Technology And Gadget News Tech-Point.Info

MyEdu Will Be Your Curriculum Guide And Virtual College Advisor Rolled Into One

Leena Rao — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:00:03 +0000

Do you remember to the days of college, when you were required to sort through your curriculum and career goals with your designated college advisor? Education startup MyEdu aims to replace this by helping students virtually access their academic information and create a roadmap tailored to their career goals. To date, over 2 million students at 750 universities have used MyEdu to earn their degree. MyEdu's suite of online products try to streamline the entire process of a college student's lifecycle, from selecting a college through to earning a degree. The suite includes detailed course descriptions, grade distributions, official course evaluations, and student reviews to pick the right classes; and schedule Planner to build the best schedule that fits a student's time constraints and goals.

Lucid Imagination Raises $10 Million For Apache Search Technology

Leena Rao — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 07:56:21 +0000

Lucid Imagination, the startup that commercially distributes the open source Apache Lucene and Apache Solr search technology, has raised $10 million in Series B funding from Shasta Ventures with Granite Ventures and Walden International participating in the round. This brings the company's total funding to $16 million. Lucid powers enterprise search technologies using the open source Lucene/Solr search. Customers include Zappos, Nike and Netflix. The new funding will be used to accelerate the adoption of Lucene/Solr search technology.

Opera Mini 5 Beta Now Available For Android

Greg Kumparak — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 07:00:46 +0000

Sure, Opera Mini may (or may not) already be the most popular mobile browser in the world -- but why stop there? Following up on the Android release of Opera Mobile 4 just over a year ago, Opera has just launched Opera Mini 5 for Android into public beta. The jump from version 4 to version 5 is pretty huge, introducing a handful of features that Opera says "makes your mobile browsing experience as close as it can be to your desktop experience."

Whrrl 3 Wants To Kill Farmville. Not Foursquare. Not Gowalla. Farmville.

MG Siegler — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:36:20 +0000

Pelago knows that just about every location-based app in the world is seeking coverage right now just prior to SXSW where they will all battle Highlander-style. So they approached me with a pretty smart pitch: curing the "social rut." What they mean by that is these days, despite the prevalence of social networks, people are actually less social than ever because they're being roped into playing games like Farmville and Mafia Wars for hours on end. Sitting in their rooms. Alone. While that may be a part of social networking (a rather large, hugely profitably part), it's not really social. That's why location-based networks excite me: they have the potential to bridge social networking with actual social activity. And that's exactly how Pelago is positioning the latest version of its location-based app, Whrrl 3.

The Truth About the Average Twitter User [STATS]

Ben Parr — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:16:54 +0000

A new study from security firm Barracuda Labs provides some interesting insights into the state of the Twitterverse. Unfortunately for the microblogging startup, the stats say that…

doubleTwist’s iTunes Alternative (That Works With Android) Adds Podcast Support

Jason Kincaid — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:15:05 +0000

Over the last six months, doubleTwist, the iTunes alternative that lets you manage your music, videos, and photos, has really been stepping up its game. In October the company integrated an Amazon-powered MP3 store, allowing users to download and sync their music directly with any of hundreds of compatible devices, much as they would with the iTunes/iPod combo. And today it's adding a new feature that makes it an even more viable iTunes competitor: support for podcasts. Co-founder Monique Farantzos says that doubleTwist has built and integrated a podcast search engine with 20 times as many podcasts as iTunes offers. Rankings are based on popularity (as opposed to a simple listing that would grow unmanageable with that much content). The new feature is launching on Windows now, with Mac support for podcasts coming next month.

Indiagames Partners With IPL And Facebook To Launch Social Cricket Games

Leena Rao — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:00:13 +0000

Earlier this year, Google landed a "landmark" deal with Global Cricket Ventures, the licensing partner to the Indian Premier League (IPL), which would give them the so rights to live stream cricket matches from the IPL on YouTube. This is a huge deal because the streaming of the 2010 IPL season (which starts on Friday and lasts for 45 days) is the first time a large-scale global sporting event will be streamed; with the reach expected to be at least a half-a-billion viewers. Now of of India's largest gaming companies, Indiagames, has bought the official gaming rights to the IPL tournament to deliver games around the Indian cricket tournament. Indiagames will be launching a series of web and mobile apps throughout the next 45 days. The first app, called IPL Indiagames T20 Fever, is an online game that uses Facebook Connect to allow users to create cricket teams consisting of both Facebook friends and IPL professional cricketers. The game will also include micro-transaction support, allowing users to users to virtually buy IPL players to improve their chances of becoming the IPL Champion.

