Tech Archives - Page 10 of 16

AOL Shoots Up 35% After $1 Billion Dollar Patent Announcement

AOL has inked an amazing deal with rival Microsoft to sell 800 of their patents to the Redmond based computer giant. The deal is said to be worth $1 billion dollars and includes licensing back to AOL.

AOL stock closed at $18.42 on Friday and skyrocketed to $25.16 on the news of the patent sale. While Tim Armstrong is taking much of the credit for the patent sale it was actually sparked by activist shareholder Starboard Value LP who had said earlier on that, if structured properly, AOL could stand to earn $1 billion dollars or more off it’s treasure trove of patents.

Obviously it was structured properly.

AOL is holding onto 300 of their patents which revolve around some of their current core business’ like maps, and search.

“This is a valuable portfolio that we have been following for years and analyzing in detail for several months,” Microsoft’s General Counsel Brad Smith said in a statement.

The patent transaction is expected to close by the end of 2012 and has a sweetheart breakup clause as well. Should the sale not go through, Microsoft will be on the line to AOL for $211.2 million dollars.

Analysts are hopeful that this influx of cash from the sale of it’s patents will help AOL continue to rebuild it’s core business units.

source: Reuters

Kansas City’s Hallmark Acquires L.A. Startup Spirit Clips

U.S.greeting card giant Hallmark has acquired Los Angeles based video startup SpiritClips.

SpiritClips was founded in 2007 by Academy Award winning producer and studio executive Rob Fried who’s credits include the hit movies “Hoosiers” and “Rudy”. The company makes heartwarming short films and movies that will compliment Hallmark’s similar offerings and give Hallmark customers access to a variety of video content.

Fried said in a statement:
“It’s a dream come true for SpiritClips to be part of the digital future of so esteemed an organization as Hallmark.”

Hallmark CEO Donald Hall Jr said “It is a superb brand fit for Hallmark, with each story delivering compelling emotional content, positive family values and meaningful life lessons,”

No terms of the deal were announced.

Source: siliconprairie

Chattanooga Startup Retickr Filters Out The Noise From News And Social Media.

Most of us are too busy to sift through the noise of news sites and social streams to get exactly what we want. Many times the important information is lost in the shuffle. That’s where Chattanooga based startup ReTickr comes in.

ReTickr was created by three young entrepreneurs and University of Tennessee graduates; Travis Truett, Brian Trautschold and Jared Houghton.

The threesome has seen enormous growth after being featured in the Mac App Store for three weeks back in October 2011, but it wasn’t always that easy.

More after the break

Rawporter Road Show: Biometrics Associates Encrypted Bluetooth Technologies

At the government technology show, formerly called FOSE, in Washington DC we got a chance to talk with Biometrics Associates. This company has developed some very cool encrypted Bluetooth technologies that are implemented in military and government uses.

Their first product is a card reader that, when attached to a smartphone, allows apps that use Biometrics Associates SDK to be unlocked. The only way to unlock these apps is with the right key card and the right credentials on the keycard. Biometrics Associates offers an SDK where developers can build any kind of protected app.

App uses already in use or in development include email protection apps, phone unlocking apps, tactical planning apps and even apps that are used to protect plans for military equipment. Their technology is approved by the United States Department of Defense and NSA to ensure that it meets the top-secret clearance needed at such a high level.

The other technology they offer is a secure BlueTooth headset. As you’ll learn in the video the secured Bluetooth headset uses its own pairing mechanism so that the default 0000 and 1234 codes don’t work to pair the phone with the headset. In addition once locked to the phone it creates a shield that won’t allow any kind of Bluetooth interruption, penetration or eaves dropping.

The headsets were built to NSA specification so that even the highest level agent in any branch of government can talk securely via Bluetooth headset to another party.

“Today’s CAC user needs secure access to mobile applications”, noted Scott Johnson, BAL Executive Vice President and COO, “but sensitive information – both data and voice – must be protected from multiple points of attack. Imagine a doctor in a DoD hospital making his or her rounds with an Android tablet. This doctor needs CAC authenticated access to the hospital medical records database but also needs to be able to dictate notes into the patient’s record over an encrypted Bluetooth link. We are proud to provide products to make this a reality.”

Sound interesting, watch the video.

