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<title>Haaze.com / Allena / Published News</title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com</link>
<description>Test Web 2.0 Content Management System</description>
<pubDate>Thu, 11 Nov 2010 08:10:22 +0000</pubDate>
<language>en</language>
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<title><![CDATA[Fusion Garage has buyers for obsolete JooJoos]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=fusion-garage-has-buyers-for-obsolete-joojoos</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=fusion-garage-has-buyers-for-obsolete-joojoos</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 11 Nov 2010 08:10:22 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Allena</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=fusion-garage-has-buyers-for-obsolete-joojoos</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Earlier today an Asian tech blog, e27, moved forward the story of the Fusion Garage JooJoo tablet demise. It's now officially obsolete. So where are the old JooJoos goingThe first-generation, now officially obsolete, JooJoo tablet(Credit:Rafe Needleman/CNET)A Fusion Garage spokesperson told me that the reason the JooJoos are being removed from the market is that there is actually a buyer (perhaps more than one), for the whole lot of leftover tablets. They're going to be repurposed into vertical-market equipment &quot;like medical devices,&quot; I was told. At this point, we don't know how much of the JooJoo operating system will survive on these new, non-consumer tablets. Nor do we know how many companies are involved in taking the old JooJoos off Fusion Garage's hands, or how many devices Fusion Garage is disposing of. For all we know, the buyers could be buying the tablets for parts. The JooJoo ordering page is still up as of this writing, but won't be for long. Update: The company says all JooJoo purchases made before Friday, November 19 at 11:59 p.m. PST will be fulfilled. After that, the order form will go offline.Fusion Garage still plans on releasing new Android-based devices for the consumer market next year. They won't be called JooJoo tablets.Update 3:28 p.m. PT: I received a statement from Fusion Garage:Fusion Garage will be announcing that it has expanded distribution channels via a vertical market reseller. Through the agreement, this reseller will customize Fusion Garage's first generation Internet tablet, joojoo, for corporate applications. Fusion Garage is also in discussions with other resellers and systems integrators to distribute joojoo in vertical markets such as medical, transportation, logistics and others that take advantage of its 12.1 inch form factor. The growing interest from vertical market resellers is anticipated to consume the remaining joojoo inventory by the end of this year. Fusion Garage remains committed to its joojoo customers and will continue to support the device. Additional information on customer support will be available in the coming weeks.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Did Jammie Thomas case backfire on file sharers]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=did-jammie-thomas-case-backfire-on-file-sharers</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=did-jammie-thomas-case-backfire-on-file-sharers</comments>
<pubDate>Sun, 07 Nov 2010 07:10:18 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Allena</dc:creator>
<category>Marketing and advertising</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=did-jammie-thomas-case-backfire-on-file-sharers</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Jammie Thomas-Rasset was supposed to lead the major labels into a trap. Proponents of less restrictive copyright laws predicted that the decision by the four biggest record labels to drag a single mother of modest means into court for allegedly sharing music over the Web would lead them into a legal, political, and public relations killing field. &quot;Ordinary Americans could have chosen figures at the lowest range of the statutory guidelines but went much higher.&quot;--RIAA attorneySince 2006, when Thomas-Rasset first refused to settle the copyright complaint brought against her by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the labels' trade group, her supporters said her case would illustrate how impossible it was to definitively prove who was sitting at a computer when music files were illegally distributed over file-sharing networks. If she somehow lost her case, then it would cast a bright light on the unfairness of assessing huge damage awards on people who download music for their own use.  Many predicted the court fight would prove the futility of filing these kinds of lawsuits and discourage others from filing them. But on Wednesday, Thomas-Rasset saw the third jury of her peers vote against her. This time, since the Minnesota native had already been found liable of copyright infringement, the jury was tasked only with determining what she should pay in damages. They came down hard, assessing an amount of $62,500 for each of the 24 songs she was accused of illegally sharing. The total she owes is now $1.5 million.This fight is a long way from being over. Thomas-Rasset's attorneys have vowed to continue to fight. They will likely argue that these types of damage awards for copyright infringement are unconstitutional. The case is likely headed to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals or maybe even the Supreme Court. But all of that is still a ways off. In the meantime, her losses are arming copyright