MobileCrunch |  |
- Iris Is (Sort Of) Siri For Android
- Nokia Launches New NFC-Enabled Games
- BuddyTV Partners With AT&T To Let You Turn Your U-verse Into A Smart TV
- Professor Layton Leaves The Nintendo Stable, Adds iOS To Supported Platforms
- Commence Drooling: Official Motorola Spyder/Droid RAZR Image Leaked
- Adobe Launches Adobe Reader For iOS
- UberMedia Quietly (Inadvertently?) Releases Chime.in, A Mobile Social Networking App
- T-Mobile Announces The Dual-Screen LG DoublePlay, Launching November 2nd?
- Watch An iPhone 4S and Samsung Galaxy S II Take Three Nasty Drops Onto Concrete
- CTIA’s New Alert Guidelines Could Mean The End Of “Bill Shock”
- Samsung Galaxy Nexus, HTC Vigor To Launch November 10?
- iPhone 4S First Weekend Sales Exceeds 4 Million, Doubles The Pace Of The iPhone 4
- Look Out Uber: GroundLink Launches An Affordable, Mobile Private Car Service For New Yorkers
- Video Collaboration Software Maker ViVu Acquired By Polycom
- 5 Product Innovations From CEATEC 2011 In Japan (Video Gallery)
| Iris Is (Sort Of) Siri For Android Posted: 17 Oct 2011 04:15 PM PDT  While voice control has been part of Android since the dawn of time, Siri came along and ruined the fun with its superior search and understanding capabilities. However, an industrious team of folks from Dexetra.com, led by Narayan Babu, built a Siri-alike in just 8 hours during a hackathon. Iris allows you to search on various subjects including conversions, art, literature, history, and biology. You can ask it “What is a fish?” and it will reply with a paragraph from Wikipedia focusing on our finned friends. The app will soon be available soon from the Android Marketplace but I tried it recently and found it a bit sparse but quite cool. It uses Android’s speech-to-text functions to understand basic questions and Narayan and his buddies are improving the app all the time.
You can grab the early, early beta APK here but I recommend waiting for the official version to arrive this week. It just goes to show you that amazing things can pop up everywhere.
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| Nokia Launches New NFC-Enabled Games Posted: 17 Oct 2011 12:36 PM PDT  Over the weekend, Nokia launched a suite of casual games developed at Nokia Research Center which are meant to demonstrate how NFC can enable new forms of mobile gaming. The three new games include Nokia World Flags, Nokia Shakespeare Shuffle and Nokia Nursery Rhyme Shuffle. All can be played now on any Nokia Symbian NFC-enabled phone including the Nokia C7 Astound, C7-00, 600, 603, 700 and 701. Nokia calls the games “tangible” mobile games because of the way they interact with physical objects in the real world using NFC tags. The games don’t have to read or write to the tags in order to work – they only need to detect the tags’ presence. That means they will work with blank NFC tags or even “contactless” credit cards, transit cards or ID cards, the company explains. Frankly, the user interfaces for the games are only so-so, but to be fair, these are more akin to demo apps than “real” games meant to attract thousands of users. Instead, it’s the idea behind these games that’s meant to be the focus of this news. For example, one game involves NFC-tagged playing cards which are used to play a digitized version of a child’s simple matching game. Traditionally, you would play this game by flipping over cards to find the matched pairs. With the NFC game, however, you tap the card with your phone. While I’m not sure if a game like this is screaming out for NFC, the concept of combining playing cards with NFC in new ways has some appeal. Imagine playing a NFC-enabled version of one of those “Magic: The Gathering” type games where with a tap you could actually see the battles between wizards animated on your phone’s screen, while the mobile app also kept score for you. That might be cool (well, for nerds, wink wink). The two other Nokia games now available involve tapping cards to mix up either nursery rhymes or Shakespeare quotes. They look pretty boring. In a video, Nokia shows off a fourth concept (not available) where you tap different parts of a stuffed animal with an NFC phone to launch different games. That could provide toy makers a new avenue for upselling that was previously limited to ads that appear on their toys’ boxes and in their instruction manuals. Still, as much as I personally love technology, the idea that my child’s teddy would simply serve as an avenue to toddler’s first gaming addiction kind of makes me sad. Whatever happened to actually playing with your toys? (Maybe I’m just getting old.) Nokia, it should be noted, is not the first to have ideas about NFC-enabled gaming. One high-profile example comes from Rovio, which, launched an NFC-enabled version of Angry Birds called Angry Birds Magic earlier this year. That game also works on Symbian. Widespread NFC adoption is several years out, and is still waiting on Apple’s participation. That means opportunities for NFC-enabled gaming are few and far between today. Nokia is often early to the smartphone space with innovative concepts, but it’s not until Apple executives upon them do they really reach the mainstream. Something tells me that NFC mobile gaming will be just another example of this ongoing trend. Nokia is a Finnish multinational communications corporation. It is primarily engaged in the manufacturing of mobile devices and in converging Internet and communications industries. They make a wide range of mobile devices with services and software that enable people to experience music, navigation, video, television, imaging, games, business mobility and more. Nokia is the owner of Symbian operation system and partially owns MeeGo operating system.
