Vodafone Group is partnering with m-commerce company CorFire to bring NFC-powered mobile wallet capabilities to its smartphone users next year. CorFire said it would be “providing mobile wallet capabilities to Vodafone Group, enabling Vodafone’s customers to use their smartphones to conduct a number of transactions, including paying for goods and services at the point of sale, during 2013″. → Read More
Apple’s iPad mini shipping times have slipped to two weeks across the board for Wi-Fi only versions, which were the only ones initially set for a November 2 delivery. The white version actually sold out fastest, with pre-order ship times dropped to two weeks just 20 minutes or so after pre-orders began this morning at 12 AM PT/3 AM ET. → Read More
Google is dropping the price on its 7-inch tablet. The 16GB model will soon cost $199, down from the original $249 MSRP. Likewise, a new model, a 32GB flavor, will occupy the $249 price point. There’s no word what’s to come of the 8GB model although early speculation stated that it could drop in price by as much as $100.
Google was supposed to have a big Android event today in NYC. But… → Read More
MobiCart, the mobile commerce startup that makes it easy to build and manage a storefront natively for iOS and Android or as a HTML5 app, has raised a further £300k (approx. $500k). In what is effectively a follow on round, the new funding comes from previous backer, Northstar Ventures-managed Finance for Business North East Proof of Concept Fund, in addition to the Yorkshire Association of… → Read More
Last month Skyscanner, which competes with Kayak on flight, hotel and car hire bookings, hit a nice milestetone with 11 million downloads of its free native mobile apps. Today it’s adding to that with a Windows 8 version. The free app is available through the Windows Store and is – the company claims – the first app with built in free-text search. That means users can enter “Flights to Berlin next… → Read More
Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 event takes place later today — where we expect to find out exactly how the integration between WP8, Microsoft’s new mobile OS, and its new desktop OS Windows 8 will work. In the meanwhile, the Verge has spotted a companion app that’s surfaced on the Windows Store which will allow WP8 users to sync content with a Windows 8 PC. → Read More
Publishing giants Pearson and Bertelsmann are creating a joint venture to pool their respective consumer publishing businesses, Penguin and Random House, in a bid to go the distance in the digital age. The pair said the combined organisation will have a “stronger platform and greater resources to invest in rich content, new digital publishing models”. → Read More
After this past week’s Apple event, one thing stood out to me above all others. And just to make sure, I watched the event again. Same result.
The shots fired at Android tablets.
For everything that Apple announced (new MacBook Pros, Mac minis, iMacs, iPads, and iPad minis), this was what I walked away thinking about. It was a fascinating look into the collective mind of Apple. → Read More
Rewind to the late 90s. Almost everything you needed – email, news, sports, stocks, maps and more – was conveniently on one site: Yahoo!. Yahoo! was the “portal” to the Internet that strived to deliver everything you could ever want on its own properties.
The crazy thing is how successful Yahoo! was at this. Few, if any, have ever done content or media online at that scale. → Read More
According to Reuters, the U.S. Stock Market will be closed on Monday due to interference that will be caused by the logistical nightmare that comes along with such a huge weather event like Hurricane Sandy. Parts of New York City have already been evacuated.
As early as six hours ago, it was said that the NYSE would not be closing down, but that decision has apparently been reversed as the… → Read More
Back in June, I wrote about a startup called FastPay, which offers credit lines to digital media companies. At the time, CEO and founder Jed Simon pitched the service as an alternative to venture capital. Well, a couple of months later I asked: Are there really companies that used FastPay instead of raising venture funding?
In response, the FastPay team put me in touch with two customers — … → Read More
Ok, so this app made me feel really dirty when I downloaded it. It’s called Badabing! and it basically goes through your friends’ photos on Facebook to pull out the ones of them at the pool or beach. In other words, we’re talking about scantily clad photos here.
I of course, for the sake of technology journalism, had to download the app and give it a whirl. It actually kind of works and it’s… → Read More
When the world’s gaze focuses on a single televised moment, it’s what’s in the periphery of our vision that unites us. The second screen brings awareness of the millions watching alongside, no matter where they are. It reaffirms our interest and passion, while adding depth and fresh perspective. If you watch the game on delay, or check out the debates online later, you’re missing something… → Read More
We’re living in a pre-barbaric age. Gutenberg and the printed word cast out the darkness of a hundred mistakes, a thousand benighted cities hastened from the gloom, a million lights winked on in a million windows. The word, once hidden in the chests of the mind, was now scratched onto paper and carefully typeset into folios. The barbarians were cast out, fleeing ahead of the coming enlightenment. → Read More
Competition in the low-cost tablet space has been heating up for a while now thanks to strong new hardware from the likes of Asus, Google, and Barnes & Noble, but it seems the time has come for the Kindle Fire hucksters at Amazon to go on the offensive against a very prominent rival: Apple’s iPad mini. → Read More
“The art of narration and dramatic presentation, together with a keen sense of the oral epic style, became a characteristic quality of the Russian people.” —Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folktale
At the end of a week filled with product launches and press conferences, it’s hard not to compare those marketing events. Without even talking about the products, some were much more compelling… → Read More
Over the past two weeks, I’ve been involved in a Facebook ad campaign whose results are astonishing. It’s a political campaign supporting California’s Proposition 37 (Label Genetically Engineered Foods).