owners with valuable credibility and precedents. After four years of legal maneuvering and three separate trials, the evidence suggests that Thomas-Rasset's case was the wrong one to challenge the nation's copyright laws. The RIAA can now point to three separate juries that believed a fair damages amount for Thomas-Rasset to pay was respectively: $222,000, $1.9 million, and $1.5 million. The range for statutory damages for each instance of copyright infringement is between $750 and $150,000. Instead, the juries in the Thomas-Rasset trials chose $9,250, $80,000, and $62,500. Jammie Thomas-Rasset(Credit:Jammie Thomas-Rasset)In the first trial, the judge tossed the award because he said he erred in instructing the jury. In the second trial, the judge reduced the $1.9 million amount to $54,000 and the RIAA appealed, which is how we ended up with this third trial. Should the judge consider reducing the $1.5 million amount, the RIAA can now point to three jury verdicts and argue that he is the one out of step. Jennifer Pariser, the RIAA's senior vice president of legal affairs and litigation, said in an interview with CNET on Thursday that plenty of opponents have argued that Congress set the range for statutory damages on copyright infringement before the digital age and did so to discourage the commercial pirating of music and films. The amounts were not meant for individual users who just want to hear some tunes. Pariser rejects the notion that the range doesn't apply in the file-sharing era or that lawmakers would necessarily reduce them now. She said the decisions by the juries in the Thomas-Rasset trials support that argument. &quot;Ordinary Americans could have chosen figures at the lowest range of the statutory guidelines [for a total amount of $18,000] but went much higher.&quot; When it came to proving that it was Thomas-Rasset who shared the songs, the RIAA won the first trial by showing that the 24 songs in question were shared on the Kazaa file-sharing network from Thomas-Rasset's Internet protocol address and using her Kazaa username. The jury made up its mind to rule against her in the first five minutes of deliberation, one member Wired.com. Juries don't seem to like or believe Thomas-Rasset, another one of the liabilities in her case. On the stand, she was at times combative and even suggested that her own children or boyfriend may have downloaded the music.As for the music industry's image, there's no question it took a beating with music fans as a result of the trials. The PR hits, however, have been mitigated by the benefits of winning three high-profile jury decisions, complete with wince-inducing damage awards. The shock-and-awe factor of those awards is sure to provide copyright owners with a powerful cautionary tale. Jennifer Pariser, the RIAA&amp;39's senior vice president of legal affairs. (Credit:RIAA)The music industry may have given up on suing people for illegal file sharing two years ago, but the Thomas-Rasset case has thus far failed to deter other copyright owners from taking up where the RIAA left off. A growing number of independent film studios and adult-film makers this year began suing suspected illegal file sharers at a far faster rate than the RIAA ever did. This week, Kenneth Ford, one of the lawyers representing several adult-film makers, filed a lawsuit against a total of nearly 10,000 alleged illegal file sharers. In just the past two weeks, Ford has filed against nearly 17,000 people. Lawyers representing those filmmakers can now carry the damages amount against Thomas-Rassets into the negotiations with suspected film pirates. The copyright owners can use her to illustrate that refusing to settle is risky. The lawyers could lay it out like this: The decision should rest on simple arithmetic. Thomas-Rasset could have settled with the RIAA for about $3,000. Instead, she fought--and the least amount she's been on the hook for since is $54,000. For copyright owners, that's a big stick to wield. The vast majority of people accused by the RIAA during its five-year litigation campaign decided to settle for a few thousand dollars. The same goes for the copyright cases brought by indie film studios, according to the lawyers representing the defendants. Tyler Ochoa, a law professor at Santa Clara University, said that the big problem isn't Thomas-Rasset's case. &quot;The law is on [the copyright owners'] side right now,&quot; Ochoa said. &quot;The notion that there is a personal use exception to copyright has pretty much disappeared in recent years.&quot;The good news for the file-sharing crowd is that there are other potential challenges to copyright law rising out of the suits filed by indie film studios. Some of the attorneys representing those accused by the filmmakers say there's a growing number of people who say they are innocent and are determined not to settle. Robert Talbot, a law professor at the University of San Francisco, represents 23 defendants. &quot;I have a couple of cases that would be good to take all the way.&quot; <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Microsoft to devs: Silverlight is still important to us]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-to-devs-silverlight-is-still-important-to-us</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-to-devs-silverlight-is-still-important-to-us</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 01 Nov 2010 07:10:03 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Allena</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-to-devs-silverlight-is-still-important-to-us</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer talks to PDC 2010 attendees about HTML5.