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Monday, January 27, 2014
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ANTI-USA

In a sign that some Russian investors are spreading their wings, Berlin-based startup CloudPartner – which claims to be Germany´s first Microsoft based White-Label-Cloud – has secured a €1.5 million ($US 2 million) Series A round from Moscow-based Runa Capital in a Series A funding. Their angle? Non US-based cloud hosting.


Cloudpartner offers German small IT businesses the ability to outsource their business into the cloud, using local data storage, and to market under this own brand name. Right now most of these kinds of businesses are using Microsoft, Google and Amazon – but the recent revelations about the privacy of data on US systems means Cloudpartner wants to take advantage of this concern, but reaching out to businesses that want to be hosted within Germany. Talk about a backlash…


In fact, CEO Markus Kempkes specifically states that it’s offering Microsoft products which can be tailored specifically to the needs of German SMBs and guaranteeing the local data storage according to ISO 27001 – an information security management system (ISMS). “With Microsoft, we use a technology from the USA, but we entrust this to the German IT companies to break the dominance of American cloud companies,” he says.


Cloudpartner.de was founded in 2013 in Berlin by Markus Kempkes, Julien Ardisson, Tim Schütte and Ivo Slavov.





2:09 AM

In a sign that some Russian investors are spreading their wings, Berlin-based startup CloudPartner – which claims to be Germany´s first Mic...

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Avegant's Glyph, which combines high-quality headphones with a retinal display for an all-in-one audiovisual device, has far surpassed its $250,000 Kickstarter goal since its Wednesday launch. The Glyph blew past its target within four hours, and by mid-day Friday had drawn $608,002 from 1,264 contributors. Backers who donate $499 or more earn a fully functional prototype of the device. The Glyph looks like a set of large headphones, but it has a visor that can be flipped down and worn in front of the eyes to create a personal mobile theater.


1:25 AM

Avegant's Glyph, which combines high-quality headphones with a retinal display for an all-in-one audiovisual device, has far surpassed...

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nielsen ad spend

Nielsen put out its latest figures on the state of the advertising market this morning, and Internet advertising continues to be the fastest-growing medium, it remains a small player. Global advertising across the web, mobile internet and apps collectively grew by 32.4% in 2013 — by far the biggest leap of any media — but that still worked out to a 4.5% share of the overall spend in ads. In contrast, television grew only 4.3% but remains the behemoth when it comes to ad spend, taking nearly 58% of the market.


“While it comes as no surprise that Internet is the most rapidly growing media type for advertisers, television is still the leading medium by spend by a long shot,” writes Randall Beard, Global Head of Advertiser Solutions, Nielsen. “But the really exciting development is how the two can work together. We are consistently seeing advertisers turn to integrated campaigns to connect with consumers on multiple screens, reinforcing their messages strategically to maximize impact.”

Indeed, it’s a measure of why leading internet companies that have based their business models on advertising continue to look at ways of incorporating more video-related advertising into their overall mix.


The news comes in the same week that Google (the leader in internet advertising) and Facebook (which is now taking steps to become more of an ad network) will both be reporting their quarterly earnings. While Google owns YouTube, the world’s biggest online video site, Facebook, too, has been moving into video ads as well. And of course Twitter has hung its star on television for both audience and advertising growth.


Nielsen points out that one area where Internet is playing particularly strong is in the area of multiscreen and advertising across web, mobile and more, so we can expect to see more of a push in that area also from the big internet companies.


Elsewhere in the market, advertising remains challenged — with radio, newspapers, magazines and cinema all declining, and outdoor being the only other category to see any growth in 2013, at 5.1%.


nielsen ad spend pct change






1:09 AM

Nielsen put out its latest figures on the state of the advertising market this morning, and Internet advertising continues to be the fastes...

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Sunday, January 26, 2014
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pricepanda2

PricePanda, the Rocket Internet-backed price comparison site, has raised $3 million in new funding from the German retail major Tengelmann Group. This new funding will be used to expand PricePanda in other South Asian markets, the company said.


Rocket Internet and AB Kinnevik are among existing investors of PricePanda.


E-commerce is booming in Asia, especially with more first time Internet users shopping on their mobile phones. Many of them are increasingly turning to sites such as PricePanda that helps them compare prices of different products available on the e-commerce sites. Since it was launched in 2012, PricePanda has redirected 1 million users to buy online from other partner sites.


Earlier this month, when PricePanda announced redirecting 1 million users to partner sites, the startup’s co-founder Christian Schiller said the growth of mobile commerce in South East Asia was the key.


