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Friday Poll: What would you do without the Net

bugterreskitchen — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 07:10:43 +0000

When I was younger (25), my mother would often take away the power cord to my computer monitor because I was on the Internet too much. The eventual rule was that I could only use the computer for two hours every day. That eventually lessened my urge to get online and got me spending more time outside. This week, a 75-year-old woman hunting for scrap metal in Armenia destroyed a portion of the cable that feeds the Internet to her country and neighboring Georgia. Nearly 12 hours passed before the issue was resolved, and it left two countries (and millions of residents) without the Web for hours. One wonders what all those people did with their free time without the ability to check Facebook and Twitter every other minute. I can't even imagine the Internet completely going out in the U.S. The consequences could be devastating financially, and even the online trolls might have to emerge from the shadowy depths of their basements after a couple of hours. Anonymous wouldn't be so...anonymous anymore. Single-player games would get unprecedented play time. So how would you react if the Internet went down for nearly half a day

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Teacher accused of mocking 7-year-old on Facebook

bugterreskitchen — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 07:10:45 +0000

Class, we need to go over this again: when you post things on Facebook, it is likely that they will go far beyond your few thousand friends.This reminder needs to be made right now. You see, the mother of 7-year-old Ukailya Lofton from Chicago has accused her daughter's teacher of taking a cell phone picture of her daughter's hair--in order to post it on Facebook. It seems she thought the hair was somewhat amusing.As the story was told to ABC7News Chicago, the mother, Lucinda Williams, said that her daughter wanted to have hair with Jolly Rancher candies hanging from her braids for Overton Elementary School's Picture Day. Kids want sweet things. Mothers indulge them.But on that day, she says a computer teacher took a photograph of her daughter's hair and posted it on Facebook."She took a picture of me and then she said my boyfriend can't believe this," little Ukailya told ABC News.When she heard about this, Williams says she went to the teacher's Facebook page and reportedly copied some of the comments on the picture of her daughter.Among them, allegedly, was: "If you are going to make your child look ridiculous, the least you can do is have them matching." Another comment allegedly declared that writer's contact lens popped out when she saw the picture.The Chicago public schools district issued a statement that read: "The district is currently investigating the matter to determine if any policies have been violated. If policies have in fact been violated, the district will move on disciplinary action."Williams says she met with the school principal and the teacher, who allegedly said that she had removed the page but equally allegedly refused to apologize to the child.And now, the word "allegedly" may be put to the test. Williams reportedly says she is planning a lawsuit.Soon, perhaps, every school will have its own Facebook monitor.

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New Samsung Android phone clears FCC

bugterreskitchen — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 08:10:25 +0000

Samsung SHW-M190S(Credit:FCC)Blame it on the holidays, but it wasn't a busy week over at the Federal Communications Commission. Besides a couple of Sharp handsets headed for Japan, we found a new Samsung Android handset, the SHW-M190S. Because the FCC has to certify every phone sold in the United States, not to mention test its SAR rating, the agency's online database offers a lot of sneak peeks to those who dig. And to save you the trouble, Crave has combed through the database for you. Here are a selection of filings from the past week on new and upcoming cell phones. Click through to read the full report.Huawei FC'Nokia C5Samsung GT-C3500Samsung SHW-M190S Android smartphoneSharp SH-011Sharp SH-05c

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Motorola files ITC complaint against Microsoft

bugterreskitchen — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 08:10:16 +0000

Motorola's ongoing legal disagreements with Microsoft thickened this morning, with Motorola's mobility unit filing a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission over Microsoft's use of patents in itsXbox game console.While the complaint is currently pending, it could go on to become an investigation by the ITC.A Microsoft representative said the company is currently reviewing Motorola's filing, and that "we remain confident in our position, and will continue to move forward with the complaints we initiated against Motorola in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and with the International Trade Commission." Motorola did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The move is the latest in what is becoming a back-and-forth between the two companies. In October, Microsoft sued Motorola over use of its patents in Motorola's Android devices. That particular case involved nine of Microsoft's patents.Microsoft also filed a patent-related lawsuit against Motorola earlier this month over a breach of contract on royalties for the company's patent licenses--specifically, Motorola's patents on wireless networking and video decoders, both of which Microsoft uses in its Xbox 360 game console. According to Bloomberg, which discovered the ITC filing earlier today, Motorola's complaint centers around these same five patents.The day after Microsoft's royalty-related suit, Motorola countersued with a lawsuit of its own that accused Microsoft of infringing on 16 patents. That also included the Xbox but went on to include other Microsoft products, such as Windows for servers, PCs, and mobile devices. The ITC has recently been involved in a patent battle between Apple and Nokia, as well as an HTC patent claim against Apple.

