trial data from 18 to 3 months – and that’s with tens of thousands of users. The hope is that this new mobile game would pick up hundreds of thousands of users.

The game will launch this summer. If the participants pull it off, it would probably qualify as the most useful application of the “gamification” trend in history.

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British Sky Broadcasting Group (BSkyB) will buy Telefonica’s UK fixed-line broadband and telephony business for up to £200 million ($303 million), the companies announced early on Friday.

The deal, which is subject to regulatory clearance, should close in April. If that goes ahead, the customers will be moved off the O2 and BE Broadband brands and become Sky customers. Sky (40 percent of which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp) would then become the UK’s second-largest ISP, behind BT and ahead of Virgin Media.

Telefonica will get £180 million for its broadband business, plus an extra amount — up to £20 million — upon the “successful delivery and completion of the customer migration process”.

Here’s what Sky CEO Jeremy Darroch had to say:

“Sky has been the UK’s fastest-growing broadband and telephony provider since we entered the market six years ago. From a standing start in 2006, we have added more than 4.2 million broadband customers. The acquisition of Telefónica UK’s consumer broadband and fixed-line telephony business will help us accelerate this growth.

“We believe that the O2 and BE consumer broadband and telephony business is a great fit, with customers used to high-quality products and strong levels of customer service. We look forward to welcoming these new customers to Sky and giving them access to our wide range of high-quality products, great value and industry-leading customer service.”

This deal is not hugely surprising, in that O2/BE has a shrinking customer base (as ISP Review notes, that base peaked at 671,000 customers and currently sits at around 560,000). However, it may prove to represent more than consolidation in the UK’s fixed-line market.

European mobile carriers are itching to carry out more mergers, particularly in highly competitive markets. The UK is about as competitive as it gets. With Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom having already merged their UK operations (formerly T-Mobile and Orange) into EE, I would now frankly be surprised if we didn’t see the newly mobile-only O2 UK merge with one of the others. Based on the complementary nature of their recent 4G spectrum wins, Vodafone would be a good fit.

This is shaping up to be a very exciting year in the UK communications market.

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HTC had a reason to celebrate yesterday as the HTC One picked up the Best New Mobile Handset, Device or Tablet at Mobile World Congress 2013, the final award of the 18th Annual Global Mobile Awards.

The main ceremony, hosted by actor, comedian and swimmer David Walliams, was held on Tuesday and saw the Galaxy S III named the best smartphone of 2012, beating out the likes of the Apple iPhone 5, Nokia’s Lumia 920, and HTC’s Droid DNA.

That wasn’t the only upset for Apple as the iPad missed out too, with Google’s Asus-built Nexus 7 scooping the award for Best Tablet of 2012.

Other noteworthy wins included Best Mobile Enabled Consumer Electronics Device which went to Samsung for the Galaxy Camera, Best Mobile App for Consumers, which went to Facebook, and Best Mobile App for Enterprise which was picked up by Evernote. The Best Overall Mobile App, as chosen by the judges, went to Waze.

Samsung’s Smart LTE Networks picked up awards for Best Mobile Infrastructure and Outstanding Overall Mobile Technology, and the South Korean firm also picked up the coveted Device Manufacturer of the Year award.

The HTC One was clearly a worthy winner at the show, but is Galaxy S III really the best Smartphone in the world? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

A quiet startup in Scottsdale, Arizona called Fluidic Energy showed off its grid-scale metal air batteries for one of the first times in a video at the ARPA-E Summit this week (embedded below). The battery technology was developed at Arizona State University by ASU Materials Science Professor and Fluidic founder Cody Friesen, and spun out several years ago.

The video shows Fluidic’s batteries installed under what looks like a radio or cell phone tower, and Friesen said that the company’s batteries are already being tested in the field in developing markets where the grid is unreliable as a replacement for diesel generators or lead acid batteries. Friesen said that using the “tens of millions of cell hours in the field,” the company plans to target the grid market in the U.S.

FLUIDIC: Metal Air Recharged from DOE ARPA-E on Vimeo.

A battery is usually made up of an anode on one side and a cathode on the other, with an electrolyte in between. Fluidic’s battery uses zinc as the metal for the anode, air as the cathode, which is drawn in from the environment, and a liquid electrolyte. Air batteries have long been attractive to researchers because oxygen is abundant, free, and doesn’t require a heavy casing to keep it inside a battery cell.

Reporter Tyler Hamilton wrote some details about Fluidic’s technology in an article back in 2009. Hamilton wrote that one of the key innovations is that Fluidic’s battery uses an ionic liquid (liquid salt) for its electrolyte, instead of an aqueous solution that is made up of water. Water-based electrolytes can evaporate and tend to decompose when the voltage gets too high in metal air batteries.

