Bethlehem PA Startup: Weather Trades Video Interview

Rarely have I found a company that deals with a force that disrupts more lives than any other issue.  Weather.  We’ve all watched the local meteorologist completely drop the ball and get it wrong.  Weather Trades, a spin-off from Weather Trends International, has a product that could change the way you live.  Seriously.

Here in the United States the typical yearly vacation time is an extremely limited two weeks.  We take huge risks when we book our travel for that short period of time.  Have you ever been to an outdoor wedding that ended up inside?  Have you ever wondered if you should keep those winter clothes out for another 6 weeks?  I have been directly or indirectly affected by each of these scenarios. If you could see a weather forecast for the next year – worldwide – with an accuracy of 80% or better how would your life be different?

Imagine you are the largest retailer in the world, and you have to decide to purchase air conditioners from the manufacturers but cannot decide whether or not to buy all of the stock or a third of it. Walmart had to make that decision:

“We bought all of the home center’s uncommitted air circulation orders from the manufacturers and had a great year.  Our sell through was 98% compared to 85% last year based solely on a huge decision we made using your year-ahead summer forecast. A $130,000,000 win in one category.” Gordon Erickson, Senior Vice President Merchandising-Hardlines

Commodities Traders:

WTI is the ONLY company in the world that provides YEAR-AHEAD forecasts that can be integrated into trading models and other business applications. WTI provides a complete suite of products and services for commodity traders, energy traders, and the entire agricultural industry. This includes typical short range-forecasting services along with proprietary year-ahead global forecasts and analytical assessments for grains, sugar, energy, and other weather driven commodity markets across the globe.

Travel Sites: After approaching the more popular travel sites on the internet and being turned down Weather Trades turned their sites on TechCrunch Disrupt to hopefully find developers, startups, and investors who can build upon the unique tools that they’ve created. In all honesty this is the startup that had me most excited.  To see a little more check out the interview by Kyle below.  I will also be reviewing their wt360 Pro app in the coming days.  It’s available in the App Store and Google Play

Find out more about Weather Trades here

Check out more of our TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012 coverage here

We’re on a sneaker strapped, nationwide, startup road trip, for more on that (and to support our cause) click here

Philly Startup: Blue Claw Tough Stylish Bags Made in America

 The Blue Claw Company is a Philadelphia area startup that launched in 2010. Blue Claw Co manufactures handmade Luxury Bags that have the bright bold look that the mid 20’s to mid 30’s business professional craves and the durability to handle all the travel people can throw at them.  As many of our readers know we spend significant periods of time on the road.  Just last month we traveled to Chattanooga, Washington DC, and other cities along the eastern shore of United States.  We are preparing to head off on the “Road Trip to Everywhere Else.” So Blue Claw came into our lives at just the perfect moment.

We tend to have at least two or three bags a piece before getting on the road and most of our “luggage” consists of backpack or messenger bags.  We have been in need of at least one professional appearing bag for each of us.  I’ve struggled with a very strong dislike for plain bags.  If my bag is impossible to identify at the baggage claim; or if somebody could easily walk anonymously away with my bag – well, I don’t feel comfortable.  As you can see in the photo above, the Worton Weekender maintains a professional look but with flair.

Most of their bags come with waterproof liners an absolute must for other tech geeks like us.  The bags offered by Blue Claw are made with Imported Leather and 1050 D Ballistic nylon.  This is to help provide years of use (and abuse) by seasoned travelers and still be available to hand down to their kids.  What was the impetus that caused the decision to launch a luxury bag company in the midst of a recession?  How did this all come about?  We asked Adam Blitzer (Founder) a number of questions.

 

1. Your name is Adam (last name?) and your co-founder is named?

My name is Adam Blitzer. My cofounder’s name is Alex Realmuto.

2. When you contacted us you said “If you guys are interested in covering a startup that is bringing jobs back to the USA and the improbable concept of starting a luxury company amidst a recession…” You bring up a great point, what were you thinking? Was there a specific set of circumstances or was this just a “let’s do this, economy be damned” decision.

As crazy as it sounds, it was actually the perfect time to launch. People were cutting out impulsive purchases which is exactly what we are not. No matter what the economy is doing, people value quality products that will last forever. We knew if we created the perfect line, people would become brand advocates. There were not a ton of luxury bag companies popping up at the time so the buzz was magnified. This really helped get the ball rolling.

