Mozillianist
Former Yahoo EMEA Exec Launches Milk.ly
Does you car need a decent scrubbing? Need someone to go pick up your groceries at the store because you’re on a tight deadline at work? Could you use someone to install that damn Ikea closet in your kid’s room before the weekend? Not unlike TaskRabbit, Viatask and Agent Anything in the US, Milk.ly is a new marketplace that helps you get small things like that done by willing people in your neighborhood. That is, if you’re in London, which is where Milk.ly is starting out. Co-founded by former...
The Next WebIBM doesn’t just block Siri, it restricts iCloud use too (but likes BlackBerry and Android devices)
IBM may have placed a ban on Apple’s voice-assistant Siri but it has various policies for the use of smartphones accessing and connecting to its networks, ensuring that devices on its internal networks aren’t subject to security issues and don’t disclose company secrets. Shortly after IBM CIO Jeanette Horan confirmed that Big Blue had imposed the restriction, we were approached by an employee that was able to give us more of an insight into what IBM calls its “Do’s and Dont’s” of smartphone...
Zimbabwe gets cashless transactions via its first Universal Electronic Payment System
Zimbabwe has received its first ever Universal Electronic Payment System (UEPS) thanks to a local firm, SmartPay. This will now put Zimbabwe among the nations with cashless transaction systems. Most of the local financial institutions and mobile telecommunications providers only offer mobile money transfer services. Speaking to journalists about the new system, SmartPay managing director Miriam Mutizwa said the new electronic banking concept aims at facilitating cashless transactions through a...
SecureKey lands $30 million from Intel, Visa, Mastercard and others
SecureKey, a Toronto, Canada-based security solutions company, has secured $30 million in a financing round led by Intel Capital. New strategic investors who participated in the funding round were Visa, MasterCard, Discover Financial Services, Rogers Venture Partners and TELUS. SecureKey offers online and mobile authentication solutions to e-commerce companies, e-health organizations, financial institutions and governments. Its software and hardware solutions basically allow consumers and...
Korea’s Kakao Talk brings free calling to its mobile messaging app
Korean mobile messaging app Kakao Talk has introduced free voice calls to its WhatsApp-like service, allowing its worldwide iPhone and Android users to make calls on the service for nothing more than the cost of data. While some messaging firms often struggling to provide a quality calling experience, Kakao Talk is confident that its service competes on a level footing with the industry leaders, and certainly our initial experiences have been impressive. “Our mobile VoIP call quality is on par...
What is Facebook Studio Edge?
The world-class domain name sleuthers over at Fusible have uncovered that Facebook (almost certainly) privately registered a number of domains with ‘studio edge’ in them, including the .com, .net and .org versions. Coincidentally, the domain names were secured on the same day the social network giant launched its own Camera app for iOS. Except, it’s definitely not related to anything to do with photography, we’ve established. We did some sleuthing of our own and found what you can see below....
Startup builder Team Europe opens office in South Korea as launchpad for Asia
Berlin-based Internet startup incubator Team Europe is expanding to Asia with the establishment of a “market-watch” office in Seoul, South Korea. It will be headed by German-Korean Ludolf Ebner-Chung, a former McKinsey consultant, with Team Europe partner Markus Fuhrmann overseeing the venture. The idea is for Team Europe to use the new office as a launchpad to expand its activities across multiple Asian regions. So why Korea first? Furhmann asserts that Korea has a huge Internet and...
After raising 5 million euros in Series B funding: What the future holds for tape.tv
It is already a well-established name on the Berlin startup cityscape – and now tape.tv has taken the next step with the €5 million Series B funding round. With the social music video platform already reporting revenue of €20 million a year, the team behind it is definitely onto something. CEO and co-founder Conrad Fritzsch is a man inspired to make TV better, and he knows exactly how he wants to achieve that: “Content is king, everybody knows it, but packaging is God.” Participants in the...
China Telecom Launches UK Services, Targets Other European Markets
China Telecom has launched a UK mobile service this week, just in time for the upcoming Olympic Games in London, and revealed plans to expand its operations to other key European markets in the coming months. In partnership with Everything Everywhere — the joint operation between T-Mobile and Orange — and European MVNO-enabler Transatel, it has launched CTExcelbiz, a pre-pay service that caters specifically for Chinese people in the UK. The service is the first Chinese MVNO (mobile virtual...
