Blog

The Hillman Companies said on Thursday that Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer James P. Waters will succeed Max W. Hillman as Chief Executive Officer, effective July 1, 2013. Waters, who had previously served as Hillman’s chief financial officer, joins the company’s board of directors, effective immediately. Hillman, who will retire as CEO after 44 years with the company, will retain a seat on the company’s board of directors. Headquartered in Cincinnati, the Hillman Companies, which is a portfolio company of Oak Hill Capital Partners, is a distributor of fasteners, key duplication systems, engraved tags and related hardware items to over 20,000 retail customers in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and South America.

PRESS RELEASE

CINCINNATI, May 23, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — The Hillman Companies, Inc. (Amex: HLM.PR) (“Hillman”) announced today that Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer James P. Waters will succeed Max W. (“Mick”) Hillman as Chief Executive Officer, effective July 1, 2013. Mr. Waters, who had previously served as Chief Financial Officer of Hillman, also joins Hillman’s Board of Directors, effective immediately. Mr. Hillman, who will retire as CEO after 44 years with the company, will retain a seat on Hillman’s Board of Directors.
During his extraordinary career, Mr. Hillman grew his father’s hardware distributorship into a leading international value-added distributor serving multiple retail channels and product categories. Mr. Hillman said, “I want to thank all of the employees of Hillman for making the past 44 years so successful for our company. I am fortunate not only to have had the opportunity to lead this great organization through 30 years of uninterrupted growth, but also to have a leader of Jim’s caliber to hand the reins to. I look forward to supporting him in his new role and am confident that Hillman will flourish under his leadership.”
Tyler J. Wolfram , Chairman of the Board of Directors and a Managing Partner of Oak Hill Capital Partners, said, “We are extremely grateful to Mick for his many years of leadership and for his partnership with Oak Hill Capital, and we look forward to continuing our relationship with him in his role on the Board. With over two decades in the industry and 14 years at Hillman, Jim assumes the role of CEO with a proven track record of delivering strong financial and operational results. Hillman is currently presented with a number of exciting growth opportunities, and Jim is the right individual to lead the company into the future.”
Mr. Waters joined Hillman in 1999 as CFO and was promoted to EVP/COO in 2011. He served in these positions through a period of extensive growth, including seven acquisitions, significant market share gains and successful international expansion. During his tenure as COO, Hillman made its largest acquisition to date, H. Paulin & Company, which provided the company with an excellent market presence in Canada.
Mr. Waters said, “I am thrilled for the opportunity to lead this outstanding organization. Together with Hillman’s dedicated and accomplished management team, I intend to carry on the culture of best-in-class customer service, commitment to our employees and community involvement that has been cultivated over the past 50 years by the Hillman family.”
About Hillman
Founded in 1964 and headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, Hillman is a leading value-added distributor of fasteners, key duplication systems, engraved tags and related hardware items to over 20,000 retail customers in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, South America and Australia, including home improvement centers, mass merchants, national and regional hardware stores, pet supply stores and other retailers. Hillman provides a comprehensive solution to its retail customers for managing SKU intensive, complex home improvement categories. Hillman also offers its customers additional services, such as inventory management and in-store merchandising services.
In May 2010, Oak Hill Capital Partners and Hillman’s management team formed a partnership to acquire Hillman. Oak Hill Capital Partners is a private equity firm with more than $8 billion of initial capital commitments from leading entrepreneurs, endowments, foundations, corporations, pension funds and global financial institutions. For more information about Oak Hill Capital Partners, visit www.oakhillcapital.com.
For more information on Hillman, please visit our website at http://hillmangroup.com or call Investor Relations at (513) 851-4900, ext. 2084.

The post The Hillman Companies Names New CEO to Replace Retiring Head appeared first on peHUB.

Box indicated on its blog Thursday that the cloud-storage company has “acquired the technology” for the Folders iOS app enabling users to open many kinds of files on the iPhone. The deal marks Box’s third acquisition, closely following on news of the Crocodoc deal.

While Box has been taking an industry-by-industry approach to enterprise adoption, the Crocodoc buy showed that Box is also serious about serving up a slick and intuitive consumer-grade user experience for the enterprise. The Folders deal is more proof of that, and offers important capabilities that keep Box competitive as enterprises let employees bring their own devices — many are iOS based — into the workplace.

