The Nook HD and HD+ got a great update late last night (via Engadget ), as Barnes & Noble finally moved away from its closed and system-specific app and media ecosystem. The two Android tablets now offer Google Play, and new devices will ship with the app pre-loaded, while existing owners can get it via a software update over-the-air or via direct download. Other changes with this update include the introduction of some stock Android apps, including Gmail, Maps and Chrome (which replaces the Nook’s existing web browser as the default option). Essentially, Barnes & Noble is turning the Nook HD line into a very cheap Android tablet play, and not in the limited way it was doing so before. Where once the Nook brand was a reader first, with Android-powered full-color readers with some tablet functionality, now it looks like we’ll see Barnes & Noble embrace the tablet identity much more fully. Another sign that the book seller is banking on tablets as a much broader attempt at reaching customers is the fact that the Nook Tablet and Color don’t get the Play update, meaning we could see those left behind in terms of future hardware updates. Read more »
Tumblr of the Day: ‘White Men Wearing Google Glass’
Google Glass has tech-types drooling — and squinting — with delight. The hoopla around the wearable device has even inspired the creation of the not-so-PC Tumblr " White Men Wearing Google Glass ." It's a pretty self-explanatory (and somewhat controversial) concept: white dudes sporting the latest in fashion technology. SEE ALSO: This Is Why Google Glass Is the Future Twitter users have chimed in with their thoughts on the Tumblr and about the perception that Google Glass might lack on the hip factor White Men Wearing Google Glass. This doesn't make me want a pair bit.ly/10oixlU — Jason Zada (@jasonzada) April 29, 2013 Read more... More about Tumblr , Humor , Gadgets , Watercooler , and Pics Read more »
Walk The Floor With Us At TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013′s Startup Alley
Today at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013, there was a brand new batch of startups on display in Startup Alley, and we hit the floor this morning to check them out. There was a healthy mix, including the Italian pavilion as well as a number of mobile and media startups and companies concerning themselves with privacy. We saw a way to create an animated storybook with Toon Hero, a crowdsourced bounty-setting platform for lost items with CrowdFind , a way to motivate group action around an issue with Crowdshout and a museum and culture recommendation and reservation tool with Musement. Overall, it was a varied and extremely interesting mix of companies from around the world. Read more »
Robot Learns to Gently Touch Objects
Humans are able stick their arms into cluttered areas like a refrigerator or reach across a table set for dinner without knocking anything over. Robots aren’t so good at that. In fact, until now, researchers generally design robots to not touch anything except for the object for which they’re reaching. However, a robotic arm developed by a team lead by Charlie Kemp, associate professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, has sensors that cover its entire “arm,” helping it touch other objects gently, while reaching for a specific item. The technique gives robots a more effective and realistic method for dealing with real-world circumstances, where obstacles and clutter are usually an issue. Read more... More about Robots , Science , Tech , Gadgets , and Medical Science Read more »
Good Technology Raises $50M On Its Road To An IPO
Mobile device management company Good Technology has raised $50 million, according to a Securities and Exchange (SEC) filing . A company spokesperson confirmed the fundraising but had no comment about the purpose of the raise. The SEC document says the company is seeking a total of $60 million. Founded in 1996 and headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Good Technology is backed by Oak Investment Partners , Draper Fisher Jurvetson , Meritech Capital Partners , DFJ ePlanet Ventures , DFJ Growth Fund , Rustic Canyon Ventures , Allegis Capital , GKM and Blueprint Ventures . In its E round, investors included Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers , Benchmark Advanced Equities , Crosslink Capital and Broadview Ventures . Good Technology plays in the fast-consolidating MDM market. It provides enterprise mobility technologies across multiple platforms and security and management software Read more »
Jarvis Is A Personal Assistant That Goes Beyond Siri To Embrace The Connected Home
If you’re an Iron Man fan, you already know about Jarvis, Tony Stark’s personal assistant (who’s either a human or a virtual AI, depending on how long you’ve been following the comic). Jarvis is the glue that keeps Stark’s business, personal and super hero lives running smoothly. Which is why Jarvis is a perfect name for the digital assistant built by a team at this year’s Disrupt NY Hackathon. Hack co-creator Felix Rieseberg talked me through how Jarvis works, using APIs provided by Twilio, Weather Underground and Ninja Blocks to help you control your home and check the current conditions, headlines and what’s making news, and more, all just by dialing a number from any telephone and issuing voice commands, It’s like a Siri, but housed on Windows Azure and able to plug into a lot more functionality. Rieseberg says that a practical Jarvis is still quite a ways away, since it’s not a true AI and could get easily frustrated in real-world conditions. But the appetite is clearly there: he said he was already approached and offered seed investment based just on the quick demo that was shown of onstage, where Jarvis turned off a Ninja Blocks-connected Philips Hue lamp. What Jarvis embodies is a natural next step for the connected home and digital personal assistants, but Jarvis is more a proof of concept than a shipping product. Still, one day soon controlling your home from anywhere and gathering information will be just as easy as making a phone call, and Jarvis is a suggestion that day isn’t too far off Read more »