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| BuddyTV Partners With AT&T To Let You Turn Your U-verse Into A Smart TV Posted: 17 Oct 2011 12:06 PM PDT  Back in July, Erick took a trip to a hotel suite in Manhattan to get a demo of BuddyTV’s new iPhone app. You can check it out here. For those unfamiliar, BuddyTV’s iPhone and Android apps turn your smartphones into a smart viewing guide and a remote control with enhanced social features like chat and the ability to broadcast what you’re watching to Facebook and Twitter. At the time, the app was working exclusively with Google TVs, but today BuddyTV is announcing that it has landed another big fish: AT&T. Beginning today, all AT&T U-verse users can directly control their receivers with the BuddyTV Guide. Using their iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, subscribers can use the smart channel guide to display only the channels that they want to watch. As you “heart and rate shows and channels, the app gives you recommendations based on your personal preferences and what the app thinks users want to watch. And, just like Netflix, the recommendations get smarter the more you “favorite” and the more you watch. (Speaking of Netflix, the app also integrates with Netflix Instant for users who subscribe to the streaming video service.) Thus, users can create favorite channels to create a personalized TV listings view that displays only those channels that users watch most often (including HD channels), as well as allowing users to set up reminders and receive push notifications so that they’ll never miss another episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos. For AT&T U-verse users and avid smartphone users, this is an awesome bonus, as it is essentially turning your iPhone into a master TV remote that learns the more you use it. The BuddyTV Guide app is free to download and is available now in the App Store. Native Android and Google TV versions are coming soon. For more, check out the video below: BuddyTV is an online TV guide and discussion center. It provides original articles, news and interviews on a large range of TV content. In addition to content provided by BuddyTV, fans can conduct TV jockey broadcasts about their favorite shows. Fans can broadcast live audio, video, text and polls to the larger BuddyTV user base. If not interested in broadcasting, BuddyTV has forums in which users can discuss everything from The Simpsons to The Simple...
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| Professor Layton Leaves The Nintendo Stable, Adds iOS To Supported Platforms Posted: 17 Oct 2011 11:48 AM PDT  One of the biggest Nintendo DS franchises is coming to iOS. Level-5 has announced that Nintendo’s exclusive access to their Professor Layton franchise is ending, and they’ll be releasing a new game called Layton Brothers: Mystery Room for iOS devices. A developer making the jump from DS to iOS isn’t the biggest news in the world, but Layton is one of the DS’s most successful series, critically and commercially. The three games in the series so far (not counting Professor Layton and the Last Specter, released today in the US) have sold over eleven million copies, and reviewers have embraced the game’s mix of quirky characters and taxing puzzles. Having played some of the games (the second and third), I can say that they seem a perfectly good match for iOS, and the new one, featuring “crime-scene mystery style gameplay starring the intuitive son of Hershel Layton” likely won’t depart too far from them. But Nintendo must be fuming. It’s possible they locked in Level-5 to a certain number of titles before anything from the franchise appeared elsewhere, but clearly now they no longer have that hold, if they ever did. The company has always prided itself on taking its own road and more or less ignoring competitors, a strategy that has led to some big wins and catastrophic losses. This independence from trends occasionally gets infected with complacency, and in this case, with the 3DS lagging in sales, they may end up with the iPhone eating their lunch. No release date has been announced, nor any further information.
