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Thursday, February 20, 2014
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Myo_Husky_RG

The Thalmic Myo armband promises to let you control pretty much anything computerized with simple hand gestures, and the videos that Thalmic itself has shown display impressive potential. But this new video from Waterloo-based robotics company Clearpath gives a glimpse of what it can do in the hands of outside developers. Outside developers who build awesome robots.


The Clearpath Husky Unmanned Vehicle is the lucky robot in the video above – what it lacks in opposable thumbs it makes up for in grit and stoic charm. The Myo has been mapped to its controls to allow it to direct forward, reverse and left/right turn movement, as well as velocity and braking.


It’s only a small step from here to full control of massive piloted combat robots created to fend off dimensional invaders from the depths of the ocean. Myo might need to come up with a Jeager-specific API first though I guess.





9:55 AM

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Image (1) hacker.png for post 181681

News that Linksys and Belkin hardware was inherently insecure and could easily allow hackers to access your local network and control your gear.


First, there is “The Moon,” a piece of malware that can infect E1000, E1200 and E2400 routers from Linksys. The malware spreads itself from router to router and but doesn’t seem to do much except spread itself far and wide.


More frightening, however, is a hack that allows hackers to access their WeMo line of smart home devices. WeMo is a line of smart wall switches and controllers that let you sense motion and control lights and appliances remotely. Hackers have inject their own firmware into the device and access the switch, change settings, and even gain access to the local network. Security firm IOActive recommends “unplugging all affected devices from the WeMo products.”


As we approach a true “Internet of things,” these things we’re connected better be secure. As devices like health trackers and thermostats become a true personal sensor systems, the data they supply will be increasingly valuable and the services they preform are increasingly mission-critical. In-home hardware, for a long time, has been unconnected. Now it isn’t.


What needs to be done? In short, hardware manufacturers must harden their systems. The WeMo hack exist simply because Belkin got lazy. They allow attackers to digitally “sign” modified firmware, thus turning the WeMo into an attack vector. While it’s probably not scary if an average intruder tries turn your light on and off, the exploit is worth quite a bit to a determined hacker who wants access to your files. The same goes for our Fitbits, Basis bands, and Pebbles – the average user has nothing to worry about but getting the heart rate of a target in various situations could offer attackers a way to socially engineer an unsuspecting target. Add in remote control of health devices like pacemakers and you have something truly scary.


Hardware has long been too hard to hack. It was unconnected and the big manufacturers tended towards the creation of dumb protocols that, while secure, couldn’t do much. Now that we expect big things out of every gewgaw, we need to be ready that those things will be hackable and, more important, hacked.





9:55 AM

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Products___Cylance

Cylance, a cyber security company founded by former Global McAfee CTO Stuart McClure, has raised $20 million in Series B funding from Blackstone, Khosla Ventures, Fairhaven Capital and a group of private investors. The company had previously raised $15 million in Series A funding last year.


Cylance frames itself as one of the most advanced threat detection engine powered by machine learning and algorithmic modeling. The company’s technology is evolving constantly based on new threats, such as malware and other cyber attacks, taking place in real-time.


“Cylance has long held the belief that security isn’t rocket science, it just needs to be incredibly effective and silent – and applying math is the secret,” said McClure in a release. “The hacking abilities of malicious actors have far outpaced the capacity of the human defender. It’s time for the old security models to fade out and bring in the new. We don’t ever have to trust the vendor anymore to determine whether something is safe or not, we can just ‘trust the math’.”


As McClure told us last year, organizations need to treat systems similar to the way healthy person treats their body. Prevention is key to remaining healthy, and systems need similar treatment except their preventative nutrients are in the form of data algorithms. Taking preventative measures makes the difference between falling victim to attack and withstanding the virus.


Clearly as attacks are getting more sophisticated, offerings that offer a preventative, evolving approach like Cylance become compelling to both organizations and investors. We’re also seeing more consolidation in this space, Morta was just acquired by Palo Alto Networks, and Mandiant was bought by security company FireEye for $1 billion.





9:40 AM

Cylance , a cyber security company founded by former Global McAfee CTO Stuart McClure, has raised $20 million in Series B funding from Black...

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Advertising

Ad-tech company Criteo just acquired French startup Tedemis for $29 million (€21 million). Originally from France, Criteo went public on the NASDAQ late last year. The company made around $250 million on the day of the IPO.


As a reminder, Criteo is a leading advertising retargeting company. For example, if you search for a particular product on an ecommerce website, you will get ads about this product around the web. This is all Criteo’s work.


After multiple pivots, Tedemis is now specialized in email marketing. The company uses the same retargeting methods for emails. It’s a good fit for Criteo as it will allow the company to easily expand its offering.


Tedemis only raised $960,000 (€700,000) from Oséo, which is now part of Bpifrance. JDN first mentioned that the two companies were in acquisition talks in November.


With one foot in the U.S. and another still in France, many wondered whether Criteo would start contributing to the French ecosystem. In particular in France, one of the reasons why it’s so hard to raise Series B, C and more is because the exit market is very small. There aren’t a lot of big tech companies in France that like to acquire or acqui-hire startups. They’d rather hire and create new internal projects.


In France, many big startups have to look for an international buyer instead. For example, Rakuten acquired PriceMinister for $274 million in 2010 (€200 million). Or more recently, Dailymotion was ready to sell to Yahoo for around $200 million before the French government got involved.


But Criteo is now big enough to make acquisitions when it makes sense. As the R&D team is still based in Paris, French ad-tech acquisitions look like a good fit. It’s a positive sign for the French ecosystem. It could boost the Series B market, which could lead to more successes à la Criteo. And more successes would mean a bigger exit market — it’s a virtuous circle.





