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- Wikinvest Brings Its Investment Portfolio Tracker To The iPad
- Leo DiCaprio Gets In On Celebrity Tech Investing, Leads $4M Round In Photo Sharing App Mobli
- Monster Miles Davis Trumpets In-Ear Headphones Review
- BBM Music Gets Pre-Release Shout Out From Best Buy Canada
- SoundHound Reaches 50 Million Users, 4 Million+ Searches Per Day
- Bluetooth SIG Announces A Lot Of Weird Branding For 4.0-Compatible Devices
- Anti-Facebook Social Network “Unthink” Launches To Public
- Eric Schmidt-Backed Slice Brings Receipt Aggregator And Tracking Service To Gmail
- T-Mobile Outs Release Dates For The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Huawei Springboard
- After Dismal Earnings Outlook, Netflix Loses $2.3 Billion In Market Cap
- Apple Joins Oreos And Capri Sun As Most Popular Youth Brand
- Asus, Acer Android 3.0 Tabs To Eventually Get Updated To Ice Cream Sandwich
- Video: World’s Largest 3D Display Boasts Full HD Resolution, 200-Inch Screen Size, 57 Viewing Angles
- Search Site Loku Leverages Big Data To Make Local Search Simpler
- Garmin Launches Fit App Just In Time For Holiday Feasts
- Hipmunk Integrates Google Calendar For Conflict-Free Flying
- Device Identification Startup BlueCava Lands $9.5M From S3 Ventures, Mark Cuban
- Customer Support Solution Provider UserVoice Launches New Reporting Tools
- Just-Eat Swallows GrubCanada Whole
- Hori Announces Steering Wheel Peripheral For Mario Kart On 3DS
| Wikinvest Brings Its Investment Portfolio Tracker To The iPad Posted: 25 Oct 2011 09:00 AM PDT  Wikinvest’s realtime portfolio tracker makes tracking a number of brokerage accounts and your investment portfolio easy. The Wikinvest portfolio tracker lets anyone link up their real brokerage accounts to so they can keep tabs on their actual holdings, which are updated automatically every time you make a trade. Today, the startup is launching its free investment portfolio tracking iPad app, Wikinvest Portfolio HD, to enable users to track, analyze and manage all their investments in one place. The app has been built from the ground up for iPad to give investors a high-level view of their investments. Through Wikinvest's proprietary brokerage import technology, users can import their account information from over 60 of the largest brokerage firms in the U.S. Wikinvest Portfolio HD also features visual analytics to give users insight into metrics including estimated portfolio risk, true asset allocation, geographic allocation distribution, and more. Users can also access a overview dashboard gives investors a bird's eye view of their portfolio, easy-to-read news feeds, analytics on metrics such as asset allocation, geographic asset distribution, and a "Movers and Losers" section so investors can instantly see what is and isn't moving in the market Wikinvest, which currently tracks over tracks more than thirty billion dollars in real assets for its users, expects that the iPad app will be popular among users. In fact, the startup says that 75 percent of the 60 largest brokerage firms lack a portfolio app for the iPad. And 82 percent of Wikinvest’s active users use mobile, plus the startup’s mobile users are averaging 5.5 sessions per week. Wikinvest is just as it sounds; a wiki for investing. The company seeks to take advantage of the large numbers of investors and investing savvy people who are looking to the web to get better trading tips. Like most wikis, Wikinvest will face a few problems including spammed/tampered entries, lack of incentive to create content and the dubious authority of users generating content. These problems exist for Wikipedia as well, yet Wikipedia continues to have as...