Folders code viewer. Source: Folders

In picking up Folders, Box gets an app that can do a bunch of neat tricks. Files can be copied and deleted. The app can work with the Mail app, upload files to a cloud and download pictures to an iPhone’s Camera Roll. Offline access is available. Users can search and flip through pages of PDFs. The app opens Microsoft Office files in full screen. A text editor has support for markdown, and a code viewer lets developers highlight code in preview mode.

Users can also search files stored across Box, Dropbox or Google Drive. But perhaps this support for multiple clouds could fall away as Folders gets absorbed into Box — Google and Dropbox, after all, are key competitors against Box in the fight to be the Dropbox of the enterprise.

The Folders technology will be worked into “the next generation Box for iOS” that’s currently in the works, according to the Box blog post from Sam Schillace, Box’s vice president of engineering. (Schillace will talk with my colleague Derrick Harris at GigaOM’s Structure conference in San Francisco on June 20.)

The Folders app was designed by Martin Destagnol, the CEO of Reedian. It’s unclear how Reedian will be affected by the acquisition.

Even though getting enterprise adoption is important, in day-to-day reality, sometimes it’s the small things that matter to people. If enterprise employees see that they can open certain documents on their mobile phones, they might be less likely to get annoyed. And if employee discontent is minimal, companies could end up sticking with Box instead of flocking to other cloud-storage providers. The Folders deal looks like it will help Box move closer in that direction.

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

• NewNet Q4: Platform mania and social commerce shakeout
• Work media tools in 2012 and beyond
• NewNet Q4: Platform mania and social commerce shakeout

With each new Samsung Galaxy flagship phone, the company is breaking records. On Thursday, Samsung announced the latest one: 10 million Galaxy S 4 sales in the first 30 days after launch. That figure is sales to retailers, not consumers, but it’s an accomplishment nonetheless. And strong U.S. sales should continue, as the Galaxy S 4 became available on Verizon today.

It’s interesting to see the time frame for each Galaxy smartphone to hit the 10 million sales number: It shows how much momentum Samsung has achieved in the past four years. It took seven months for the original Galaxy S to cross the 10 million units sold mark, while the Galaxy S 2 did so in five months. Last year’s Galaxy S 3 crossed the milestone in 50 days and now the current model has done the same in just a month.

All of this makes it more difficult for the Android manufacturers to break back into the market they once enjoyed. For the first quarter of 2013, Strategy Analytics estimated that Samsung has earned nearly 95 percent of the global Android smartphone market profits, leaving a pittance to be divided among LG, HTC and others.

No other Android handset maker has the supply chain chops and component factories to compete with Samsung at this point. And that’s bad news for companies such as HTC, which is facing a time of uncertainty as key executives are leaving the company.

It’s also not the best of situations for consumers. If Samsung continues to dominate, there could be fewer handset choices from other companies. Either that, or we’ll all be using Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface in the future.

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

• What the Google-Motorola deal means for Android, Microsoft and the mobile industry
• The fourth quarter of 2012 in mobile
• What to watch in mobile in 2013

Joe Francis, the creator of “Girls Gone Wild”, was recently interviewed about his court case, in which charges were leveled against him by three women who say he imprisoned them in his home and threatened them after getting into a violent altercation with one of them. In the interview, he calls the jurors who found him guilty “retarded” and says they should be put in jail.

“I want that jury to know that each and every one of you are mentally f–ing retarded and you should be euthanized because, as Darwin said, you have naturally selected yourself,” he said. “You are the weakest members of the herd. Goodbye! And if that jury wants to convict me because I didn’t show up, which is the only reason why they did, then, you know, they should all be lined up and shot!”

While Francis is no stranger to controversy, many thought he’d gone too far…including one of the jurors, who responded to Francis’ rant with a letter to Gawker.

It’s a little bizarre to have someone looking into a camera and suggesting you be shot, even if he has no idea what I look like since he never showed up at the trial. If anything, it reaffirms the decision we came to — unanimously, of course, after only about a day and half of deliberations — as one of the charges was directly related to the vague (and no so vague) threats he made against the victim he assaulted to keep her from filing a police report. I’m just thinking about all the nice, salt-of-the-earth people on that jury that Joe Francis is suggesting be shot. There were some older, middle-aged, retired women. There were four middle-aged men. Some women were in their 30′s. All different races. I was the youngest. I’m sorry Joe Francis didn’t like our decision, but I genuinely hope he takes this as a lesson that his actions do carry actual consequences—for him, for us, and most of all for the woman he assaulted. He could have caused a concussion, and they checked for one at the hospital. I don’t expend much energy thinking about Joe Francis either way, although I do believe he’s guilty of the crimes we convicted him of and I could live without the whole lined up and shot thing. Honestly, Joe, I wish you the best. Now please stop talking about me.