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| Commence Drooling: Official Motorola Spyder/Droid RAZR Image Leaked Posted: 17 Oct 2011 11:20 AM PDT  Sorry to ruin the surprise, but if you’ve been enjoying the thrill of refreshing Motorola’s teaser page until something happens, you can stop right now. Droid-Life has gotten their hands on a full version of the image that’s still mostly shrouded in mystery on Motorola’s site. Alright, so it doesn’t reveal anything we didn’t already know. It’s very thin, as Motorola is fond of pointing out, but it’s tough to say if it’s actually thinner than the iPhone 4/S. It actually seems to cop a lot of the Droid X/X2′s design language, which isn’t a surprise considering Motorola’s penchant for running with slight variations on a design for years. From what we’ve heard, the RAZRSpyder will reportedly pack a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, a 4.3-inch display, and 1GB of RAM. It also manages to squeeze an LTE radio into its svelte frame, which would make it one of (if not the) thinnest LTE phone in Verizon’s line up. If true, the specs are plenty speedy, but here’s hoping the experience runs as smooth as it seems like it should on paper. There is still one surprise Motorola has left for us: the device’s name. Poking around in the page’s source code reveals a handful of references to the “Spyder,” one of the rumored monikers the phone has been sporting for months now. Then again, the inclusion of the big ol’ Droid eye seems to confirm that handset will benefit from Droid branding and presumably the big marketing push that comes with it. Could this thing be the Droid RAZR after all? Or perhaps some lexical amalgamation of the two? In any case, we’ll have all the answers these questions come noon tomorrow.
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| Adobe Launches Adobe Reader For iOS Posted: 17 Oct 2011 11:10 AM PDT  Adobe has just launched a version of its PDF Reader, Adobe Reader for iOS devices, which supports iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The new, free application, available here in iTunes, lets users view PDF files opened via email, on the Web or from within any application that supports iOS’s “Open In” functionality. The app provides additional features like the ability to search for text in the document itself, plus support for bookmarks, navigation using thumbnails, zooming, sharing via email, copy and paste, single page or continuous scroll modes and even wireless printing via iOS AirPrint. In addition to standalone PDFs, the app can be used to open ePortfolios (PDF Portfolios), PDF Packages, annotations and drawing markups. Password-protect files, those secured by Adobe LiveCycle Rights Management and files encrypted using AES256, are also supported. Along with the new iOS app, Adobe released Android Reader for Android 10.1 which includes many of the same features and works on both Android phones and tablets running Android 2.2 or higher. Update: The responses to news of the Adobe Reader iOS app I’m seeing on Twitter are quite varied. So far, they’ve ranged from “finally!” to “oh god no!” Apparently, there’s no middle ground on this one. Adobe Systems Incorporated is a diversified software company. The Company offers a line of business and mobile software and services used by professionals, designers, knowledge workers, high-end consumers, original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners, developers and enterprises for creating, managing, delivering and engaging with compelling content and experiences across multiple operating systems, devices and media. Adobe distributes its products through a network of distributors and dealers, value-added resellers (VARs), systems integrators, independent software vendors (ISVs) and OEMs, direct to end...
