Indoor mapping software startup Meridian , continues to evolve their product strategy with a recent update to their offering . Called Zones , the company’s newest update to their indoor mapping platform — and indoor is the key word here — allows geo-fence style app push notifications to be scheduled, by drawing polygons on location maps. When customers with the accompanying app walk into one of those indoor areas represented by the polygon on the map…Bam! They get a push notification. To be sure, it’s a real marketing opportunity and a concept underserved by the current, mostly GPS-based location awareness model for mobile devices. Differentiators There are several geo-fencing platforms out there — PlaceCast , Digby Localpoint , Wifarer and ShopKick all come to mind — so what is the big deal here? Meridian’s VP of Marketing Jeff Hardison, believes there are several differences in the Meridian approach. First of all, this notification system will work even when the accompanying app is not open nor in active use — essentially working while the app is in background mode — without significant battery drain. Other geo-fence providers might be able to do this via GPS or cell tower triangulation, but not by WiFi sensing, which is how Meridian works Read more »
Google I/O: Watch The Live Video Stream Here
Google’s annual I/O conference in San Francisco kicks off this morning at 9am PT/noon ET and, as usual, the good folks from Mountain View are making a live video stream of the event available for all of you who can’t be there in person. Unlike other years, when Google ran two separate keynotes on the first two days of I/O, the company is only running a single keynote this time around. Last year’s skydiving antics definitely set the bar very high for this year’s event and so far, we haven’t heard how Google plans to top this today. We do expect to hear quite a bit about Google+, however, and the rumor mill also predicts the launch of the next version of Google Talk/Hangouts, some news about Compute Engine and, of course, Google Glass – the star of last year’s event. The keynote is scheduled to last for a whopping three hours, so grab your coffee, donuts or popcorn, kick back, and enjoy the show. If you can’t watch the video, you can also find our play-by-play live blog here . Read more »
Angry Birds Maker Rovio Will Now Publish And Market Select Third-Party Games
Rovio Entertainment, maker of the popular line of “Angry Birds” games, announced today that its expanding its business to include third-party titles, which it will publish, distribute and market to consumers. The new program is being called “Rovio Stars,” and makes available the company’s expertise as well as its marketing teams to other publishers. The first title to be released under the new effort is “Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage,” by Nitrome Ltd. The Icebreaker game, which follows the adventures of a lone Viking, will be followed by medieval adventure and puzzle game “Tiny Thief,” made by 5 Ants. This is the first time Rovio has included third-party titles in its lineup, the company announced this morning via a blog post and press release. “We want to help the developers to give these games that last coat of polish, publish the games and find their audience,” said Rovio’s Director of Development Kalle Kaivola. “We’re focusing on a small, select number of games, and each Rovio Stars launch will be an event of its own.” That “last coat of polish” means Rovio will actually assist its partners in finalizing game production and with post-production, the company explains. Read more »
How A Car Crash Changed Vishal Sikka And The Direction Of SAP
It’s a rare fall rainy day in Palo Alto and SAP Executive Board Member Dr. Vishal Sikka is as sick as a dog. It’s less than a week until SAP Sapphire in Madrid and the community around him are like a worrying family. I had told them that it is okay. I could make the trip another time. But they were insistent I make the trip. Fast forward to May. Read more »
Cisco Meraki Launches “Presence”, With Facebook Account Log-In To Wireless Networks
Cisco Meraki has launched a new service called Presence that provides data about mobile behavior across location and automatic log-in to wireless hotspots using a person’s Facebook account. Presence additionally provides an API that allows integration with real-time location data into CRM and other business systems. Presence also allows for third-party data integration that can be analyzed with location-based information. Merak was acquired by Cisco last November for $1.2 billion . According to Josh Constine’s post, Meraki began as a research project at MIT in 2006. It provides mid to large-size companies, schools, and organizations with on-premise mesh Wi-Fi networking and security devices plus the software to manage them. Its technology is now integrated into Cisco access points. Read more »
Security Firm: “Syria Has Largely Disappeared From The Internet”
Page views served to #Syria via @ CloudFlare over a 15-minute period an hour ago: 6628. Page views served in the last 15 minutes: 3. — Matthew Prince (@eastdakota) May 07, 2013 War-torn Syria is reportedly experiencing massive Internet outages. Both Google’s transparency monitor and security firm Cloudflare are reporting near zero levels of traffic out of the area. This isn’t the first time the beleaguered nation has experienced Internet issues. Back in 2012, the Syrian government, in attempt to paralyze opposition rebels, cut the entire country off from the rest of the world . “Syria has largely disappeared from the Internet,” writes security firm, Umbrella, about the abrupt traffic stop today. Umbrella describes how such a cutoff is possible, “Routing on the Internet relies on the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) Read more »
Basico Gets $500K To Launch Luxury Apparel Basics E-Commerce Brand For Brazil
When it comes to quickly growing markets, it’s hard to beat Brazil, where an emerging middle class is driving strong demand for all kinds of products — particularly in the e-commerce sector. The latest startup primed to take advantage of this boom is Basico , which just raised $500,000 in seed funding led by Initial Capital , the Israeli/Brazilian VC fund headed up by investor (and frequent TechCrunch contributor) Roi Carthy , along with Brazilian angel investor Guilherme Soarez. Basico aims to essentially be Brazil’s answer to Everlane , by being the country’s first online-only premium basic apparel brand. The company, which has a full-time staff of seven, will use the new funding to gear up for its public launch slated for this summer, CEO Alexandre (Bio) Veiga tells me. Basico’s first line of products will include t-shirts, polos, tank tops, and underwear for both men and women. Basico’s apparel will be made in Peru, as that’s where high-end Pima cotton is grown, Veiga says, and t-shirts will cost the equivalent of $25, half the typical retail price for comparable Pima tees sold in Brazil Read more »
The Nook HD and HD+ Get Google Play, Knocking Down The Wall On The Barnes & Noble Android Garden
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 »
Readying For An IPO, Peer-To-Peer Lending Marketplace Lending Club Raises $125M From Google And Others At $1.6B Valuation
Peer-to-peer lending platform Lending Club is announcing a huge new investor today: Google. Google and existing investor Foundation Capital have put $125 million in Lending Club, which was valued at $1.55 billion in the round. As part of this investment Google will take an observer seat on the Lending Club Board alongside existing Board members including Kleiner Perkins’ Mary Meeker, ex-chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley John Mack and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. The investment by Google came as part of a secondary transaction whereby new and existing investors acquired shares from existing investors. Last year, Lending Club raised $17.5 million from Kleiner Perkins, bringing its total outside investment to just under $100 million. Because this is a secondary round, there is no new money being raised, as Google and Foundation are buying out existing early investors Read more »
Angel Investor, Spotify Fixer Shakil Khan Launches Coindesk, A Bitcoin Resource
Shakil Khan, an angel investor and advisor to Spotify, just launched Coindesk , a Bitcoin resource and news site, amid a boatload of hype and VC interest in the crypto-currency. Khan says Coindesk was a project he conceived of about four weeks ago, around when Bitcoin was surging to an all-time high. It’s now trading at around $124.38, or about half as much as it was trading at a few weeks ago. “I was just sitting there and I literally had five e-mails that day from very seasoned entrepreneurs, asking me — what do you know about Bitcoin?” said Khan, who has invested in the space. He was part of a roughly half-million dollar round in Bitpay , which is trying to make it dead simple for merchants to incorporate Bitcoin as a payments method. “There’s a lack of transparent information Read more »