As for Francis, he backtracked and issued an apology after the juror’s letter was made public.

“I deeply regret the remarks attributed to me in the interview with the Hollywood Reporter. They were hurtful and do not reflect my true feelings. While I disagree with the jury’s verdict as I am completely innocent of the charges and intend to appeal, I was afforded a fair trial, and if I lose at the appellate level, I will reluctantly but fully accept the jury’s verdict. This was a 6 hour interview with the Hollywood reporter where I detailed to the reporter all of the evidence and why I believed the evidence showed I am 100% innocent. The reporter also interviewed my attorney David Houston for over 3 hours, but failed to include one shred of evidence from the trial that proved beyond a reasonable doubt my innocence. I did NOT commit a crime at all whatsoever. All that was publicized were my most intemperate remarks that were borne out of frustration but with no intent to cause anyone harm. I am not, nor have I ever been a violent person. My comments are appalling, but anyone who has ever been wrongfully convicted of a crime that they did NOT commit would be as frustrated as I am. I want to apologize to all the jurors, the court, the City Attorney and my attorneys for my comments that were manipulated by the media, and please know I am truly ashamed of my conduct. I am truly, truly sorry. I hope everyone will understand I was not being serious and that I fully and deeply apologize for my remarks.”

LoyalBlocks said on Thursday that it has received $9 million in Series A funding. The lead investor was General Catalyst Partners. Founder Collective and existing investor Gemini Israel Ventures also participated in the round. According to LoyalBlocks, the funding will be used to expand the company’s loyalty marketing platform and for scaling the U.S. operations. General Catalyst Managing Director Adam Valkin will join the company’s board of directors along with Yossi Sela, managing partner at Gemini, and Allon Bloch, CEO at mySupermarket. LoyalBlocks, a provider of loyalty marketing solutions for small businesses, is headquartered in New York City with its research and development team based in Israel.

PRESS RELEASE

LoyalBlocks, a loyalty marketing solution for small businesses, today announced a $9M Series A investment led by General Catalyst Partners with participation from Founder Collective and existing investor Gemini Israel Ventures. Following the investment, which will be used for further development of the company’s loyalty marketing platform and for scaling the US operations, General Catalyst Managing Director Adam Valkin will join the company’s board of directors along with Yossi Sela, managing partner at Gemini, and Allon Bloch, CEO at mySupermarket.
LoyalBlocks is a loyalty marketing solution for SMBs which enables automatic interaction with their customers via mobile phones. LoyalBlocks builds loyalty between brick and mortar merchants and their customers by sending offers and promotions to customers’ mobile devices as soon as they walk through the door.
“Business owners are currently lacking a mobile-based marketing solution that enhances customer loyalty and generates real value,” said Ido Gaver, the company’s co-founder and CEO. “LoyalBlocks is a simple and efficient way for business owners to give their customers a better in-store experience by providing tailored incentives and instant rewards every time they visit.”
With LoyalBlocks, merchants are able to create a branded and customized loyalty app for their business. Their venue is instantly turned into an “automated zone” which triggers their app as soon as a customer walks in.
“We have taken mobile loyalty to the next level by making it easy for merchants to give their clients more, automatically. From a business perspective, it is an incremental layer of marketing that leverages their day-to-day activities. It is a simple, innovative and effortless way of generating more business and establishing long term customer loyalty,” continued Gaver.
“The fact that two billion people will soon carry smartphones fundamentally changes the game for businesses trying to attract and retain customers. What we’re seeing right now is just the tip of the iceberg,” said General Catalyst’s Adam Valkin. “LoyalBlocks is the first company to introduce an automated loyalty application. Combined with its rich product suite and impressive momentum in the market, it has the potential to become a market leader in loyalty management solutions.”
With hundreds of merchants joining every month, LoyalBlocks is on a rapid growth trajectory. Businesses looking to create a loyalty club and a customized LoyalBlocks app can do so quickly and easily by visiting www.LoyalBlocks.com.
About LoyalBlocks
LoyalBlocks provides business owners with a customized loyalty platform. With its user-friendly online dashboard, merchants easily set up and manage their automated business app to increase foot traffic, drive sales, pick up slow hours and increase social media exposure. LoyalBlocks is a privately-held company headquartered in New York City with research & development in Israel. For more information, visit www.LoyalBlocks.com or follow @LoyalBlocks.
About General Catalyst
General Catalyst Partners is a venture capital firm that makes early stage and growth equity investments. General Catalyst Partners invests in exceptional entrepreneurs who are building the technology-based companies that will lead innovation and transform industries. Founded in 2000, General Catalyst Partners leverages its principals’ extensive operational, business development and technological expertise to provide portfolio companies with a catalyst for success through business-building and partnership development assistance. General Catalyst has offices in Cambridge, MA and Palo Alto, CA. For more information, visit: www.generalcatalyst.com or https://twitter.com/gcvp.
About Gemini Israel Ventures
Since 1993, Gemini Israel Ventures has helped many of Israel’s most talented entrepreneurs to build innovative and world-changing companies. With over $700M under management, Gemini invests in early stage and growth-stage companies across a range of industries including communications, consumer electronics, enterprise software, Internet software and services, and semiconductors. More about Gemini: http://www.gemini.co.il.