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Nokia Ovi Store hits 3 million daily downloads

bugterreskitchen — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 08:10:10 +0000

The Ovi Store is now seeing 3 million downloads each day.(Credit:Nokia)Nokia's Ovi Store has officially hit 3 million downloads per day.The Finnish mobile phone maker attributed the new milestone to higher global demand for its apps and new smartphones sporting the more user-friendly Symbian 3 operating system.In late September, Nokia began shipping its N8 smartphone, its first to run under Symbian 3, followed a couple of weeks later by the second Symbian 3 phone, the C7. The new version of Symbian has brought with it a greater variety of new apps in the Ovi Store.Nokia has also been working hard to lure in more developers. In September, the company launched a new contest offering app developers a total of $10 million in cash and prizes. It also said recently that it would focus solely on Qt as its mobile development platform, helping developers by ensuring that their apps would run under future versions of both Symbian and MeeGo.Over the past year, more than 400,000 new developers have joined Forum Nokia, the company's development community, Nokia said. Among all its developers, 92 have each grabbed more than 1 million downloads for their apps so far. Further, Nokia has seen 1.5 million downloads of its Qt development toolkits."Ovi Store is on a strong trajectory fueled by new apps and games from a growing number of partners and more than 250,000 new consumers signing up for Ovi every day," Tero Ojanpera, executive vice president of services for Nokia, said in a statement. "The number of daily downloads has increased from about 2 million to 3 million since September. We anticipate our progress will continue as we have just begun shipping our new Symbian smartphones."Since the September 30 release of the N8, the top downloaded free app in the Ovi Store was Q Torch, which turns a phone into a flashlight, Nokia said. Among paid software, the top app was Angry Birds, a game that's taken off on several mobile platforms. Another hot app among Nokia consumers was Need for Speed Shift HD, the third most popular downloaded program around the world since September.Despite the healthy growth of the Ovi Store, Nokia still faces a variety of challenges overall. The company holds a leading smartphone market share across the world, but that dominance has been chipped away by Google's Android and other rivals. Nokia is also struggling to make more of a dent in North America, where it holds only around 3 percent of the market.

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Sex harassment letter that led to ex-HP chief Mark Hurd&'s firing to be unsealed

bugterreskitchen — Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000

The letter that got Mark Hurd forced out of the top job at the world&'s largest technology company is expected to be unsealed.A Delaware judge ordered that the letter from former HP marketing contractor Jodie Fisher to Hewlett-Packard&'s board be made public. In the letter, sent by Fisher&'s attorney Gloria Allred, Fisher accused Hurd of sexual harassment and other details that got him into hot water. Hurd resigned under pressure from the board last August.The letter prompted HP&'s board to investigate Hurd. While it found no evidence of sexual harassment, the board concluded that Hurd acted inappropriately in failing to disclose his close personal relationship with Fisher, a former soft-porn actress who got a job showing Hurd around at HP&'s marketing events. HP accused Hurd of falsifying expense reports, and Hurd admitted he did not live up to HP&'s standards.The letter reportedly accuses Hurd, who has since become co-president of Oracle, of disclosing company secrets to Fisher, such as HP&'s pending $13 billion acquisition of EDS. However, Fisher acknowledged that the letter contained many inaccuracies. That is one reason Hurd has fought to keep it secret.In the opinion (embedded below), Delaware Chancery court judge Donald Parsons said that much of the information was already public and that he determined the contents of the letter were not protected.Amy Wintersheimer, attorney for Mark Hurd, said in a statement,&''We are disappointed with the courta4a4s ruling and will appeal the matter. We believe the letter, which was clearly marked &8216'confidential,&' should remain that way. As has been admitted, the letter contains many inaccuracies. Mr. Hurd long ago resolved the matter and has moved on.&''The opinion discloses a few of the letter&'s details, such as Hurd being accused of using corporate funds to &''wine and dine&'' Fisher and leaking &''potentially material&'' secrets about the company.While some allegations are candid, they are not graphic or lurid, Parsons said. The judge did say that some &''intimate details&'' about Hurd&'s private life and his relationship with his family were legitimate topics to be kept private. So it is likely that some material will be redacted from the letter.The dispute over the letter stems from a lawsuit by a shareholder, Ernesto Espinoza. His attorney wants HP&'s records related to Hurd&'s resignation and severance. HP itself agreed that the letter is not confidential.Mark Hurd letter order// < ![CDATA[// < ![CDATA[(function() { var scribd = document.createElement("script")' scribd.type = "text/javascript"' scribd.async = true' scribd.src = "/javascripts/embed_code/inject.js1300395014"' var s = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]' s.parentNode.insertBefore(scribd, s)' })()'// ]]>'Next Story: How many co-working spaces does the world need Previous Story: RSA security breach leaves data for 40M employees vulnerablePrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&8230' Tags: sexual harassmentCompanies: Eds, Hewlett Packard, HPPeople: Donald Parsons, Gloria Allred, Jodie Fisher, Mark Hurd Tags: sexual harassmentCompanies: Eds, Hewlett Packard, HPPeople: Donald Parsons, Gloria Allred, Jodie Fisher, Mark HurdDean is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He covers video games, security, chips and a variety of other subjects. Dean previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News, the Wall Street Journal, the Red Herring, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Times Herald. He is the author of two books, Opening the Xbox and the Xbox 360 Uncloaked. Follow him on Twitter at @deantak, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat. Have news to share Launching a startup Email: tips@venturebeat.comVentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters. Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.