(Credit:Josh Lowensohn/CNET)If one thing was made clear at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference last week, it's that the software giant wants in on some of the HTML5 mojo competitors have been trumpeting over the last year or so. What wasn't made clear, however, was the future of Silverlight--Microsoft's media runtime that competes with HTML5 in a number of areas.That much was presented to developers in the company's keynote, which encompassed updates to its virtualization and cloud computing platform, all the way to new phone apps and a platform preview of the company's update of the Internet Explorer browser. While talking about these last two items, Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer paid special attention to HTML5, even bringing up IE9 chief Dean Hachamovitch to demonstrate how IE9 could handle HTML5 much better than browsers from competitors like Mozilla and Google. The big problem was what wasn't mentioned: Silverlight. Short of Ballmer making note of Silverlight being used to stream the keynote, and the rest of the event sessions to remote users, there was no talk of where the platform was headed. This was later emphasized in an interview with ZDNet, where Microsoft's president of server and tools, Bob Muglia, said of Silverlight that &quot;our strategy has shifted,&quot; and noted that major release cycles for the runtime had slowed. Largely in response to that article, and some of the backlash from developers over the weekend, Muglia has authored a guest post on Microsoft's Silverlight Team Blog entitled &quot;PDC and Silverlight,&quot; that apologizes for any confusion, and reaffirms the company's efforts on the next version of Silverlight.Muglia also noted that by saying the company's strategy had shifted, it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. &quot;This isn't a negative statement, but rather, it's a comment on how the industry has changed and how we're adapting our Silverlight strategy to take advantage of that,&quot; he said.Part of the reason for that change, Muglia explained, is that form factors for devices have grown at quite a clip.&quot;When we started Silverlight, the number of unique/different Internet-connected devices in the world was relatively small, and our goal was to provide the most consistent, richest experience across those devices,&quot; Muglia said. &quot;But the world has changed. As a result, getting a single runtime implementation installed on every potential device is practically impossible. We think HTML will provide the broadest, cross-platform reach across all these devices.&quot;In early September, Microsoft published a piece on the same blog called &quot;The future of Silverlight,&quot; which detailed how the company's runtime would co-exist, and in many cases--overtake what HTML was used for in Web activities. The piece also noted that Silverlight is not just limited to being used in the browser, as can be seen in the runtime's spread to other Microsoft devices like Windows Phone 7. The next version of Silverlight is largely expected to be unveiled at next year's Mix conference in Las Vegas, where previous versions--including the first one, were unveiled. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Rocket scientist aims to relaunch propulsion technology]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=rocket-scientist-aims-to-relaunch-propulsion-technology</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=rocket-scientist-aims-to-relaunch-propulsion-technology</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 20 Oct 2010 18:24:27 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Allena</dc:creator>
<category>Gaming</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=rocket-scientist-aims-to-relaunch-propulsion-technology</guid>
<description><![CDATA[This is a concept sketch for new technology that could power rocket launches through beamed microwave energy.(Credit:Escape Dynamics)The time has come to jettison the traditional chemical rocket propulsion system and move to one powered by beamed microwaves, say a group of researchers.For decades, even as rockets have gotten lighter and more powerful, the basic system for putting them in space hasn't changed. A combustion chamber is loaded with propellants, which are put through a chemical reaction, causing hot gases to accelerate and be ejected through a nozzle at very high velocity, which in turn, provides momentum to the rocket's engine.But a team led by 25-year-old CalTech Ph.D. student Dmitriy Tseliakhovich thinks that the time has come for a new rocket propulsion paradigm, one that requires no chemical explosions, which could cut the cost of putting payloads in space by a factor of ten or more, and which could dramatically reduce the environmental impact of a launch.The technology is being looked at by some as a major key to making affordable private space flights--particularly those geared towards getting cargo outside the Earth's atmosphere--for small- and medium-sized businesses that would like to explore the resources of space, but which are today unable to get off the planet.And while there is clearly a long way to go before a propulsion system powered by microwave beams or any other external source is ready for prime time, those involved in the research believe that all the required technology is already here.To Tseliakhovich, the major rationale for pursuing external propulsion is the fact that the price for putting payloads in space hasn't changed in decades. He explains that in 2005 dollars, the cost has stayed constant for at least 50 years at around $10,000 per kilogram, mainly because so much of a rocket's space and weight is devoted to the fuel that gets it off the ground.In order to overcome that threshold, he argued, it is necessary to develop a fundamentally new system capable of delivering the 7 kilometers per second velocity required to get a rocket out of the atmosphere. This is a schematic for the propulsion system behind the new rocket launch technology.