The post LoyalBlocks Receives $9 Mln in Series A Funding appeared first on peHUB.

Apple’s data center in Maiden, North Carolina is the location of the nation’s largest end-user-owned solar photovoltaic array, and the array produces onsite renewable energy to the iDataCenter. This 100-acre, 20-megawatt (MW) facility has an annual production capacity of 42 million kWh of clean, low-carbon, renewable energy. The 1:20-minute video has no sound, but the images provide a dazzling view of the acres of photovoltaics. The solar facility is part of Apple’s approach to environmental responsibility.

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

Steve Forrest, who played Lt. Dan “Hondo” Harrelson on the popular ’70s television show “S.W.A.T.”, has died of natural causes in California. He was 87 years old.

Forrest began his career in the ’50s and made a name for himself almost immediately, winning “New Star Of The Year” at the 1953 Golden Globes for the film “So Big”. He went on to build a name for himself on television, starring in roles for “Gunsmoke”, “Bonanaza”, and “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”. He also starred in “The Baron”, which was Britain’s first color television series, and hit Broadway in a 1958 production of “The Body Beautiful” as a trained vocalist.

But it was his role as “Hondo” that gained a wider audience; as a military man, he brought his experiences to the character, endearing him to fans with his signature life, “Let’s roll!”

Forrest is survived by his wife Christine, their three sons, and four grandchildren.

Brooklyn mobile app design and development shop Thumb Labs has been acquired — or acqui-hired — by Adobe. Thumb Labs is the group behind the mobile apps for Behance, the design community startup that was bought by Adobe late last year, and Thumb Labs says it specializes in stylish and hip apps for iOS.

Details about the price of the acquisition weren’t disclosed. Adobe acquired Behance for close to $150 million, we reported last year. Thumb Labs says in a release:

At the end of this month, the Thumb Labs team will begin focusing our mobile talents on a united mission to empower the creative world.

Thumb Labs has worked on apps like Bondsy, an iPhone app for buying, selling and trading stuff with your friends. Fast.co.design described it recently as eBay for the Instagram set.

The mobile app design purchase is part of Adobe’s vision of using the cloud to empower designers and the design tech community. Adobe has been integrating Behance into its own Creative Cloud community and tool-sharing site that it launched for designers and developers early last year.

Designers are officially the rockstars of the tech industry. We’ll be featuring the tech industry’s most innovative and forward-thinking experience designers at our RoadMap event in November in San Francisco (tickets will go on sale this Summer, and sign up here to get first access to them).

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

• Social fourth-quarter 2012 analysis
• The 2013 task management tools market
• The state of cross-platform media measurement

Bing announced the launch of a new feature in Bing News called the News Carousel. When a user searches for a person of note (i.e. a celebrity or politician), they will see a visual carousel with current topics related to that person. On the right-hand side of the page, they will also see related people.

A Bing spokesperson explains, “Say you’re searching for Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber, you’ll see in the News Carousel images of stories related to them, such as Bieber losing custody of his Capuchin monkey to the German government. On the right-hand side of the page you’ll also see related people that might be of interest because they have some sort of relationship to your query.