Read More…

Startup in Space: Skybox Imaging Raises $70M to revolutionize Satellite Imagery

San Francisco:  Skybox Imaging announced they had raised $70 million (US) in Series C financing. Led by Canaan Partners and Norwest Venture Partners, including Bessemer Venture Partners and CrunchFund.  Khosla Ventures was involved in this round after financing Skybox in their Series A $3 million (US) and Series B $18 million (US) – Bessemer Venture Partners was involved in Series B as well.

What is Skybox Imaging? From their website:

Skybox Imaging is a commercial remote sensing startup seeking to revolutionize access to information that describes the daily activity on our planet. Founded in 2009, Skybox is designing, manufacturing, and operating the world’s first coordinated constellation of high-resolution microsatellites in order to deliver timely imagery and video of any spot in the world. Skybox headquarters is in Mountain View, California.  For more information, please visitwww.skyboximaging.com and follow Skybox Imaging on Twitter.

Basically they seem to have come up with “micro-satellites” which they will use in an extraterrestrial network of many micro-satellites. They have found a way to cut the costs involved in satellite production and operation by very significant margin and thus have likely been able to gain a number of significant clients from Big Government, Relief Organizations, perhaps Google*.  As Michael Arrington said over on his site

If a company was able to do that, and put a satellite into space at a small fraction of the current cost, they’d likely be able to lock down a number of high profile customers for a variety of previously cost-prohibitive applications. Confidentiality agreements and U.S. export regulations might prohibit that company from disclosing much, or any, of that information.

But investors would obviously have access to that information. You can draw your own conclusions as to why the company is hiring big data engineers in droves…”

Read More…

Mini Review: HTC One S for T-Mobile

HTC sent us their latest device for T-Mobile (announcement is coming shortly from NYC) the One S. This device is part of “the new HTC” a return to form by the Taiwanese company after a devastating 4Q 2011. After an onslaught of very similar models across the “high-end” of the Android OS market the brand was becoming diluted. Last year saw (in the US)  the launch of Thunderbolt 4G, Evo Shift 4G, Droid Incredible 2, Merge, Sensation 4G,  Evo 3D, Status, MyTouch 4G Slide, Rhyme, Hero S, Wildfire S, Amaze 4G, Evo  Design 4G, Vivid, and lastly the Rezound. 16 phones, nearly half of which were considered high-end devices.  HTC Chief Financial Officer Winston said “We simply dropped the ball on products in the fourth quarter.” Q1 2012 was a huge disappointment as our sister site TheDroidGuy reported two weeks ago.

So, how about the One is it “the one“?

Hardware

Beginning with the first touch I thought, this feels like their mid to low-end devices – SPECTACULAR.  I mean that in all sincerity.  I loved the quality and construction of both the Status AND the Radar 4G (Windows Phone 7) devices.  They were constructed out of solid pieces of aluminum.  I was baffled why two of the best devices were made of this amazing metal but not the “halo” devices like Sensation 4G, Amaze 4G, or  Evo 3D.  The screen is a 4.3″ SuperAMOLED qHD (960×540) resolution*.   It comes with Android 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and Sense 4.0 HTC’s custom UI overlay.  The phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 CPU, 1GB DDR2, and it operates on T-Mobile’s HSPA+ (42 Mbps) network.  It also comes with Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-FI 802.11 b/g/n, and HDMI via MHL connector (not included).  The storage is non-expandable 16GB (available space is split into 2.2 GB system and 9.9 GB external partitions). HTC has teamed with Dropbox to provide an additional 25 GB of “free” storage – if you don’t include data usage, that is.

The battery, which you cannot remove, is 1650 mAh.  This is significantly smaller than the Motorola Droid Razr 1780 mAh (another device without a removable battery).  It remains to be seen if this was a mistake or a HUGE mistake on the part of HTC.  I’ve never personally owned a HTC device without owning at least one additional battery for it.

Visual/Audio

One of the top selling points for this reviewer is the new HTC ImageSense which “improves every part of the camera including the lens, the sensor, the software, and integrates a new custom HTC ImageChip.  Inside it has an 8MP lens with f/2.0 aperture capture.  The Rezound shipped with a f/2.2 aperture (smaller is “better”).  The camera can be used to simultaneously shoot both video and still shots which I’ve tested extensively.  It works amazingly well and is flawless during video playback.