0 Vote(s)

Nancy Drew iPad app kicks off new &''game book&'' genre

bugterreskitchen — Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000

The Nancy Drew series has been around for 80 years. But game maker Her Interactive is trying to make it relevant for the age of the iPad with a new app launching today called Nancy Drew Mobile Mysteries: Shadow Ranch.The app includes text inspired by the original Nancy Drew book. But the company calls Shadow Ranch a &''game book,&'' the first in a series that will up the ante for publishers cranking out eBooks by the dozen. If this combination of gaming and storytelling takes off, you can expect to see the genre of game books open up in a big way on smartphones and tablets.This title takes game play much farther than some of the other electronic books on the market, says Megan Gaiser (pictured), chief executive of Her Interactive, a maker of video games targeted at broad audiences including girls and women.&''By combining a book and a game, we&'re trying to create a whole new form of interactive entertainment,&'' she said in an interview. &''You get to play the story.&''The game book is the first in a series of titles dubbed Mobile Mysteries that Her Interactive will make around the Nancy Drew license. The game book runs on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. Gaiser said the team at Her Interactive has been working on the title for months, refining it meticulously since it is the company&'s first foray into the Apple mobile market.The focus on girls is aimed at creating games that match the audience for the Nancy Drew books, which have been entertaining young readers since 1930. Gaiser hopes that women who grew up with the books (which includes women such as Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) will read the game book with their children. Overall, the Nancy Drew books have sold more than 100 million copies.&''It has a lot of nostalgia value,&'' Gaiser said.Her Interactive was founded in 1995 and has been working on Nancy Drew computer games since 1997. At first, Gaiser said that no game publishers would publish the company&'s games because they were targeted at girls, who were perceived as non-gamers. The company launched its games on Amazon.com, bypassing the traditional publishers. Then the New York Times wrote a story about the company, calling its Nancy Drew game the &''un-Barbie of video games.&'' Then the publishers all came back.Her Interactive focuses on high quality games with humor, stories, and a modern interpretation of Nancy Drew as a character. Since Her Interactive launched its first Nancy Drew computer game, the company has sold more than 8.7 million units. That&'s a better record for a game series on the PC than Myst or Lord of the Rings, Gaiser said. The series has won 23 Parent&'s Choice gold medal awards.About 40 percent of video game players today are women, according to the Entertainment Software Association. But relatively few titles are targeted at women and girls.The game book has a bunch of rich graphics that you can tap on the iPad&'s touchscreen. On the first page, you can tap on a picture of a truck and hear its horn honk. As you turn the pages, an animation shows the page turning as if it were a real book. The book is filled with lots of hidden object games, where you find the eggs hidden in a forest or collect things that you&'ll need later on in the adventure. There&'s a part where you have to solve word puzzles in order to help Nancy win a horse race. And there&'s a part where you have to navigate your way through underground caves.Altogether, there are 20 hidden object games and a bunch of other mini games across eight chapters. There are 49 collectibles, 49 word challenges, 65 images, 60 sounds, 10 animations and five graphical choices and a couple more mini games. The game is not the same as the Nancy Drew: The Secret of Shadow Ranch game that Her Interactive published on the PC in 2004. The story is different and so is the game play.The competition is plentiful on the App Store, between the 57,455 books and 51,450 games available. But game books are relatively rare. Oceanhouse Media makes a lot of books based on the Dr. Seuss and other children&'s book brands. And many of its titles are also interactive, although they&'re aimed at teaching kids how to read. The Nancy Drew app is $9.99 on the iPad and $2.99 on the iPhone and iPod Touch.Gaiser says the game book is targeted at girls ages 9 to 14. My 7-year-old girl tried it out and loved it. My 14-year-old girl also picked it up and read the book for three hours straight. When she gave the iPad back to me, she said the book was &''boring.&'' But she just didn&'t want to admit that she liked a Nancy Drew game book, since she acts like she&'s too old for it. Overall, I&'d say the game book is very well done and is worthy of being labeled a pioneering work.Next Story: Deals &038' More: Sprout Social gets $10M for social media management Previous Story: HP&'s new business laptops offer up to 32 hours of batteryPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&8230' Tags: eBook, game book, interactive entertainment, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Nancy Drew Mobile Mysteries: Shadow RanchCompanies: Her Interactive, Oceanhouse MediaPeople: Megan Gaiser Tags: eBook, game book, interactive entertainment, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Nancy Drew Mobile Mysteries: Shadow RanchCompanies: Her Interactive, Oceanhouse MediaPeople: Megan GaiserDean is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He covers video games, security, chips and a variety of other subjects. Dean previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News, the Wall Street Journal, the Red Herring, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Times Herald. He is the author of two books, Opening the Xbox and the Xbox 360 Uncloaked. Follow him on Twitter at @deantak, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat. Have news to share Launching a startup Email: tips@venturebeat.comVentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters. Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.

