Kyle - 138/166 - Serious Startups

AT&T Making A Move On Cricket Wireless?

Rumors are hot and heavy that after the failed AT&T T-Mobile merger, AT&T has it’s eyes set on prepaid wireless carrier Cricket.

Cricket, whose parent company is Leap Wireless, is a steadily growing prepaid carrier with stand alone stores in most major US cities. They also have distribution channels set up at most of the Best Buy’s in the continental United States as well as Walmart and other retailers.

Cricket prides itself on it’s portfolio of both Android smartphones, and smartphones with their proprietary Muve Music service that’s been a hit with their customers. The service allows them unlimited downloads of songs from their cloud based music store to their Cricket Muve Music enabled handsets. The songs can’t be taken off the phone but can be streamed via BlueTooth and of course 3.5mm headset jacks.

The AT&T/T-Mobile merger was all the talk at last years CTIA Mobile Life show in 2011. The announcement about the proposed merger came on Sunday, the eve before CTIA was to kick off. In fact CTIA that year, in Orlando, kicked off with a round table with all four CEOs and moderator Jim Cramer. T-Mobile CEO Phillip Humm backed out of that years appearance because of the merger announcement.

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St. Louis Startup: Passer.by Opens Donation Platform For Business

Last month we brought you an interview with Passer.by co-founder Todd Metheny about this new crowdfunding platform exclusive to the film industry. When we spoke with Metheny that hadn’t quite launched their donation platform.

They’ve now announced their launch and have three films that the public can donate to and help fund. If you’ve ever wanted to partake in the movie business, now’s your chance. This unique service allows ordinary people to invest in movies and independent films. Passer.by is a welcomed source of funding for independent film producers who typically bootstrap their projects, in a very competitive business.

The three films open for funding via passer.by are: The Lovely Passing Life by filmmaker Daniel Leeb, Mrs. Henderson’s Cat by filmmaker Will Pelligrini and Fit To Print by filmmaker Adam Chadwick. Leeb is seeking funds for production while Pelligrini and Chadwick are raising funds for post production.

To introduce the service Metheny told us last month that they are allowing filmmakers to pay them, “what they want”. Once the films reach their funding, they will hopefully pay Passer.by something for helping them raise funds. This promotion is available for the first 20 films that are funded by Passer.by’s crowdsourced funding platform.

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Nashville Startup: Interview With Rentstuff CEO Chris Jaeger

If you’ve got nice stuff that sits around a bit you can make money by renting. Say you have a mountain bike that you never use or perhaps a lawnmower that only gets a work out very two weeks? Well with rentstuff.com, a Nashville startup, your stuff can make money for you.

Rentstuff.com is a localized marketplace set up to help local people rent stuff to each other. Everything from dome tents to Dyson vacuum cleaners can be found for rent on rentstuff.com at a decent rate. The site even offers a quick calculator to show you an idea of what your stuff should rent for by the day.

The company protects your stuff by allowing you to charge a security deposit that puts the deposit amount on an authorization hold on the renters credit card. Provided everything goes well, the user gets their stuff back and the renter gets their deposit back. Rentstuff also has a community feedback system for renters and users. This way the renter knows that the person renting the property is trusted and vice versa.

We got a chance to interview the CEO of Rent Stuff, Chris Jaeger.

Who are the founders for rentstuff.com and what is your/are their backgrounds before starting rentstuff.com?

I founded RentStuff.com back in January 2010 along with my twin brother Robert Jaege (COO) and Adam Albright (CTO). Prior to starting the company, Robert and I were both working in Finance in New York City, and Adam was completing the first year of his MBA at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. Robert and I connected with Adam through mutual friends.

How did you come up with the idea because it’s brilliant?

Robert and I came up with the initial concept back in 2008. We were both frustrated after spending countless hours trying to track down kayaks and bikes to rent for weekend trips from small rental shops all over New York City. At the time, we were both living in a high rise building and knew there was a good chance that someone in our building or at least in our neighborhood had what we needed. However, there was no organized system to easily connect people who had stuff with people who wanted access to that stuff on a temporary basis. Our company solves the need to connect renters and lenders in a better way.