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| Leo DiCaprio Gets In On Celebrity Tech Investing, Leads $4M Round In Photo Sharing App Mobli Posted: 25 Oct 2011 08:54 AM PDT  Leonardo DiCaprio is the latest celebrity to get in on the celebrity tech investing trend, joining Lady Gaga, Ashton Kutcher and others. Leo is leading a $4 million round in photo sharing app and Israeli startup Mobli. For background, Mobli is a photo-sharing app where users can share moments and see the world through other people’s eyes. Unlike other apps, Mobli is made up of subject-based channels and filters such as people, places and topics. The platform has seen significant celebrity adoption and is used by Leo himself, David Arquette and Paris Hilton. Users can connect with Facebook to bring in a social element to the application and share photos with friends. For example, concert-goers, celebrity fans, wedding attendees, and families can all share pictures and videos of an occasion, experience or interest with like-minded communities. The app offers 22 free filters. But Mobli is applying filters on a visual basis but also in relation to location. So users can frame photos taken in the stadium in club colors, or taken at a conference. Clearly, there’s a huge opportunity for brands to work with Mobli to sponsor filters. Mobli offers apps for iPhone, Android, and Blackberry devices and is acquiring 10,000 new users a day.
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| Monster Miles Davis Trumpets In-Ear Headphones Review Posted: 25 Oct 2011 08:49 AM PDT  I was at the CES press conference where head Monster, Noel Lee, unveiled the Miles Davis Trumpet Headphones with much fanfare. He said something to the effect that these headphones are for those that listen for nuances within music. These are for professionals, he said. That was code to me that they probably sound like garbage to the average listener. But after several weeks of testing, I’m pleased to report that I was mostly wrong. Monster markets the Trumpets as “musicians’ headphones.” They praise the detail and clarity and I agree for the most part — if you can get can them in your ear correctly and don’t care about lossless audio. These in-ear headphones are designed slightly different. The drivers are placed closer to the tips and actually sit within the canal rather than outside. This removes the natural tendency to pull out on their own as most of the weight is inside your ear. It’s not uncomfortable. The design is just a bit unconventional upon first inspection but they feel great when you start wearing them. The thicker ends, along with the gel-filled tips, makes for a tighter fit but are a tad difficult to insert. I have to twist and push the earphones like a Q-tip. If I didn’t, they don’t sit correctly, resulting in a sound free of low bass. The headphones ship with 10 different tips and none of them really fit me well. In fact, during my first testing session I hated the earphones. They fully lived up to my expectation that they would sound like overpriced garbage. There simply wasn’t any low-end response and I quickly wrote a review with that message. But then the following week while I was A/B testing the Logitech Ultimate Ears TripleFi 10, the Trumpets suddenly sounded dramatically better. There was plenty of bass and clarity. They were finally fitting in my ear properly and “Smack My Bitch Up” by The Prodigy pounded like it should. The Trumpets strongest attribute is the immense virtual soundstage they can produce. The music is wonderfully spread out. Wilco’s “I’m Trying To Break Your Heart” sounds amazing through these headphones. The vocals are neatly placed in the center while the large virtual soundstage seemingly puts the accompaniment on either side. This visualization is why would you buy these headphones. Close your eyes and it sounds like Tweedy is 8 feet in front of you, surrounded by the rest of the band. I question Monster’s tag line that the Trumpets are the musician’s headphone. The headphones simply didn’t justify their price when playing back lossless audio. There was very little difference between a FLAC encoding and the same track from RDIO. There wasn’t the sudden awakening that usually happens when listening to lossless audio. The Trumpets, in a sense, failed the most important test. The Trumpets have amazing audio imaging and produce a huge soundstage. The audio is tight without being overly harsh, and, if they’re properly seated in your ear, they produce solid bass. But when fed high-quality audio, the Trumpets do not light up. There’s nothing here, in short, to warrant a $350 price tag. I guess the Miles Davis Trumpet earphones are for musicians who listen to MP3s and don’t care about quality source material.
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| BBM Music Gets Pre-Release Shout Out From Best Buy Canada Posted: 25 Oct 2011 08:35 AM PDT  BBM Music has been keeping a low profile since it was announced last August, but a recently leaked image indicates that it may soon see the light of day. Crackberry got their hands on what appears to be a Best Buy Canada circular that touts both the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and RIM’s strangely social music service. Apologies to all the music sharing aficionados out there — it seems like Best Buy’s copywriters weren’t privy to any new information. We’re still left wanting for specifics like availability and release date, but if the ad is any indication, it may be ready for prime time sooner than expected. Though BBM Music could probably benefit from the hype, it seems like an odd move for RIM and Best Buy Canada considering it’s still in beta. It’s possible that its appearance in the ad was just some sort of production gaffe; maybe one of the copywriters needed to fill space and latched onto the first vaguely-interesting BlackBerry tidbit they could find. It’s certainly the easiest explanation, but I’m not sure if I buy it. Producing circulars and buyer’s guides takes a fair amount of lead time, so it’s also possible BBM Music was intended to launch a while ago, and the ad’s layout was put together to highlight it. If you’re a BlackBerry user and all this talk of BBM Music has got you riled up, don’t feel bad: it’s ready for you to play with over in the BlackBerry Beta Zone.