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Boku and Zong let Verizon customers pay via their phone bill

bugterreskitchen — Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000

Boku, which lets users make purchases with their mobile phones the same way they would with a credit card, just announced a partnership with the BilltoMobile payment service, which is directly connected to the Verizon Wireless billing system. Rival payment service Zong has established the same partnership.This means that Verizon customers can purchase virtual goods, apps and other items and bill them directly to their cell phone bill. BilltoMobile, which has been pursuing an aggressive expansion plan in the US, is also integrated with AT&'Ta4a4s billing platform.Boku users type in their phone number and receive a text message to confirm the purchase. The cost of the transaction then goes on the usera4a4s monthly cell phone bill. Bokua4a4s mobile payments platform is live in 65 countries worldwide, with direct billing connections to carriers around the world including AT&'T in the US and Vodafone in the UK. Zong is the mobile payment provider for Facebook credits and provides payment capabilities in close to 50 countries.One problem with text-based mobile payments is that the carrier charges up to 50 percent of the transaction cost as a fee for a premium. BilltoMobile charges lower fees of 15 a4" 17 percent by integrating directly into the carrier&'s billing system. It has been argued that this type of carrier-billed payment will not go mainstream until fees drop closer to the 5-7 percent charged in countries like South Korea. Boku declined to reveal the fees charged in the Verizon case.Boku was founded in 2008, has around 50 employees and is based in San Francisco. It has raised more than $38 million to date from venture capital firms including Andreessen-Horowitz and Benchmark Capital. Zong is based in Menlo Park and is backed by Matrix Partners, Advent Venture Partners and Newbury Ventures.Next Story: DreamIt chooses Mark Wachen to lead New York accelerator Previous Story: Nokia loses smartphone market share and operating profit, hints at OS switchPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&8230' Tags: mobile, paymentsCompanies: BilltoMobile, Boku, Verizon Tags: mobile, paymentsCompanies: BilltoMobile, Boku, VerizonCiara Byrne is a full time techie and part-time writer. She has worked as a software developer, team lead, engineering manager and mobile standards expert. Ciara is based in Amsterdam and her interests include creative companies, useful technology, torture by piano and cycling in high heels. Follow her on Twitter at @deciara. Have news to share Launching a startup Email: tips@venturebeat.comVentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters. Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.