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| UberMedia Quietly (Inadvertently?) Releases Chime.in, A Mobile Social Networking App Posted: 17 Oct 2011 08:35 AM PDT  A tipster informs us that UberMedia, the company behind social networking apps like Echofon and UberSocial / Twidroyd, has unintentionally pushed its new iPhone application onto the App Store (iTunes link). This is plausible, because the Chime.in website isn’t accessible yet at the time of writing, although the support pages appear to be live already. So is Chime.in the oft-rumored challenger to Twitter, which UberMedia has had run-ins with in the past? UberMedia has always denied that it had plans to launch a competing social network, so it’s a question worth asking. And the answer is no, not really. Chime.in is described on the support pages as an online and mobile network organized around interests, or an ‘interest network’ to keep it brief. Still according to the support pages, Chime.in was “was created for people who are active in social media and looking for a way to engage in conversations and more deeply interact with content related to their interests”. Basically, it lets people build and maintain communities around their favorite topics. When you first launch the app, you can actually create an account using either a Facebook or a Twitter profile. That’s where things get interesting (pun intended):
Updates on Chime.in, dubbed Chimes, are rich media-enabled, so you can include photos, videos, polls or links and users can view them directly from your stream. Posts can also be broadcast across other social platforms (Facebook, Google+ and Twitter) or saved for users to read later. At launch, everything you do within Chime.in is public, although the company says on its support pages that it intends to “start layering in more privacy controls” in the future. I’ve also found a page that clearly shows applications for Android and Blackberry are also in the works (see screenshot below). As for the question whether Chime.in competes with other social networks; they try to answer that question themselves, too:
Sounds like they listened to Twitter attentively. You should be able to give the free app a whirl now if you have an iPhone (iOS 4.0 or later required). UberMedia was founded in early 2010 as TweetUp (later PostUp) by serial Internet entrepreneur Bill Gross. The company has raised close to $27 million to date. UberMedia (formerly postup) is the leading independent developer of applications and web-based services that make it easier for users to find, follow and communicate with others on Twitter and other social media platforms. The company is focused on driving innovation in user experiences across a range of online and mobile platforms. UberMedia also provides advertisers and brands with new ways to engage and communicate with consumers via Twitter through its family of apps. Located in Pasadena, California, UberMedia is... Twitter, founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in March 2006 (launched publicly in July 2006), is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to post their latest updates. An update is limited by 140 characters and can be posted through three methods: web form, text message, or instant message. The company has been busy adding features to the product like Gmail import and search. They recently launched a new site section called “Explore” for...
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| T-Mobile Announces The Dual-Screen LG DoublePlay, Launching November 2nd? Posted: 17 Oct 2011 08:30 AM PDT  While the dual-screen Kyocera Echo didn’t do much to tickle my fancy, a couple dual-screen devices on their way to market, including the Sony S2 tablet, show much more promise. As far as handsets go, T-Mobile just announced the Android-powered LG DoublePlay (codenamed Flip II) smartphone — a split-keybord QWERTY slider with not one, but two, capacitive touch screens. T-Mobile is calling the DoublePlay the “ultimate multi-tasking tool,” as the dual-screens will allow users do two things at once, such as surf the web on the main screen and update their Facebook on the smaller screen. The screens can also be used in tandem, though I’m unsure how something like a web page, for example, would look across one 3.5-inch screen and one 2-inch screen. Other specs include a 1GHz Snapdragon processor powering Android 2.3 Gingerbread, a 5-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, auto focus, and 720p video capture, along with access to T-Mobile’s Group Text and Cloud Text services. If the split QWERTY keyboard isn’t your style, the phone also comes pre-loaded with Swype for easier text input. T-Mobile and LG were unclear about pricing and availability, but according to a leaked T-Mobile roadmap, you can probably expect to see the truffle-colored LG DoublePlay on November 2 for $149 on-contract. 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. The LG Group is South Korea’s third largest conglomerate that produces electronics, chemicals, and telecommunications products and operates subsidiaries like LG Electronics, LG Telecom, Zenith Electronics and LG Chem in over 80 countries.