The Future of Silicon Valley
There’s been some excellent commentary on the subject of technological innovation in the past few days, and where and how it occurs. As you might expect, Silicon Valley has been the discussion’s in-room elephant. Views of its present, past, and future prominence are as diverse the people who populate it. The difference of opinions is not cosmetic. In this post, we’re going to check in with Steve Blank, Mark Suster, and Fred Wilson, all who have written on this topic recently, and then come to a...
Did Apple Reject Airfoil Speakers Touch Because of iOS 6?
Earlier today, iOS developer Rogue Amoeba announced that Apple had removed AirFoil Speakers Touch from the iOS App Store. Some people took this to mean that its features were coming in iOS 6, and Apple didn’t want the competition. Updated below. Rogue Amoeba was understandably surprised by the sudden removal of the app, since the app had been in the store so long and had not gotten a major feature update since it was last reviewed and approved by Apple. Rogue Amoeba’s Paul Kafasis posts: As far...
The Cloud Goes Wild at GLUE Conference's Hackathon
It was a couple of hard-fought days, but the GLUE Conference hackathon has come to an end. With every group displaying at least some working product, we saw creative uses of APIs. Teams and solo entries alike battled it out for prizes that totaled $8,000 in value. In the end, 6 teams and 2 “lone wolf” entries were rewarded, and there’s some stuff in here that you’ll actually want to use. Lone Wolves Two people decided to go it alone. Though they did get help when requested from the rest of the...
Roadninja Adds Gas Prices to its Location App
Last year we told you about a cool little iOS app powered by foursquare’s API called Roadninja. As you’re driving, the app lets you know which highway exits are coming up and what types of things are close to those exits. If you’re on a pretty long ride, then you want to know things like where you can grab some grub, or more importantly, some gas. The Roadninja app lets you customize which types of venues you can be alerted about, weighing your interests differently based on how you set it up....
Apple tipped to integrate Baidu search services into iOS next month
Apple is being tipped to introduce a much anticipated update that brings support for search services from China’s Baidu into iOS next month, according to Chinese reports that cite comment from Baidu staff. As we wrote in March, the two firms are said to have been testing the integration to put the Chinese search giant — which accounts for 83.6 percent of the local market — at the finger tips of iOS device owners in China. Now a Sina Tech report — via MIC Gadget — states that a software update...
Samsung is introducing ‘pop-up’ stores in London for a slice of that Olympic money
Samsung has revealed that it will introduce ‘pop-up’ mobile stores in London at the end of May, as it seeks to grab a share of increased consumer spending while the UK capital hosts the 2012 Olympic Games. The ‘Samsung Mobile PIN’ will come to Westfield in Shepherd’s Bush and Old Spitalfields Market on May 29, offering customers an “immersive” and more convenient way to peruse products or shop for a new device from the Korean giant’s stores. Westfield has been redeveloped extensively with the...
Apple improves app discovery with ‘Editors’ Choice’ and free ‘App of the Week’ features
With more than half a million apps in the App Store, discovery is a huge challenge for iPhone users. Apple has long acknowledged the issue, having acquired Chomp to help improve things, but it has made a couple of subtle introductions that are aimed at better showcasing the content available for both iOS devices and Macs. The company has introduced an ‘Editors’ Choice’ selection and a promotion offering selected paid iOS apps for free for a week. The ‘Editors’ Choice’ feature is up and running...
On February 8th, 2004 Facebook had 650 Users
Now that Facebook is all grown up, it’s nice to take a stroll down memory lane every now and then. Thanks to a tweet from Matthew Keys, we’re reminded of just how far Zuckerberg’s company has come since its early days. In an article on The Harvard Crimson, dated February 9th, 2004, the publication discussed the new site launched by the young student Mark E. Zuckerberg: After about a week of coding, Zuckerberg launched thefacebook.com last Wednesday afternoon. The website combines elements of...