 

HTC also focused on the sound output in the One S using Beats By Dre Audio to handle the processing of audio.  Unlike the Rezound the One S did not come with Beats headphones.  The Beats audio has been made available across the range of listening situations that I have used it for.  The Rezound’s Beats output was limited to HTC Music and HTC watch.  I was severely disappointed with that experience on the Rezound and appreciate that HTC addressed that issue.

Software

HTC launched the One series with Android’s latest 4.0.3 ICS (Ice Cream Sandwich) and their custom UI Sense 4.0.  I somewhat jokingly and somewhat seriously commented about my feelings regarding (the unofficial) Sense 3.6 leak for the Sensation 4G a few months back in this video (no need to watch, honestly).  I won’t lie – I hated it.  I still have a very strong dislike of Sense 3.6 but I’ve come to love Sense 4.0.

Sense 4.0 has followed the lead set by ICS yet still maintains a very familiar feel to the Sense that people have grown accustomed to.  When you first turn on the device and the home screen loads the ubiquitous HTC Sense Clock widget greets you at the top of the screen. It looks, refreshed, almost different but isn’t.  Well, it is ever so slightly different, it is now using the Roboto font (I believe) – if it is not Roboto then it is a different font than it always has been.  The full suite of widgets are pre-loaded from HTC.

So far I’ve truly enjoyed the HTC One S in the short time that I have had it.  I only received it on Monday so I cannot, in good conscience, give a full review.  I will say that this is one of the fastest phones I’ve used to date, both in benchmarks and in real-world use.  There have been very few cases of the phone ever stuttering or seeming to be unresponsive, swiping from home screen to home screen is fast and fluent.  Music playback is great, I have yet to playback any video, web browsing is quick.  It’s impossible to judge battery life in such a short period of time and to do so would be unfair because of the amount of use it gets.  I will say that I have been relatively impressed with battery life so far.  I used it a lot yesterday and I only needed to put it on charge one time towards the end of the day.

Mini Review thoughts:

Strengths:

Gorgeous design

Weight and Thinness are nearly perfect (clearly personal opinion)

Camera is spectacular (incredible in low-light situations)

Weaknesses:

Non-expandable memory

Non-removable battery

Extremely slippery

 

*INTERESTINGLY the resolution shows up as 540×888 in my favorite app for system information Elixir 2 – this application has NEVER been wrong before, so I’ve pinged the developer for some insight. Also it is a PenTile display: The use of a SAMOLED screen means that my biggest gripe with the Galaxy Nexus (though less noticeable here, surprisingly) is the use of the pentile matrix for the pixel layout.  I’ll do a separate post regarding PenTile displays tomorrow.

Philly Phocus: HACK – Technology Based Art and Design Exhibit

Philly Phocus #2 – We look at HACK “A TECHNOLOGY BASED DESIGN AND ART EXHIBITION

 WHAT IS HACK PHILLY THEN?

HACK is an open call for technology based projects. Inviting participation from the design, art, hacker, and DIY communities in Philadelphia. We are encouraging collaborative works for submission, but this is not a requirement. We are asking for a range of works; from 2D to 3D works, applications, wearables, installation, objects, and performances.

The emergence of new technology has unveiled a community of people who may or may not consider themselves artists or designers. Hackers are liberating these technologies from the intentions of their original creators, thus rendering new raw materials resulting in unintended consequences. Ultimately, traditional borders do not bind these interstitial communities; by re-appropriating, merging, extending, and breaking down barriers through disruption, these hackers are creating something new and innovative.

HACK will take place as part of Philly Tech Week on April 27 and 28, 2012. Both nights will have the gallery show as well as live performances.

WHY ARE WE COVERING THIS?

In the next 11 days we will be following Philadelphia startups in a lot of depth.  April 20 – 22 we will be covering Philadelphia Startup Weekend which is included in Philly Tech Week but is still its own event.  Following that Philly Tech Week goes from April 20-28 because of that I figure we should highlight one of the events that I am most excited about attending, and not just as a blogger/journalist but as a local boy with a number of friends who would have been a perfect fit for this exhibit.

Taking a break from the constant discussions and walking and letting somebody else handle the control of your mind for a short while might just help you relax or it might just be able to set off your own creative spark.  Taking a few minutes to an hour out of your 6-8 days there will not kill you.  So, if you have yet to check out HACK

Follow that link, it’ll take you to their kickstarter page (the VERY MODEST) amount requested has been reached so Andrew has decided to attempt to raise additional money – FUNDING SUCCESSFUL ! New STRETCH GOAL: $ 2000 ! 