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Ashton Kutcher Prepares For A-Grade Role As Steve Jobs

TV and Movie star turned technology investor Ashton Kutcher was selected for the Role of Steve Jobs in an upcoming independent film about the co-founder of Apple. The movie is currently being titled Jobs: Get Involved and is said to focus on the earlier parts of his career, much in the way Pirates of Silicon Valley did.

The movie will profile Jobs years starting Apple and then through NeXT and Pixar. There’s no word if the script will dip into his triumphant return to Apple and his later years.

Sony Pictures has picked up the rights to Walter Isaacson’s biography about Steve Jobs which became a best seller when it’s release coincided with the death of the Apple founder. Sony is said to be in discussions with Aaron Sorkin the mastermind behind the NBC hit drama series West Wing, as well as the screen writer for the Mark Zuckerberg biographic movie “The Social Network”.

Sony is reportedly looking at booth George Clooney and Noah Wylie to take on the role of Jobs for their movie. Wylie played Jobs in the cult classic Pirates of Silicon Valley which aired several times in the US after Jobs’ death.

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UPDATED: Oregon Startup: Wild Squirrel Nut Butter Wins Investment On Shark Tank

(photo Sally Ho/The Oregonian)

We are diligently working on a piece now highlighting a string of investments that the Sharks have pulled out of since the show has aired.

In the case of Wild Squirrel Nut Butter, Shark Barbara Corcoran pulled out of the $50,000 investment for 40% that she had negotiated with the girls on the show.

Keely and Erica penned this tumblr entry after the embargo lifted on Friday highlighting the fact that Corcoran had pulled out of the investment, although they gained a lot of exposure and insight from Ms. Corcoran.

We are going to elaborate in a much larger piece about Shark Tank, which is still my favorite show of all time, however we want to add here that it’s not the fault of the Shark themselves. We hold accountable the producers who know well in advance that a shark has pulled out of the deal before airing. The producers of Shark Tank, Mark Burnett and ABC are doing the viewers, the startups and the sharks an injustice by not providing an update prior to airing that the investment didn’t actually work out.

There is plenty of time between the taping of the episode and the airing of the episode to provide the back story. The sharks are using their own money and they have to do their due diligence. Shark Tank provides a disclaimer in the beginning of every episode announcing it’s the sharks own money and that there is no pitch to the audience. They should also provide the same service at the end of each episode with an update as to what happens.

Below is the original story that we published this morning before being pointed to Keeley and Erica’s blog.

Two college girls from Oregon were featured on this week’s Shark Tank. They were cute, preppy, peppy and a little bit nervous, as anyone would be in front of the Shark’s on Shark Tank.

They came into the episode with their story about drive but didn’t have the numbers to attract an investment from Mr. Wonderful Kevin O’Leary, Mark Cuban, Daymond John or Robert Herjavec however they did catch the eye of real estate mogul turned Shark Tank investor, Barbara Corcoran.

Corcoran had made a gamble on a duo of political workers turned Barbecue company founders last season with their Pork Barrel Barbecue sauce. With the help of Corcoran the duo behind Pork Barrel was able to drastically improve their sales and distribution and they even opened up a restaurant.

The episode featuring Keeley Tillotson and Erika Welsh was taped last September, but as with all reality shows they are under a strict embargo from speaking a word about Shark Tank until after their episode aired. Prior to Friday nights showing, Shark Tank warned the girls to back up their website and expect lots of orders.

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Cricket Holding Huge Mother’s Day Sale

If you’re out and about today and you still haven’t gotten your mom anything for Mother’s Day, you may want to check out your local Cricket Wireless store. What’s better than getting your mom a great Android powered smartphone that is pay as you go so you’re not stuck with a long term bill?

Cricket announced a last minute Mother’s Day Sale to reach all those last minute shoppers looking for the perfect technological gift for mom.