Currency Exchange Fee Calculator Saves You from Rip-Offs
Sometimes the beauty of an app is its ability to solve one simple problem. Sure, a geo-locating social group food photography app sounds fancy, but it’s not often enough that designers build something that actually solves a problem. This is where Dmitry Dragilev comes in, formerly a member of the awesome team at Zurb, with his Currency Exchange Fee Calculator. Dragilev built the 99 cent app while traveling the world for 5 months, as he needed a way to calculate the commission fees charged by...
Miss Google’s Moog Doodle? Here’s an app you should download
Did you enjoy Google’s tribute to the late Robert Moog yesterday? If so, you may want to download Mobeat, a nice retro synthesizer iOS app with a Moog feel. Launched in March this year by the Argentine studio Lateral View, Mobeat ~ Retro Synth is the latest born in its Mobeat’s iPhone app series. In total, the different versions of the app have been downloaded over 1 million times since June 2010, the studio says. Here’s how the version 2.0 looks like: As you can see, it is very reminiscent of...
Gmail To Become Available in Welsh and 'Latin American Spanish'
Gmail will soon be available in Welsh and Latin American Spanish, Google’s email service announced on its blog today. The information was posted by Chris Yang, one of the company’s product managers in its Translator Toolkit team. According to Yang, the project was completed through Google Translator Toolkit, which boasts support for over 100,000 language combinations. While it is “computer-aided,” we are not talking about pure machine translation, as human translators can still edit the...
Apple Paying Dividends to Employees with RSUs, Tim Cook Declines
In a Form 8-K filing today, Apple announced that it would be paying out dividends to employees with restricted stock units. It originally announced plans to pay out a dividend and institute a $45M stock buyback program in March. Restricted stock units are shares awarded to employees that are not allowed to be sold before a certain time has been reached. The payout will be to the tune of $2.65 per share to employees with RSUs, making for a hefty raise, especially for executives with large chunks...
We're Not Selling 500M Windows 8 machines in 2013
Did you catch that story the other day, that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer stated that Microsoft was going to have a Windows 8 install base of 500 million, or so, by the end of 2013? That Microsoft was going to sell so many new machines and software licences was big news. After all, at those sales levels, Windows 8 would be a world smashing success. Now Microsoft is calling foul, stating that the man was misquoted. Instead, Microsoft now says, its CEO was merely discussing potential upgrade...
Facebook Camera wants to be your default social camera app for iPhone
Earlier today, Facebook released its Facebook Camera app, a standalone job that allows users to shoot, filter and upload photos to the social network. This app comes just weeks after Facebook announced plans to acquire Instagram for $1B and raises the question: Why does the company need two different apps to do essentially the same thing? But, after using the app for a few hours, we’ve come to the conclusion that it has little, if anything, to do with Instagram, and everything to do with...
Andy Samberg Impersonates Mark Zuckerberg During Harvard Speech
If you haven’t seen Andy Samberg on Saturday Night Live, you’re truly missing out on some hilarious comedy. During a College Class Day speech at Harvard yesterday, Samberg did his popular impersonations of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and actors Mark Wahlberg and Nicolas Cage. The other speaker was Barney Frank, so the students definitely lucked out by getting Samberg. If you remember Facebook’s f8 conference last year, Samberg opened up the event with his spot-on impersonation of Zuck. Here’s...
Bing Taps Nokia for Mapping Upgrades
In a move that is certain to raise eyebrows and acquisition rumors (again), Bing today announced that Nokia will power the Traffic feature of its Maps product. Also, Nokia geocoding information will be integrated to improve routing results. Mapping is no small piece of Bing, as it is integrated into its web product, and into Windows Phone platform as a core feature. Today’s upgrades will also be live on m.Bing.com, so that all mobile handsets can access them. The features will roll out over the...
Bad Ads, Big Returns
The higher-quality the ad, the better its impact? Maybe not, in today’s saturated market. In April, the Plenty of Fish Ad Blog put out a post that quickly made waves among the technorati and advertising-focused, as its conclusions were antithetical to the common sense surrounding how to garner the attention of the public. You see, Plenty of Fish put together a slick, normal Facebook ad, and they made a utterly terrible one in Paint. Here’s the two ads: Now, the numbers. The top ad had...