Brizzly’s Been Busy — Buying Apps, Creating Guides, And Going On Picnics.

MG Siegler — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:55:40 +0000

Since it launched last July at our Realtime Stream CrunchUp, Brizzly has been one of the best web-based Twitter apps. It offers support for viewing pictures inline, shortened link expansion, multiple Twitter accounts, and even some Facebook support. But they've been quiet in recent months. Now we know why. The Brizzly team went into hibernation because they made a couple of acquisitions, and have been working on a new feature. First, they bought one of my favorite Twitter iPhone apps, Birdfeed. One of the earliest apps to gain Twitter geolocation support, I had been worrying that Birdfeed would go extinct because developer Buzz Andersen recently joined Jack Dorsey's mobile payment startup, Square. But since the acquisition (which actually occurred in the November/December timeframe), Andersen has been working closely with the Brizzly team to wrap the app in its new skin.

Twitter’s Website Now Attaches Location to Tweets [PICS]

Ben Parr — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:01:44 +0000

Twitter has just flipped the switch on geolocation within Twitter.com. Now at least some users can pull up location-based information from individual tweets on the microblogging website.

While attaching…

Sonos To Take Investment From Index Ventures, Add Mike Volpi To Board Of Directors

Michael Arrington — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:41:05 +0000

Sonos, the Santa Barbara, California based startup that develops of wireless multi-room music systems, is taking a new round of financing from London-based Index Ventures, we've heard from multiple sources. Partner Mike Volpi, a forcer Cisco exec who found himself in the middle of a huge drama last year around eBay's Skype spinoff, will join the board of directors of Sonos. Volpi will bring real expertise to the Sonos board. As recently as 2007 he ran an $11 billion routing and access products busines for Cisco. He clearly knows how to sell products at scale. Sonos has been around since 2003 and has raised some $40 million from private angel investors and BV Capital. Until last year the company sold very high end music products that users loved passionately, but the mutli-thousand dollar price point for a complete system made mainstream penetration difficult.

With Its New Release, Gowalla Expands The Check-In Game (Video)

MG Siegler — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:29:55 +0000

Regular readers will know my love for all things location. In particular, these check-in location-based services fascinate me, mainly because I see them as a bridge between social networks as we've known it, and actual social interaction in the real world. Foursquare has been my app of choice over the past year (it launched almost exactly a year ago at SXSW). But the latest version of Gowalla has me thinking about switching sides. At the very least, I'll be using both at all times now. Gowalla version 2.0 for the iPhone just hit the App Store today. With it, you'll notice a few different things. First and foremost, the overall look has been updated from a sort of Army green, to a more subtle light green that is much easier on the eyes. More significantly, the toolbar has been reworked so that now social activity is front and center when you load the app, while your own activity is the last tab. Both of these changes are things I've complained about since day one with Gowalla, so they're certainly welcome. But that's not why I'm excited for the app. I'm excited because it takes the idea of the check-in and extends it.

Why AOL May Just Abandon Bebo Rather Than Sell It

Michael Arrington — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:54:15 +0000

Newly independent Aol is still struggling with the fate of Bebo, the social network they acquired for $850 million in 2008. No one argues that Aol underpaid for Bebo. And the social network has fallen from 22 million monthly unique visitors when it was acquired to just 14.6 million today (Comscore worldwide). But even so, Bebo clearly has some value on the open market. Despite that value, Aol's best financial option for Bebo will likely be to abandon it rather than sell it, say corporate tax experts we've spoken with.

How The iPad, And The Slate Computer, Will Evolve In The Next Two Years

John Biggs — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:54:07 +0000

With the iPad hitting pre-order in two days and shipping in April, it's important to think about when and why to buy the iPad. Based on our understanding of the product lifecycle and expected moves by Apple's competitors, we foresee big changes in the ultraportable landscape with the ultraportable/netbook as we now know it mutating - or branching - into a new species of media oriented Win7 and Android devices. Here's what we can expect. April 3, 2010 - Big launch. Light crowds at the Apple Store. This isn't huge-huge. It's medium-huge and I don't think you're going to see an army of the pasty arriving at your local shop clamoring for iPads. This is Apple's wait and see product, although I don't doubt between 3-5 million won't wait and see in 2010. May-June 2010 - Chinese knock-offs will flood the market and we'll see a nice collection of weird, mutated slates hitting the more esoteric sites. Nothing major and no big sellers. Summer 2010 - Dell and HP release their devices. Dell's is called the Mini 5 AKA the Streak and HP's as of yet unamed. These guys will wait until the waters have been fully tested before they move with their devices.

