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Why All Schools Need iPads: Ending Texas’s Bizarre Control Over National History Textbooks
ClassDojo Lands $1.6M From Paul Graham, Ron Conway To Help Teachers Control Their Classrooms
Dell Pushes Warranties While Claiming Help-Desk Customers Won Phony Sweepstakes
Peter Thiel’s Breakout Labs Funds Tissue Engineering, Nano-Engineering Projects And More
Targeting The Long Tail, Human Demand’s New Platform Lets You See Which Apps Are Running Your Ads
One Laptop Per Child Details The XO-4 Touch, A Touchscreen Convertible Notebook For Emerging Markets
Online Makeup Community Beautylish Gets Into e-Commerce With Boutiques Launch
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Review: So Close To Greatness
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Hits Stores August 16: $499 For 16GB, $549 For 32GB
Walmart, Target, 7-11 And Other Retailers Are Teaming Up On Mobile Wallet
Songza Music Streaming App Nabs 2 Million New Users Since June With More Than 50% Retention Rate
Founded By Former Expedia Engineers, Stealthy Travel Startup Hopper Closes $12 Million Series B
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Artists.MTV, Where Musicians Claim Their MTV Profiles, Enters Public Beta
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Why All Schools Need iPads: Ending Texas’s Bizarre Control Over National History Textbooks

Posted: 15 Aug 2012 09:10 AM PDT

America’s history education is still held captive to the notoriously anti-establishment Texas Board of Education, which buys enough high school textbooks that it can dictate the content of history curriculum nationwide. A recent decision to recall a popular history book for its abject religious bias, written by one of the Texas Board’s most controversial experts, is a strong reminder of why every classroom needs an iPad, which allows school districts to curate their own reading material. Piecemeal textbook platforms, such as the Wake Forest University-designed Biobook, have created a unique opportunity for teachers to select what they feel is the most compelling (and factually accurate) content from around the web. The most immediate benefit would be the end of the Texas Board’s stranglehold on America’s historical literacy (for a funny explanation of how Texas defines our national awareness of historical figures, check out The Daily Show clip below)

Christian publisher Thomas Nelson took the embarrassing, but nonetheless brave, decision to recall the controversial book, The Jefferson Lies, which wrongly depicted the American Founding Father as a “conventional christian” who championed civil rights (perhaps his more than 200 slaves gave him the free time to be such a champion). “There were historical details — matters of fact, not matters of opinion, that were not supported at all,” said Thomas Nelson Senior Vice President and Publisher, Brian Hampton.

As The Examiner points out, the Texas Board of Education ignored an outcry from actual history experts in favor of folks like shamed author, David Barton. Among many controversial decisions, the Board

“removed the word “Enlightenment” from its history curriculum;
required that textbooks refer to the US as a “constitutional republic” to remove the word “democratic” from the description,
and required that students be taught that the words ‘separation of church and state’ do not appear in the US Constitution.”

And, local districts are beginning to see how iPads can release them from the influence of Texas, "Now with the miracle of technology, states and school districts can customize what they want their textbooks to look like," said Idaho Superintendent, Tom Luna.

BioBook, for instance, is creating a free online database of chapters and multimedia created by other professors from around the world. California educators are pushing the Open Source Texbook Project, aimed at replacing expensive paper books with customized, high-quality, and free content from the web. While these projects are still gaining momentum, it shouldn’t be long until customized textbooks are universal.

So, for the sake of our democracy, let’s hope all children have access to ebooks soon.

ClassDojo Lands $1.6M From Paul Graham, Ron Conway To Help Teachers Control Their Classrooms

Posted: 15 Aug 2012 09:00 AM PDT

Before Sam Chaudhary and Liam Don began building what would eventually become ClassDojo, they set out to identify the biggest problems teachers face in the classroom every day. After interviewing several hundred educators, a pattern quickly emerged: Managing student behavior. Teachers almost unilaterally agreed that they tend to spend more time playing cop and disciplining students than they do teaching. Yikes.

So, Chuadhary and Don launched ClassDojo in August 2011 to help teachers win back control of their disruptive classrooms. The free service allowed teachers to leverage their mobile or desktop technology of choice to track and influence student behavior. In fact, using ClassDojo is pretty straightforward: Teachers assign students an avatar and, based on their behavior throughout the day, dole out rewards or consequences (+1 for smiling, -1 for punching) from their laptop, tablet or smartphone. ClassDojo tracks behavioral data over the course of days (and semesters), allowing teachers to share results with parents.

With teachers eager to take advantage of any tool that helps them reduce the amount of crowd control they do on a daily basis, it’s not surprising that ClassDojo has found an eager audience among K-12 educators. Since launching just under a year ago, the startup has attracted over 3.5 million teachers and students (in more than 30 countries) to its platform, who have collectively produced over 50 million feedback points.

Based on this encouraging early traction, the startup is today officially emerging from beta and announcing that it has raised $1.6 million in seed funding from a number of familiar names. Investors in ClassDojo’s seed round include Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham (who invested personally, not through YC), Ron Conway, Jeff Clavier, Kapor Capital, Start Fund, General Catalyst, Morado Ventures, Lerer Ventures, NewSchools Ventures, Learn Capital, along quite a few angel investors (including Flixter CEO Joe Greenstein and OpenFeint Founder Jason Citron).

While one might find a roster of names like this next to a consumer (or B2B2C biz), it’s unusual for an edtech startup. A large part of the attraction it seems has been the company’s viral growth over the last 11 months. At the end of its first year, ClassDojo was seeing 10 percent week-over-week growth, pushing it across the 3.5 million users mark. Hitting that milestone in under a year is impressive, especially given the length of time it typically takes for education startups to achieve similar metrics.

With a small team, the startup attributes its viral growth to teachers, who, just by word-of-mouth, have helped the company spread across the country faster than it ever would have otherwise. What many don’t know is that teachers tend to be enthusiastic early adopters of technology and many love to experiment with integrating new tools into the classroom learning experience.

Getting the eyeballs of an educator isn’t as difficult as one might imagine, but retaining that attention is another thing altogether. Teachers are taking to ClassDojo because it essentially creates a public leaderboard on which students monitor their status throughout the course of the day — the idea being that the presence of this public, omnipresent cue makes them check their behavior, especially when they see that punching Jimmy in the arm leads to a big, red “-1″ next to their name.

As scores accumulate over the day or the week, students intrinsically find themselves being pushed along because no one wants to be at the bottom of the leaderboard or have a crappy review next their friends. The ClassDojo founders will tell you, to this point, that current research suggests that the more one reduces the duration between a child’s action (negative or positive) and the response to that action, the more lasting the reinforcement becomes.

But this is just what I find so fascinating about ClassDojo. Its early growth is impressive, and from perusing through blogs and candid teacher reviews, there’s no doubt that the teacher love for ClassDojo is at least somewhat real. While it may not seem it at first, the startup’s model is actually a bit controversial among educators.

Boiled down from the perspective of the devil’s advocate and ClassDojo is basically a gold star system, a shiny class list up on the big projector with some cute sound effects and some basic tracking and packaging. To this point, the prevailing criticism of ClassDojo is not the interface or the avatars, it’s the reward system itself. In fact, most psychology research will tell say that external rewards are counterproductive to intrinsic motivation — that extrinsic reward systems are bad for creativity.