Print Your Instagram Pics To Posters, Stickers And More With Prinstagr.am

Social Print Studio, a San Francisco based company, that specializes in making apps that print photos from social networking sites like Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter to stickers, posters and other printables. They’ve just announced their most recent endeavor surrounded by the phenomenon we all know as Instagr.am.

Now your favorite Instagram photos with their glorious filters can be captured in real life non virtual goodness. Sometimes the memories you’ve created need to be shared outside of the online world and that’s where Prinstagr.am fits in.

For $25 you can have between 50-400 of your favorite Instagram pics made into a 40 inch poster with all the photos laid out on a grid. That cute picture of your kid that got 400 likes on Instagram can now be made into 48 miniprints and shared with your entire neighborhood for just $12.

In all seriousness though with more and more people using photo apps and camera phones, and of course digital cameras less and less pictures are printed out. Taking your USB stick to Walmart or Target for that special photo novelty is time consuming and cumbersome and sometimes doesn’t even turn out right. With Prinstagr.am you’re not going to have that problem.

Check it out for yourself right here.

Source: Gizmodo

Rawporter Road Trip: FOSE 2012: Browse Aloud, Just Like The Name Says

While you’re perusing across the internet consuming web page after web page and moving as fast as your fingers will type you may not stop and think about the 45 million people in the US who have literacy problems. You may not consider the 10-15% of the population with a learning disability or the 18% of the U.S. population who speak and read English as a second language. Well the folks at Browse Aloud have done that for you.

They’ve been around since 1996 helping to make the internet more accessible to those who can’t read as well as they’d like. We bumped into them at the FOSE 2012 show in Washington DC while on our Rawporter RoadTrip (www.rawporter.com). What do they do? Well they do exactly what the name suggests.

Browse Aloud is a toolbar that works with any browser and has a set of functions that read web pages to the user in whatever way they want. If the user wants to be read an entire page Browse Aloud will do that. If they only want to read a selected text or the next paragraph Browse Aloud can do that too.

More after the break
Read More…

Rawporter Roadshow: FOSE 2012: Motorola Mobility Shows Off 1GB Indoor Fiber Networking

We’ve all heard of FIOS right, and we know the value and speed of a fiber optic network? Well on our Rawporter Roadtrip we got to spend some time with Motorola Mobility to talk about something other than Android phones. That something is a blazing fast in home or in office networking product that uses fiber optic instead of copper ethernet.

The gigabit fiber optic network gives you in home or office speeds from the basement through the house of up to 1gb per second, now that’s amazingly fast.

We actually didn’t know that this product was in the Motorola Mobility family we thought that Mobility encompassed Android phones and set top boxes.

Admittedly, Motorola Mobility is only rolling this product out at a government and enterprise level currently but since when does Google not cater to the consumer. One of two things will happen with this product after the Google merger it will either be sold off or we’ll start seeing it in homes as well.

Rawporter Roadtrip: FOSE 2012: Griffin Shows Off Tech For Government, Military & Medical

Griffin the global music and accessory company has shown off a whole different side of their portfolio of accessories at the FOSE show in Washington DC today. We visited the FOSE show today as part of our Rawporter Roadtrip (www.rawporter.com).

Griffin showed off their survivor series cases for the new iPad. These are the only government certified to military spec A10 iPad cases on the market today. We found out that some companies like Otterbox say they are “designed to meet mil spec standards” however the Griffin line is the only line that is certified mil-spec A10 approved. That means that Griffin has gone through the rigorous testing process which includes fully submersing the cases, dropping them from 6 feet and more.

The newest survivor series case, the Survivor 2 will be available in May for the iPad, iPod and iPhone however they are coming shortly after for Samsung and Motorola tablets and smartphones.

More after the break
Read More…

When Hollywood And A Tech Incubator Have A Baby They Called It io/LA

Just steps away from the famed Hollywood and Highland intersection is LA’s newest Startup Incubator io/la. Mixing Hollywood and Tech like never before, io/LA tries to infuse old Hollywood with new Tech in a way we’ve never seen. In an attempt to break the stigma that the Bay is where you want to be io/LA invites those with a Hollywood aspirations and a Tech way of thinking. The newly launched Incubator is the brain child of former MySpace CTO Aber Whitcomb, Donovan Leitch and Chris Gartin.

Infographic Suggests Just 5% Of Startups Founded By Women

We’ve featured some really great women led startups lately here at nibletz. We brought you the story of KlutchClub in Chicago and it’s founder Julia Bashkin. We also recently featured Y-Combinator startup 99dresses and their Aussie woman founder Nikki Durkin and more.