Fluidic’s other innovation, reported Hamilton, is a metal electrode architecture that uses different sized pores to combat a problem with batteries where sharp needles called dendrites are formed. These needles occur because the metal isn’t plating across the battery uniformly and can ruin the battery.

The combo of these innovations are supposed to deliver a metal air battery that can be recharged, has high energy density (amount of energy that can be stored), and is inexpensive. If the battery was used in an electric car, it could have 400 to 500 mile range for the price of a lead acid battery. The ARPA-E site says the battery is shooting for 5,000 charge and discharge cycles. Friesen says in the video that the battery is the first proven, high-cycle rechargeable metal air battery out there.

Fluidic has a $5.13 million grant from the Department of Energy, and a $3 million grant from ARPA-E. A couple weeks ago Fluidic closed on a round of $13.8 million, in 2011 raised $33.4 million and in 2009 raised $1 million. This article in Phoenix Business Journal says inverter manufacturer Satcon and Chevron Energy Solutions are investors.

At one point in 2011 former First Solar President Bruce Sohn had joined Fluidic as CEO, but he only stayed on for about 8 months. Former WalMart CEO Lee Scott was sitting on the company board as of last year, and raved about Fluidic at the ARPA-E Summit in 2012.

Other companies developing metal air batteries include IBM, working with Japanese chemical companies Asahi Kasei and Central Glass, Eos Energy Storage, and PolyPlus. Metal air batteries have been under development for decades, and some think the technology is overhyped.

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Sumeet Jain announced on his blog that he has joined Intel Capital as an investment director to focus on consumer Internet, mobile Web and software investments. He was previously a partner at CMEA Capital, joining the firm in 2008 and sitting on boards at Apriso, Blekko, Intermolecular, Luminate, WorkingPoint and Zarly.

Jain said he would “continue to seek out teams (that) build delightfully simple products and services (that) feed off of massive data and intelligence” around them.

Here is a link to his blog entry.

The post Sumeet Jain Joins Intel Capital From CMEA appeared first on peHUB.

Final Book Now Available

U.S. agencies with responsibilities for enforcing equal employment opportunity laws have long relied on detailed information that is obtained from employers on employment in job groups by gender and race/ethnicity for identifying the possibility of discriminatory practices. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Office of Federal Contract Compliance programs of the U.S. Department of Labor, and the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice have developed processes that use these employment data as well as other sources of information to target employers for further investigation and to perform statistical analysis that is used in enforcing the anti-discrimination laws. The limited data from employers do not include (with a few exceptions) the ongoing measurement of possible discrimination in compensation.

The proposed Paycheck Fairness Act of 2009 would have required EEOC to issue regulations mandating that employers provide the EEOC with information on pay by the race, gender, and national origin of employees. The legislation was not enacted. If the legislation had become law, the EEOC would have been required to confront issues regarding currently available and potential data sources, methodological requirements, and appropriate statistical techniques for the measurement and collection of employer pay data.

The panel concludes that the collection of earnings data would be a significant undertaking for the EEOC and that there might be an increased reporting burden on some employers. Currently, there is no clearly articulated vision of how the data on wages could be used in the conduct of the enforcement responsibilities of the relevant agencies. Collecting Compensation Data from Employers gives recommendations for targeting employers for investigation regarding their compliance with antidiscrimination laws.

[Read the full report]

Topics: Industry and Labor | Behavioral and Social Sciences

Final Book Now Available

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is responsible for securing and managing the nation’s borders. Over the past decade, DHS has dramatically stepped up its enforcement efforts at the U.S.-Mexico border, increasing the number of U.S. Border patrol (USBP) agents, expanding the deployment of technological assets, and implementing a variety of “consequence programs” intended to deter illegal immigration. During this same period, there has also been a sharp decline in the number of unauthorized migrants apprehended at the border.

Trends in total apprehensions do not, however, by themselves speak to the effectiveness of DHS’s investments in immigration enforcement. In particular, to evaluate whether heightened enforcement efforts have contributed to reducing the flow of undocumented migrants, it is critical to estimate the number of border-crossing attempts during the same period for which apprehensions data are available. With these issues in mind, DHS charged the National Research Council (NRC) with providing guidance on the use of surveys and other methodologies to estimate the number of unauthorized crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border, preferably by geographic region and on a quarterly basis. Options for Estimating Illegal Entries at the U.S.-Mexico Border focuses on Mexican migrants since Mexican nationals account for the vast majority (around 90 percent) of attempted unauthorized border crossings across the U.S.-Mexico border.

[Read the full report]

Topics: Behavioral and Social Sciences

This week, the President urged Congress to take a responsible approach to deficit reduction instead of the indiscriminate across-the-board spending cuts called the sequester. He also met with the Prime Minister of Japan, America's Governors, and the country's only all-black Ranger unit, and unveiled a truly moving monument to Rosa Parks.

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