“To do this Bing is leveraging the Satori technology that brings a deep understanding of the relationships between people, places and things to power the visual carousel that makes it easy to explore current events and other people related to the person you are searching for,” he adds.

Satori, which means “Understanding” in Japanese, is basically Bing’s version of Google’s Knowledge Graph, and powers Bing’s Snapshot experience, as described here.

“And that’s not the only progress we’ve made over at Bing News. We recently extended our news articles index beyond two weeks,” says Bing’s Tim Leung on the Bing blog. “This means when there’s no fresh news related to a given query, we can look back over several years to bring you any relevant articles. This is a pretty significant update and is just the start as we work to make Bing News even more comprehensive. While there’s still more to do, we believe these updates provide you with a deeper understanding of the world and an opportunity to explore the connections we’re able to make over here at Bing.”

More on the blog.

Apple is well known for not putting a whole lot of effort into its D.C. lobbying game. But after a week that saw it unwittingly become the poster child for tax-dodging multinational corporations, it might need to step it up — if only to get some politicians off its back. But according to a report on Thursday, Apple is already on pace to spread more money around Washington this year than ever before.

Apple may spend almost $4 million on lobbying this year as in 2012, reports Reuters. That’s low of course, but for Apple it’s a pretty hefty increase:

The company spent about $2 million on lobbying last year, up from $180,000 in 1999, records show. This year it is on pace to nearly double last year’s figure.

As the report notes, what Apple is spending on policy efforts is tiny compared to its peers Google and Microsoft, which spent $16.5 million and $8.1 million, respectively, on lobbying efforts last year.

But having a larger presence in the nation’s capital and making friends with the policymakers that can wield great power over its reputation and fortunes may just be something Apple has to do. (One political reporter described Apple’s tax hearing as simply a “shakedown” by politicians angered by Apple’s proud D.C. outsider stance.)

CEO Tim Cook fared very well under questioning from senators on Tuesday, deflecting questions patiently about his company’s legal tax practices. He said he wanted people to hear Apple’s story directly from him, which is why he appeared before a Senate subcommittee this week. But it’s probably not something he wants to do on a regular basis. And making suggestions about corporate tax policy changes, as he did, may not be enough. What money Apple decides to spend on lobbying in the future will probably need to support his policy proposals if he wants to see any of them taken seriously — and keep Apple out of the spotlight.

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

• Forecast: Tablet App Sales To Hit $8B by 2015
• How consumer media will change in 2013
• The state of cross-platform media measurement

Amazon hasn’t been able to effectively compete with Apple just yet as its Kindle Fire devices are only available in a select few countries. That’s all going to change next month.

Amazon announced today that the Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ will start shipping to over 170 countries in June. If you don’t believe them, pre-orders are open now in all those countries.

“Kindle Fire HD is the #1 best-selling item in the world for Amazon since its launch, and we’re thrilled to make it available to even more customers around the globe today,” said Dave Limp, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “Not only does Kindle Fire feature advanced hardware, it’s also a service. When combined with our content ecosystem, great email and browsing and top-rated customer service, we hope people around the world will agree that Kindle Fire HD is the best tablet for an incredible price.”

Coinciding with the announcement, Amazon also announced that its Appstore for Android is now open for business in over 200 countries. Those getting a Kindle Fire next month can start downloading the very best Kindle has to offer while those who already own Android devices can start taking advantage of Amazon’s free app of the day, among other promotions.

Speaking of which, Amazon will be making Fruit Ninja and Cut the Rope: Experiments available as free downloads on its Appstore on May 23 and May 24 respectively to celebrate the launch. The offer is available to everybody who has access to Amazon’s Appstore for Android.

“We are thrilled to be expanding the reach of our global app distribution to nearly 200 countries. We think our customers will love the app selection we have to offer and also find features such as Free App of the Day and personalized recommendations very helpful as they discover and explore new apps and games,” said Mike George, Vice President of Apps and Games at Amazon. “By further expanding the distribution of apps to millions of customers around the world, we are continuing to make it easy for customers to enjoy their Amazon apps on Kindle Fire and any Android device.”

This is a pretty big deal for Amazon. It can now compete on a global level with other device manufacturers, like Apple, who have been selling tablets for years now. The cheap price of the Kindle Fire HD has the potential to undercut Apple, Samsung and more around the world.

Needless to say, it will be very interesting to see how the global tablet market reacts to this news.