The sale includes a good mix of Android powered smartphones, phones with Cricket’s Muve Music and even the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. Here are all the deals from the prepaid carrier:

ZTE Score (MSPR $149.99, $69.99 after instant discount and web discount) is a value priced, full featured Android smartphone that includes Wi-Fi capability, XT9 Trace for easy text entry, 3G Real Web Browsing and a 3.2MP camera/camcorder.
Huawei Ascend II (MSPR $179.99, $99.99 after instant discount and web discount) comes packed with a 3.5″ HVGA touch-screen, Wi-Fi capability, 3G Real Web Browsing, 600MHz processor, Android 2.3 Gingerbread and a 5MP camera/camcorder.
Samsung Vitality (MSPR $219.99, $129.99 after instant discount and web discount) fast 800 MHz processor, 3.5″ HVGA touch-screen and easy access to social networks is designed for an interactive experience. Samsung Vitality is loaded with a 3.2MP camera/camcorder, Wi-Fi capability, 3G Real Web Browsing.
Huawei Mercury (MSPR $249.99, $229.99 after instant web discount) offers a beautiful 4″ display and is powered by an ultrafast 1.4 GHz processor, features an 8.0MP rear camera, VGA front camera and an Android 2.3 OS. Named by PC Magazine as the best pre-paid smartphone in America

The Samsung Galaxy Tab™ 10.1 is available in Cricket company-owned stores (MSRP $499.99, $399.99 after instant rebate). Running on Android 3.1 Honeycomb OS, with a beautiful 10.1″ widescreen TFT (1280 x 800) display offering HD clarity, a super-fast dual core 1GHz processor, a 2MP front facing/ 3MP rear-facing camera, the Samsung Tab is perfect for watching movies, cruising the internet and sharing photos with family and friends.
The Crosswave Broadband Device, which is available in Cricket company-owned stores (MSRP $149.99, $24.99 after instant rebates and bundled with Samsung Galaxy Tab), creates an instant mobile hotspot and supports multiple Wi-Fi devices nationwide. Bundle the Crosswave with a Samsung Galaxy Tab and receive additional discounts worth up to $225.00 for a final Tablet + Crosswave all-in price of $424.98 (does not include monthly broadband service rate plan).

Head into your local Cricket store now or hit Cricket up on the web here

Zynga Sues Kobojo Over The Use Of “Ville” In Their Social Games

A French developer has created an egyption based social game where you need to make egyption pyramid cities. The game is called PyramidVille and it plays on the classic model of Zynga’s Farmville, Cityville, Frontierville and other Ville style games.

Zynga has now sued the French developer over the use of the word Ville. The suit, which was filed in a San Francisco court, is asking a judge to ban Kobojo from using the word “Ville” in the US release of the game.

Zynga’s attorney Dennis Wilson said Kobojo’s use of Ville was a “willful violation of Zynga’s trademark by a competitor seeking to exploit Zynga’s hard-earned reputation in the social gaming space.” With the game’s focus building an Egyptian city, we can see where the confusion may come in to play.

According to this report Zynga tried to work this out with Kobojo but they willfully ignored the social game studios requests. Kobojo has already released a mobile version of PyramidVille.

Zynga build a franchise around their Facebook integrated social games. Their first game, Farmville, became a blockbuster hit. CityVille followed soon after that.

Zynga has also made a presence in the social mobile space after purchasing “Words With Friends” they’ve also got a version of Hangman played with friends. Their first mobile game, Zynga Poker is also a big hit.

Their most notable mobile news was the nearly $200 million dollar purchase of New York based game studio OMGPOP. Zynga acquired OMGPOP after their hit game Draw Something was able to knock Words With Friends out of the top spot in the mobile games arena.

The staff of OMGPOP was absorbed into Zynga and Dan Porter, the CEO of OMGPOP became Zynga’s Vice President of their New York operation which to date only includes the Draw Something title. We ran a feature story on Dan Porter and his unique use of HBO hit series “The Wire” characters as the names of OMGPOPs conference rooms.

Source: ABS-CBN News

Rovio Mobile Finally Has A Follow Up Game To Angry Birds

It took over 50 games for Finnish game development studio Rovio Mobile to come up with the smash hit Angry Birds. Angry Birds has grown to over 1 billion downloads and a merchandising arm worth hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars.