(Credit:Escape Dynamics)&quot;What we propose,&quot; said Tseliakhovich, who is the founder of Escape Dynamics, a start-up devoted to solving the problem, &quot;is, let's get rid of producing energy on board the launch vehicle and delivery energy by way of microwave beams.&quot;To many, that idea may sound like pure science fiction, but there are some very accomplished people in the space industry who believe that beamed microwaves could very well become the propulsion system of the future. &quot;What's been really evident to me [is] that today's rockets really are the same line of evolution as Chinese rockets a thousand years ago, [where you have] a hot tube, and hot gases come out the other end,&quot; said Peter Diamandis, the chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation and co-vice chairman of Space Adventures. &quot;There's been no leap from the propeller to the jet, as we had in aviation. I had read about beamed power, and as I looked at it...what became evident to me was that the technology to implement it was here today. Nothing magical needed to be created.&quot;Indeed, Diamandis had already been thinking about creating an X Prize or possibly an X Challenge dedicated to coming up with a next-generation propulsion system, perhaps, he said, using some new system to get something like 10 kilograms of cargo up to 30 kilometers in space. So when Tseliakhovich came to him at a conference full of ideas about future versions of propulsion, it was Diamandis who first turned the young Ph.D. student onto the idea of beamed power.How it would workAccording to Escape Dynamics, &quot;the key operational components of the microwave beam power launch system are a ground-based microwave array and an engine based on the heat exchange between the hydrogen propellant and the incoming microwave radiation. Hydrogen heating is achieved with the heat exchanger, which heats the propellant to a temperature above 2,000 [degrees Kelvin], which is necessary for efficient operation of the engine.&quot;Essentially, the idea is that microwaves beamed from the ground would heat hydrogen, which would then flow through a heat exchanger and out through the rocket's nozzle. This system would allow for a single-stage launch vehicle that would be both reusable, and highly reliable, Tseliakhovich said.One of the major advantages of a beamed microwave external propulsion system, said Kevin Parkin, the deputy director of the Mission Design Center at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., is that it can bypass some of the typical constraints of a traditional propulsion engine.According to Parkin, who is an Escape Dynamics adviser and who wrote his own Ph.D. thesis on microwave thermal propulsion, a beamed energy propulsion system is capable of producing 2.5 times as much thrust as a traditional chemical-based system. He said that the standard system tops out at an energetic reaction of 16 megajoules per kilogram, while the beamed energy approach can reach 40 megajoules per kilogram.&quot;So you get a higher performance out of the rocket by sending the same amount of mass out the back,&quot; Parkin said. &quot;So that translates to a rocket with a bigger payload.&quot;And what that means, Parkin added, is that a rocket launched under this paradigm could have more of its mass devoted to structural integrity, a key component in getting to a reusable launch vehicle that requires being inspected only once over 100 flights or so. &quot;It's more akin to an airliner than a rocket,&quot; he explained.Not a new conceptTo be sure, the idea of using beamed energy to get a rocket off the ground is nothing new. Parkin said that Russian rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky first proposed the idea in 1924. But back then, Parkin added, there was no such thing as beams or lasers, let alone those powerful enough to launch a vehicle into space.Today, that's no longer the case, argued Tseliakhovich. &quot;Until five years ago,&quot; said Tseliakhovich, &quot;we could not produce enough output of the microwave power. We did not have efficient enough gyrotrons.&quot;Today, however, it's possible to produce more than a megawatt of energy per gyrotron, Tseliakhovich said, speaking of devices that, according to Wikipedia, are &quot;high-powered vacuum tubes which emit millimeter-wave beams by bunching electrons with cyclotron motion in a strong magnetic field.