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| SoundHound Reaches 50 Million Users, 4 Million+ Searches Per Day Posted: 25 Oct 2011 08:31 AM PDT  Music search and discovery startup SoundHound is today announcing its usage numbers for the first time, and it looks like they’re worth touting. SoundHound says that it now sees over 4 million music searches per day and user engagement tops 1,000 hits per second. In addition, the company now has over 50 million mobile users on iOS and Android combined. As a Shazam competitor, SoundHound's Sound2Sound' technology searches sound against sound, bypassing traditional sound-to-text conversion techniques. The company is now seeing increasing growth, it says. Over a 30-day period (ending October 20th, 2011), it saw 25 million to 35 million hits per day and traffic peaks at over 2 million hits per hour. This is also when it was seeing those max peaks of 1,000 hits per second. These metrics represent a tenfold increase over last year. SoundHoud recently updated its iOS app to include integration with Apple’s iCloud in order to sync music and search history across all iOS devices. It has also added support for lyrics, voice recognition and Spotify integration to its mobile applications throughout the year. San Jose-based SoundHound is backed by Global Catalyst Partners, TransLink Capital, Walden Venture Capital, and other Silicon Valley investors.
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| Bluetooth SIG Announces A Lot Of Weird Branding For 4.0-Compatible Devices Posted: 25 Oct 2011 08:07 AM PDT  If your device is Bluetooth Smart Ready then it’s compatible with Bluetooth Smart and Bluetooth but if it’s Smart then it’s not compatible with regular Bluetooth. Got that? Good. The Bluetooth SIG, never content to leave well enough alone, as introduced three new “icons” for their new 4.0 standard. “Best” Bluetooth devices will support both “old” Bluetooth and 4.0 while Smart devices will only support 4.0. In short, Smart Ready devices will support dual modes and work the way with which we are currently familiar in devices like laptops, phones, and PCs, while Smart devices will support ultra low power devices like heart rate monitors and pedometers, allowing Bluetooth to come up against wireless standards like ANT. Does this effect you in any way? Probably not except that “Smart Ready” phones will be able to connect with your workout gear. Otherwise, this is the same old Bluetooth you know and love except that 4.0 allows for reduced power consumption because the connection “pulses” rather than maintain a constant connection. It’s available now on the 4S and the new MacBooks. So when you think of Bluetooth, think of “Smart” as “not really Bluetooth, but Nike will support it soon” and “Smart Ready” as “I can connect my heart rate monitor to this and it takes less battery.” Bluetooth is, well, still Bluetooth. You can read a bit more here, but now you know and knowing is, as we all know, half the battle.