If we meet our new stretch goal, the quality of the catalog, shirts, and overall exhibition will be greatly increased !!!

TutHopper Wins Startup Weekend – Kansas City

Kansas City: TutHopper took the top prize at the Startup Weekend in Kansas City.  Like many (if not all) discussions about startups, the inevitable comparison to either a hot company like Pinterest or Path or even the mighty Facebook, Tuthopper is being compared to the site codecademy.

I usually cringe when I hear a colleague of mine begin a conversation with a startup with “So your app is like blank company but different, right?”  That just starts everything off on the wrong foot (IMO).  In the case of TutHopper, I think it is absolutely fair to make that connection, because it really is very similar in scope and practice to Codecademy the only difference being TutHopper is focused on children.

The TutHopper team was made up of 10 members (2 of whom are women) Carrie Royce, Cindy Fisher, and then Justin Murray, Kyle Webster Adam Arredondo, Coty Beasley, Eze Redwood, DJ Good, Troy Norris and Jon Kors. This team, like all the other participants in the weekend, came together on Friday following  a presentation of the favored pitches.  Then the group of 98 participants split into 13 different groups to put together a product that could at least be marketed as well as have a polished pitch prepared for the judges.  Out of the 13 teams, 12 teams made their pitch at the end of the weekend.  Discussing the idea behind TutHopper and why it is important, Carrie Royce stated,

“Kids have a greater capacity for learning if they’re exposed to concepts early on—reading, math, even foreign language. And in essence, programming is a foreign language—a language that kids are going to need in the future given the increasing role technology plays in our lives,” said Carrie Royce, team member of TutHopper and CMO at Red Nova Labs. “But the education system in the U.S. isn’t taking on that challenge. Computer games are an ideal way to get kids engaged in learning programming outside the school system. If the games are sufficiently fun and challenging, kids will be proactive about signing on and learning at increasingly complex levels.”

Meanwhile fellow team member Adam Arredondo shared how it was behind the scenes for the team,

“Our team was unselfish and hardworking with enough comic relief to keep everyone upbeat,” said Adam Arredondo of the group’s vibe. “It was a huge relief that the judges were able to look past the technical errors during our presentation and see the tremendous potential TutHopper really has.”

 

The following are prizes for first, second, and third:

  • First place – 3 months of free space at Office Port for up to 5 people. And a booth at the Sprint Innovation Summit where several Sprint execs and investors will be accessible for potential funding and advising.
  • Second place – $1,000 worth legal services
  • Third place – Organizer high-fives, coke and smile.

Coming in second place was Keyzio “Where every house is for sale.” Basically if you find a house that you are interested in purchasing you can take a photo with the GPS coordinates embedded in the meta data in the photo and when you arrive home you are able to send a postcard notifying the currents owners your interest, even if the home is not on the market. And in third place was the Grüple team with yet another option for mobile payments.  Grüple is an app that creates, notifies and provides different groups with simple and quick ways to conduct monetary reimbursements.

Microryza: Crowdfunding for scientific research with only one prize: learning

Seattle, Washington: Microryza is tackling the lack of funding for scientific research using “crowdfunding.”  Thinking differently regarding what should drive the bidding and decided to not follow along the lines of Kickstarter with prizes or exclusives, instead the offer the gift of learning. In the companies FAQ they explain the decision to forgo the prizes,

Other crowdfunding websites provide tangible returns. Why doesn’t Microryza researchers provide tangible rewards?

We believe the real value is in the process, regardless of whether or not you meet your project aims. While providing donors with tangible rewards is good at getting funding, we don’t want you to be held liable if you don’t achieve your promised rewards.We understand that sometimes, your research project just doesn’t go as expected. That’s alright, because that is just the nature of research. If you knew things what to expect, then you wouldn’t be doing anything new.

Co-founder Denny Luan states,  “what matters is the process, not the results,” says Luan “You can’t really offer things like ‘I will name a newly discovered butterfly species after you’” in the hope that you can deliver that if you get funded.

I am going to borrow a paragraph from the website Insidehighered, due to both their outstanding story and the fact that they’ve followed the progress of Microryza for some time now.