Awarding points for being an obedient student might be seen as a cheap way of manipulating behavior. Instead, the critics would say, young people have to learn to develop intrinsic motivation themselves rather than have badges or gold stars or points influence and determine their behavior. Of course, it gets complicated pretty quickly. Teachers themselves are the purveyors of grades and assessments — a reward system we spend a good chunk of our lives around.

But it’s easy for teachers to fall back on grades and rewards rather than provide feedback. It almost seems that if behavior is such a pervasive problem in classrooms, maybe we should be examining curricula, content, and the way we’re teaching in service of making learning more engaging.

On the other hand, at this point, students are no strangers to game dynamics and are already from an early age being bombarded with confounding extrinsic reward systems, with clever developers trying to squeeze out another in-app purchase. In a sense, it doesn’t hurt students to familiarize themselves with this kind of gamification in the classroom. One wouldn’t be going out on a limb to surmise that it’s not going away any time soon.

The rantings of a cynical blogger aside, whether or not you see ClassDojo as a tech version of “names on the board” or the gold star system, ClassDojo is an important experiment for education. Teachers are riffing on the startup’s reward structure, using it to create their own behavior management systems, some of which will no doubt prove extremely effective.

In the end, the startup will be judged on — at least by teachers and parents — the degree to which it actually influences behavior. It’s always good to take surveys like this with a grain of salt, but ClassDojo claims that a nationwide poll of its users showed a 45 to 90 percent increase in positive behavior a 50 to 85 percent decrease in tomfoolery and shenanigans.

On the surface, that seems pretty eye opening, though its hard to disassociate those results from the inherent conflict of interest. 95 to 100 percent of TechCrunch readers polled said that my posts on TechCrunch are extremely enlightening, for example.

Behavior is a deep problem, but ClassDojo has a lot of things working in its favor: It’s free for teachers to use, has a relatively low barrier to entry (all a classroom needs to get on board use is an internet connection and one computer) and is customizable. It’s collecting a lot of behavioral data, which, when it starts to focus more on monetization, could be an extremely valuable commodity.

There are a lot of complexities to the value proposition of this startup, but it’s already proving to be a great catalyst for a dialogue on the best ways to implement game mechanics, mobile devices and technology into the learning process. It’s an important conversation to have, and the earlier, the better — especially as it addresses what Chaudhary calls “the other 50 percent of education” — the half that is underserved by educational technology yet goes “beyond just building good test scores to building character strengths.”

"There's this whole other half of education that is currently unaddressed by education technology; the half that goes beyond just building good test scores to building character strengths that are essential for lifetime success

Find ClassDojo at home here.

Dell Pushes Warranties While Claiming Help-Desk Customers Won Phony Sweepstakes

Posted: 15 Aug 2012 08:55 AM PDT

If you call the Dell support line, chances are you’re the lucky winner of the chance to pay $300 for Dell warranty protection. Laptop Magazine called Dell three times with a number of simple problems, including trackpad issues and software problems. Each time the CSR informed the reporter that they had won a “daily drawing to purchase a four-year extended hardware warranty for our laptop for $317.”

The CSRs also offered software warranties for hardware questions and even forced a warranty on the customer during a question on how to use the trackpad with three fingers.

When we told him that we weren't interested in a warranty, Sherma told us that only three customers win the drawing per day, and that the normal price for such a warranty is $512. We again told him we weren't interested, at which point Sherma said that if we didn't want the discounted offer, he would give it to his next caller. We once again told Sherma that we didn't want to purchase the warranty, to which he replied in a clearly agitated tone that he was only trying to save us money. He then began telling us that we were also eligible for a software warranty.

These call centers were apparently all in India and Dell responded by explaining that many of the behaviors exhibited weren’t sanctioned by the company. “Daily drawings are not a regular practice nor encouraged tactic in technical support and we have used your feedback to reinforce this with our teams. Their only priority is to resolve our customers' issues,” they wrote.

This sort of behavior suggests a few things. First, these guys are paid commission for every warranty they sell and by gar they’re going to sell them some warranties. Second, if Dell, ostensibly no longer a PC company, is reduced to the worse tactics than Best Buy, there may be some problems internally. I’m surprised they didn’t try to upsell Monster USB cables.

Peter Thiel’s Breakout Labs Funds Tissue Engineering, Nano-Engineering Projects And More

Posted: 15 Aug 2012 08:21 AM PDT

Breakout Labs, Peter Thiel’s effort to put $5 million toward cutting-edge research, just awarded another round of funding toward technologies that could one day create meat without harm to animals and improve disease diagnosis.

The fund usually awards $50,000 to $350,000 and lets grantees keep their intellectual property rights in exchange for a small royalty (capped at three times the grant amount) and an investment option. It’s still early days, so the initial projects that were funded a few months ago have yet to raise significant follow-on funding.

“This is unlike a traditional venture capital fund,” said executive director Lindy Fishburne. “It’s an open application process and there’s no backdoor channel.” Breakout Labs is part of Thiel’s push to go for genuine technological breakthroughs instead of the low-hanging fruit in the consumer web space that many other investors seem to be attracted to. His other firm, Founders Fund, also has the same ideological bent but supports startups, not just early-stage research.

Breakout’s new projects include a company called Modern Meadow that uses tissue engineering to create leather and food without the need to raise or transport animals.

“It’s not a genetically engineered product,” Fishburne says. “It’s a tissue engineered product that’s based on actual stem cells that come from a cow, for example.”

They’re working on an edible cured meat prototype, that could become a source of animal protein.

She adds, “It tastes like actual meat. They just grow it a dish instead of in a cow. The technology all comes from the fact that we know a lot more about how tissues and organs develop. We can understand how to make cells grow into particular structures that we haven’t seen before.”

Another company, Bell Biosystems, is working on regenerative medicine, stem cell and cell-based therapeutics. A third grantee, Entopsis is developing a nano-engineered platform that makes it easier to diagnose multiple diseases from a single sample.

Targeting The Long Tail, Human Demand’s New Platform Lets You See Which Apps Are Running Your Ads

Posted: 15 Aug 2012 08:18 AM PDT

A startup called Human Demand is coming out of stealth today to enter the ever-growing mobile advertising industry with a new platform to help developers acquire more users. Its radical ideas: transparency and control. On Human Demand’s exchange, developers can see where their mobile ads are running down to the very app in which they appear. And they can then opt off of the apps where they don’t want to be, based on the results that particular app provides.

The company is the brainchild of Howie Schwartz, the co-founder of OfferMobi, and an active investor in multiple funds (BHV, FF Ventures, Metamorphic) through which he has made other investments in startups like UpNext, Klout, 500px, GameSalad, and a lot of East Coat tech startups. Another fund he’s a partner in, Arc Angel, also made a small investment in this new company, but Human Demand is mostly self-funded at this point.

Currently a team of eight developers and two account managers, Human Demand is focused on what Schwartz believes is a under-served market: the long tail of app developers.

“If you’re an app developer today, and you’re trying to run a user acquisition campaign and trying to generate installs for your apps, and if you’re working with any of the self-serve ad networks out there today, it’s very difficult – if not impossible – to optimize your campaign because the other ad networks are what we call ‘blind’,” explains Schwartz. “What I mean by that is that they don’t show you or tell you where your ads are running in other apps, and they don’t provide tools to make it easy to optimize and to show you what’s working and what’s not. So that’s what Human Demand has done.”