Rovio Mobile has done two spin off games of their franchise Angry Birds, Angry Birds Rio and Angry Birds Space. The latter becoming the fastest growing mobile game in history after being released in March and shown off at SXSW.

The company announced their 2011 earnings results on Monday. In that call they revealed that Angry Birds had generated $106 million dollars in revenue in 2011. “The strong growth in revenue clearly demonstrates the popularity of the Angry Birds brand.” CEO Mikael Hed said. He continued; “The heavy investments made in 2011 to all business areas will be seen in future products. To ensure continuous success we need to be creative and stay focused on entertaining our millions of fans by continuously developing new and innovative products and services.”

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Michigan Startup: Credentialock Is A Cloud Vault For All Your Credentials

Do you have any certifications? What about your college and high school diploma? Where are your high school and college transcripts? What about that real estate license? All of these questions could probably be answered in one place if Credentialock was around 20 years ago.

Credentialock is a new Michigan startup that just launched their free web based version this past week. It is essentially a cloud based vault for all of your important credentials, transcripts and licenses.

More and more people are turning to cloud based storage for their important computer files. Even more people are turning to digital storage for things like receipts,important papers, even back up copies of drivers license, credit card and passport information. While some may already have some kind of digital record of their “credentials” Credentialock makes it easy to store all of your important papers in one spot.

“My wife is in the insurance industry and she has over 100 documents of certification from 20 different states to keep track of, so we always use her as the benchmark,” Credentialock CEO Scott Slyfield CEO told Sara Schmid of Xconomy. “Instead of having our employers keep track of this stuff, we need to be able to own and manage it ourselves. It’s really empowering.”

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Arkansas Startup: Univeristy of Arkansas Announces E-Braa

A team of engineers out of the University of Arkansas have developed a new wireless health monitoring system being dubbed “e-bra”. The “e-bra” has textile sensors built in that monitor cardiac signs, blood pressure, body temperature, respiratory rate, oxygen consumption, and even some neural activity. The sensor laden bra communicates all of this information back to a smart phone.

The system that’s designed to be outfitted in a sports bra for women or possibly a vest for men does not require any kind of cuff and could function as a replacement for at home blood pressure monitors.

“Our e-bra enables continuous, real-time monitoring to identify any pathophysiological changes,” said Vijay Varadan, Distinguished Professor of electrical engineering. “It is a platform on which various sensors for cardiac-health monitoring are integrated into the fabric. The garment collects and transmits vital health signals to any desired location in the world.”

The sensors themselves are smaller than a dime and include gold nano wires. They also have flexible conducting textile nano sensors. The textile sensors are than woven into the bra and don’t require sticky adhesives or gels.

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New Power2U AC USB In Wall Outlet Wins Award Because It’s Great

At this day in age you’d be hard pressed to find someone who didn’t have some kind of device that charged via a USB outlet. iPods, iPads, iPhones, Android Phones, Blackberry’s, dumb phones, digital cameras, portable game systems, tablets, even some video cameras charge off of usb. USB is a convenient way to charge because you can charge devices through your computer, a wall charger, car charger and even a power bag.

Now there’s a new way to charge your USB powered devices, and if you’re the least bit handy you’ll be able to install it yourself. The product is called the Power2U AC/USB wall outlet and as you can tell from the name (and the picture above) it’s a USB outlet that takes the place of your standard wall outlet. When you install the outlet you have access to two regular three prong AC outlets along with two USB outlets that can charge everything from a phone to an iPad and everything in between.

The Power2U AC/USB outlet is easy to install and it installs in under 20 minutes. They even have an easy to follow instructional video here. It will install in any 15 amp circuit with a 16 cubic inch electrical box. In case you were wondering, that is the typical wall outlet in your home.

The Power2U AC/USB outlet has just received the Handyman Club Member Tested and Recommended Seal of Approval.

“A 92 percent member approval rating for the Power2U outlet is an excellent test result, and Newer Technology should be very proud their innovative product scored so well,” said Ross Tanner, Product Test Editor, HANDY magazine.