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| Anti-Facebook Social Network “Unthink” Launches To Public Posted: 25 Oct 2011 08:00 AM PDT  Scrappy outsider startup Unthink.com, which bills itself as the “anti-Facebook,” is opening up its doors today, allowing in its first round of beta testers. The Tampa-based company with $2.5 million in funding from DouglasBay Capital sees itself as a more open, more honest form of social networking – one where its users are the owners of their data, and not the product being sold to advertisers. Unthink is the kind of startup that could only come from outside of traditional tech hotspots like Silicon Valley or New York, as there’s a certain level of audacity, and perhaps even ignorance, that you need in order to think you have a shot at displacing social networking giant Facebook and all of its 800 million users. And taking down Facebook is the core of Unthink’s marketing campaign. In fact, the majority of Unthink’s message is about what it is not: it’s not another social network, it’s a social revolution. Unthinkers are not users, they’re owners. Unthink is not in control, you are. And so on. It even has its own manifesto, deeds and covenants. “If we want to be free, we have to control our own communications…we have to claim that power,” CEO Natasha Dedis shouted with vitriol to the crowd at September’s Tampa Bay Barcamp (the un-conference), before delving into all the ways that Facebook does its users wrong. She explained that the idea for Unthink came to her when her son wanted to sign up for Facebook and she read the terms of service. They were not something she wanted to agree to because they could change at any time. But for her son, that decision was met with a lot of anxiety. “He was really stressed about it, like he didn’t have a choice – he had to be on Facebook.” It was either be on Facebook, or be a pariah in school, she said. Whichever decision Dedis made, she felt like she was being bad mother. (Above: a profile after sign-up) On Facebook, your personal data, your posts, your likes – in short, all your social networking activity – is used to provide advertisers with a way to directly target precise demographics. Some may call it genius, but for others like Dedis, it feels exploitive. “The number one thing that had to be ‘un-thought’ about social media, is who does it belong to? We need to own everything that we put on our page. We can be as private or as public as we want, as long as it’s our choice,” she said. On Unthink, user data isn’t sold to brands. Instead, users choose a brand to sponsor their page, by way of an ad dubbed “iEndorse.” The idea is that a user will select a brand they feel some affinity with, and will then become an advocate for that brand. Users who don’t want to select a brand have the option to pay for the service instead ($2/year). Brands also have a different way to communicate with fans than they do on Facebook, where messages are spliced into a users’ News Feed. On Unthink, there’s a separate section on users’ profile pages just for communicating with businesses. Users decide what companies they want to communicate with, what type of messages they want to receive and how often they want to receive them. Then, when they choose to interact with a brand, they’re rewarded for their engagement with points that can be used towards discounts and offers from the brand in question. Upon signing up for Unthink, as I did today, you’re offered an app that will export your photos and videos from Facebook. You’re also asked to fill out the standard social networking questions (name, date of birth, gender, etc.) and are then directed to your own personal profile page. These pages are split into sections, each with a dedicated purpose and easy-to-customize privacy controls. The top section, “iUnthink” is your public microblog, the middle, your social section, the third, your lifestyle section for connecting with brands (this part will launch in a few weeks), and the bottom, your professional section for connecting with business colleagues. Oh, that’s right. Did I forget to mention? Despite its anti-Facebook manifesto, Unthink actually wants to displace Twitter, Groupon and LinkedIn, too. If anything, however, it’s Diaspora done right. Hey, if you’re going to appeal to the “I don’t want corporate control of my data!” crowd, you may as well go all in. Will Unthink take down Facebook? Not likely. But it’s fascinating to watch someone try on this scale. Unthink is launching into a limited beta today. If you know someone who’s in, they can send you an invite. TechCrunch readers can email techcrunch@unthink.com to get to the head of the list. (Above: full-page profile. Note that ticker would normally be at bottom)
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| Eric Schmidt-Backed Slice Brings Receipt Aggregator And Tracking Service To Gmail Posted: 25 Oct 2011 08:00 AM PDT  We wrote about receipt tracking service Slice a few months ago when the startup announced its $9.4 million Series A funding round from DCM, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Michael Birch, FLOODGATE, Eric Schmidt's Innovation Endeavors and Rick Thompson. In May, Slice launched its Yahoo Mail app to help you organize your online shopping by analyzing your inbox. It's sort of like what TripIt does for your itineraries, except Slice tracks receipts, notices and purchases. Today, Slice is bringing its receipt organizer to Gmail users. Once you sign up, the app automatically aggregates and pulls information from the electronic receipts in your email and organizes it in one place. The startup says that receipts and purchases often gets lost in your inbox and the app consolidates your shopping history in one place so you don't have to log into multiple websites, dig through receipts or manually file emails Slice will automatically track in-progress shipments and chart shipping from multiple retailers on a single map. And the service will also provide quick access to return and customer service information that isn't always so easy to find and will show you exactly what you bought down to the individual item from the most popular merchants, not just where you bought it. Additionally, Slice is launching a new features, called Price Alerts, that will let users know when the cost of an item purchased drops, so you can try to recoup the difference from the retailer. Since launching for Yahoo Mail earlier this year, Slice has tracked and organized over 2.5 million purchases for its users. The Gmail app is particularly useful, especially as the holiday shopping season nears and there’s an influx of receipts arriving in my inbox. Slice faces competition from recently launched Lemon.