Our Facebook sales rep was ecstatic when she first saw the numbers. She’d never seen anything like it in her career. But before I share the details, let me explain why I’m… → Read More
Microsoft’s heavy schedule of launches and events this month, including the Windows 8 and Surface events in New York last week and its Windows Phone 8 event in San Francisco on Monday, is set to reach its end with the Build developer conference on the company’s huge Redmond, WA campus starting on Tuesday. In some way, this is almost symbolic, given that the future of the Windows 8 platform is now… → Read More
Apple CEO Tim Cook said in the earnings call this past week that 80% of the Fortune 500 companies use iPhones and iPads. To make his point, Cook said companies such as Canon are outfitting its entire field sales teams with iPads. → Read More
So this guy, Rupert Murdoch, who is supposed to know a thing or two about technology, tweeted this out today. → Read More
This is what you do when you close down your startup: you call Rackspace and cancel the Windows SQL server plan. You email SendGrid and give them notice on your Silver SMTP Service Package. You close down your Wells Fargo Business Checking account and your Paypal Merchant account. Glamorous stuff. Harder than that: you email your cofounders and tell them you’re jumping into the deadpool. Your… → Read More
Kenya’s M-PESA is the poster child for mobile money services in Africa, but it is also increasingly gaining attention further abroad. It is, however, only one of the mobile payment systems on the continent that have bypassed the typical financial rites of passage and are very quickly catapulting consumers into a truly cashless economy, as well as transforming lives in a very real sense. → Read More
As you know, gaming company Zynga laid off employees last week and shut down a few of its offices right before its quarterly earnings call. Well, Zynga has pissed off the online group Anonymous, and it’s quite serious. Here’s a video just released by them, discussing exactly what it plans to do and why. CNet is also reporting on this story, and we’re actively checking to see if this is a… → Read More
Google has a fantastic program that prepares the world for major events involving Mother Nature, and it has set up a crisis map for people on the East Coast preparing for Hurricane Sandy. → Read More
It’s almost Halloween, which means that all of your grown up friends with kids will be crowding up your Facebook News Feed with ridiculous photos of 2-year-olds dressed as the Incredible Hulk. It also means that the inner-geek in all of us come out. Yes, it’s a fun holiday, and we love it because it brings out our creativity.
I mean, did you not see the awesome Path Pumpkins, which I’ve dubbed… → Read More
very now and then, I’ll get sucked into the distracting, immersive, emotional habit of flipping through pictures online. Rifling through albums can stop time. It’s disorienting, like stumbling upon an old photograph in your drawer, the type of visually arresting trigger that takes you back through time. For me, I keep a small cigar box full of all my old photographs, dating back to childhood. → Read More
Watching the dawn come up with a bunch of European entrepreneurs on tour in Tel Aviv this week, and hanging out with many of them at the recent F.ounders conference in Dublin, made me realise one thing: these guys just don’t care. They will do anything it takes to make it happen. Their attitude is in stark contrast some of the issues they face. Sometimes, when you look at the dire economies and… → Read More
Editor’s Note: Armando Kirwin is a filmmaker and consultant whose previous work has included Paramount Pictures, Microsoft, several startups, thirteen feature films, and a handful of TV shows. Follow him on twitter: @armandokirwin.
Most of us remember where we were the moment the world learned about the billion-dollar sale of Instagram, but amidst the pursuing flurry of tweets (“it’s too… → Read More
Big Data is on every CIO’s mind this quarter, and for good reason. Companies will have spent $4.3 billion on Big Data technologies by the end of 2012.
But here’s where it gets interesting. Those initial investments will in turn trigger a domino effect of upgrades and new initiatives that are valued at $34 billion for 2013, per Gartner. Over a 5 year period, spend is estimated at $232… → Read More
Sao Paolo, Brazil and the San Francisco Bay Area are many miles apart, both literally in terms of distance, and figuratively in terms of culture. But one tech startup called Predicta is taking on the challenge of bridging the gap. → Read More
The 6th Annual Crunchies Awards
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