Now you’ve really done it. Your big, dumb hands have fumbled your iPhone and it falls, in slow-motion, straight into the pool, toilet, puddle – whatever. Panic turns to helplessness. Your phone is waterlogged.

What do you do? Surround the device with silica gel packets? Throw it in a bag with some rice? HALP.

DryBox says they have the solution. Their patent-pending hyper-drying chamber can completely dry your soaked device in less than thirty minutes, and apparently there’s an 80% success rate in restoring phones to their former glory – as long as the wet phones get inside the DryBox within 36 hours of initial exposure.

“The DryBox Rescue system utilizes a patent-pending drying chamber as part of a process that rapidly removes moisture at the molecular level from small electronic devices…DryBox saves time, money, and frustration.”

As of now, there are only a few DryBox locations where you can take your device – one in Austin, Texas and two in San Antonio. But DryBox wants to rent their devices to stores across the country, in a profit-sharing deal.

[Drybox via Engadget]

Actress Eva Longoria is best-known for her roles in The Young and the Restless and Desperate Housewives, as well as for her good looks. What her fans might not know, however, is that the star has been attending graduate school at Cal State Northridge.

The 38-year-old Longoria graduated this week with a Master’s degree in Chicano Studies. She attended the graduation in full cap and gown, flaunting the costume for the paparazzi. Longoria also uploaded her own photos to Twitter, depicting her with everyone from her mother and father to her fellow classmates. She started out the day with encouraging words to those who might think about going back to school:

Big day today!!! Very excited to graduate for my Master’s degree in Chicano Studies! You’re never too old or too busy to continue your education!

Follow @EvaLongoria

Eva Longoria
@EvaLongoria

In my cap and gown with mom and dad! I look like Harry Potter! http://t.co/ggqB8ynM12

 Reply  ·  Retweet  ·  Favorite
16 hours ago via WhoSay · powered by @socialditto

Follow @EvaLongoria

Eva Longoria
@EvaLongoria

Me and my boys @Ben_Patton and @ernestoarguello in my cap and gown! http://t.co/Apg6I060hF

 Reply  ·  Retweet  ·  Favorite
16 hours ago via WhoSay · powered by @socialditto

Follow @EvaLongoria

Eva Longoria
@EvaLongoria

Another cap and gown pic with my cousin Sonya and Marcella and Tia Lupita! Thank u for being here! http://t.co/Vl6ZGMEBOS

 Reply  ·  Retweet  ·  Favorite
16 hours ago via WhoSay · powered by @socialditto

Follow @EvaLongoria

Eva Longoria
@EvaLongoria

At the ceremony! http://t.co/UKh9i9OXeq

 Reply  ·  Retweet  ·  Favorite
15 hours ago via WhoSay · powered by @socialditto

Follow @EvaLongoria

Eva Longoria
@EvaLongoria

My Chicano Studies cohort at CSUN! Graduation day! http://t.co/Jh6eLOon4E

 Reply  ·  Retweet  ·  Favorite
14 hours ago via WhoSay · powered by @socialditto

Follow @EvaLongoria

Eva Longoria
@EvaLongoria

Aaand here it is! Me and my diploma! http://t.co/kV1OwhahgR

 Reply  ·  Retweet  ·  Favorite
12 hours ago via WhoSay · powered by @socialditto

Google has partnered with the Charles Darwin Foundation and the Galapagos National Parks Directorate to collect panoramic imagery of the islands with the Street View Trekker. As a result, Google will be adding the “stunning” images to Google Maps later this year.

Here’s an early preview of what to expect:

“The Galapagos Islands are some of the most biologically unique ecosystems in the world. Explorers and scientists alike have long studied and marveled at these islands—made famous by Charles Darwin,” says Google Maps Project Lead Raleigh Seamster. “The Ecuadorean Government, local conservation groups and scientists are working to protect the Galapagos from threats posed by invasive species, climate change and other human impacts.”

“It’s critical that we share images with the world of this place in order to continue to study and preserve the islands’ unique biodiversity,” Seamster adds.

The imagery should make a fine complement to Google’s other underwater “Street View” imagery. In fact, Google once again teamed up with the Catlin Seaview Survey (who it teamed up with last time) to capture the new underwater imagery.

This should all also go well with the new, more visual Google Maps experience.