Schwartz says the goal here is to be transparent about the metrics provided, while also allowing developers control over their ad placements, on the Human Demand RTB platform (real-time bidding). But the way it goes about those configurations is different too. For starters, there’s an emphasis on the so-called “long tail.”

“There’s tens of thousands of developers who are launching apps, and some of them may have a little bit of a marketing budget and some of them might just want to test something,” says Schwartz. None of the agencies and larger networks will give them any attention today, he adds. “That’s really our target market.”

Human Demand shows exactly what the acquisition price is per user on each app, which is unique. The company has been in stealth mode since February, running a closed beta, and has managed 200 campaigns on iOS and Android across 9 countries during that time. Through its partnerships with exchanges (MoPub, MobClix, Smaato, Nexage, OpenX, etc.) there are about 5,000 publishers in the Human Demand network. The average estimated cost per install is currently $1.50, and ranges from $0.50 to $2.00.

The platform also has a different toolset for targeting campaigns, which it calls a “power level.” This color-coded system (red, yellow, green, blue, purple) allows developers to target or block (red) apps on an easier to understand scale than having to figure out the actual dollars and cents per each. Campaign set up is different too. Instead of loading a URL, a banner creative, and setting up targets, developers just enter in the iTunes or Google Play URL and Human Demand pulls in all the information available from the marketplace and builds the campaign for you. It even builds banners for you. The total process is four steps, Schwartz says.

Although a lot of this setup speaks to Human Demand’s long tail target demographic, Schwartz said that four or five of the top 25 grossing apps in iTunes also participated in the beta. Today, the platform is available for any developer to try, and the company is now considering raising a round.

One Laptop Per Child Details The XO-4 Touch, A Touchscreen Convertible Notebook For Emerging Markets

Posted: 15 Aug 2012 08:02 AM PDT

OLPC is plowing forward with the successor to the XO-1. The XO-4, a 7.5-inch convertible notebook clearly born from the same DNA of the XO-1, will feature a touchscreen and keyboard. As OLPC states, this will allow the XO-4 to be a dual-function device, perfect for non-profit education duty.

A Marvell ARMADA 2128 processor will power the device. The XO-4 will use a multi-touch display sourced from Neonode that’s capable of being used in direct sunlight. Combined with the tablet/laptop functionality, this Neonode display should make the XO-4 rather versatile, too.

OLPC CEO Rodrigo Arboleda said in a released statement today, “There is constant debate over laptops versus tablets in educational programs. But the truth is both have their merits. While maintaining our XO’s award-winning design from Yves Behar’s FuseProject, we have combined features of both devices to deliver dual benefits. The new XO-4 Touch is more than just a device, it’s a new way of facilitating learning.”

The XO-4 Touch is expected to be available in the first quarter of 2013. No word on pricing.

Online Makeup Community Beautylish Gets Into e-Commerce With Boutiques Launch

Posted: 15 Aug 2012 08:00 AM PDT

Beautylish, the website where people share tips and reviews on makeup, hair and beauty products, is now going to start selling the stuff that its community has been built around discussing. Today, Beautylish is launching “Boutiques,” which will let registered members of the site buy products.

To start, Beautylish’s Boutiques are not offering the kind of wide variety you’d find at a Sephora or a department store — each one is selling one brand at a time, and new Boutiques will roll out gradually. The first Boutique launching today is Sugarpill Cosmetics, a brand that Beautylish says is one of the site’s 10 most popular. Going forward, the plan is for a new brand Boutique to launch every few weeks.

It’s a nice step forward for the nearly two-year-old Beautylish, which has apparently garnered a pretty devoted following that ranges from professional makeup artists to people who just want to learn how to braid their hair — Britney Spears is actually a big fan of the site. At the moment, Beautylish has more than one million monthly unique visitors, CEO and co-founder Nils Johnson tells me. Because Beautylish has aimed to foster as much user trust as possible, the company has not made any money to date from things like ads or paid product placement — so this is its first foray into revenue-generating territory.

That patience when it comes to making money has been possible because of Beautylish’s investors, who have pitched in at least $1 million to the company (Beautylish is not disclosing its exact funding details.) Beautylish’s backers are a pretty star-studded group that includes Keith Rabois, Mariam Naficy, Max Levchin, Philip Kaplan, Jeremy Stoppelman, Naval Ravikant, and more.

I sat down with Johnson this week to hear a bit more about the e-commerce launch and discuss the beauty space overall. Watch the video embedded below to hear about how Beautylish sees itself fitting into the landscape among retail giants such as Sephora, other startups such as Birchbox, and editorial players such as women’s magazines, and lots more:

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Review: So Close To Greatness

Posted: 15 Aug 2012 08:00 AM PDT

Short Version

Months ago, deep in the heart of Barcelona's Fira Montjuic exhibition center, I played with Samsung's 10.1-inch Galaxy Note tablet for the first time. Booth attendants were quick to note that the units me and thousands of other geeks were playing with weren’t quite final, but that didn't stop me from offering up some kind words for the tablet in training.

Now, nearly six months after that beautiful day in Spain, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is finally ready to take the stage here in the United States. Samsung’s Galaxy Note phablet became a surprise hit shortly after it launched last year, and Samsung is clearly hoping that the Note formula will propel this new tablet into the big leagues. Thankfully, the tablet that goes on sale tomorrow isn't exactly the same as the one that nearly every member of the tech press played with in February — it's definitely better — and if it weren't for a few shortcomings, the Galaxy Note 10.1 may well have been the Android tablet to beat.

Features:

10.1-inch LCD display running at 1280 by 720
Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich with Samsung’s custom UI (Jelly Bean coming later this year)
1.4GHz quad-core Samsung Exynos processor
2GB of RAM
16 or 32GB of internal storage, accepts microSD cards as large as 64GB
5MP rear camera, 1.9MP front-facing camera
Wi-Fi only
MSRP: $499 for the 16GB model, $549 for the 32GB model, available on August 16

Pros:

The S-Pen is a joy to use on a big screen
Strong spec sheet means great performance
Split-screen multitasking!

Cons:

Build quality doesn’t inspire confidence
The cameras are underwhelming
Samsung’s UI can be a bit overbearing

Long Version

Hardware & Design

Aesthetically speaking, Samsung wasn't keen on taking risks when it came to the Galaxy Note 10.1 — it doesn't stray far from some of the company's other recent Android tablets, especially the 10.1-inch Galaxy Tab 2. The Note's 10.1-inch PLS LCD panel is bounded by a considerable bezel, which itself is encircled by rim of metallic-looking plastic that also houses the tablet's two speakers.

Meanwhile, the headphone jack, IR blaster, and microSD slot are all easily accessible from the top edge of the Note 10.1's frame, and the now-standard Samsung dock connector rests along the Note's bottom. Turning the tab over reveals a nondescript back with the same finish seen on the Galaxy S III, with a bright faux-metal strip containing the 5-megapixel camera running along the top. That the Note looks an awful lot like its predecessor isn't much of a problem (they're both rather handsome devices), I couldn't help but wish that Samsung had gone a slightly more adventurous route when it came to design.

Hell, I would've settled for a mild switch-up. As you could probably tell by the placement of the two speakers and the front-facing camera, the Note 10.1 is a tablet that's meant to be held horizontally. Normally, this wouldn't be much of an issue, but using the Galaxy Note as, well, a notepad often feels more comfortable when holding the Note 10.1 vertically.