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Facebook Intern Is Smarter Than You, Creates Data Visualization Of World 'Friendships

bugterreskitchen — Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000

Facebook engineering intern Paul Butler has created the stunning map of international human relationships above, using a ten million friend pair sample size from Facebook social graph data. His methodology&''I defined weights for each pair of cities as a function of the Euclidean distance between them and the number of friends between them. Then I plotted lines between the pairs by weight, so that pairs of cities with the most friendships between them were drawn on top of the others. I used a color ramp from black to blue to white, with each line&'s color depending on its weight. I also transformed some of the lines to wrap around the image, rather than spanning more than halfway around the world.&''Hey Google HR people, Paul Butler. That&'s P-A-U-L-B-U-T-L-E-R. Touch base with him on Facebook and/or on LinkedIn here. You&'re welcome.CrunchBase InformationFacebookInformation provided by CrunchBase

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Angel investors to Fashism: You look fabulous

bugterreskitchen — Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000

Social shopping startup Fashism just announced that it has raised an angel round of funding led by A Grade Investments, the fund created by actor/entrepreneur/professional oversharerAshton Kutcher.The New York startup offers a way to get fashion feedback before making a purchase. For example, if youa4a4re not sure whether a jacket is a good buy, you can try it on, take a photo, ask how it looks on how, then read comments from other Fashism users. Fashism says its site has more than 40,000 registered users on its site, while its iPhone application has been downloaded 50,000 times.The companya4a4s press release doesna4a4t disclose the size of the round, but The New York Times reports that it was around $1 million. Other investors include actress Demi Moore (Kutcher&'s wife), Nina Garcia of Marie Claire magazine, Ron Conwaya4a4s SV Angel, High Line Venture Partners (Shana Fisher), NV Investments, Vast Ventures, and Rick Webb. Foursquare chief executive Dennis Crowley and designer Steven Alan are also investors.Back in July, Jalak Jobanputra of the New York City Investment Fund wrote a guest column for VentureBeat arguing that the fashion industry is finally seeing some tech innovation. In the post, she highlighted Fashism, along with competitor Go Try It On.Next Story: Why Texas may be a better electric car state than California Previous Story: Salesforce&'s micro-blogging app Chatter jumps on the freemium bandwagonPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&8230' Tags: fashion, social shoppingCompanies: Fashism, Grade A Investments, Highline Venture Partners, NV Investments, SV Angel, Vast VenturesPeople: Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Dennis Crowley, Nina Garcia, Rick Webb, Ron Conway, Steven Alan Tags: fashion, social shoppingCompanies: Fashism, Grade A Investments, Highline Venture Partners, NV Investments, SV Angel, Vast VenturesPeople: Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Dennis Crowley, Nina Garcia, Rick Webb, Ron Conway, Steven AlanAnthony is VentureBeat's assistant editor, as well as its reporter on media, advertising, and social networks. Before joining VentureBeat in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. (All story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com) You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters. Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.

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Can Coda steal sales from the backlogged Nissan Leaf