“This year, we can expect to scale rapidly and reach further milestones. And converting 1M people to our partner shops is just the beginning,” Schiller had said.


“One and a half years later we can say: we made it. With more than 70,000 products and 1M people redirected to other stores’ websites, we have already gained a strong competitive edge in South East Asia,” Schiller added.


PricePanda did not share the total funding received before raising the latest capital from Tengelmann. But according to this story in TechCrunch, PricaPanda was rumored to be backed with $12.8 million when it was launched in 2012.





8:09 PM

PricePanda , the Rocket Internet-backed price comparison site, has raised $3 million in new funding from the German retail major Tengelmann ...

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fitbit-force

Personal fitness trackers and sleep trackers are officially mainstream, but deciding between the various devices out there can be tough.


That said, let me direct your attention to the Fitbit Force, the latest and most full-featured product from the quantified self makers.


The Fitbit Force, unlike the lower-end Flex, has a nice little display on it that shows steps taken, flights climbed, calories burned, as well as sleep information.


It even shows the time of day.


Even better, the Force pairs with Fitbit’s nutrition app, letting you input food-intake information track your health over time.


In our experience, there’s nothing on the market that is more accurate or robust.


However, the band isn’t my favorite. It’s caused skin irritation for some users, whom Fitbit refunded. Plus, it’s simply not as well-designed as something like the FuelBand.


But hey, you win some and you lose some.


The Fitbit Force goes for $129 and comes in slate blue and black.





3:23 PM

Personal fitness trackers and sleep trackers are officially mainstream, but deciding between the various devices out there can be tough. Th...

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Screen Shot 2014-01-26 at 2.39.53 PM

This weekend AdDuplex, an advertising platform for Windows applications, announced that according to its tracked data, Windows Phone Update 3 is now installed on 15% of Windows Phone 8 handsets.


Microsoft tore the wrapping off of Update 3 — also known as GDR3 — in October, detailing to the media what it would include, and providing notes on its delivery schedule. Developers could get their hands on the code sooner, but the average user, as TechCrunch wrote at the time, would “get the updates between the Fall, and the early parts of 2014. Carrier considerations, testing, and the like will determine when precisely your handset gets the bump.”


To see a mere 15% of the Windows Phone 8 pool of handsets have the update as January comes to a close I think is slightly disappointing. We could, perhaps, see a surge of firmware updates come in the next few months, but it’s safe to say now that the pace of upgrade from firmware announcement to installation on a plurality of devices is a long cycle in the Windows Phone world.


I had no benchmark in mind of how far along Update 3 should have been at any given moment, but I do think that it is reasonable to say that 15% after a quarter is a slower uptake pace than we might have hoped for given that the software is free for consumers.


Carriers, presumably, are the sticking point. If Microsoft wants to more quickly move its new code to extant Windows Phone consumers it will need new strategy. Unless, like with Android Microsoft is content with fragmentation that will see its user base stratified across versions, hampering developers and not maximizing the strength of its own user experience.


Kicked to the above is the fact that Windows Phone 8.1 is on the way, likely in April. If carriers don’t get out-of-the-way, some users may end up moving to 8.1 before Update 3 trickles down to their handset.


Top Image Credit: Flickr





2:54 PM

This weekend AdDuplex , an advertising platform for Windows applications, announced that according to its tracked data, Windows Phone Updat...

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Some breaking news in the patent world. Samsung, the world’s biggest handset maker, has announced that it has signed a 10-year patent deal with Google, the maker of Android, the world’s biggest mobile operating system, covering all current and future technology patents.


More to come. Full statement below.



Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Google Inc. today furthered their long-term cooperative partnership with a global patent cross-license agreement covering a broad range of technologies and business areas. The mutually beneficial agreement covers the two companies’ existing patents as well as those filed over the next 10 years.


“We’re pleased to enter into a cross-license with our partner Samsung,” said Allen Lo, Deputy General Counsel for Patents at Google. “By working together on agreements like this, companies can reduce the potential for litigation and focus instead on innovation.”


With this agreement, Samsung and Google gain access to each other’s industry-leading patent portfolios, paving the way for deeper collaboration on research and development of current and future products and technologies.


“This agreement with Google is highly significant for the technology industry,” said Dr. Seungho Ahn, the Head of Samsung’s Intellectual Property Center. “Samsung and Google are showing the rest of the industry that there is more to gain from cooperating than engaging in unnecessary patent disputes.”

1:24 PM

Some breaking news in the patent world. Samsung, the world’s biggest handset maker, has announced that it has signed a 10-year patent deal w...

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