Socialcam Starts Landing Big Brands On Its Platform
The latest trends for startups, specifically mobile applications, is to attract celebrities with big followings to their platform. So far, it has worked for companies like Instagram, Mobli, Viddy, and Socialcam. While celebs bring a select audience, depending on how young, old, and rabid those fans are, brands can grab much more attention, since they appeal to a wider set of people. For “products” that entertain us, feed us, and make a true difference in our daily lives, joining social...
Startup Genome Launches the Investor Compass
Since the launch of its first report a year ago, Startup Genome has been doing a great job of combining scientific study of the way startups operate with tools that help entrepreneurs improve their chances of success. Now it’s expanding its offering with a tool to assist investors. The new Investor Compass follows in the footsteps of the Startup Compass which launched last August. Whereas that used data about 3200 high-growth tech startups to provide tools to help entrepreneurs avoid scaling...
Flickr Adds Much Needed Features for Groups
Flickr has just announced new Groups features on its blog, including a Justified View, the ability to submit photos directly to Groups via the Uploadr and brand new API methods for developers. Yahoo has, of course, been floundering lately, and Flickr is really feeling the heat from competitors like 500px – all the more reason to push forward and provide some desired improvements for users. The Justified View, which we’ve already seen on the Photos from Contacts and Favorites pages, looks pretty...
TripAdvisor Expands its City Guides to 50 Destinations
Travel review and booking site TripAdvisor has just announced that its City Guides mobile app has expanded into 50 total destinations — up by 30 more destinations from its original offering. Additionally, Android users can expect a host of new features, including transit maps and customized itinerary suggestions. According to the release, TripAdvisor is still the “world’s largest travel site,” but it has certainly lost its new car smell in competition against the likes...
7Digital Supports and Recruits Developers with New Technical Academy
London-based content and technology 7digital is showing some interesting results from its developer program ‘Innovation Time’. Launched in the UK in 2004, 7digital’s download store and mobile applications give consumers access to over 17 million tracks across Europe and North America. That’s nice for consumers, but the company also looks after developers with open APIs for licensed and non-commercial use. 7digital also likes fosters the work of its developer team by providing two days a month...
RealNetworks Reaches Agreement Over E-Commerce Practices
RealNetworks had come under fire from the Washington State Attorney General’s office for some of its e-commerce practices in the past. Two years after those complaints were made, the two sides have reached an agreement. The response from the company admits no “guilt”, but it was clear that consumers were confused about what they were signing up for when downloading the RealPlayer software. As part of the agreement, RealNetworks has committed to: - Discontinuing the use of pre-checked boxes for...
Meet Dell's Windows 8 Tablet
The fine folks over at NeoWin managed to secure a slide detailing the specifications for Dells’ forthcoming Windows 8 tablet. Of course, Dell may issue several other models, but this appears to be, at a minimum, one of them. The tablet is an Intel-based device, with a 10.1″ screen. Internal hard drive space will be provided by an SSD that will hold up to 128 gigabytes. The machine will pack 2 gigabytes of RAM. The rest of the specs are below, on the slide itself: The tablet should be more than...
iHeartRadio Launches its Google TV App
If you’re a Google TV owner and user, you know that the team is doing some pretty cool things when it comes to turning your big screen into a more interactive multimedia experience. The few times that I’ve had a chance to play with it, I’ve been pretty impressed. If you’re on the fence about adding Google TV to your living room, the newly released iHeartRadio app might help you make the decision. The new app, which the Google TV team announced today, lets you find and listen to music from...
Meet Google's New NFC Payment Card, Beba
Google, in a bid to boost its presence in the payments market, has launched Beba in Kenya, a pre-paid card enabled with Near Field Communication (NFC) to allow people to pay their bus fare without using cash. Yes, Google is doing this. Actually, according to Beba’s Terms of Service agreement, the company in question is Google Ireland Limited, interestingly enough. According to TechMtaa, the move was expected, and is rolling out first in Nairobi. The card, which can be loaded with up the local...
Google Announces In-App Subscriptions For Google Play
Google is getting serious about its developer ecosystem, and has announced in-app subscriptions for Google Play. Here’s what the team had to say about it today: We launched In-app Billing on Google Play a year ago to give developers more ways to sell and engage users over the lifetime of their apps. Since the launch, In-app Billing has been extremely successful in helping developers monetize their apps through try-and-buy, virtual goods, upgrades, and other popular business models. Today, 23 of...