&quot;And Parkin said his own research demonstrated five years ago that it was possible to heat hydrogen to high enough temperatures using microwaves to create high-performance propulsion.So why has no one come along since then to try to take the technology where Tseliakhovich now wants toIn part, said Parkin, it's because not many people know about the technology, and because it often takes the scientific community 10 years or more to cotton to a radical change in philosophy. Further, he said, there are those who are critical of the very concept of beamed energy propulsion, mainly because they worry that the technology is not really capable of producing enough of an increase in propulsion efficiency to make investing time and money in it worthwhile.But to Diamandis, bringing high technology into the equation means that for the first time, Moore's Law could be applied to the science of propulsion, and that could mean that the cost of putting payloads in space could very well drop rapidly as does the price of computer components.Diamandis acknowledges that there are those who don't believe in the idea of beamed energy-based propulsion, and said there are others who oppose investing in it because they fear it threatens current infrastructure.But NASA is already looking into the technology, Parkin said, pointing to a research project under way at the U.S. space agency's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. For his part, Tseliakhovich said he believes it will be technologically possible to build a prototype beamed microwave infrastructure and launch vehicle in as little as seven years, though he admits that the psychological shift required to back such an effort might take longer. That's particularly true, he said, because sending such a rocket into space would require enough land to build a functional beamed microwave array and the support of a government interested in the technology.But both Parkin and Diamandis--who, of course, have a stake in the technology's success--think that Tseliakhovich's time frame is realistic. The only question, said Diamandis, is how big a rocket built using the technology in that time frame would be.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Social game company Summerlight comes out of stealth (exclusive)]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=social-game-company-summerlight-comes-out-of-stealth-exclusive</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=social-game-company-summerlight-comes-out-of-stealth-exclusive</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Allena</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=social-game-company-summerlight-comes-out-of-stealth-exclusive</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Social game companies such as Zynga owe much of their success to Facebook. But they&amp;'ve learned the lesson in recent months that they should diversify beyond the fast-growing social network. Recognizing the need for diversification, they are creating their own web sites where they can launch their games.That&amp;'s the strategy of Summerlight, a stealth social game company that is coming out of hiding today. The company is launching its new online web site game Spa Retreat today and is announcing a partnership with Endemol, the largest independent TV company. Endemol makes shows such as Big Brother, Deal or No Deal and other reality and game shows. Summerlight will test ideas for new creative projects on its game web site' if they pass muster, they could be exploited by Endemol as entertainment properties.David Kaye, founder of West Hollywood, Calif.-based Summerlight, says the company will buck the trend of most social game companies by not having a Facebook version. Rather, the game will tap Facebook Connect, which allows users to promote a game to their Facebook friends. Kaye says it may be harder to get the game noticed by setting it up as a separate web site. But at least the company will have complete control over its own platform and user experience.&amp;''We&amp;'d like to form our own social graph (a friend network) around our games,&amp;'' Kaye (pictured) said. &amp;''We&amp;'ve noticed that while the most engaged social gamers do play with  their friends, they will also connect with people they don&amp;'t know if it  enriches their gaming experience. Facebook sees this sort of behavior  as polluting the social graph, but [with] a purpose-built destination we can  provide the ideal environment for people who are only there to play  games.&amp;''That may sound like a long shot. But Kaye is a veteran of social games. The first game, funded by Endemol, is a female-oriented title where users hang out at a spa. You build the spa, invite friends, cater to their needs, and get them to buy premium services like Shiatsu massages. Other games will likely appeal to different kinds of users. The emphasis will be on creating original games, testing ideas that could become bigger entertainment properties. Creating a game around a good idea is a better way to test that idea than to spend $1 million developing a TV pilot based on the idea, Kaye said.Kaye is pitching ideas that could turn into bigger properties, but he can&amp;'t talk about them yet. Kaye and co-founder Kurtis Kopf, chief technology officer, started the company six months ago. It has six employees and is funded by angels. At some point, Summerlight will likely expand to other platforms such as smartphones. But it has no concrete plans on that front at this point.Kaye is a veteran of multiple social game efforts. He co-founded text-based massively multiplayer online firm Iron Realms Entertainment and Facebook game publisher Meteor Games as well. Meteor had a big hit with Island Paradise.Previous Story: Borrego Solar lands $36 million in project financingPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: Big Brother, social gamesCompanies: Endemol, SummerlightPeople: David Kaye          Tags: Big Brother, social gamesCompanies: Endemol, SummerlightPeople: David KayeDean 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.VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Google Finally Updates FeedBurner To Focus On Real Time Stats