Everything About Tech

Here at the World Economic Forum in Davos, among the banking, shipping, steel and transport magnates of the global economy, there are a number of technology entrepreneurs floating around. As they rub shoulders with the likes of Eric Schmidt, Sean Parker, Loic Le Meur and Robert Scoble, it’s possible to peel them off from the crowd. I managed to catch Jose Ferreira, CEO and Founder of Knewton a startup which is aiming a silver bullet at the education problem with something that one might even call an audacious platform. How so? Well, Knewton, a technology company based in NYC, currently has an application being tested with 10,000 college student in the US and is described as an “adaptive learning platform”. What does that mean in English? Well, the idea is that it customises your average educational content to meet the unique needs of each student. This is personalised education on steroids. Using thousands of data points — concepts, structure, difficulty level, media format — and data on how the person uses it, it’s like having a super smart teacher analyse everything you try to learn and suggest ways to make the process easier. Ferreira has raised $54M to achieve this, which is quite a sum. Despite that, he is openly critical of VCs who do not think in such word changing arenas as education. Writing for the WEF blog , he says “The venture capital industry in the United States is the envy of the world.. But it’s been getting a bit stale of late. As VC ranks have swelled with recently-minted MBAs over the last 10-20 years, venture capital has become more financial and less inspirational. These new VCs are obsessed with de-risking venture investing.” Check out the video above for more thoughts on this.

The rest is here….

The Megaupload troubles make for interesting discussion because there is much to be said on both sides. Whether the illegal aspects of the network “outweigh” the legal aspects is a question that will be discussed for months and perhaps years. But one thing can’t be disputed: after the two-year investigation by the FBI, the site’s takedown was swift and perhaps over-thorough. Thousands and thousands of users who had legitimate and often critical files hosted on the site have been left behind, their legal files hosted on a simple file-hosting service. A coalition of Pirate Party organizations, led by Pirates of Catalonia , are planning to sue the FBI over what they say are “huge personal, economic and image damages to a vast number of people.” The group leading the charge contends that the FBI may have violated Spanish Law, and at any rate, Regardless of ideology, or opinions on the legality or morality of those running Megaupload, actions such as the closure of this service cause huge damage to lawful users of the sites and are unacceptable and disproportionate violations of their rights. Hard words to disagree with, whether you think Megaupload is a patsy being taken to school by IP mongers or a den of thieves getting what was coming to them. Either way, you have to agree that the wholesale takedown of the site harmed a lot of people totally unconnected to the alleged crimes performed by Megaupload. The question of a grace period while the law does its work doesn’t seem to apply here: if, say, a cache of drugs was found in a public storage facility you used, you wouldn’t be surprised if the whole place shut down for a couple days while the law did its work. In this case the takedown may be permanent; having arrested the main actors in the company and seized many of their assets, chances are the site couldn’t be restored to working order without a fair amount of work. Not that that hasn’t happened before: The Pirate Bay relocated some servers last year to an actual secret cave after repeated raids and takedown attempts. And plenty of other favorite targets of law enforcement have proven more tenacious than expected. The point is it’s not much of a stretch to suggest that files hosted on Megaupload will never again be accessible. If they are restored, it will still have been a clumsy and potentially illegal action that made them inaccessible, and the Pirate Parties hope to call out such actions for what they are and perhaps cause authorities to think twice before taking them again.

Go here to read the rest….