bugterreskitchen — Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000

Up against fickle consumers, an uncertain regulatory environment and marketplace, and industry giants, electric-car startups need every break they can get. So when yesterday VentureBeat learned that Japanese automaker Nissan will only release five of the much-anticipated all-electric Leaf this year (pictured, right) in the U.S., we immediately wondered: Could this be good news for CodaIt appears that supply will continue to be limited well into early 2011&8211' to the extent that Nissan has advised dealers to steer Leaf buyers away from the color silver, which has been ordered in overabundance. With 20,000 reservations and a community of eager would-be owners, willbuyers be willing to wait for the LeafIf they&'re not, that could be an advantage for electric car startup Coda, which could scoop up the much-needed sales. The company has set an aggressive goal of 14,000 cars sold by the end of 2011 (Update: looks like that target has been modified to &''first year on sale&''), and wants to raise another $125 million pre-IPO, but recently lost its CEO.As the new kid on the block, Coda has probably come the closest &8212' behind Tesla &8212' to creating a noteworthy electric car that goes to mass market, with an electric sedan it&'s preparing to sell next year (pictured, left). But it also faces a slew of challenges and recently pushed back the car&'s launch date from this December to the third quarter of 2011.Coda is competing head-to-head with the Leaf, which is $12,000 cheaper and comes from a name brand. At $45,000 before state and federal tax incentives, it&'s also more expensive than the electric hybrid Chevy Volt, which retails for $41,000 before tax credits and is hitting dealerships in December.&''Ita4a4s not coming from a name brand. Ita4a4s really hard to see how this is going to be successful,&'' said Jacob Grose, Lux Research analyst. &''I dona4a4t see why people would choose the Coda over the Chevy Volt or Nissan Leaf.&''The Coda sedan doesboast some small advantages &8212' it can charge faster, and claims to have a longer range of 120 miles, compared to the Leaf&'s 100 miles. The Coda sedan also claims to have a better thermal battery management system than the Leaf, which could mean better consistency in range. But none of those things necessarily have a wow factor that justifies the $12,000 price difference over the Leaf.&''Codaa4a4s advantage at this point is that ita4a4s probably a supply constrained market,&'' says John Gartner, Pike Research analyst. &''Therea4a4s a lot of interest in electric vehicles that outstrip the available supply for the next 18 to 24 months.&''Coda also plans to launch first in the California market, with a sales strategy that mirrors Apple&'s and is similar to Tesla&'s. It will open about 17 storefronts in high-traffic malls over the next year, according to spokesman Matt Sloustcher, giving visitors a chance to check out the car and learn about electric cars in a no-pressure sales environment. California is a first-launch state for most electric cars given high gas prices and a progressive stance on cleantech. And it offers a $5,000 tax credit for electric car buyers &8212' combined with the $7,500 federal credit, that knocks $12,500 off the price tag.The sales strategy doesn&'t impress analyst Grose, who says that cars a much tougher sell than iPods. But the key to Coda&'s future may well be in fleet sales. The company is targeting 40 to 50 percent of its planned 14,000 sales in the next year to go to fleets.GM does big business in fleet sales (think police cars and rental services), and recently landed a deal with GE to supply the company with 12,000 electric cars by 2015, underscoring the importance of fleets sales in electric car adoption. Coda recently announced a deal for 100 of its sedans with Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and hired new fleet sales executives with backgrounds in GE, Mercedes-Benz and Chrysler.&''Tesla was the first mover so they dona4a4t have the first-mover advantages. The really successful small guys are going to be the ones who target fleets, not the ones tring to go head-to-head in the consumer vehicle markets,&'' Grose said.&''Ita4a4s hard enough for Nissan and Tesla' ita4a4s going to be pretty much impossible for Coda and (hybrid sports car startup)Fisker.&''Next Story: Carol Bartz keeps it clean as she tries to explain Yahoo&'s business Previous Story: A million Optimus Ones say LG made a smart bet on AndroidPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&8230' Tags: Coda sedan, electric cars, electric vehicles, Leaf, VoltCompanies: Chevrolet, Coda, GM, NissanPeople: Forrest Beanum, Kevin Czinger Tags: Coda sedan, electric cars, electric vehicles, Leaf, VoltCompanies: Chevrolet, Coda, GM, NissanPeople: Forrest Beanum, Kevin CzingerIris Kuo is the VentureBeat's lead GreenBeat writer. She has reported for The Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong, Houston Chronicle, the McClatchy Washington Bureau and Dallas public radio. Iris attended the University of Texas at Dallas and lives in Houston. Follow Iris on Twitter @thestatuskuo (and yes, that's how you pronounce her last name).VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters. Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.

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Group camping trips, arranged on private land - Springwise

bugterreskitchen — Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000

Group camping trips can be difficult to arrange, thanks in large part to noise restrictions and other prohibitive rules often employed by public (and typically crowded) campgrounds. That''s where the UK-based Private Camping Company comes in. With a network of farmers and landowners, the company negotiates access to private land and uses those sites to host short-term camping vacations.Based in England''s Lake District, the Private Camping Company works with local farmers and landowners willing to rent small, secluded areas of their land for short-term private camping pitches. UK planning regulations allow such landowners 28 days of "permitted development" per year in which they can use their land for nearly any temporary purpose without needing to apply for planning permission. Using land rented out in that way, then, the company provides and sets up temporary campsite facilities a4" equipped with water, toilets, hot showers, waste disposal, etc. a4" and then completely removes them afterwards, leaving the land just as they found it. Prices vary depending on the location and the required facilities, but for a group of 10 it would be roughly GBP 50 per person for a two-night weekend stay. Regular Springwise readers already know that sellsumers are increasingly interested in monetizing the assets they have, and it seems likely landowners are no exception. By facilitating that process a4" and solving a real problem for the camping-minded masses a4" the Private Camping Company has found what could be a lovely niche with benefits for everyone involved. One to partner with or emulate in the verdant hills and dales near you (Related: Peer-to-peer camping grounds: renting out the back yard a4" Farm camping in cottage-style tents (private chicken coops optional) a4" Campsite directory with a fresh pitch a4" Sustainable urban campground to be crowd-funded & managed a4" ''Try before you buy'' service for first-time campers.)Website: www.privatecamping.co.ukContact: info@privatecamping.co.uk

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