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| Watch An iPhone 4S and Samsung Galaxy S II Take Three Nasty Drops Onto Concrete Posted: 17 Oct 2011 07:57 AM PDT  If you read/watch one iPhone 4s vs Samsung Galaxy S II comparison, make it this one. It’s the only one that really matters in real life anyway. As your phone is falling to its potential death, you’re not going to be thinking about processor clock speed, the amount of RAM, or what operating platform it runs. No, the next week of your life is going to flash in eyes as you think about how you’re going to spend countless hours replacing the phone and its contents. SquareTrade, a company that sells warranties for mobile electronics, started doing these videos a few months back in an attempt to hawk their services. The videos generally end with broken electronics followed by an advertisement — but not this time. This time around only one of the phones shatter. But I won’t spoil their fun. Click through for the video and the surprising results. SquareTrade is an independent warranty provider for consumer electronics and appliances. It doesn’t matter where you purchased your item, online auction or brick and mortar, the item is eligible for a SquareTrade warranty.
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| CTIA’s New Alert Guidelines Could Mean The End Of “Bill Shock” Posted: 17 Oct 2011 07:42 AM PDT  Obscenely high phone bills have a habit of coming from out of the blue, but that could all change in coming months. According to Reuters, the wireless trade association CTIA is expected to announce a new set of guidelines today under which all wireless carriers must notify their customers when they’re nearing overage territory. Be it from unintentional roaming, talkative friends or text-crazy family members, nearly 1 in 6 wireless customers have experienced “bill shock,” and the FCC is none too pleased with the situation. They unveiled a similar effort to curb bill shock last year, but the regulatory commission is putting their plans on ice for now. They’re not sitting out the game for good though — the FCC will reportedly be ready to step in once more if wireless carriers start to drag their feet. The CTIA guidelines revolve around four types of alerts: voice, data, messaging, and roaming. Carriers will be required to send those alerts to their customers both before they hit their monthly limits, and right when they tiptoe over the line. Unlike the FCC’s proposed rules, the CTIA’s guidelines puts these alerts into the field much sooner. Carriers will have 12 months to implement at least 2 of the 4 alert types, and another 6 months after that to get the rest of them working. It’s simple enough in theory, but the FCC has stated that the change would require some pretty substantial changes to carrier billing systems. After having spent a few years on the retail side of the wireless industry, it’s refreshing to see some of the onus fall on carriers instead of customers. It won’t be a quick rollout, nor an especially easy one, but it’s one that will give consumers some much-needed information — after all, isn’t one heinous phone bill enough?
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| Samsung Galaxy Nexus, HTC Vigor To Launch November 10? Posted: 17 Oct 2011 06:55 AM PDT  As the iPhone 4S hype has peaked and is returning back to stable levels, users from the other school of thought are getting pumped for their own massive event. Ice Cream Sandwich, and the next purely Google phone, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, are due to make an appearance in just two short days. Though we’re sure to get some clarification on already-leaked specs at the debut, we might have access to launch dates and pricing just a bit earlier than that. According to an anonymously leaked Verizon document published by Engadget, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and the HTC Vigor (codenamed Rezound) are going for a minimum advertized price of $299.99 on-contract. Both phones are also slated for a November 10 to May 10 MAP period, suggesting they may launch as early as November 10. But before we go any further, it’s worth practicing a little cynicism in this case, since this leaked document could have been whipped up in Word in about five minutes. Then again, the model numbers seem to make sense, so we’ll just venture forward with caution. As far as that November 10 launch date goes, nothing’s set in stone. Even if that’s when the Galaxy Nexus and Vigor’s MAP period begins, the actual launch may come a bit later as we’ve already seen Ice Cream Sandwich and the Nexus event get pushed back once. Either way, it should give you a little extra time to start saving up. Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps and YouTube. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google’s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing them with a rich source of information.... Verizon Communications Inc. delivers broadband and other wireline and wireless communication innovations to mass market, business, government and wholesale customers. Verizon Wireless operates America’s largest wireless network that serves nearly 102 million customers nationwide. Verizon’s Wireline operations include Verizon Business and Verizon Telecom, which brings customers converged communications, information and entertainment services over Verizon’s fiber-optic network.