If you’re a parent, it can be a challenge to convince kids to do their chores. (Or so I’m told.) It’s even harder to make them genuinely excited. But a startup called HighScore House says it has found a way. The company is part of the latest class of companies incubated by 500 Startups , and it made its pitch to investors this afternoon as part of 500 Startups Demo Day. Co-founder Kyle Seaman says the company has been operating on an invite-only basis, but it’s starting to open up to a wider audiences, and it’s already getting excited messages from parents whose children are actually asking to do more chores. So what’s the company doing? Games and rewards. HighScore House offers a website and an iPad app where children can track and earn points for their chores. Those points, in turn, can be redeemed for rewards — Seaman says the most popular rewards involve something that makes the child feel special, like ice cream for breakfast or riding shotgun in the car. Of course, you don’t need a website to reward your kids for chores. But HighScore High should make it a lot easier. Even though the families set up the chores and rewards, the site makes suggestions so you don’t have to think of things from scratch or wonder, “Should this be worth 100 points or 1,000 points?” It also makes it easier for kids to understand the expectations and to track their progress. Ultimately, Seaman says he wants to do for families what Zynga did for social networks and gaming. HighScore House has raised an angel round from Jason Bailey (general manager of Virtual Currency at Super Rewards), Kay Luo (who led PR at LinkedIn and Square), Dan Martell (co-founder of Flowtown), and James Levine (former CTO at SimplyHired). It plans to make money by charging a subscription fee (it’s free while in beta testing), by selling digital goods for kids to decorate their virtual rooms, and by facilitating some of the rewards (for example offering gift cards and taking a cut).

More here….

$46.33 billion in revenue. It’s a number the biggest and best tech companies in the world can only dream to hit in a year. Apple hit it in one quarter. $13.06 billion in profit. It’s a number no tech company would ever aspire to in one quarter because it’s ridiculous. The only companies that have ever thought about such numbers are oil companies. And even then, only 3 of them have actually hit it . Ever. Until yesterday. I’ve already tried to give some context to the stunning Q1 2012 results that Apple posted. But the truth is that they’re still unbelievable. Perhaps the next step should be to figure out how they could post such numbers. The simple answer is that Apple’s iPhone sales were off the charts. 37 million units sold is mind-boggling when the previous record was 20 million, set in Q3 2011 . A year ago, in the same holiday quarter , Apple sold “just” 16 million iPhones. That was also a record at the time and lead to record revenue and profit at the time. This year, Apple quite simply took things to the next level — and then went a level beyond that. Because the iPhone is over 50 percent of Apple’s revenues, amazing iPhone sales equates to amazing revenues. Again, the simple answer. But to figure out why this quarter was so far ahead of any other quarter, you have to go deeper. It was really a confluence of events. First of all, this past quarter was set up by the preceding quarter, which saw Apple fall short of Wall Street expectations for the first time in years. But as we noted at the time, this was misleading . Apple surpassed their own expectations (which isn’t surprising given that they’re always low), but failed to meet Wall Street’s simply because Wall Street’s numbers were lazy . Analysts didn’t take into account the fact that the new version of the iPhone did not launch in the summertime, as it had in years past. Because it did not — and again, the iPhone is about half of Apple’s revenue — there was no burst in iPhone sales that Apple usually sees in Q4. Instead, that burst came in Q1 — last quarter. And unlike previous years, this burst was compounded because Q1 is also Apple’s holiday quarter. A new iPhone