Following Samsung’s announcement that it has sold 10 million units of the Galaxy S 4 in less than a month’s time, HTC has some news to share as well— they have sold 5 million units of the HTC One in almost the same time-frame.

This surprisingly high showing comes in a time where HTC is suffering from a shortage of components and manufacturing supplies, as well as a dramatic reshuffling of execs.

“Orders are pretty good so far and are still more than what we can supply. This is partly due to the shortage of components. When the issue is resolved next month, we will have a better idea if it’s doing really well or not,” an anonymous HTC executive said.

This is all pretty encouraging news for the company which had been recently slipping in the minds of consumers— they should be just fine if sales figures can keep this pace in the coming months. (And of course if they can resolve their issues with manufacturing and disgruntled employees.)

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Come comment on this article: HTC One sales strong at 5 million despite supply issues and reshuffling execs

The steel framework is already going up for a new data center being built by Russo Development and Sentinel Data Centers. Bloomberg L.P. will be the tenant for the facility in Orangetown, N.Y. (Photo: Russo Development)

Sentinel Data Centers and Russo Development will team up on a new data center for Bloomberg L.P. in Orangetown, New York, the companies confirmed today. The Orangetown data center is being developed by a joint venture between Russo and Sentinel, which will retain ownership of the property.

Bloomberg L.P. today confirmed that it has signed a lease for the entire 131,805 square foot build-to-suit data center facility in Orangetown. On Wednesday the Rockland County Industrial Development Agency endorsed Orangetown’s resolution to provide the project with a partial tax abatement package. Bloomberg’s lease agreement is conditional upon final authorization by the Rockland county executive.

“Bloomberg conducted a long and extensive search to find a location that meets all requirements for our latest data center, and this site in Orangetown checks all the boxes for us,” said Vladimir Kliatchko, Global Head of Research and Development at Bloomberg. “We have partnered with an experienced data center developer in Russo/Sentinel and we are confident they will deliver a first-class facility.”

Second Collaboration for Russo, Sentinel

The project is the second collaboration between Russo and Sentinel, who worked together on a multi-tenant facility operated by Sentinel in Somerset, N.J.

“We are thrilled to be again working with our friends at Russo Development on this fantastic project,” adds Josh Rabina, Co-President of Sentinel Data Centers. “The Bloomberg critical facilities team is truly top notch, and we look forward to delivering them a world class turn-key facility in Orangetown.”

The facility, which will consist of a single-story raised floor environment and infrastructure to provide in excess of 7MW of critical capacity, is planned to come online in the middle of 2014. The property was purchased by Russo Development in 2009 and was pad-ready for construction prior to lease signing.

“We are pleased to have the opportunity to provide an optimal environment for Bloomberg’s innovative technologies,” said Edward Russo, President and COO of Russo Development. “This site provides ideal access to Manhattan, robust power sources, multiple telecommunication carriers, and opportunities for state and local tax incentives.”

The project is big news for Orangetown and Rockland County, and local officials hope it will help attract additional mission-critical facilities to the area.

“Bloomberg L.P. looked at over 100 sites in New York and New Jersey before choosing this one,” said Harriet Cornell, Chairwoman of the Rockland County Legislature and board member of the Rockland Economic Development Corporation. “That tells you loud and clear that Orangetown is a prime location for data center development. This is wonderful news for our County and exactly the kind of global firm which is perfect for Orangetown.”

In a surprising move, Pope Francis has come out in defense of atheists.

Reuters reports that the Pope recently spoke on atheists and said that those who do good, regardless of their beliefs, are redeemed. Here are his remarks via Vatican Radio:

“The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone! And this Blood makes us children of God of the first class! We are created children in the likeness of God and the Blood of Christ has redeemed us all! And we all have a duty to do good. And this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace. If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: we need that so much. We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.”

The new Pope’s comments are a stark contrast to a lot of religious leaders that equate atheism with a lack of morals. In this case, the pope is stating that morality is not mutually exclusive to Christianity, or religion, at large. He argues that everybody has the potential for good and that people of all beliefs should come together under the common goal of doing good.

Pope Francis may elaborate on his comments in the coming days via his official Twitter account. It will be interesting to see if he responds to the criticism from some evangelicals who say he went too far.

Air quality in the United States is getting cleaner, but sadly many Americans believe the opposite. In order to explain the reality of America’s improving environmental quality, Steven Heyward has spent years compiling environmental data with his Almanac of Environmental …