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| iPhone 4S First Weekend Sales Exceeds 4 Million, Doubles The Pace Of The iPhone 4 Posted: 17 Oct 2011 06:14 AM PDT  Apple just announced that it sold four million iPhone 4S handsets over the last weekend. The phone hit stores on October 14th and it took just three days to move the massive lot. Incredible. Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior VP of Worlwide Product Markteting notes, "iPhone 4S is off to a great start with more than four million sold in its first weekend—the most ever for a phone and more than double the iPhone 4 launch during its first three days." Moreover, Apple just announced that 25 million are already using iOS 5 and over 20 million have signed up for iCloud. The iPhone 4s will hit even more countries in the coming weeks. It will be available in more than 22 countries after October 28 and more than 70 by the end of the year. Apple previously noted that it was prepared for a massive launch and it seems as if the company delivered. After the busy first weekend, the phone is still on backorder at most carriers and retailers with the Apple Store indicating a 1-2 week shipping delay. [image credit: Kirsty Wigglesworth, AP] Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. in January 2007. Among the key offerings from Apple’s product line are: Pro line laptops (MacBook Pro) and desktops (Mac Pro), consumer line laptops (MacBook) and desktops (iMac), servers (Xserve), Apple TV, the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server operating systems, the iPod (offered with...
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| Look Out Uber: GroundLink Launches An Affordable, Mobile Private Car Service For New Yorkers Posted: 17 Oct 2011 06:00 AM PDT  TechCrunch readers may be familiar with Uber, the on-demand cab/private car service that lets users bypass the annoying process of waiting for cabs or expensive prospect of renting a limo — all via your mobile device and SMS. Today, a car service is launching a new feature in New York City that it hopes will ride on the growing popularity of Uber as well as on-demand mobile reservation and food delivery services like OpenTable or Seamless to make getting a private car even easier. (Because apparently nobody likes ordering over the phone anymore.) GroundLink, the New York City-based car service that was founded in 2003 as an aggregator and solutions provider to the ground travel industry, is going mobile today to enable users to book a private car whenever they want — either immediately or at a scheduled time — via their smartphone on iOS and Android. With its new on-demand mobile functionality, GroundLink aims to offer an attractive alternative to other metro car and cab services by offering full transparency into price before a user books their ride, as opposed to getting hit with a daunting bill once the ride is finished. GroundLink wants to take hidden fees and long waits out of the equation (a big problem for anyone who’s tried using similar services in NYC), and hike up the transparency by offering flat rates solely based on distance rather than competitors which include traffic (via measuring speed) in their pricing schemes, often resulting in sharp price hikes thanks to fun things like gridlock and toll traffic. Is there really any time in transit to or from New York City (or San Francisco for that matter) where one doesn’t have to deal with traffic? The flat rate prices for hiring a private car via GroundLink are pretty competitive; for hiring a car to New York city airports, for example, the service is currently offering rides for $49, Boston for $60, and San Francisco at $59. Though, of course, these rates do not include waiting time, stops, tolls, and parking, etc., but, compared to yellow cabs, considering you’ll have your own car and won’t have to deal with some cabby’s oppressive B.O., this is a pretty good deal. (Check out more on the service’s prices here.) What’s more, according to GroundLink CEO, Charlie Fraas, the service has “ten times more cars in their NYC fleet” than other competitors offering this on-demand mobile functionality seeing as it’s already an established name in NYC. And, as availability is generally the top concern when booking a car on-demand via mobile, GroundLink offers a great value proposition seeing as it’s already available in 5,000 cities and 110 countries around the globe. The service already has its own well-stocked fleet (of 300 dedicated cars) and will also take advantage of affiliates (over 45,000 transportation providers worldwide) as well to make sure there’s a car available when a user needs one. Depending on where one lives, GroundLink can have a car there in 30 minutes. If you live in the middle of the tundra, though, expect it to take more like 12 hours. (They’re not magicians, people.) Registered GroundLink users can take advantage of its mobile, location-based “Ride Now” function to order cars in realtime (on-demand) via GroundLink’s apps, or book in advance with “Ride Later”, which lets one set a specific date, time, and