How To Use Video SEO To Jump To The Top Of Google Search Results

Guest Author — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:29:40 +0000

As most search engine optimization (SEO) experts are aware, getting a first-page Google result is harder than ever. Not only do Google’s search and indexing algorithms continue to evolve in complexity, but Google has given over more and more of its search results real estate to “blended” search results, displaying videos and images towards the top of the first page, and pushing down—and sometimes off the page—traditional web results that would have otherwise competed for top rankings. But where problems arise, so do opportunities. Although Google’s newfound enthusiasm for video has created more competition for fewer traditional search results, it has enabled sites with video assets—even sites that would otherwise score poorly in the Google index—to successfully achieve first-page rankings. In fact, Forrester Research found that videos were 53 times more likely than traditional web pages to receive an organic first-page ranking. Editor's note: In the following guest post, Fliqz CEO Benjamin Wayne reveals some of the secrets of using video to help boost the search results rankings of your website.

Deja Vu: Eyeblaster Files For $115 Million IPO, Again

Jason Kincaid — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:20:37 +0000

Eyeblaster, an online advertising firm, has filed for a $115 million IPO according to a recent SEC filing. This is actually Eyeblaster's second bid for a $115 million IPO — they filed for one at the same price early in 2008, before the IPO market dried up. The company makes a variety of products, including MediaMind, which is an ad serving and campaign management tool. Last year the company earned $65.1 million in revenue, up from $44.7 million in 2007. The New York-based company was founded in 1999 and has 36 offices around the world.

Brizzly Launches a Guide to Twitter Trends and iPhone App

Barb Dybwad — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:03:16 +0000

Web-based Twitter client Brizzly has three major developments to report: a new free iPhone app, a new Brizzly Guide (which gives trending topics…

BoomStartup Gives Utah Its Own Startup Incubator

Leena Rao — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:02:10 +0000

While California and New York tend to get the most attention as technology hubs, other states are quietly hosting their own vibrant communities around technology and innovation. Utah is one of these states. Utah is home to tech giants Omniture (which was acquired by Adobe for $1.8 billion), Novell, Symantec. And today, Utah is getting its very own startup incubator, BoomStartup, which is a seed capital and mentor-focused investment program for web and software start-ups based in Utah. Based in Orem, Utah at the Canyon Park Technology Center (the original site of WordPerfect Corporation), BoomStartup is a full-time program that will run from May to August and provides each selected company with seed capital (up to $15,000), mentoring from entrepreneurs and technologists, free office space and resources, and education that takes them through the various steps of getting a tech startup off the ground. For its first rounds, the organization will choose eight startups to participate in the program. Applicants for BoomStartup must have a founding team (two or more individuals) and an idea with a focus on web, mobile, software, and non?hardware tech. Startups can apply here.

Google Reader Makes A More Visual Play

Erick Schonfeld — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:08:58 +0000

Google launched a new service today in from its Labs called Google Reader Play. It is a more visual way to browse through the most popular items being saved and shared on Google Reader. When you launch it, you are presented with a large photo, video, or text excerpt on the main part of the screen, and can flip through by clicking on arrows or selecting an item from the filmstrip at the bottom of the screen. Google Reader Play doesn't require you to sign in, but if you do then you can star, share, and like items, and it starts to recommend things to you based on what your friends share, star, and like in Google Reader. The user interface seems to borrow a lot from StumbleUpon, with its concept of randomly flicking through the best stuff on the Web. In particular, it's very similar to StumbleVideo, except it includes more than just videos. It is very image-heavy. The user interface reminds me of some elements of enjosythin.gs as well in the way that it presents images and text excerpts in a blown-up manner. The arrows are very Fast Flip, another Labs experiment for the Google News in making magazine and newspaper articles more visually browsable.

Google Fiber Sparks Online Competition Between Cities Nationwide

Josh Catone — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:58:08 +0000

It seems like every city in America wants Google Fiber. And who can blame them? Ever since Google announced its plan last month to bring ultra-high speed Internet…

CA Acquires Cloud Monitoring Company Nimsoft For $350 Million

Leena Rao — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:19:56 +0000

IT software giant CA has acquired cloud monitoring startup Nimsoft for $350 million according to a release issued today. Nimsoft offers performance monitoring software to businesses. CA is making a big move towards the cloud. The company just bought up 3Tera, Cassatt, NetQoS and Oblicore.