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| T-Mobile Outs Release Dates For The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Huawei Springboard Posted: 25 Oct 2011 07:56 AM PDT  If you’ve had your eye on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 or Huawei’s new Springboard tablet, the sign-up pages for both devices have just popped up on T-Mobile’s site. On November 7, you’ll be able to pick up a new Springboard tab for no more than $200. We’re still unclear on exact pricing, but TmoNews seems to think it’ll go for $179.99 with a two-year contract. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, on the other hand, will be available on November 2 along with a number of other handsets. As far as GalTab pricing goes, things are still a mystery. The Wifi-only editions are priced between $499 and $599, so a two-year agreement could bring that down to around $299 or $399. But we’ll have to wait for official word to be sure. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 sports a 10.1-inch 1280×800 WXGA LCD display, a 3-megapixel rear camera ready for 720p video capture and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera for video chat. The slate runs Android 3.2 Honeycomb over a 1GHz dual-core processor in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB memory options. The Springboard tablet from Huawei is a little 7-inch tab with Android 3.2 Honeycomb running the show. Under the hood, you’ll find a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, along with a 5-megapixel rear camera (720p video capture) on the back and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing shooter for video chat. Both slates support Adobe Flash. If you’re looking for more information on either slate, head here for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and here for the T-Mobile Springboard. T-Mobile is a mobile telephone operator headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It is a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom. T-Mobile has 101 million subscribers making it the worlds sixth largest mobile phone service provider globally.
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| After Dismal Earnings Outlook, Netflix Loses $2.3 Billion In Market Cap Posted: 25 Oct 2011 07:39 AM PDT  Last night, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings faced Wall Street with third quarter earnings which weren’t terrible in and of themselves. But he spooked investors with projected losses going into next year. The growth investors who remained in the stock started fleeing in after-hours trading, and this morning shares opened at $74.90, down 37 percent from a close of $119 yesterday. That $44 drop translates into $2.3 billion worth of Netflix market cap getting wiped out in a single night. Netflix’s current market cap is just shy of $4 billion, down from more than $16 billion at its peak last July. LinkedIn, with a market cap of $8,6 billion, is now worth twice as much as Netflix. Did Wall Street overreact? If you believe that streaming video is the future of movies and TV, this could be a buying opportunity. Follow @sacca@sacca Chris Sacca Just bought some $NFLX after hours. I'd be less bullish if they weren't already so far ahead of most of the content world's thinking. With more than 23.3 million members in the United States and Canada, Netflix, Inc. is the world's leading Internet subscription service for enjoying movies and TV shows. For $7.99 a month, Netflix members in the U.S. can instantly watch unlimited movies and TV episodes streaming right to their TVs and computers and can receive unlimited DVDs delivered quickly to their homes. In Canada, streaming unlimited movies and TV shows from Netflix is available for $7.99 a month. There are...
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| Apple Joins Oreos And Capri Sun As Most Popular Youth Brand Posted: 25 Oct 2011 07:12 AM PDT  In a poll of 5,077 US youngsters ages 8-24, Apple came out on top over all over computer, phone, and tablet makers as the number one electronics brand. Apple joins the ranks of Nintendo, Oreo, and Sprite as some of the most popular brands in America today. Pollsters Harris Interactive asked questions about brand preference and loyalty. They note that “Apple has built a powerful equity base among their customers of today and their customers of tomorrow,” which ensures that the brand will have resonance over the next decade. The poll found that Apple Computers, iPads, and iPhones are the highest ranked electronics in the computer, tablet, and phone space. Hewlett Packard, Motorola Xoom, and HTC are in second place in each category. Apple must be quite proud to be up with some of the nastiest juice in the constellation of junk food although, to be fair, Oreos are pretty darn good.