After Eight Years On Facebook’s Board, Jim Breyer Exits To Focus On His New Harvard Board Seat
Venture capitalist Jim Breyer is giving up his seat on Facebook’s board in June, which he’s held since April 2005. The split is amicable and stems from his desire to concentrate on his new seat on the Harvard University Corporation Board. Breyer joined the Facebook board after his venture firm Accel became one of Facebook’s earliest investors, leading its $12.7 million Series A. Breyer will stay on Facebook’s board until its yearly director’s meeting on June 11th. In a departure note, Breyer wrote, “It has been a genuine honor to serve as an investor and board member since April 2005 as Facebook has grown from an emerging social network for U.S. college students to a global service that connects over a billion people. After over eight years of board service, it’s time to step aside in light of my other responsibilities, including my recent election to the Harvard University Corporation Board Read more »
Leap Motion Controller Ship Date Delayed Until July 22, Due To A Need For A Larger, Longer Beta Test
Leap Motion has just announced that its 3D gesture controller hardware ship date will be delayed, from May 13 for pre-orders and May 19 for general retail availability to July 27. The delay was caused by a need for more testing from the Leap Motion beta testing community, and an expansion of that group with additional members, according to Leap Motion CEO Michael Buckwald, who held a press conference today to discuss the missed dates. This is not good new for a company that has spent a lot of time promoting its product and securing high-level partnerships (with Asus, HP and Best Buy ) up until now. The hype that Leap Motion has been able to build only means that users will be more disappointed by any delays in its launch window, and the effect on public perception is certainly one the hardware startup would like to have avoided. Still, some 12,000 developers have received units and already used them to do impressive things , so Leap Motion is hardly in danger of being branded ‘vaporware’ as of yet. Leap Motion says it wants to make sure that the product they deliver is the best they can offer, and says that there is “nothing catastrophically wrong” with the hardware as of yet. The company believes that it could have shipped by the original date if it had really pushed things, but wanted to make sure that things were ready for prime time. The new July 22 ship date is firmly set, according to Buckwald, and this is “the first and only delay there will be.” When asked if there was a specific cause, Buckwald said it’s more about beta testing everything in general, but that there will definitely be a focus on getting more input on how customers interact with the product Read more »
Taking A Spin With Joyride, Which Aims To Liven Up Your Commute With Its Android App
Last month, a startup called Joyride came out of stealth mode and announced that it has raised $1 million in funding . Since the company is building a platform for creating entertaining drivetime experiences, we decided that the best place to see the Joyride app in action was on the road. Co-founder and CEO Jeff Chen described Joyride as an attempt to “make drive times more fun and more interesting” — instead of just listening to the same songs on the same radio stations, you could say, “Hey, let’s play a game together.” Or, “Pull up the latest comedy clips.” Or, “Teach me a new language.” It’s an application that you’ll eventually be able to install on your smartphone, which you then connect to your car stereo and control with your voice. The first application is a trivia game, which you can see me play above. (Since we were playing with a pre-release version of the app, we decided to make the filming process go a little smoother by partially relying on the touch controls as well.) There’s a social component to the game, where you can try to do better than your friends or other players did — it’s timed so that the experience feels like you’re playing each other live, even though it’s really, in Chen’s words, “fake synchronous.” The game is fun, but Chen acknowledged that it’s not going to be how people spend all their commute time. That’s why the company hasn’t launched its product yet — it’s working on a feature that plays comedy content from around the web, and it’s looking to expand the functionality in other ways Read more »
Enterprise Performance Analytics Startup VoloMetrix Raises $3.3M From Shasta Ventures
VoloMetrix, an enterprise analytics application that helps businesses streamline their communications and performance, has raised $3.3 million in a Series A financing round led by Shasta Ventures. The startup previously raised $1.6 million from Shasta Ventures last year. VoloMetrix essentially analyzes various business applications to help managers understand what’s going on in a business. Specifically, VoloMetrix ties in with collaborations systems, email, IM and CRMs to pull in data from employees and give managers actionable insights into what works and what doesn’t. The startup’s SaaS extracts and analyzes anonymous data from collaboration applications including email, calendars, instant messaging and enterprise social networks. Read more »