plus holiday shopping season is apparently like gasoline on a fire. Now we know. But it would be foolish to think that Apple’s big numbers were only about the iPhone. Remember, Apple set new records in Mac and iPad sales as well. The iPad in particular is interesting because while it’s Apple’s newest business, it’s already the second-largest in terms of revenue. This past quarter, 20 percent of revenue came from iPad sales. The third-biggest source of revenue is Mac sales — they accounted for 14 percent of Apple’s revenue last quater. In other words, 87 percent of Apple’s revenue last quarter was from products that all saw record sales. The lone dim spot in Apple’s numbers were iPod sales, which continue to decline year-over-year. But because the other businesses have grown so massive, so quickly, the iPod only accounts for 5 percent of Apple’s revenues now. Pretty soon — maybe even next quater — the iTunes Store itself will be a bigger money-maker for the company. When you consider that iTunes (including the App Store) was initially set up to be run as a break-even business, this is impressive. Something else to consider: the iPhone, iPad, and Mac have the highest margins amongst Apple major products. The iPhone 4S, because it is largely based off of the design of the iPhone 4, probably has one of the best margins that Apple has ever seen. That rings especially true when you hear that Apple’s overall gross margin for the quarter was 44.7 percent. It’s a number so big that Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said he couldn’t recall ever seeing a number so high in his 15 years of service. And he was skeptical that Apple would ever hit it again. That huge margin meant huge profit. In fact, it meant profit the likes of which had never been seen before by a technology company. Something else: Q1 2012 for Apple happened to span 14 weeks. This was unusual, and Apple was quick to note as much in both their press release and on the earnings call. Normally, quarters span 13 weeks (do the math: 13 x 4 = 52). You simply cannot discount an extra week of sales. And you especially cannot discount it during the holiday quarter. And one more thing: the passing of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in October drove people all around the world to Apple Stores to pay their respects . When people visit Apple Stores, they don’t often walk away empty handed. And what better way to pay respect to Jobs than to buy a product from the company he cared so much about? It’s a delicate subject, but worth mentioning. Again, this monster quarter was all about a confluence of events. It was about a new iPhone launch during Apple’s typically busiest quarter merged with a newer product, iPad, coming into its own, and the Mac continuing its methodical growth. Add to that amazing margins plus one more week of sales — and the fact that Apple as a whole has been killing it for several years now across the board — and you get a jaw-dropping quarter. It all came together. Next question: will Apple be able to replicate the magic next quarter? Well, no. The quarter after the holiday one is typically weaker as consumer spending cools. And when you consider that it will span the regular 13 weeks instead of 14, you have two things working against it. Add to that the fact that the iPhone 4S will no longer be a new product, and you have another dip. There could be a new iPad in the quarter — but it may only go on sale at the tail-end. Or it may not be on sale until the following quater — we’ll see. Either way, that probably dings iPad sales a bit next quarter too. But even with all those things working “against” Apple next quater, Oppenheimer still gave guidance of $32.5 billion in revenue. That would be Apple’s second-best quarter ever. And again, Apple always low-balls such numbers, so perhaps $35 billion in a more reasonable guess. In other words, Apple may only have the second-best quarter of any tech company ever in terms of revenue next quarter. And profits may only be near the bottom of the all-time top 20 amidst the oil empires. Boo hoo. [photo: flickr/ ConvenienceStoreGourmet ]