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| Asus, Acer Android 3.0 Tabs To Eventually Get Updated To Ice Cream Sandwich Posted: 25 Oct 2011 06:52 AM PDT  Now that Ice Cream Sandwich is real, manufacturers can start talking about the roll out. The good news is that ICS looks Tegra 2 friendly so it should run on most of the first generation Honeycomb tablets. Asus and Acer have both confirmed that their respective tabs will get the update but haven’t detailed the launch schedule. That’s the bad news, which really isn’t all that bad in and of itself. Asus released several a statement across its social media platforms indicated that yes, the entire Eee Pad family including the Transformer and Slider will eventually see an official Android 4.0 release. Via Asus Facebook
Tablet-online.pl received a statement from Acer Poland indicating that Ice Cream Sandwich will hit the Acer Iconia Tab A100/A101 and the A500/A501 sometime in mid-January. That’s CES time, folks. So far Samsung and Motorola haven’t released info concerning its Honeycomb tablet update schedule although Motorola recently tweeted that it would release ICS updates 6 weeks after Google hands them the code. However, most of the current Honeycomb tablets run the same hardware, which should make porting an unofficial release to the tablets a non-issue. The Acer Group is a family of four brands – Acer, Gateway, Packard Bell and eMachines. It ranks as the world’s third-largest company for total PC shipments, is No. 2 for notebooks, and has a global workforce of more than 6,000 employees. Revenues in 2008 reached US$16.65 billion. The successful mergers of Gateway, Inc. (October 2007) and Packard Bell, Inc. (March 2008) by parent company, Acer, Inc., completes the group’s global footprint by further strengthening its presence in the U.S.... ASUS is well known for high-quality and innovative technology. ASUS offers a complete product portfolio to compete in the new millennium.
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| Video: World’s Largest 3D Display Boasts Full HD Resolution, 200-Inch Screen Size, 57 Viewing Angles Posted: 25 Oct 2011 06:25 AM PDT  Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications (NICT) and JVC Kenwood have developed what they say is the world’s biggest 3D display. The device boasts a screen size of 200 inches, offers 57 different viewing angles, and best of all, it doesn’t require you to use glasses to view pictures in 3D. The auto-stereoscopic display is based on 57 projectors in an array, produces 3D pictures in full HD and weighs 500kg. It was first announced by the NICT in January this year but appears to have been altered since (the earlier version used 64 projectors, for example): This video, recently shot by Diginfo TV in Tokyo, provides more insight on the newest model (in English):
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| Search Site Loku Leverages Big Data To Make Local Search Simpler Posted: 25 Oct 2011 06:10 AM PDT  Local search site Loku launches in public beta today, with the aim of helping people quickly find out more about the environs around them — using the vast repository of location-based information available. Instead of making the user pour through crowdsourced information, Loku uses natural language search to serve up the most relevant articles in a given area through its “Know Local” function, allowing people to look for relevant media around the topics of “Good Eats,”"Culture,” etc. It’s “Go Local” function lets people use a slider to sift through a sentiment rank of the places around them. Classifying itself as “Big Data” for local and holding Google and Yelp as competitors, Loku CEO Dan Street tells me that Loku synthethizes available information instead of just presenting it in a hierarchy. He likens Loku to “the analytical layer on top of the local Internet.” “We can tell you the aggregated sentiment—the 'buzz'—about a local restaurant or event,” he explains, “We can pull all the information together and present insights in a lively, single-page, graphical format.” For its Go Local results, the service uses the Twitter API and machine learning to analyze how people are talking about places on their blogs and social media, and then separates those words into different categories like “Swanky” or “Hipster.” To make the process even simpler, Loku’s results are extremely visual for both the Know Local and Go Local features, serving up results in a visual grid reminiscent of Pinterest. “There two problems this is solving,” Street says. “There's no place on the Internet where you can find out what is happening block by block. And it is still way too hard to find a place to go eat or a place to go eat and a place to go out. It's hard to find very localized information. What you want is just one answer — you want a simplification.” Loku presently has $1.4 million in funding from angels including 500Startups. Street tells me that he eventually wants to add concerts and events to the service, as well as launch a mobile app asap. Loku is all about helping you live a more local life. We serve people through web and mobile. Our purpose: We help people find news, events, deals, and businesses in a small local area. It’s easy, effective, and fun to use. Our executive team includes deep expertise in data mining, technology strategy, and developing Big Data systems. Our secret sauce is a new way to define and rank local content across the internet. See more at www.loku.com!