Bulid quality is typical Samsung — that is to say slim (8.89mm), light (1.31 lb.) and plasticky. When crafting the new Note tablet, Samsung was concerned about keeping its weight down so as not to make it too unwieldy when being held with one hand. They succeeded (as the usually do) on that front, but the decision isn't without it's drawbacks. There's a bit of audible creaking to be heard if you apply a bit of pressure to the edges and there's a considerable amount of give felt when pressing down on the (handsomely finished) back panel. Hardly the most confidence-inspiring construction you'll ever come across in a tablet, but that's just the price you'll have to pay.

Samsung's included S-Pen has also gone under the knife since last I saw it — gone is the capacitive "eraser" nub that used to live opposite the pen's tip. On the upside though, Samsung finally managed to carve out a bit space in the Note 10.1's rear end so there's finally a place for the S-Pen to rest when not in use. It seemed like a downright damning omission six months ago, and thankfully Samsung made the right decision when it came time for a proper release.

Software

As usual, Samsung has gone to great lengths to cover up any semblance of stock Android 4.0.4 with its own custom UI. Longtime readers may know that I'm an avowed lover of untouched Android, but I've played around with enough Samsung devices that I've grown accustomed to its many quirks.

Seasoned Android users won’t have much trouble figuring out where all the usual bits and pieces are, but the Note 10.1's UI has plenty of little touches that can be easily missed. Tapping the clock in the bottom right corner opens a window full of radio toggles, with brightness controls and notifications nestled neatly under them. Touching that little white arrow smack in the middle of Android’s black navigation bar will display a slew of oft-used apps, and long-pressing the homescreen lets users add widgets without having to fire up the app launcher first.

Most of this isn't particularly new but the Note has a few even neater tricks up its metaphorical sleeve. Some of them are pretty minor — removing the S-Pen from its holster brings up a customizable list of apps for quick access, and Galaxy S III's picture-in-picture video viewer make an appearance — but one feature in particular stands above the rest. Samsung has been adamant about playing up the Note 10.1's productivity angle, so the Korean company implemented one of the best features I've ever seen in any tablet: split-screen multitasking.

When you find yourself poking around inside of the few supported apps (in this case, S Note, Polaris Office, and the stock web browser, gallery, email, and video player apps), a "Multiscreen option" appears in the top right corner of the screen. Tap on that to select a secondary app to fire up, and voila — each app takes up half of the screen, allowing users to get even more work done (or get distracted much faster) in one sitting. Even better, users can drag and drop content from within one pane to another as needed. This, in short, is damned awesome.

Since this version of the Galaxy Note doesn't play well with 3G or 4G networks, there's no carrier bloatware to be found here — just Samsung's suite of preloaded apps and services. The pen-optimized S Note (with its formula match and shape match features in tow) comes along for the ride, as is Samsung's S Suggest recommendation service, which highlights apps that Samsung has confirmed will play nice with the hardware in question. Productivity buffs will be happy to know Polaris Office returns to the fold as well and who could forget about ChatON, Samsung's mobile messaging service? (I almost did.)

The Note 10.1 also ships with a handful of third party apps meant to give the hardware a chance to shine. The Peel remote control app is also back to put that integrated IR blaster to good use, while apps like Photoshop Touch, Kno Textbooks and Crayon Physics all sport S-Pen support for when the urge to doodle or take notes suddenly strikes.

Performance and The S-Pen

Let's get a few things out of the way first — the Galaxy Note 10.1 is a real heavy-hitter, thanks mainly to its 1.4GHz quad-core Exynos processor and 2GB of RAM. To put a numerical point on things, the Note 10.1's average of five Quadrant scores breaks down to 5251, while its predecessor the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 usually managed scores between 2600 and 2800.

Even with all that horsepower, there's a noticeable bit of visual lag when swiping back and forth through different homescreens because of all the widgets Samsung has crammed into them by default. That's easily remedied by deleting all those widgets and exercising sound judgment when it comes to adding new ones, but it's mildly irritating that you have to worry about it at all. That said, the Note 10.1 handled my usual test games (Grand Theft Auto III, Minecraft Pocket Edition) and test videos with hardly any trouble at all.

But let's be honest — that's not exactly the sort of performance you want to hear about. Well fine friends, let's talk about the S-Pen for a bit.

First things first, it definitely works as advertised and it seems much more accurate than in its last big outing. Thanks to the integrated Wacom digitizer (plus the additional tips that come in the box) I was able to exercise precision control while sketching and writing, as well as use the S-Pen to effectively mouse-over elements on a webpage by holding it over the screen. I’ll admit I didn’t spend too much time with original Galaxy Note, but using an S-Pen on a larger screen just seems so much more natural on a larger display. I spent a few solid hours this past weekend just drawing faces and robots like in S Note like I did when I was a kid — there’s something sort of magical about this pen/display size combination.

One major improvement came about because of the Note 10.1's larger screen — it hard to avoid resting one's wrist on that sizable display while writing or doodling, and thankfully the tab's palm detection functionality works like a charm… most of the time. It's the sort of issue that depends on the app being used at that particular moment, and some of them just aren't are smart as others. Samsung's own pen-friendly apps (S Memo) never seems to struggle with ignoring a user's hand, but apps like the pre-loaded Photoshop Touch often left me wondering why my sketches weren't taking shape until I physically lifted my hand off the screen. Thankfully, incidents like that were few and far between.

There are, of course, a few issues to be aware of. Take app compatibility for instance — avid mobile sketchers with preferred apps will probably find that full S-Pen support is tough to come by. Make no mistake, using the S-Pen with apps like Autodesk Sketchbook is still a far cry from using a dumb capacitive stylus, but it lacks the oomph that makes sketching in Photoshop Touch and S Note such a treat. Samsung has said that it’s working with developers to broaden the S-Pen’s abilities, but there’s no telling how long it’ll be before the next solid S-Pen apps see the light of day.

Text input via handwriting is another mixed bag. It's generally very solid if you've got clear, distinct, easy to parse handwriting for the Note to recognize, but your mileage is going to vary if your penmanship skews toward the sloppy end of things. The temptation to try and go all-in with the S-Pen can be awfully strong, but the standard on-screen keyboard has some distinct advantages, not least of which is sheer speed.

Display, Camera, & Battery

There's nothing outright wrong with the Galaxy Note's 10.1-inch display, but there's not a whole lot worth writing home about either. The panel (like most of the ones you'll see pop up in Android tabs) runs at 1280 by 800, which works out to a pixel density of 149.45 ppi — respectable for a tablet of this size, but it’s rather unsatisfying after laying eyes on the Apple’s newest iPad. Even companies like Acer are going big with their tablet displays, so it’s sort of a bummer to see Samsung stay conservative here.

That groaning aside, colors were bright and vivid (there's a setting to switch between viewing modes, in case you're feeling picky) even as I spun the Note around looking for bum viewing angles (there weren’t any).

This really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but both Galaxy Note 10.1's 5-megapixel rear camera and 1.9-megapixel front-facer leave quite a bit to be desired. It's possible to get coax some generally decent shots out of the Note's camera, but the results are all too often grainy and washed out.