Read more….

A team of researchers at the Photonic Network Research Institute of Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) have developed a new light source technology that might pave the way to some pretty spectacular applications in the future. The core piece of the technology are “high-quality” quantum dots , tiny nano particles, that boast higher stability and optical frequency than those created the conventional way. By using the so-called “Sandwiched sub-nano separator structure”, NICT says their quantum dots can be utilized in optical frequency bands that are about 70 Thz wide, which is about seven times wider than the 10Thz of conventional frequency bands currently offer. NICT also says that because this new wavelength band can permeate human skin, their technology could also be used in bio-imaging, for example to shoot high-resolution photos of new molecules in cells. NICT explains their light source technology: Usually when you fabricate quantum dots, you grow crystalline quantum dot particles, in nanometer size, on the semiconductor surface. But this time, we’ve formed a very thin layer, less than one nanometer thick, between the surface and the dots. By adding just this nanometer layer, we’ve be able to form high-quality quantum dots, without aggregation structures, at very high density. This video, shot by Diginfo TV in Tokyo, provides more insight (in English):

More here….

SXSW 2012 is sneaking up on us; believe it or not, it’s just around the corner. As you may know, Austin’s music/film/tech conference attracts big names, tons of press, and notable companies each year — people flock to the event just as they do for CES. On the tech or “Interactive” side, there’s a lot of hoopla, way too much media coverage, but some interesting startups do emerge (or solidify their reputations) at the festi-conference each year. Foursquare and Twitter, to name two, both owe tips of the cap to SXSW. Those traveling to the festival always start early and hotels fill up fast. And since these conferences will cost you a bit more than a ticket to Burning Man, many of the more adventurous souls look for accommodations that are cheaper than staying in hotels. Naturally, it’s a big time for the hot peer-to-peer accommodations rentals space — in other words, for startups like Airbnb, Wimdu, 9flats.com, Crashpadder, and iStopOver — to name a few. The latter, for example, has already booked all of its available rentals for SXSW. (While Airbnb still has some openings .) In a piece of news that may just be relevant for SXSW attendees this year, today we’ve learned that the aforementioned and Canadian iStopOver, which lets people rent out their extra space and offer travelers local experiences at affordable prices, has partnered with a lesser-known startup from Austin, called GuideHop , to “help change the way people experience new and familiar places.” Just as Airbnb and its ilk have taken off, there’s been a lot of excitement around the broader social travel space lately (see Semil’s post for some examples here ), and GuideHop has been hoping to get in on the action by offering a service that enables locals to post their own guided activities for those curious “experience seekers,” who’ve traveled from afar — joining Gidsy and Sidetour in that regard. Both GuideHop and iStopOver’s services allow locals to post their available rentals and experiences for free and are designed to let hosts and guides make a little extra cash by sharing their favorite activies and spare homes and bedrooms — and finding those willing to pay for the home (or the experience). The partnership, the GuideHop team says, is designed to give customers a full integrated peer-to-peer experience, where anyone can plan an expedition by finding a place to stay through iStopOver, and discovering nearby activities with Guidehop. Though iStopOver hasn’t created nearly as much noise as Airbnb or clones like Wimdu , which raised $90 million last June , it still offer over 80,000 properties in 92 countries, so it’s a big strategic win for Guidehop — and a vote of confidence. The Austin startup, which launched in October, has grown fairly quickly, and now has a total of 679 activities (ahead of Vayable , which launched six months prior). However, at this point, it is mainly focused on Austin, and hopes to take advantage of the SXSW bump when the circus comes to town, offering attendees an opportunity to get out and see the sights under the guidance of some knowledgeable locals. What kind of local activities, you ask? Activities posted thus far include “spelunking to an art gallery,” exploring east Austin’s urban farms, a ride with a scooter gang, a bike coffee tour of Austin, etc. etc. ( More on how Guidehop works here .) How can you say know to spelunking and art galleries? There are a million ways to find local activities, but Guidehop hopes to capitalize on the growing buzz around peer-to-peer marketplaces and social travel. Partnering with the big p2p rental marketplaces is a great way to reach a broad audience, without having to deal with quite the same drawbacks . Hopefully iStopOver is just the beginning. The startup is currently raising its initial round of funding, so check it out and stay tuned to see if they come out the other side with some traction. And obviously, having the mythical “jackalope” of travelers’ folklore in their logo also helps their street cred significantly.

Read more….

Online job marketplace  Elance has raised $16 million in new capital led by the Stripes Group with existing investors, New Enterprise Associates and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers participating. Elance is a service that allows for companies and individuals to hire and pay independent professionals and contractors online and in the cloud. Elance provides companies with the tools to hire, view work as it progresses and pay for results, replacing traditional outsourcing outlets. “It is clear that a structural change in traditional employment is underway,” said Fabio Rosati, CEO of Elance. “Work is no longer confined to the 9-5 and the office: people are working online with multiple clients as a career choice and companies are hiring online teams as a core business strategy. This investment will help Elance keep up with demand and continue to innovate work.” In 2011, the number of businesses hiring and the number of online professionals working on Elance grew more than 120 percent since 2010. Businesses posted more than 650,000 new jobs on Elance in 2011 and contractors have earned nearly $500 million to date on the platform. Elance also recently announced it will give $1 million to The Startup America Partnership, the national campaign that aims to accelerate entrepreneurship.

Read more from the original source….