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| Garmin Launches Fit App Just In Time For Holiday Feasts Posted: 25 Oct 2011 05:58 AM PDT  If you’re looking to get preemptive with holiday weight watching, Garmin’s got an app for that. The company today released the Garmin Fit app, which tracks speed, pace, distance, time, calories, and with the addition of Garmin’s ANT+ accessories, heart rate and cadence. The app also maps out the user’s workout and uploads it directly to Garmin Connect, all for $.99. We’ve seen devices that perform almost all the same functionality, though they tend to be much smaller dedicated fitness devices. The FitBit, the Striiv, and even Motorola’s new MotoACTV smart watch take the same metrics, but force you to carry around an extra device. That said, it may be much easier for most to pop a small pedometer/fitness tracker in their pocket or wear a watch than it would be for someone to carry around a 4.3-inch smartphone. The upside to the Fit app is that it never stops working, even if you have to take a call or write a text. A single tap displays all your basic metrics, including time, distance, pace and calories. Users will also be able to control their music from within the app. Once you’ve thrown in the towel on your workout, the Fit app will let you give notes on the experience and input details, at which point all the information is sent straight to Garmin Connect. From there, users can track their overall performance and improvements over the last 30 days. The Garmin Fit app is available now as a $.99 download from both the Apple App Store and the Android Market. Garmin is a producer of GPS devices.
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| Hipmunk Integrates Google Calendar For Conflict-Free Flying Posted: 25 Oct 2011 05:34 AM PDT  It’s a bit cliché, but it’s true all the same: the best features are often the ones that make you smack yourself on the forehead and ask why you didn’t think of them (or why nobody else did). Which the reaction I immediately had when I heard about a new feature that Hipmunk, the flight and hotel travel search engine, is launching this morning. Today the service is adding support for Google Calendar integration, which means it can check its flight listings against your schedule to figure out which ones will work best for you. Now, calendar syncing is hardly a new concept for travel sites — many of them will let you automatically sync your booked flights and reservations into your calendar. But Hipmunk says that it’s the first travel site to delve into your schedule and find potential conflicts to help you book those flights in the first place. The interface, which you can see in the screenshots below, makes this pretty straightforward: once you’ve entered your Google Calendar credentials, you’ll see vertical yellow-tinged bars hovering over Hipmunk’s flight search grid. Obviously not all of your scheduled events will warrant changing your flight plans, so you can ignore them if you’d like. Or you can hit the ‘sort by Conflict’ button, which will actually hide any flights that overlap with any of your commitments. Likewise, Hipmunk will look at your calendar to figure out where your meetings and events are located, which it can use to suggest hotels that are convenient. Hipmunk is a travel search site that aims to take the agony out of travel planning. Their mission is to help people book travel faster and more efficiently. Hipmunk was designed to help people who are overwhelmed with pages of irrelevant search results. Hipmunk presents flight results in a visual "timeline" that allows people to select the best flight for them at a glance. Hotel results are shown on a map so that people can view where in a...
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| Device Identification Startup BlueCava Lands $9.5M From S3 Ventures, Mark Cuban Posted: 25 Oct 2011 05:31 AM PDT  Exclusive - BlueCava, a startup that has developed technology that enables its customers to identify unique connected devices such as smartphones, TV set-top boxes, gaming consoles, computers and more, has raised $9.5 million in funding in a round led by VC firm S3 Ventures. Earlier backers, angel investors and billionaires Mark Cuban and Tim Headington, also participated in the round. BlueCava offers device identification technology that enables businesses to improve online advertising effectiveness through smart targeting, and to minimize the risk of fraud. There’s an interesting background story about the tech, which I’ve outlined in a previous post (it involves INXS’ former road manager, Ric Richardson). Brian R. Smith, Managing Director of S3 Ventures, will be joining BlueCava's board along with Marsh Marshall, Managing Director of Putney Capital and former President of Equifax/IXI Digital, who will serve as the company’s chairman. Its advisory board already includes people like Joe Sullivan, Chief Security Officer at Facebook and Ellen Moskowitz, VP of Fraud Management Solutions at MasterCard. The most recent financing round brings the total of capital raised by the company to $16 million. BlueCava provides advanced technology that enables businesses to identify and profile the devices used by their customers to increase online advertising effectiveness, reduce fraud risk, and improve customer satisfaction. With BlueCava's patented technology, companies can uniquely identify Internet connected devices including computers, mobile phones, set top boxes and gaming consoles, to better adapt and respond to customer needs.