And&nbsp'Twitter]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-finally-updates-feedburner-to-focus-on-real-time-stats-andnbsptwitter</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-finally-updates-feedburner-to-focus-on-real-time-stats-andnbsptwitter</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Allena</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-finally-updates-feedburner-to-focus-on-real-time-stats-andnbsptwitter</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Three and a half years ago, Google made what seemed to be a pretty big $100 million acquisition: FeedBurner. You remember that company, right They&amp;'re the ones that dominated RSS management before all of that real time tech came along and rendered it obsolete for many people. Today, Google is putting the real time paddles to FeedBurner&amp;'s heart in an attempt to rivive it.If you visit FeedBurner today, you&amp;'ll see a &amp;''Try out our NEW (beta) version!&amp;'' message in the top menu. Clicking on this will take you to the new version. So what&amp;'s new The entire look and feel has been revamped. The new Home screen is loaded up with overview stats and alerts for the sites you run. But the real key, of course, is in the Feeds area.Here&amp;'s you&amp;'ll see a completely new way of looking at your subscribers and data. In a move that should surprise no one, it looks a lot more like Google Analytics. But the key is what&amp;'s going on behind the scenes. As Google notes:The real story is whata4a4s new under the hood, however: the new interface provides real time stats for clicks, views, and podcast downloads, which means you can start seeing what content is drawing traffic from feed readers, Twitter, and other syndicated sources as it happens.In fact, Google mentions Twitter a couple times in their post about the update a4&quot; more than they mention their own RSS reader product, Google Reader. Clearly, they see where the future of content consumption is heading.And it&amp;'s interesting that Twitter is so vital here. One of FeedBurner&amp;'s co-founders and CEO was Dick Costolo a4&quot; yes, the same man who is now the CEO of Twitter.Costolo left Google in July of 2009 after he had already moved on from the FeedBurner team. It seemed pretty clear to many of us that after thea4sacquisition, Google wasn&amp;'t putting the resources it should have into the product. And its time at Google has been filled with bugs, problems, and a general growing disinterest from most users.Maybe that will change now. Maybe. This update is about two years too late.[thanks Michael]CrunchBase InformationFeedBurnerGoogleTwitterInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[IBM: Parking spot tracker Streetline is the world&'s smartest startup]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ibm-parking-spot-tracker-streetline-is-the-worldrsquos-smartest-startup</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ibm-parking-spot-tracker-streetline-is-the-worldrsquos-smartest-startup</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Allena</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ibm-parking-spot-tracker-streetline-is-the-worldrsquos-smartest-startup</guid>
<description><![CDATA[IBM&amp;'s smartcamp global entrepreneur competition culminated in Dublin today with 9 startups from all around the world competing for the title of the &amp;''world&amp;'s smartest startup&amp;''. From 660 original applicants the final winner was Streetline, which helps cities track parking violations and drivers to find parking spots.Ultra-low power sensors are installed in parking spots, which can detect if the space is occupied. Sensors can also be installed in the parking meter to verify whether the meter had been fed and therefore detect violations.According to Streetline, 30 percent of traffic in major cities consists of people driving around looking for parking, making it a major congestion and environmental problem. Parking fines are also a significant source of revenue for cities and currently many violations do not result in fines. Streetline systems are already deployed in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles. New York and Washington are about to be added. Streetline charges the city per space, per month in a service model. The company also just did its first deal with a private parking garage.In addition to detecting parking violations, Streetline will release a smartphone application in early December to direct users to the closest parking pots. Once that is in place, a city could even start doing dynamic pricing of parking spots in order to direct drivers to particular parking areas.CEO Zia Yusuf told me that there are three major ways to get their product to consumers rather than just cities: the smartphone application, digital signs which direct people to parking (&amp;''3 spots if you turn left&amp;'') and finally partnerships with car navigation systems.Ideally, Yusuf would like to see cities introduce integrated parking systems which include monitoring like that supplied by Streetline, mobile payment for parking, alerts when parking time is running out and mobile ticketing. He suggests that a city could even send a ticket to your mobile phone with an offer that if you pay instantly, you get a discount on the fine. Streetline also has ambitions to extend its services into traffic monitoring and beyond.A couple of other startups received special mentions from the judges. Treemetrics is a local Irish company which uses3D laser scanning to measure the height, straightness, taper and volume of trees in a forest. This allows foresters to reduce measurement costs and schedule logging to maximise yield.Sproxil tackles the huge problem of drug counterfeiting in developing countries using a simple scratch-off code attached to the packaging which works in a similar way to pre-paid mobile billing. The user exposes the code and sends it by text message to a verification number which checks its validity.For IBM, the smartcamp competition isn&amp;'t just a marketing exercise. 