Then again, you really shouldn't be using this thing to take photos in the first place when there's a strong chance that your phone could do a much better job at it. That said, the fact that the camera sucks still sort of stings — it's awfully fun to take pictures of people and Photoshop their eyes out, but you'd be hard-pressed to create a stunning finishing product when the source image is iffy.

Feel free to record video too, so long as your expectations are properly tempered. The rear camera is capable of recording 720p video, but the resulting footage is similarly unsatisfying. The cameras will certainly do in a pinch, but nine times out of ten you're better off reaching for something else to snap shots with.

When it came time to perform our standard battery stress test (for the uninitiated: screen brightness is set to 50%, and when not directly being used, the device runs through an endless series of Google image searches), the tab managed to hang in there for just under nine hours and 20 minutes. Not too shabby at all, especially considering how slim the darned thing is.

It's hard to translate that number into days of actual use since most people won't be sitting around glued to a tablet nonstop, in my experience that equates to nearly three days of on-again-off-again use before the battery finally went belly up. As always, your mileage is going to vary, but I suspect you won’t need to run to a power outlet too often.

Conclusion

And now we come to the most important question of all: is it worth buying one of these things? I'd wager very few people would consider buying a niche device like the Galaxy Note 10.1 solely because its got a nifty processor, or because it's slim and light. In the end, the deciding factor is going to be the S-Pen. If you’re a fan of the gimmick (or just a general Android fan), then the Galaxy Note 10.1 is definitely worth your consideration.

That said, devices like this don't exist in a vacuum. Its $499 base price tag puts it right alongside the new 16GB iPad, which is sure to be a contender for any potential tablet customer. Considering the iPad’s strong developer support and truly excellent display, it still seems like the more worthwhile purchase right now. I wish that weren’t the case (I’m head-over-heels when it comes to this S-Pen business) but it’s a sad truth — since Samsung is trying something different with the Note 10.1, there just aren’t many apps that really take full advantage of the S-Pen yet.

If we consider strictly Android tablets, there are any number of tweaks that would make the Galaxy Note 10.1 the device to own — a higher resolution screen, more S-Pen-compatible apps, and sturdier construction all come to mind. If Samsung took any two of those issues and addressed them, the Note 10.1 would be a must-buy. As it stands though, the Galaxy Note is a very good Android tablet that just barely missed crossing the threshold into greatness.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Hits Stores August 16: $499 For 16GB, $549 For 32GB

Posted: 15 Aug 2012 07:58 AM PDT

As expected for quite a while, Samsung has just announced pricing and availability for the Galaxy Note 10.1. As you may have guessed, it’s a 10-inch WiFi tablet that includes the somewhat-pointless-but-perhaps-maybe-kind-of fun S-Pen, the same pressure-sensitive stylus you see with the Galaxy Note.

Packing Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (with an update to Jelly Bean slotted for later this year), a 1.4 GHz quad-core processor, and 2GB of RAM, the Galaxy Note 10.1 will be available tomorrow (August 16) for $499 (16GB) or $549 (32GB).

To be a bit more specific about specs, the Galaxy Note 10.1 has a 10.1-inch 1280×800 TFT display, a 5-megapixel rear camera with autofocus and LED flash, and a 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera for video chat.

You’ll also find support for up to 64GB memory cards, Bluetooth 4.0 and USB 2.0 access, but apparently an adapter for that is sold separately.

The Galaxy Note 10.1 will also feature a few of the features we’ve seen on the Galaxy S III, including video pop-up play, and a handful of great preloaded apps like Netflix, Dropbox, and Adobe Photoshop Touch.

If you’re interested, head on over to Samsung’s website tomorrow and order yourself one.

On the fence: check out our in-depth review here.

Walmart, Target, 7-11 And Other Retailers Are Teaming Up On Mobile Wallet

Posted: 15 Aug 2012 07:05 AM PDT

Image1 for post iPhone, MySpace, Facebook Race To Micropayments In 2009

Because the mobile payments landscape wasn’t muddy enough, the collaborative effort between some of the biggest retailers to launch their own mobile payments network is set to be announced later today according to a report emerging this morning from The WSJ. A group of over a dozen retailers, including Walmart, Target, 7-11, and Sunoco, Inc. is calling itself the Merchant Customer Exchange (or MCX). They, too, want to add another app to customers’ smartphones which would compete with other offerings from Google (Google Wallet), the carrier-led initiative known as Isis, as well as mobile payments services from companies like PayPal, Square, Intuit, and more.

This is exactly why mobile payments aren’t happening yet: everyone wants a piece of the pie.

The group’s existence and general agenda was first outed in March of this year, also by the WSJ. The details between then and now are still essentially the same. A dozen retailers. Early stages. A mobile app (apparently of the tap-to-pay variety). Concerns around the current mobile payments ecosystem forcing poor ol’ Walmart, Target et al. to take matters into their own hands. The WSJ now provides a longer list of who’s involved. Including those mentioned above, others in the game are Best Buy, CVS, Lowe’s, Royal Dutch Shell, Publix, Sears, Alon Brands (gas marketer), Darden Restaurants, Hy-Vee, and the HMSHost unit of Autogrill SpA. The retailers, whose combined sales are nearly $1 trillion annually, want to push offers and coupons to their customers, the WSJ reported this spring.

Of course they do, but that’s the nice way of saying why they’re really investing into this space: they desperately want access to the customer data that winning the mobile wallet space would provide.

Companies aren’t building mobile payment technology because they genuinely want to provide a revolutionary new way to pay in order to please consumers – there’s no evidence that any of the tech, even Square’s kind of nifty “say your name at checkout” is inherently more efficient than the age-old swipe. No, this is a battle for customer’s info. The same info retailers have been trying to track for years – “can I get your phone number?,” they ask at checkout. But consumers can decline, or give a fake number. And sure, consumers could decline to use a mobile app, too. But if using the app allowed them to receive mobile-only bargains….well, who else is OK with selling a little piece of their soul for 1/2 off tube socks on aisle 6?

With consumer data in hand, retailers would know not just what kind of shopper you are, who you are, what you bought, and how often, but they would have more efficient means to targeting ads at you than ever before. It’s no wonder that all the major players are trying to win at this game.

But as everyone from tiny startups to Walmart tries to win, no one really does. Consumer confusion will be rampant. Wait, I can tap to pay where? Who takes Google Wallet? Square works at Starbucks now? Does Target have a payments app or do I use Visa’s? I can use PayPal at Home Depot, right, or is that Lowe’s? Forget it, I’ll just swipe my card.

Songza Music Streaming App Nabs 2 Million New Users Since June With More Than 50% Retention Rate

Posted: 15 Aug 2012 07:02 AM PDT

You’ve heard me talk about Songza before. After launching on iPad, bringing Concierge to Android, and surpassing 1 million iOS downloads in 10 days, the company is still on a roll, announcing that more than 2 million users from the States and Canada have joined Songza since June 1st.

But perhaps more impressive, of all the users that have ever used Songza (remember, the service launched in September of 2011), over half of them are still active users of the app. It’s all about retention, am I right?

Songza, if you happen to have missed it, is a music streaming app that matches up your current activities and preferences with expertly curated playlists. Concierge, its core feature, doesn’t require any input, but rather guesses your activities based on what kind of device you’re on, your preferences, and the time and date.