There’s a strong social component to the startup that Luan is building with Microryza – it’s not just a place for funding, but a place for networking and sharing research. In fact, Luan describes Microryza as a “social learning” site, and he’s clear that while the goal is certainly to have scientific research projects funded, the emphasis isn’t just on the outcomes of that research. It’s on the process itself.

What is the cost for either donor or researcher? “We take a small transaction fee for all successfully funded projects, which is 10%. This includes the 3% processing fee we have to pay for payment processing.For details on how the payment processing fee is calculated, please view Stripe’s pricing. If your project does not meet its goal, we won’t charge to you or your donors.” Are donations tax-deductible? They will be soon! We’re currently working on channeling your donations directly to the researcher’s host institution so that you can receive a tax receipt from the Institution’s respective 501(3)c entity. Stay tuned for more info.

The overall design of the site is very attractive yet is also usable.  There are currently only 8 projects up on the site and they are cycled through in the top three slots highlighting the projects.

Each project is given space to include a brief introduction of the project, researcher, and includes a place to include any relevant publications or papers they’ve contributed on. The researcher is then asked a number of questions some of which are more generic as seen below and others are more targeted to their project:

  • So what is your project all about?
  • What inspired you to pursue this idea?
  • So this project challenges (this or that idea or problem)
  • Why does this project matter to you?
  • How do you define success?
  • What do you plan to share with your backers?
  • What’s the risk associated with a project like this?
  • If you could tell your backers any one thing, what would it be? Seriously, anything.
  • And what does this project depend on in order to be successful?
  • What are the next steps for this project?
  • What if it succeeds?

 

Some of the Denny Luan quotes are from this article over at insidehighered UNFORTUNATELY, I did not manage to note who the original source was for this story, I saw it in our Google+ Stream

 

Uber: Mobile Web App launched for those “other OSes” Windows Phone 7 and Blackberry

Yesterday Uber announced on their blog that they would begin to support Blackberry and Windows Phone 7 devices (and beyond, whatever that means).  With the launch of m.uber.com users of the once dominant and almost relevant Operating Systems can finally take advantage of one of my personal favorite startups.

Prior to the mobile app being launched it was not possible to order a cab through devices other than iOS or Android, before that even Android was waiting in line (pun intended).  Uber said in their blog post,

We’re excited to announce that our latest product, m.uber.com has been built with love and care for BlackBerry, Windows Phone and beyond! We want to make the Uber experience available to everyone, regardless of phone or carrier. That’s why we’ve introduced mobile web requests to let you request an Uber at any time from any phone……And when you make requests, you can also save favorite locations for places you frequently request from, such as home or work.

We recently stopped in to Uber’s Washington DC office but did not get a chance to spend any time talking to them about their expansion into new cities nor could we discuss the full-blown assault by the DC Taxi Cab Association.  We are huge fans of the service though and we have been keeping a close eye on when they will be invading my hometown of Philadelphia.  If you are in Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Paris, Seattle, Chicago, Toronto, or New York and you haven’t used Uber yet….you should.  It’s that good.

Philadelphia Phocus: Incubator Novotorium adds second company inhabi

Inhabi is a service which matches landlords and prospective renters with each other.  Using proprietary system to find the perfect match.  The Philadelphia region is home to a relatively new incubator (or accelerator) Novotorium.  They say that “Novatorium is a new concept and unlike most of the incubators and accelerators that you may already know.”   Instead of finding companies who are looking to sell to another company for a big payout Novotorium focuses on companies who are aiming for “organic growth, profitability and sustainability” and are in it for the long haul.

Back on March 15, 2012 Technically Philly announced that Novotorium was looking for a second company to join their incubator program.  On March 29th it was announced that inhabi would be joining Novotorium.  Philadelphia currently has a number of incubators DreamIt Ventures, Project Liberty, Seed Philly, Good Company, and others.  Over the course of the next few weeks we hope to be meeting with a number of these incubators/accelerators as well as planning  to bring you coverage from Philadelphia Tech Week

The above  list comes from an article on TechnicallyPhilly Desks for Startups: Infrastructure for entrepreneurs or budding startup bubble?

AOL Wont Pull A Yahoo And Sue, They’ll Just Sell Instead

AOL is rumored to be looking into possibly selling some of its patent portfolio Bloomberg reported earlier today.  Tim Armstrong and Co. have watched their fortunes fall away since the split from Time Warner Inc.  They have hired Evercore Partners to somehow bring in a cash infusion.