“We couldn’t be more pleased that the Power2U was overwhelmingly approved and endorsed by Handyman Club of America members,” said Grant Dahlke, Brand Manager, Newer Technology, Inc. “These testers are very hands-on and demand excellence from the products they choose for their home improvement projects. As such, the typical homeowner can buy the Power2U with full assurance they can install it and enjoy it hassle-free.”

For more information on the Power2U visit this link

Asus Releases Demo Video For New PadFone

Asus really burst onto the Android scene with their tablets last year. The Eee Pad Transformer sold pretty well for a computer company mostly known for it’s lower end netbook computers. The Eee Pad Transformer was one of the original Tegra 2 powered Android Honeycomb tablets. It features a sleek looking design alongside top notch features for it’s release time last year.

They were able to follow up the Asus Eee Pad Transformer with the first Nvidia Tegra 3 powered tablet dubbed the Eee Pad Transformer Prime. They were even able to thwart off a trademark case from Hasbro, the toy maker who owns the trademark for the Transformer branded toys.

Last year rumors started flying around that Asus was going to release a tablet that had a phone powering it. They showed off this device, called the PadFone at both the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January, and again in late February at Mobile World Congress. Many tech enthusiasts and Android enthusiasts alike have been biting their nails waiting for the device to actually hit the market.

Well it looks like that time is getting closer as Asus has posted an official demo video highlighting the features of this exciting new device.

While we weren’t sure what a tablet phone (not a phoneblet like that Galaxy Note or LG Vue) would be like, we soon discovered that it’s similar to the Motorola Atrix series of devices. However, instead of a keyboard, laptop type dock, it docks into a 10.1″ tablet screen.

Other features of the PadFone include:

– 4.3″ SuperAMOLED qHD display
– Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor with Adreno 225 GPU
– 8mp camer with LED flash
– three internal memory sizes 16/32/64
– HSPA+
– HDMI out
– 1520 mah battery

Check out the video below:

San Diego Startup: Monster Offers Releases 18 Localized Daily Deals Apps

San Diego based Monster Offers has teamed up with app development studio Iconosys to release 18 new daily deals apps to Android powered smartphones.

The 18 daily deals apps go by the name of Monster Dealies and Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle.

Last June Inc magazine said the daily deals space could be worth $3 billion dollars this year in revenues. A BIA/Kelsey estimate suggests the revenue could reach $4 billion dollars by 2015. It’s also been revealed that a lot of consumers who aren’t taking advantage of daily deals sites and apps are leaving a lot of money on the table.

“The new ‘Monster Dealies’ apps bring to your Smartphone or Smart device those killer discounted Daily Deals that are specifically tailored for your local market or GPS-designated location. In view of the now huge size of the Daily Deal market, we think an app like this makes abundant sense, as it scours the landscape to highlight what you care about and what you want to see, while cutting out the noise and the deals that are clearly outside your particular target area. Why should you ever pay full price for a meal, massage, movie or show ticket again in your local area? Our Monster Dealies apps bring the best discounted deals to your Smartphone or Smart Device, so you are plugged in and ready to save money 24-7.” says Paul Gain Monster Offers CEO

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Syracuse Startups: StartFast Venture Accelerator Announces 2012 Class

StartFast Venture Accelerator in Syracuse New York is preparing for the summer 2012 session which starts this Tuesday. They’ve selected 9 startups to participate out of over 300 applications from startups world wide.

Fewer than 3% of the entrants were selected for the session, making it harder to get into StartFast Ventuer Accelerator than it is to get into Harvard. It’s the first venture backed accelerator program in Upstate New York. Upstate Venture Connect, the Seed Capital Fund of CNY, CenterState CEO and The Tech Garden participated in the funding of the accelerator program, among others.

The nine startups selected encompass a variety of startup ideas including link aggregation,photos, mobile payments, mobile safety and more.

“Each of these teams has a big vision. We are counting on them to work tirelessly, accept coaching and demonstrate impressive execution in the marketplace.” StartFast Manager Nasir Ali said in a statement. “With the help of our investors and more than 80 mentors who have volunteered to work with these companies, our goal is to showcase nine awesome investment opportunities on August 16 Investor Day,” Chuck Storman the other StartFast Manager added.

See the nine startups selected after the break
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