Because of this, Songza has been collecting an incredible amount of data over the past few months. This doesn’t just include your music preferences, but also the activities you choose on a regularly basis. The idea is that, very soon, Songza will start implementing its knowledge on you in a very tangible way.

Songs will fit your mood or activity better, activities presented will be more on point, and the company even plans on using your location to see that you’re at a gym or on a beach, and serve up playlists accordingly.

Songza has also announced the close of a $1.5 million convertible note led by Amazon.com (who originally bought Amie Street, the company Songza spun out of) Deep Fork Capital, and Metamorphic Ventures. The company also brought on a group of rock star investors including 1-800 Flowers, Brian Lee, and NBA star Baron Davis, among others.

Part of this investment will be used to expand Songza’s guest DJ initiative, which allows brands and celebrities to create their own featured playlists. My personal favorite is Ke$ha’s pre-gaming mix.

Expect to hear a lot more from these guys in the future.

Founded By Former Expedia Engineers, Stealthy Travel Startup Hopper Closes $12 Million Series B

Posted: 15 Aug 2012 07:00 AM PDT

Hopper, a stealthy consumer-facing travel startup in development for nearly five years so far, has closed on a $12 million Series B round of funding to grow its team in Boston. Hootsuite, BuildDirect and Wave Accounting investor OMERS Ventures led the round, and Brightspark Ventures and Atlas Venture participated, bringing Hopper to a total raise of $22 million. What’s interesting about the company, despite not knowing exactly what it’s up to, is who’s behind it. The company’s executive team is staffed up with former Expedia engineers, including founder and CEO Frederic Lalonde, co-founder and VP Product Joost Ouwerkerk, VP Technology André Coudé, and CIO Mathieu Patenaude. CMO Dena Yahya Enos is formerly of TripAdvisor.

Lalonde describes Hopper’s product as a “discovery and recommendation engine” for travel, but that description could be applied to dozens of startups. What’s Hopper doing differently? Two words, he says: big data.

“When we started this, we didn’t know we would become a ‘big data’ company,” says Lalonde, “that word didn’t even really exist. We were just coming at it from what we’d seen previously, which is that planning a trip – for all of the might of TripAdvisor, Expedia, and all these other travel companies – is tedious, frustrating and it’s actually pretty awful. The experience is broken, everything’s fragmented, and you’re jumping around from one website to another,” Lalonde says.

So with Hopper, the team has been aggregating data from around the web to build a structured catalog of everything that’s not a flight or hotel. Or more specifically, they’ve built algorithms with a “formidable amount of human effort,” that are doing that for them. To date, Hopper has aggregated half a billion webpages in the travel vertical and has pulled out structured content to create its very large travel database. And that number is set to reach over a billion pages by year-end 2012.

But to be clear, Hopper won’t be a travel search engine. Search engines, explains Lalonde, are only good if you know what you’re looking for. So he offers a different analogy: “if you take the music industry, there’s a bunch of value-add services like iTunes, Pandora to the Genius engine that Apple has. Those things are only really possible because there’s a complete, structured catalog for music…so you’re able to build recommendation engines and do all sorts of things,” Lalonde explains, “but in travel, it’s really a mess.”

He says that the travel companies in the industry today have been in a holding pattern for a decade. A lot of the technologies they’re built on have hard constraints, too, and the brands can’t just step away and rebuild from the ground up. And other web startups rethinking travel discovery and recommendation are approaching it from the social angle. (For example, JetPac just raised $2.4 million last month for its social travel startup).

But Lalonde thinks that’s the wrong way to do things. “At the risk of being controversial, I think social is secondary,” he says. “In order to enable social, you must have a structured catalog, which we believe needs to be done through big data. Otherwise, you’re taking your social signal and attaching it to mud.”

Nope, not controversial at all.

He adds that even if you have hundreds of friends on Facebook, you wouldn’t trust recommendations from all of them anyway. Travel recommendation and discovery is a big data problem, and social is grafted on top of it, Hopper believes.

So, if not Facebook, where is Hopper’s data coming from on the public web? Some of it is from blog posts. There are 2 million of these per day, and “travel” is the fifth most used tag, according to Lalonde. But most users researching travel on the web never get to see this user-generated content. “You would be disgusted at what you’re missing,” he says.

And from the sounds of it, Hopper isn’t just looking at public data, it’s also doing deals with travel partners for access to their proprietary content. And thanks to a little fortunate timing, these players have been keen to make new kinds of deals, following Google’s buying spree in the travel/user reviews space which has included Zagat, ITA and most recently, Frommer’s. What travel partners specifically are involved, Lalonde won’t say, but it covers the gamut from price aggregators to content providers, he would admit. (Hmm, maybe some of the Fair Search backers are involved, if we had to guess.)

Enough teasing. When will users see this thing and what will actually be? Second half of 2012, and something built with HTML5. Mobile or web? Both. To get on the top of the list to find out more, click here.

Report: Online Video CPMs Are Up, And Best Time To Buy Is On The Weekend

Posted: 15 Aug 2012 07:00 AM PDT

How’s the market for online video ads holding up through the first half of the year? Pretty well, considering that inventory continues to grow at a rapid pace. Research from real-time media buying company TubeMogul shows CPMs rising at an average rate of 2.5 percent per month. But many media buyers aren’t taking advantage of the huge value that comes from placing ads on the weekend.

For top-tier publishers, average CPMs were at $9.93 at the close of the first half, and hit $10.19 in July, with pretty consistent growth all year. Interestingly, all that growth occurred despite the fact that inventory is edging up at a rate of 4.7 percent a month during the first half of the year. Usually, an increase in inventory depresses unit pricing — you know, the whole supply-and-demand thing.

The data comes from real-time media buying startup TubeMogul, which launched its ad platform in the spring of 2011 and prides itself on being all sorts of transparent. Data is aggregated from across multiple public and private video ad exchanges, but doesn’t include any sort of fees paid to TubeMogul or the exchanges. That means it’s not tapping into inventory sold through direct sales channels — merely stuff that’s bought on the fly, in real-time.

Speaking of… Another interesting finding from the TubeMogul report: Weekend is the best time to buy video ads, as viewers are tuning in but prices remain well below average, compared to the rest of the week. (Check out the chart to see this in action.) TubeMogul comms director David Burch theorizes this is because media buyers aren’t at their trading desks over the weekend, which totally makes sense, since this is all about real-time buying. But still, you’d think there would be one or two nerds in the class who would be more concerned with making a buck than going to the beach or having a day off.

And yet another interesting data point: The size of your ad is a pretty good proxy for whether or not a viewer decides to watch it. According to TubeMogul data, larger video players saw a 96.2 percent completion rate on video ads for larger video players –those bigger than 1,000 pixels — compared to 80.1 percent for smaller players, for the same 30-second pre-roll ad. So if you’re an advertiser who cares about performance, make sure your ads don’t play in tiny little video windows off to the side somewhere — demand a full-screen takeover and your audience will care more.

That said, there was no real discernible difference in the performance of a publisher based upon its comScore rank for performance-based advertising. If anything, ads that ran on lower-quality sites had a better click-through rate than others. Same goes for completion rate — Burch says it’s “all over the place.”

So what have we learned? Video ads aren’t as cheap as they used to be. Wanna buy some? Make your video ads big. Oh, and run them on weekends. And if you’re going for clickthroughs, don’t sweat it so much if you don’t get some comScore Top 100 site. Someone might accidentally click through anyway.