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| Customer Support Solution Provider UserVoice Launches New Reporting Tools Posted: 25 Oct 2011 05:28 AM PDT  UserVoice, makers of tools for managing customer support and feedback, is today launching a new reporting tool for businesses using its “Instant Answers” service. The service, which is built into the UserVoice Full Service system, allows companies to automatically connect their help requests to available Knowledge Base entries in order to provide an immediate answer to incoming queries. With today’s launch of the reporting tool, those companies will now be able to tell how effective their Knowledge Base is at providing those answers to their customers. According to UserVoice, sending customer inquiries to a Knowledge Base (KB) can save on average $4 and 7 minutes of support time for each help desk ticket the KB entry can help resolve. It makes the company’s support processes more efficient, too, since many customers tend to ask the same questions over and over again, but rarely check out the company’s KB on their own, says company CEO Richard White. The newly launched reporting mechanism will now provide companies with more insight into what’s working and what’s not, in terms of the KB redirections. Included in the tool are metrics for the percentage of Knowledge Base entries that are viewed and have successfully averted a support ticket submission, what Knowledge Base articles are viewed most often and what percentage of support requests actually have matching Knowledge Base articles. UserVoice says its Full Service system is now seeing over 30% growth month-over-month in account sign-ups since its launch in March of this year. Pricing plans for the system start at $5 per month for systems with one agent and go up to fully customizable solutions at $125/month per agent. The San Francisco-based company was founded in 2008 and has received $800,000 in seed and Series A funding.
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| Just-Eat Swallows GrubCanada Whole Posted: 25 Oct 2011 05:23 AM PDT  London-based Just-Eat, the online food ordering company originally founded in Denmark in 2000, is putting the $48 million it raised earlier this year to good use. After taking over local rival, London online food delivery company Urbanbite, Just-Eat’s Canadian business has acquired GrubCanada. The latter is one of Canada’s first online food ordering service companies, started in 2008 by entrepreneurs Howard Migdal and Ross Lipson. Earlier this year, Just-Eat Canada also acquired Vancouver-based YummyWeb.com. With the acquisition, Just-Eat is able to offer online consumers access to over 1,000 delivery restaurants across Canada, adding 200 new neighbourhood restaurants in Ontario and British Columbia to the stable thanks to the addition of GrubCanada’s business. Terms of the purchase were not disclosed. Just-Eat claims to deliver over 100,000 meals a day and that it has processed more than 30 million orders since the site launched in 2001 (it currently process over 4 million orders per month worldwide for its 20,000 restaurant partners). The company is backed by Greylock Partners, Index Ventures, and Redpoint Ventures. Just-eat vision is "order takeaway the smart way"; a promise to consumers and restaurants alike. To consumers Just-Eat provide convenient and easy access to a huge variety of delivery restaurants and order food online, and to restaurants they help improve their business by increasing their exposure and providing new revenue streams. Today Just-Eat is the world's leader in online takeaway ordering. As of early 2011 Just-Eat has activities on four continents and more than 15 000 restaurants on their...
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| Hori Announces Steering Wheel Peripheral For Mario Kart On 3DS Posted: 25 Oct 2011 05:03 AM PDT  There is a very special peripheral for future owners of Mario Kart 7 on the 3DS coming soon, but it’s not made by Nintendo itself: video game accessory maker Hori announced a steering wheel that’s specifically designed for the game and that’s officially licensed by big N. The device will feature large L and R buttons for better control: Hori says the steering wheel, which is Japan-only at this point, will be released when Mario Kart goes on sale (on December 1). It will be priced at US$17 and doesn’t have a release date outside Japan yet (so you might want to contact your import shop as fast as possible).
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