According to the infographic below, published by IT Manager Daily, 56% of professional jobs in the U.S are held by women. However in IT just 25% of jobs are held by women. Then there’s the startups. According to the infographic only 5% of startups are currently founded by women. This may be in dispute though as women seem to be more and more involved in starting their own businesses. In ABC’s “The Shark Tank” it seems that a lot more than 5% of those startups presented are founded by women.

We’ll be featuring more and more of the best startups from around the country and we’re sure we’ll see more than 5% are led by women.

Razer Gets Enough Facebook Likes, Announces Left Handed Naga MMO Mouse

If you’re a gamer than you are well aware of Razer and their superior line of gaming peripherals. If you’re a hardcore gamer and hardcore fan of Razer than you know already that they had a Facebook contest of sorts to see if there was enough community support to back the release of a left handed Naga gaming mouse.

Well lefty’s rejoice as YES there were enough likes on Facebook to start production of a left handed Naga mouse.

“That Facebook post generated more buzz than we could’ve ever imagined, which proves that there have been a number of gamers that have had their needs ignored for some time,” said Razer CEO and Chief Gamer Min Ling Tan. “We pride ourselves on being gamers ourselves, and we all know that there is no substitute for gaming with your dominant hand.”

This isn’t Razer’s first time producing a left-handed mouse. Two years ago the company released a left-handed version of their popular DeathAdder mouse. There are only two professional gamer left-handed mice in existence and Razer is the proud manufacturer of both.

Source: Engadget

T-Mobile: We Are Sorry We Got Caught Spamming You, We’ll Stop

T-Mobile is coming under pressure today for an update they pushed to Android phones who’s users have downloaded the My Account Application. Not for battery drain, but for getting caught Spamming users. Knowing what they where doing, only to back peddle when it came to light it was them.

During a recent software update, a message to promote T-Mobile’s free VIP Zone was mistakenly sent to certain customers and appeared on the notification bar for some Android devices. After T-Mobile was made aware of this mistake, the company stopped the notifications. T-Mobile apologizes for the inconvenience this may have caused customers.

The company sent as an apology to TmoNews who broke the story. Sadly, this isn’t the first time that T-Mobile has done this, nor will be their last. This time they where trying to push their VIP Zone.

T-Mobile isn’t the first to push Spam via the notification on Android. Numerous reports are other applications have as well. Yet time and again users praise Android not Apple either though one OS has always issues of Spam and malicious Apps while the other doesn’t.

Source: The Verge

Rumors Surface About The Next Playstation To Be Called Orbis?

Rumors were hot and heavy on the internet Wednesday about the next generation Playstation console. According to many sites including TFTS the next generation Playstation console will be called Orbis. TFTS was quick to point out that the Latin word Vita, the name of Sony’s latest handheld system, is life. The Latin word Orbis, means circle. Perhaps Sony is working on a “circle of life” concept with the next generation console and handheld.

The most important details to the reader are probably release date and pricing. Well we are far away from pricing but if sources are correct we would see the Playstation Orbis in time for the 2013 holiday season so about a year and a half from now.

The console system is said to rock an AMD x64 CPU and an AMD Southern Islands GPU. That will give it the capability of playing games at a resolution up to 4096×2160 (how much is the tv going to cost to support that???). It’s believed that the PlayStation Orbis will support 3D gaming out of the box.

More after the break
Read More…

Brazilian Kids Being Tracked By Embedded Computer Chips

If the headline sounds like something out of a strange sci-fi movie, well it’s not. This is actually a true story out of Brazil. Grade school students in a northeastern Brazilian city have new uniforms. Those uniforms may look like typical school uniforms but they are not.

Twenty thousand students in a northeastern Brazilian school system are wearing uniform t-shirt embedded with microchips. All 20,000 students attend one of 25 schools in the Victoria da Conquista’s public school system. There are 213 schools in the system and when it’s all said and done 43,000 students aged 4 to 14 will be wearing the chip embedded t-shirts.

The entire program, which cost the school system over $670,000 to implement, is aimed at targeting tardiness and truancy. The chip notifies the parent of the child by text message when their student has entered the school. It also lets them no if the student hasn’t entered the school after 20 minutes with a text message that says “Your child has still not arrived at school”.

More after the break
Read More…