35 percent of IBM&amp;'s $100+ billion inrevenue is driven by partners including startups. Irish social security software company Cram Software, for example, has alone driven 1 billion EU in sales for IBM over the course of their partnership.The common theme among startups in the finals was IBM&amp;'s smarter world mantra of instrumentation, interconnection and intelligence' basically lots of sensors and analysis of the data they produce. Most of the competing startups had deep domain knowledge in areas like healthcare, forestry, water treatment and seismic measurement as well as technical expertise. This fits well into IBM&amp;'s focus on vertical markets.The smartcamp competition was the brainchild of Martin Kelly, the European partner of IBM&amp;'s Venture Capital group and the first, smaller-scalecompetition was staged in Ireland last year. IBM&amp;'s Venture Capital group operates an unusual model in that it does not manage its own venture fund (like Intel and Google) but works with VCs to identify startups of interest.The startups get access to IBM&amp;'s market intelligence, customers and local know-how as well as the credibility a young company sometimes needs to deal with large enterprise customers. IBM gets an early look at interesting companies which could become partners or eventually acquisitions without actually investing its own cash. IBM has done 18 acquisitions in the last year alone. The company has set aside $20 billion for acquisitions up to 2015.Front photo by John Vachon, via Touching Harms the ArtNext Story: Stipple snaps up $2M to easily tag the web&amp;'s pictures Previous Story: Breaking all video game records, Call of Duty Black Ops sells $650M in five daysPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: data, parking, sensors, smartcampCompanies: IBM, Sproxil, streetline, treemetrics          Tags: data, parking, sensors, smartcampCompanies: IBM, Sproxil, streetline, treemetricsCiara 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. VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Hatsize raises $5M to let businesses try new tech before they buy it]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hatsize-raises-5m-to-let-businesses-try-new-tech-before-they-buy-it</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hatsize-raises-5m-to-let-businesses-try-new-tech-before-they-buy-it</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Allena</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hatsize-raises-5m-to-let-businesses-try-new-tech-before-they-buy-it</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Hatsize, a service that helps companies demo and test new technology, announced today that it has raised $5 million in its first round of funding to execute its plans for aggressive global expansion.The company&amp;'s cloud-based service hosts demos for new technologies. So instead of a company having to send out representatives or potential customers having to take the time to set up a new product a4&quot; such as a new type of database or customer resource management software a4&quot; vendors and prospective customers can use Hatsize&amp;'s program to handle all the heavy lifting.There are a number of potential uses for the service, but the largest is providing companies with demonstrations and setting up training sessions for complex programs and hardware a4&quot; like those found in medical services. Businesses have already logged more than 1 million hours using the web service.Hatsize became profitable in 2005. Its only other funding came from a seed funding round in 2001, when it raised $700,000. The Canadian company was founded in 2000 and has between 30 and 50 full-time employees. The most recent round of fundraising brings Hatsize&amp;'s total funding up to $5.7 million.[Photo: TechCocktail]Next Story: No more syncing: Didiom streams music to your iPhone from anywhere Previous Story: Good heavens! SEC could take aim at super angelsPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: cloud computing, collaboration, DEMO, trainingCompanies: Hatsize          Tags: cloud computing, collaboration, DEMO, trainingCompanies: HatsizeMatthew Lynley is VentureBeat's enterprise writer. He graduated from University of North Carolina, where he studied math and physics, in May 2010. He has reported for Reuters. He currently lives in San Francsico, Calif. You can reach him at mattl@venturebeat.com (all story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com), and on Twitter at @logicalmoron.VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Project &''Groupon Everywhere&'' Proceeds With Hyper-Local Deals (Via&nbsp'JiWire)]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=project-8220groupon-everywhere8221-proceeds-with-hyper-local-deals-vianbspjiwire</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=project-8220groupon-everywhere8221-proceeds-with-hyper-local-deals-vianbspjiwire</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Allena</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=project-8220groupon-everywhere8221-proceeds-with-hyper-local-deals-vianbspjiwire</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Groupon barely paused to reject Google&amp;'s $6 billion offer before continuing on its way towards becoming an online local advertising juggernaut.  