Starboard Value LP, an AOL shareholder, has stated they feel the patent portfolio may be valued as high as US $1 billion from licensing income.  Bloomberg had this quote in their article earlier,

AOL’s portfolio includes “some of the foundation patents for the Internet,” AOL Chief Executive Officer Tim Armstrong said at a Barclays Capital conference this month.

While Yahoo recently sued Facebook over 10 patents and many people feel this is the low-road because it’s a last ditch effort to bring in some money.  There is only one person I could find who agrees that Yahoo is doing the right thing.*  AOL instead is possibly looking into licensing their patents.

AOL had announced in September 2011 that they had on retainer lawfirm Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz and the investment bank Allen & Co. after news had leaked of meetings with both.  Many people have felt that AOL was looking to move to private ownership but as the ability to earn anything diminishes with each passing quarter.  In Q4 2009 AOL had total revenue of US$809 million in Q4 2011 they had declined to US$576 million.  Advertising revenue dropped from $471 million (Q4 2009) to $363 (Q4 2011) despite a growth year-over-year from 2010.

While the idea of licensing their patent portfolio may make Tim Armstrong giddy it remains to be seen if they will take the high road and attempt to license or take the low road and sell to any number of notorious patent trolls.  It would not be the first time that a huge company starting with the letter A has chosen to work with an alleged patent troll.  Apple came under fire after TechCrunch writer Jason Kincaid uncovered some interesting information

Put another way, Apple appears to have transferred its patents to the patent troll Digitude, though it first routed them through a shell company that shares the same office as Digitude’s lead investor and Chairman. Further evidence of the relationship between Apple and Digitude can be found on the ITC’s own website, where a list of files relevant to the lawsuit can be found. Many of these files are marked confidential, but it appears someone mistakenly left the file names intact. One of which is “Digitude-Apple License Agreement.”

At the end of the day we don’t know their plans at this point but we will keep you informed of any future updates.

*there’s a catch, it’s still wrong but it works for the greater good.

Source:  Bloomberg

YouTube remotely accesses the camera on your tablet or phone

According to a “security expert” YouTube can remotely access the camera on your tablet or phone reports Read Write Web via The London Times (paywall).  The reason I even paid attention to this was the fact that it was found at the bottom of the article and was mentioned in passing.  If this were truly the case, would this not be the headline?  With all the discussions of privacy and contacts happening lately certainly this would make waves with different government agencies. This is a very serious accusation to make and yet there is no solid evidence to support this claim; actually the “evidence” provided by the “security expert” uses the description found in the permission description (read below).

In an article about Facebook reading users emails (more on that later) the London Times and RWW accused Google owned YouTube of remotely accessing the camera found on tablets and smartphones. “Facebook, according to the report, joins several high-profile Web firms that have been caught snooping on their customers. Flickr, dating site Badoo and Yahoo Messenger have all been accused of accessing users’ private data, and YouTube can remotely access and operate a smartphone’s camera, security experts told the Times.”  We pinged Google for an official statement and received this reply;

This is so silly…it requests the camera permission so you can launch camera to take a video from within the YouTube app. It’s not like the app can turn on your camera without asking you.

The permission being discussed is found in Hardware Controls and reads as follows:

TAKE PICTURES AND VIDEOS
Allows application to take pictures and videos with the camera. This allows the application at any time to collect images the camera is seeing.

The idea that Google or YouTube would give themselves the ability to remotely access your video camera is, well, silly.  It illustrates the very real issue that companies are facing when it comes to permissions and users privacy.  What is needed is more education regarding permissions and the use of data by these companies.

 

Sources: Read Write Web via The London Times

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Path, your contacts, and disaster response: Dave Morin takes the high road

Path co-founder Dave Morin takes the high road today, after the news that your complete contact list is being uploaded to their servers. This morning a developer named Arun Thampi released an article titled: Path uploads your entire address book to their servers.  Included in the article were a number of screenshots and detailed instructions to replicate his findings.  Though there is no time stamp on the article, the first comment was left by Dave Morin, instead of ignoring or running from the issues he chose to immediately respond.  First with the comment:

Arun, thanks for pointing this out. We actually think this is an important conversation and take this very seriously. We upload the address book to our servers in order to help the user find and connect to their friends and family on Path quickly and effeciently[sic] as well as to notify them when friends and family join Path. Nothing more.