Fitness technology startup and TechCrunch 50 finalist Fitbit has raised $12 Million in Series C funding from existing investors Foundry Group, True Ventures, SoftTech VC and Felicis Ventures. The company offers a device called the Fitbit Tracker and a companion web-based fitness data aggregation technology that tracks weight, nutrition, exercise, sleeping schedules and other health related data for users (you can read more about how Fitbit works here. ) The Fitbit Tracker is a compact wearable device that clips onto clothing or slips into a pocket and captures, through accelerometer technology, information about daily health activities, such as steps taken, distance traveled, calories burned, exercise intensity levels and sleep quality. The activity data collected by the Fitbit Tracker can then be wirelessly uploaded to the Fitbit website where users access all of the data and track progress toward personal and group goals. Users can also log nutrition, weight and other health information on the site in order to gain a complete picture of their health. The Fitbit API, which was released last year , allows third-party developers to integrate Fitbit data in their own applications, products and services and also to read and write data for users’ Fitbit activities, food logs and other data in real time. Last Fall, Fitbit debuted a new version of its tracking device, called the Ultra . The device’s successor is slightly more accurate than the old version and also measures exercises better including more aerobic activities like floor workouts and running. And at CES a few weeks ago, Fitbit debuted a new contraption —a wi-fi enabled scale called the Aria. The Aria, which costs $129.99, will transmit both weight and body fat measurements wirelessly to your FitBit account. In terms of measuring body fat, the scale has four transparent electrodes which shoot a safe low current through body and measures resistance to current, determining how much body fat you have. You simply open up the Fitbit iOS or Android app via your mobile phone when close to the scale and the Aria will transmit the data to your FitBit account. So you no longer need to manually input this data on the web (or mobile) and the platform can get a more accurate view of your fitness. As founder James Park explains, consumers were asking for the ability to close the feedback loop and the scale allows for that. The Aria will ship in April, and will most probably also be included in a set package with the tracker. Currently, the FitBit is available in over 5,000 locations including Target, Best Buy, Brookstone and REI and Park says we can expect the Aria to be on sale in those locations. He adds that the FitBit Ultra is also now sold in Canada and the UK. “We’ve moved beyond being a single product company and are creating incredible digital health products and experiences. This funding will help us accelerate the hiring of the best hardware and software engineers, designers, product managers and marketers,” Park explains. The new capital will be used scale the Aria, and for additional hiring. Check out our TechCrunchTV video with TechCrunch’s John Biggs and Park from CES below.

View original post here….

A new startup called Clearstream  says it’s time to tame the “Wild West” of online video advertising. According to co-founder Brian Mandelbaum, the idea came from his time at ad agencies, including Razorfish and Saatchi & Saatchi. The problem, he says, is that there’s no good way to distinguish between high- and low-quality ad placements. When you buy space in a video ad network, that ad could be running before a video on a premium site, but it could also be stuck in a banner on a random website. “The advertiser is getting screwed,” Mandelbaum says. To bring more transparency to the industry, Clearstream has created a rating system for any site wanting to run video ads. Either the publisher can pay Clearstream for a certification, or an agency can require that a publisher get certified. Using a mix of quantitative and qualitative evaluation, Mandelbaum says Clearstream gives two ratings, one for general quality, and one for relevance in a given content category, such as sports. Contrasting Clearstream with existing services, Mandelbaum says companies like Nielsen and comScore are interested in collecting data on who’s watching an ad. Clearstream, on the other hand, helps advertisers understand the “what, where, when, and how.” And while there are services for evaluating the brand-friendliness of a page, Mandelbaum says a web page can have little to do with the video that’s playing — which is why Clearstream applies ratings on a stream, publisher, and agency level. He also calls existing systems “almost extortion” where “the only person who wins is the verification company” — while with Clearstream, even the publisher benefits because they get data on how to make their video content more brand-friendly. When discussing his vision, Mandelbaum likes to focus on his agency background, but there’s another eye-catching item on his resume — he was a contestant on the fourth season of The Apprentice , getting fired during the eight episode. When asked about that experience, Mandelbaum gamely tries to connect it with his new startup, saying The Apprentice helped him learn how “to listen and to be able to build against what the community wants.”

View original here….

It would be a tie-up between two giants: Diamond Weekly, a major Japanese business journal, is reporting [JP] on its website today that scandal-hit Olympus is about to ink a capital and business alliance deal with Sony . Olympus has been under fire for months, after it was revealed the company has covered up large losses for the past 20 years . At some point, Olympus was in danger of getting de-listed at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, but it’s now on a 3-year “probation” that requires the company to improve governance. According to Diamond, Olympus’ top management has been consulting with various electronics companies but chose Sony as the best partner to help get it out of one the biggest corporate scandals in Japanese history. The magazine says that Olympus is planning to hold a news conference as early this week to formally announce the deal. As a next step, the alliance is to get a green light at an extraordinary shareholders meeting in April. Sony currently owns a 0.03% stake in Olympus. Neither company has reacted to Diamond’s report yet.

More here….