It introduced self-serve Groupon Stores last week and is striking distribution partnerships left and right (with Yahoo, eBay, Ning, and newspaper sites).  Groupon&amp;'s latest distribution deal, we&amp;'ve learned, is with WiFi and mobile ad network JiWire, and is part of a strategy known internally as &amp;''Groupon Everywhere.&amp;''With JiWire, Groupon will be able to offer deals at the hyper-local levela4&quot;not just by city, but by neighborhood.  JiWire runs a mobile ad network which runs predominantly on public WiFi networks.  Through partnerships with more than 40 public WiFi networks and 60 airports, its ads reach more than 30 million people a month, and JiWire knows if they are sitting in a cafe or in a terminal so it can tailor offers based on their location. Using Groupon&amp;039's API, JiWire can sift through the deals near any given device on its ad network and serve up targeted offers based on the user&amp;039's location and time of day.  The JiWire Groupon deals will also also work with mobile apps that provide a location back to JiWire.   (JiWire recently acquired mobile shopping platform NearbyNow).  As I noted a few days ago, Groupon&amp;'s daily deals are really a new form of performance-based local advertising and it is trying to cement its lead in this nascent market by expanding its inventory of such deals as fast as possible.  It started along this path in the summer by introducing personalized deals, which allowed it to carry more than one deal per day in any given city.  (In San Francisco, for instance, Groupon is currently running 8 deals).  The self-serve stores should also expand the number of deals in its inventory, as will these various distribution partnerships.All of this is just another way to distribute Groupon&amp;'s existing and expanding inventory.  Expect more distribution deals in the future.  These deals cut into Groupon&amp;'s healthy 50% margins since it now has to split its portion of the coupon dollars with its new partners, but its deals are seen by more people. The self-serve Groupon Stores will also cut into margins, with Groupon only getting 10% of those deals.  Groupon needs to stay ten steps ahead of its competitors and &amp;''Groupon Everywhere&amp;'' is how it hopes to do that.  Where will Groupon go next  Mobile app check-ins seems like an obvious place.  Geo-targeted offers are already part of Foursquare and others geo-location apps.  If you check in somewhere and that store or one nearby is offering a Groupon, that could be a good time to display a Groupon offer.  Competitor BuyWithMe is already testing a similar concept with SVNGR.  While no check-in deals are imminent, Groupon is looking into it.CrunchBase InformationGrouponJiWireInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Ifbyphone snaps up $8M to modify phone calls in the cloud]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ifbyphone-snaps-up-8m-to-modify-phone-calls-in-the-cloud</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ifbyphone-snaps-up-8m-to-modify-phone-calls-in-the-cloud</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Allena</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ifbyphone-snaps-up-8m-to-modify-phone-calls-in-the-cloud</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Ifbyphone, a provider of web-based services that interact with phone calls, has raised $8 million in its second round of funding from Apex Venture Partners, Origin Ventures and Spring Mill Ventures.The company has a web-based service that lets its users track and automate phone calls through a public cloud server. That means companies with call centers can route calls to a remote server and have them interact with with a number of applications, like a virtual receptionist. Developers can build web services to work with any existing software and build on all the features they need to control every phase of a call with only a few clicks of a mouse.Ifbyphone recently snapped up Cloudvox to get access to its open application programming interfaces (APIs) that let companies that use call centers develop applications for their software. Cloudvox basicallyprovided web developers with everything they needed to build applications that could route and interact with telephone calls.The basic services include anything from a virtual receptionist, to a voicemail box, to the ability to register a vote by phone. Users can pay more to gain access to more in-depth analytics and interactive voice applications. The pricing ranges anywhere from $50 to $75 a month.The Skokie, Ill-based company raised $9.1 million in an earlier round fromApex Venture Partners, Origin Ventures andBluecrest Capital Finance. The most recent round brings its funding to $17.1 million.[Photo: Esparta]Previous Story: Apple sued over spying mobile appsPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: cloud computing, phone, telephonyCompanies: Cloudvox, Ifbyphone          Tags: cloud computing, phone, telephonyCompanies: Cloudvox, IfbyphoneMatthew Lynley is VentureBeat's enterprise writer. He graduated from University of North Carolina, where he studied math and physics, in May 2010. He has reported for Reuters. He currently lives in San Francsico, Calif. You can reach him at mattl@venturebeat.com (all story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com), and on Twitter at @logicalmoron.VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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