We believe that this type of friend finding & matching is important to the industry and that it is important that users clearly understand it, so we proactively rolled out an opt-in for this on our Android client a few weeks ago and are rolling out the opt-in for this in 2.0.6 of our iOS Client, pending App Store approval.

Dave Morin
Co-Founder and CEO of Path

*Italics – Emphasis mine

Read More…

Microsoft Kinect is coming to Windows AND laptops?

Microsoft Kinect is coming to Windows (AND??) laptops?  During CES 2012 Microsoft announced that they would be releasing the Kinect for Windows PC’s.  They released the SDK earlier this month you can download it here.  Microsoft is following its old patterns of gouging consumers charging an additional $100 over the cost of the Xbox 360 Kinect.  If you have yet to see or test the Kinect we have included a video below.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diy7rkWkDtU]

This in itself is exciting.  I am hoping to have a review unit (two actually) coming to Nibletz for in-depth testing of the Kinect on the few PCs that we have at our disposal.  TechCrunch and The Daily are reporting that a few other options may be on the horizon.  The Daily was able to spend some time with a pair of prototype laptops with Kinect sensors built-in to the devices.  While no photos were taken they did give a brief description of what they witnessed.

“The Daily had a chance to check out a pair of prototypes incorporating Kinect sensors over the last few days. The devices, which at first glance appear to be Asus netbooks running Windows 8, feature an array of small sensors stretching over the top of the screen where the webcam would normally be. At the bottom of the display is a set of what appear to be LEDs.” Matt Hickey, The Daily

They also identified a potential to give people with disabilities more accessibility options.  This would be ideal in the kitchen while cooking, using it as a HTPC, and automotive applications.  I have already started to plan the way that I will be using this as my Infotainment system in my next car. Microsoft will be showing off the preview for Windows 8 and they will most likely take that time to showcase all of the innovation coming out of Redmond.

Kinect for launches for Windows on February 1st, 2012 in 12 countries (United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, United Kingdom), at a suggested retail price of US $249.  Read more from Microsoft here

TheDaily via TechCrunch

Google+ becomes Brad Pitt’s first social network

Google+ welcomed Brad Pitt to his first social network.  I have been a fan of Brad Pitt’s for a long time.  My appreciation for Mr Pitt grew significantly while I was living in New Orleans doing recovery work after Hurricane Katrina.  Brad Pitt has been extremely active in the continuing recovery in New Orleans. He co-founded Make It Right.
His first post was focused on “A Night to Make it Right Gala” happening on March 10th 2012 at the Regency Hyatt Hotel in New Orleans.  Ellen DeGeneres and Brad Pitt will host the Gala.  Dr John (one of my favorites), Rhianna, Sheryl Crow, and Seal will all be performing. The charity gala will raise funds to build sustainable, affordable homes for New Orleans’ families who lost everything to Hurricane Katrina and promote Make It Right’s work to provide sustainable housing in Newark, NJ and Kansas City, MO for disabled veterans and disadvantaged communities.

A brief history of Make It Right:

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina flooded 80 percent of the City of New Orleans and killed 1,577 people. Hardest hit was the Lower 9th Ward where more than 4,000 homes were destroyed by the storm and the surge of water caused by the breach of the Industrial Canal levee.

Two years later after Katrina when actor Brad Pitt toured the city, no progress had been made in the Lower 9th Ward. Still, the community was determined to rebuild. After meeting with local families, Pitt established Make It Right to build 150 green, affordable, high-quality design homes in the neighborhood closest to the levee breach.

Make It Right kicked off in December 2007 with the Pink Project – an art installation designed to bring attention to the challenges and possibilities of rebuilding the Lower 9th Ward. The Pink Project raised 12 million dollars.

21 local, national and international architects donated designs for single family and duplexes to Make It Right. Today, Make It Right has built 75 sustainable, LEED Platinum certified homes for Lower 9th Ward families. According to the U.S. Green Building Council, Make It Right is the “largest and greenest community of single-family homes in the world.”

Make It Right Timeline
Incorporated: August 2007
Announced: September 2007 (Clinton Global Initiative)
Launched: December 2007 (Pink Project)
Groundbreaking: March 2008
Construction began: June 2008
First six homes completed: August 2008
First 50 homes completed: December 2010
First 75 homes completed: May 2011

The Nibletz team will be in New Orleans the following week and we will try to bring you some coverage from the Gala.  New Orleans is my adopted “home city” and the story is still being written regarding the recovery.