location for pickup. In each case (like Uber), riders can track their car’s location (in conjunction with its exact arrival time) and communicate directly with drivers at any point during the process. This feature is launching today in New York City, and depending on results, will launch worldwide sometime in the near future. The mobile service also offers a social sharing tool so that riders can update friends and followers during the duration of their trip, and leave reviews and recommendations for good drivers and not-so-good drivers. To celebrate the launch of “Ride Now” in NYC, GroundLink is offering customers who book through ots iPhone or Android apps the chance to win more than $15,000 in cash and other prizes. Starting today, GroundLink's fleet will be stacked with a variety of prizes for five days, including two envelopes containing $1,000 in cash each day. Other prizes include tickets to Yankees, Giants, and Jets games, Momofuku and Peter Luger gift cards, Brooklyn Bowl, Barneys and Tiffany gift cards, etc. “GroundLink is much more than an app”, said the GroundLink CEO. “We are the first company to deliver access to a global fleet of more than a hundred thousand cars through an app. Until now, business travelers had no way to find a reliable and competitively priced private car service around the country and the globe. With the launch of our mobile apps on iPhone and Android, we’re embracing a multi-platform business model that is unique in our industry”, he said. For more on GroundLink, check them out at home here. GroundLink is a technology company that built the “OpenTable” of ground transportation. GroundLink aggregates, manages and handles payments for Limo, Taxi and shuttle services worldwide. On the supply side, the GroundLink marketplace aggregates pricing and availability for 45,000 suppliers in the GroundLink network. On the demand side, GroundLink provides its affiliates with a steady flow of jobs through several company-owned retail sites, mobile applications and exclusive partnerships with well-known travel companies like JetBlue, Royal Caribbean, Kayak and Continental...
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| Video Collaboration Software Maker ViVu Acquired By Polycom Posted: 17 Oct 2011 05:45 AM PDT  Polycom, provider of telepresence, video and voice solutions, this morning announced that it has acquired ViVu, a privately- held video collaboration software company. The deal was signed last Friday, for undisclosed cash consideration, and Polycom expects the transaction to be neutral to earnings. ViVu raised $3 million from Inventus Capital Partners, DFJ and Quest Venture Partners back in October 2009, followed by a strategic investement by chip maker AMD last June. ViVu has developed software that can be embedded into Web applications such as enterprise, social, and vertical industry applications to enable instant web-based HD video collaboration. Founded in 2008, the company currently has offices in Cupertino, California and Bangalore, India, and employs about 25 people. Clients include TIBCO and Thomson Reuters. Here’s how Polycom pitches the acquisition of the company:
Polycom will leverage ViVu technology in its RealPresence Platform, a software infrastructure suite for video collaboration. ViVu delivers smarter videoconferencing solutions for global communications. The company's browser-based video platform is easy-to-use, affordable and requires zero download – within minutes, people can videochat and share their desktops with small teams or up to thousands of people at once. Fortune 500 companies trust ViVu to power a better online meeting experience than legacy players. ViVu is compatible with PCs, Macs, Linux, mobile devices and the iPad. Go to www.vivu.tv to learn more about smarter videoconferencing. Company: Polycom Website: polycom.com Polycom is the global leader in telepresence, video, and voice solutions and a visionary in communications that empower people to connect and collaborate everywhere.
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| 5 Product Innovations From CEATEC 2011 In Japan (Video Gallery) Posted: 17 Oct 2011 05:21 AM PDT  Truth be told, I wasn’t very impressed with what electronics makers showed at the CEATEC 2011 tech exhibition – especially because a lot of the new products were “leaked” to the Japanese press before the event started. However, here are a total of five of the coolest innovations Japanese companies showed at the CEATEC 2011 in video form, delivered from our friends at Diginfo TV (YouTube channel). All the videos were shot directly on location and are in English. Video 1: Toshiba’s 55-inch, naked-eye 3D TV with facial recognition (our coverage) Video 2: Sony’s “DEV-3″ binoculars that shoot videos in full HD and 3D Video 3: Pioneer’s augmentend reality-based car navigation System (our coverage) Video 4: NTT Docomo’s smartphone jackets that measure body fat, radiation, or alcohol (our coverage) Video 5: NTT Docomo’s smartphone battery that fully charges in 10 minutes
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