People Still Believe In Nokia

Posted: 15 Aug 2012 06:51 AM PDT

Nokia has been having a very, very hard time of it lately, dramatically losing market share in the smartphone race to the likes of Samsung and Apple, and getting slammed on a regular basis by the credit agencies. But you know what? Our troubled Finnish handset maker still has the ability to set investors’ pulses racing with even the slightest hint that something better may be just around the corner.

Such was the case this morning, when Stephen Elop made some very brief comments in which he affirmed the company’s commitment to Windows Phone (not news!), and didn’t outright deny that it would be launching its newest device in September (ummmm yeah). The result? Shares rising by some 6% and still trading up now.

What’s the meaning? Seems that, despite everything, even today’s S&P downgrade to BB-, people still want to believe in Nokia – and perhaps, Microsoft’s Windows Phone.

They want to believe so much that things can and will get better that they take even the smallest signs of confidence and strategy as indications of how Nokia is turning around.

Elop’s comments, made to reporters on the sidelines of a meeting in Oslo with the CEO of Telenor, reaffirmed, once again, his and Nokia’s commitment to Microsoft’s mobile platform. “I don’t think about rewinding the clock and thinking about competing elsewhere… In today’s war [between)] Android, Apple and Windows, we are very clear. We are fighting that with the Windows Phone,” he said.

He made no comment about when its next phones would be released, except to note that it would be in the ”relatively near term.”

This isn’t news we haven’t heard before. Elop pointed to as much during his last earnings call, when he hinted that Nokia could be the first to launch Windows Phone 8 handsets. Since then we’ve heard many murmurs that it would use the Nokia World trade show, on September 5-6, to show this off. That would make sense: Nokia World is where Nokia first showed off its first Lumia devices last year.

There’s been other kindling on the fire. The news also comes at the same time that we are seeing what appear to be leaks that support the idea of new launches. The latest (via WPCentral) shows a display frame with both the Nokia and Windows 8 logos, allegedly from one of Nokia’s sub-contractors. Without a hole for a camera, the blog concludes that it is part of a non-unibody, midrange device.

But there have been plenty of fire extinguishers, too.

As it has with past ratings agencies’ downgrades, Nokia dismissed the latest downgrade from S&P. “The impact of Standard & Poor’s decision on the company is limited,” said Timo Ihamuotila, Nokia’s EVP and CFO, in a statement. “As we continue our transition, we are applying a strong focus on cash conservation while simultaneously reducing our operating costs and making our operating model stronger and more agile.” The company currently has a net cash position of €4.2 billion ($5.2 billion), with a further, undrawn credit facility of €1.5 billion.

And there are the bare facts of what appears to be much lower consumer demand. In Q2, Nokia shipped 13 million smartphones, compared to 29 million from Apple and around 45 million from Samsung. Gartner yesterday noted that Symbian marketshare dropped to below 6% in the quarter compared to over 22% a year ago. Windows Phone, which is also used by other OEMs but for which Nokia accounts for the vast majority of sales, had a 2.7% share of sales last quarter.

Yet putting today’s signs rising shareprice against so many ongoing signals of decline highlights that Nokia has a major hill ahead of it but that it seems that there are still many who want to see it succeed. There is one other possible interpretation, too… could it be that the stock is going up because of vultures that are hoping the downgrade means it’s even more of a takeover target?

The 4G LTE Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 To Hit Verizon On August 17th For $349

Posted: 15 Aug 2012 06:34 AM PDT

Big Red is about to get a new tab — and it’s relatively cheap, too. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 will soon be available from Verizon starting on August 17th. The 7-inch tablet is the successor to Samsung’s original Android tablet, the aptly named Galaxy Tab, but this newer model features a more slender casing, 4G LTE and tasty Ice Cream Sandwich.

The new tablet will run $349 but doesn’t require a lengthy contract. That said, it will need a Verizon service plan to use the 4G LTE bits, which costs $10 on Verizon’s new Share Everything plan.

The tablet itself is a nice kit with Android 4.0 powered by a 1GHz Dual-Core SoC. It features a 7-inch 1024×600 TFT display and sports 8GB of internal memory plus a microSD card slot. However, unless you want the convenience of Verizon’s LTE network, the $199 Nexus 7 is a better bet thanks to better specs and much lower price.

At $349 the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 will be Verizon’s least expensive tablet to date by a large margin. The aging 16GB Droid XYBOARD 8.2 costs $429 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 costs $549. Verizon even has the original Galaxy Tab priced higher at $349. So yeah, if you must have LTE data, this the GalTab 2 7.0 is by far the best tablet for the money.

FCC Filing Points To Larger Kindle Fire

Posted: 15 Aug 2012 06:13 AM PDT

The Digital Reader has done some clever sleuthing to find a filing by Amazon’s shell company, Harpers LLC. The filing shows a fairly large, 10-inch 4:3 screen device that should launch in the fall.

You can see the filing here.

The image doesn’t give us much – just the sticker placement on the device – but since the rest of the files will be unsealed in December, we can expect this thing to launch a month or so before that. Amazon uses front companies to file applications for their new products, thereby ensuring some modicum of IP security.

While a single line drawing of a tablet does not a confirmation make, we can at least expect to see a bigger Kindle Fire coming out before the holidays, potentially for the same market that was shopping for the monstrous Kindle DX.

HP Spins Off webOS Into A Brand New Company Called Gram; Mission Unknown

Posted: 15 Aug 2012 06:09 AM PDT

Ever since HP killed off webOS hardware, the fate of the webOS GBU (general business unit) was as yet unknown. But according to a flyer that has floated out of the HP office, it would seem that the webOS group, along with Enyo and Cloud services, has branched away from the mother ship to start a brand new company: Gram.

According to a flyer sent out to announce the new brand, Gram is “Potent. Light. Nimble. At the core of all things big and small.” Alright? So what do you guys do at Gram?

“Gram is a new company leveraging the core strengths of webOS, Enyo and our Cloud offerings, as well as the firepower of our partners to create a technology that will unleash the freedom of the web.”

In other words, we have no earthly idea what Gram is all about. What we do know is that it will be a separate entity from HP, though still funded by the California tech giant. This will allow cash flow for the newborn company without tying it to the increasingly water-filled ship that is HP.

The folks over at webOS Nation managed to get their hands on an internal email to the new Gram employees, explaining that while the company is in stealth, workers should only build momentum for the brand with friends and family, but nothing further.

Check it out:

Hi everyone,

Thank you for all of your enthusiasm at yesterday's new brand announcement: GRAM. We hope you will fall in love with the brand just as lots of us have already.

Please note that our Mission, Values and Plan of Action are the same. We are continuing to march forward on our timelines as usual—nothing new there.

We have much work to do, and, again, I solicit your help.

Yes, this is a new brand—it is just the beginning, and there is so much more to do. And yet unveiling the new brand is also a Call to Action:

Try it on. We don't expect you to love it overnight. We are no longer a consumer hardware brand, we are a different company with focus on software, User Experience, Cloud, engineering and partnering. This change in identity will take some getting used to and that's normal.

Stealth mode. We are an incubation company, and we are trusting you to keep this company name and product under the radar to give it time to take root and grow. You can wear the logo, help build the momentum of the new identity, talk to your families and friends about it. If someone from the outside asks, you can say, "GRAM is a new company. We are in stealth mode on our product offering."