9:40 AM

Ad-tech company Criteo just acquired French startup Tedemis for $29 million (€21 million). Originally from France, Criteo went public on t...

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bitcoin

Payments platform Balanced has been gradually adding features to enable marketplaces to accept and make payments out to their users. Today the company is announcing that it’s integrated with Coinbase and will allow its customers to accept Bitcoin.


Now usually when we get pitches on new businesses “accepting Bitcoin” — like when a crappy NBA team or a space travel company does it — I’m inclined to pass on the news because it’s just a marketing gimmick and really, who cares? Bitcoin has hardly hit mainstream adoption and so as a practical matter, the number of users buying NBA seats or booking space travel via Bitcoin is pretty insignificant.


But Balanced’s integration with Coinbase and its support for Bitcoin is a bit different.


That’s because, for one thing, Balanced operates as an API platform for two-sided payments transactions. In that way, its support for Bitcoin is mainly to enable its clients — the companies accepting payments from one party and making payouts to another — to use the feature.


Currently Balanced has more than 450 marketplaces using its payment solutions, and now any of them can easily accept Bitcoin as a payment option. It does that by connecting with end users’ Coinbase digital wallets.


According to Balanced co-founder Matin Tamizi, Coinbase will be listed as an option right alongside options for accepting credit card payments. Users who wish to pay with the new digital currency will be prompted to login to their Coinbase digital wallet — sort of like logging into Facebook Connect — and then they’ll be able to instantly have money deducted from their account.


While the Bitcoin option is now there, it’s up to Balanced clients to implement if they want to start accepting the digital currency. Tamizi told me that it would only take about a day’s work for any of its partners to add Coinbase support to their usual payments flow.


The first few customer to do so will include crowdfunding platform Crowdtilt, crowdfunding patronage startup Gittip, and gift exchange site Reddit Gifts.


For Balanced, the addition of Bitcoin is just one more option that it’s providing to customers. That includes features like pushing payments directly to debit cards and ACH payments.


The company, which was founded in 2010, has raised a total of $3.4 million from investors that include Andreessen Horowitz, CollabFund, SV Angel, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, celebrity investor Ashton Kutcher, and Reddit CEO Yishan Wong, among others. Now with more than 20 employees, it is processing more than $1 million in payments a day.





9:24 AM

Payments platform Balanced has been gradually adding features to enable marketplaces to accept and make payments out to their users. Today ...

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boxing-kangaroo

Atlanta-based Kanga has raised $1 million to create a new local delivery service that uses a crowdsourced approach to getting items from point A to point B.


An Atlanta meet-up finalist, Kanga lets customers choose from a list of drivers who will bid for delivery jobs. “Kanga also benefits local or independent retailers seeking a competitive edge over Internet retail giants by offering affordable professional delivery services,” said Scott Miller, co-founder and lead angel investor of Kanga.


That’s right: Miller isn’t just a customer, he bought the company.


Kanga can be used to deliver any items “with the exception of people, perishables or illegal substances” and users have to send a picture of the item they’re delivering before a delivery person will pick it up. The company will launch in Atlanta on March 26.


The company plans on using the cash to build out their mobile app and expand into other markets.

9:24 AM

Atlanta-based Kanga has raised $1 million to create a new local delivery service that uses a crowdsourced approach to getting items from poi...

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pocket gems episode

Mobile gaming company Pocket Gems is taking a new approach to telling stories on smartphones with the launch of a new platform called Episode.


CEO Ben Liu hinted at this last month when he talked about the company’s growth, saying that this year would see a big launch focusing on what it means to “experience a story on mobile.” Apparently, Episode is what co-founder Daniel Terry has been working on since he stepped down as CEO and became the company’s chief creative officer at the end of 2012.


Terry told me that he saw a big opportunity in mobile storytelling. After all, stories drive many forms of entertainment media, and even at Pocket Gems, when the company added story elements to its games, he said, “Players just love it, and it really enhances engagement.” Yet stories are either minimal or nonexistent in mobile games.


With Episode, Terry and his team have taken an approach that’s really focused on stories, to the extent that some might not even consider the app to be a game at all. At points in our conversation, Terry compared the approach to an interactive, animated TV show and to a “modern, mobile-first Choose Your Own Adventure.”


The demo that he gave me was pretty simple. Two animated characters were having a conversation at a club, which the player mostly just watches, but at one point the other character offered to buy me a drink and I got to choose what kind.


More exciting than the individual story is the platform that Pocket Gems has built. Using Episode, story writers can choose their settings, customize their characters, then use a simple scripting language to determine what happens, what choices the players will face, and how those choices will affect the rest of the story. Each individual chapter should only take a few minutes to finish, but as the name implies, they’re usually just pieces of a larger narrative. Users can what chapters are available in the Episode smartphone app, which functions as a sort of library.


Pocket Gems has been testing out Episode on iOS, and the company says users have already played 10 million chapters. Today, however, marks the official launch, which includes the release of an Android app and the opening of the scripting platform to anyone who wants to use it. For now, Terry said user-generated chapters will only be shareable with friends, while the public content will still come from professional writers paid by Pocket Gems. But eventually, the company could create a tiered system and start recruiting paid writers from the broader user base.


Players can play a limited number of chapters every few hours, and will have to pay to consume more. However, Terry suggested that the business model is still very much in the experimental phase. He added that the Episode platform could potentially be used to create content for other Pocket Gems games, though there are no specific plans in that area.


You can download the iOS app here. I’ll add a link to the Android app once I have it.





9:09 AM

Mobile gaming company Pocket Gems is taking a new approach to telling stories on smartphones with the launch of a new platform called Episo...

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