Tap your network. Help us hire the best and the brightest, refer your friends and help us in our shared purpose as we continue our rise to the top. You can use the name to help us to recruit.

Be the culture. Spread our Values: People Matter. Integrity and Trust. Deliberate Innovation. Act small, deliver big.

For those of you who could not attend yesterday's unveiling – we really missed you. Please be on the lookout for the gift bags with our new cool branded items, which we be mailing out to you this and next week. All of you should get one, if not – let me know.

Best

Martin

While we know that hardware is out of the picture for Gram, nothing else is all that clear. But we’ll be sure to keep you abreast of the company and its news as more information trickles out.

J.Hilburn Publicly Launches Style Kit, A Novel iPad Sales App For Its Customers And Sales Force

Posted: 15 Aug 2012 06:00 AM PDT

Every night while I’m brushing my teeth, my mom lays out my clothes for the next day. She says I’m her special boy. Then she goes home to her house, leaving me, my wife and our two kids to put ourselves to bed. This system ensure I’m always looking my best. Not everyone has it so lucky. But startup J.Hilburn is attempting to bring a little motherly love to its clothing clients and just launched a great looking iPad app to assist.

J.Hilburn, a Dallas-based startup, is known for its direct-to-sales business model. Much like Avon, the company sends Style Advisors to client’s homes, who then measures the client. J.Hilburn started selling directly to clients through its website last year, but still supports its initial model as evident by its new iPad app, Style Kit.
Click to view slideshow.
As shown by the video below, this app is aimed at the Style Advisors, allowing them to keep a visual inventory of a client’s ordering history. The company rolled out the app to its sales force in July and saw a 67% increase in sales. But now the app is available to the general public and if picking between oxford and herringbone textiles gets you going, this app will light up your life. It should also serve nicely as a virtual dressing assistant for dedicated J.Hilburn customers.

"Our business is driven by our network of skilled Style Advisors, and we created Style Kit to help deliver a more effective, customized shopping experience at the point of sale," said Veeral Rathod, J.Hilburn Co-Founder and President. "The impact on transaction metrics affirms that the App is an effective way to further enhance the J.Hilburn experience through digital commerce."

The Style Kit app features J.Hilburn’s full catalog, individual customer profiles, and a so-called My Picks function that allows customers to create Pinterest-type style boards. And as a male blogger a bit embarrassed about his expanding belt line, I’ll be the first to admit that I like shopping for clothes a lot better in the privacy of my dark basement office than in a brightly-lit Macys — plus, these are a lot nicer clothes for the same price.

Artists.MTV, Where Musicians Claim Their MTV Profiles, Enters Public Beta

Posted: 15 Aug 2012 05:46 AM PDT

MTV is opening its new Artists.MTV website in public beta today.

The site was first announced at South by Southwest as a “pro-artist initiative” that allows musicians to “take control of their MTV presence.” It’s basically a collection of 1.8 million profile pages, which MTV wants to turn into the center of a musician’s presence, both on MTV and on the Web. Musicians can claim their pages to take control of the look, the content, and the monetization.

A private beta for artists, labels, and managers launched in June, but it sounds like we’re still in the very early stages of musicians claiming pages — most of the profiles that you see now will be unclaimed.

Whether they’re claimed or not, the profiles should feel pretty familiar, with a mix of biographical information, music videos, photos, tour dates, Facebook and Twitter updates, and so on. When musicians claim a page, they can customize it with their own logo and background, upload their own content, and create a banner directing fans to whatever they want, whether it’s their website or their latest album on iTunes. Unclaimed profiles, especially for less famous musicians, will look a bit more generic and probably be a bit more sparse on the content side, but they should still have some basic information for fans, and for artists, Viacom SVP of Digital Music Strategy Shannon Connolly says they should serve as “as an invitation to come in and claim their page.” (You can see a claimed profile below.)

Musicians probably have websites and online profiles already, but with an Artists.MTV profile, they can potentially communicate directly with a big audience, since MTV sites reach 50 million unique visitors per month. Connolly acknowledges that one of the big pieces of artist feedback was, “Please don’t create another thing I have to go and update every day.” MTV is definitely interested in featuring exclusive content down the line, she says, but for now the profiles can serve as centralized aggregators for their online presences, bringing together a musician’s Facebook updates, their tweets, the videos they posted to YouTube, and so on. MTV may also be filling out the profiles with more integrations with outside sites and services in the future.

Through a partnership with Topspin, musicians will be able to sell digital and physical products directly from their profiles. MTV will also be offering a revenue share deal on advertising, and it plans to add a tip jar feature where fans can donate directly to artists. In addition, the company says it plans to launch the MTV Artists Rising Fund, which could take the form of grants to unsigned musicians for studio time, making videos, buying equipment, taking a tour, and so on.

Even though the site is opening to the public today, the big launch isn’t planned until the Video Music Awards on September 6, when all artists will be able to start claiming their pages, and MTV will start promoting the site more heavily. The company says it plans to release an Artists.MTV app and mobile website at the end of the year.

Pure Storage Raises Another $40M To Bring Europe Its Flash Storage Products, Index’s Mike Volpi Leads Round

Posted: 15 Aug 2012 05:18 AM PDT

Another big round of funding for an enterprise startup that only exited stealth mode a year ago. Pure Storage, a flash enterprise storage company, today announced that it has picked up another $40 million in funding led by Index Ventures’ Mike Volpi, with participation from existing investors Greylock Partners, Redpoint Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures. Pure Storage has confirmed that Diane Greene, co-founder and former CEO of VMWare, also invested in this apparently oversubscribed Series D round. The total now raised by Pure Storage since being founded in 2009 is now $95 million.

The company says that this latest round will be used to beef up business development, specifically expanding operations to Europe with channel partners, as well as invest in more sales and engineering talent. Volpi, whose past, pre-VC roles included senior roles at Cisco, also becomes a strategic advisor as well as member of the board of directors.

Pure Storage says it has shipped more than 100 of its FlashArray devices to customers since opening for business last year. It most recently had raised $28 million in June 2011.

Pure Storage’s main product is FlashArray, a storage device that uses consumer-grade flash memory to deliver high availability, enterprise-grade storage. This is something that in the past had been considered a pricier option, but Pure has developed it into a product that is competitive with — and even cheaper, it claims — the price of traditional memory products. Volpi has put money down on this becuase he believes flash storage will become the primary way of accessing memory in the future:

“The advent of solid state memory technology as a mainstream, enterprise-class storage solution represents one of the most disruptive changes that the industry will see in a decade,” he said in a statement. “We are confident that Pure Storage represents exactly such an industry-defining company.”

The product integrates with systems from VMWare, Oracle, SQLServer and VDI.

With competitors like EMC and Virident also vying for the same business as Pure Storage, the company is doubling down to make sure it stays on procurement lists as companies continue to make more flash storage purchases. “When we emerged one year ago as a pioneer in the all-flash storage category, few believed that we could deliver the benefits of all-flash below the price point of mechanical disk. Today, we remain the only vendor providing sub-millisecond, inline data deduplication and compression, and yet it is a must have for cost-effective flash storage,” Scott Dietzen, CEO at Pure Storage, said in a statement. “The key now is to have access to the working capital to get this technology into the hands of the customers and partners that are screaming for it.”