Indoor navigation startup aisle411 has just snagged its biggest retail partner yet. The company this week announced its first nationally scaled in-store search solution for Walgreens and its 7,900+ U.S. stores. Using the app, customers can view the maps of any Walgreens store to locate products by aisle and section. The app also supports other shopper-friendly functions like lists, voice-to-text, and barcode scanning.
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For many, the appeal of realtime, local commerce platforms like Zaarly is evident almost immediately. For those unfamiliar, the mobile-centric reverse Craigslist allows users to post requests to Zaarly’s app — for anything from data entry to a fancy Starbucks mocha Frappuccino and how much you would be willing to pay for it. As appealing as the idea may be initially, I must admit that I was skeptical at first. What about trust? Wouldn’t people just prefer using TaskRabbit and craigslist? How would it scale?
In March, the team launched Zaarly 2.0, which went a long way towards addressing the trust issue, removing the anonymity component, allowing users to create profiles along with the opportunity to recommend and review both buyers and sellers. And today, the startup is answering that latter question with another piece in its evolution, launching its “Zaarly Anywhere” API to extend its marketplace to other sites to let users turn requests into reality without leaving the content they happen to be browsing. The goal is to help publishers monetize their content, and Everyday Health, The Fancy, LA Times, Cookstr and IKEA Hackers. → Read More
When Apple announced at WWDC that FaceTime would (officially) work over cellular data networks, the company deftly avoided offering up much in the way of details. Now that iOS 6 beta 3 has been released into the wild though, a clearer picture of how Apple and their carrier partners will handle the situation is beginning to emerge.
The folks at 9to5mac discovered last night that attempting to enable FaceTime over 3G on an AT&T iPhone running on the most recent iOS 6 beta would bring up an interesting little message: To enable FaceTime over cellular on this account, contact AT&T at 611 or visit http://www.att.com/wireless. It looks an awful lot like AT&T is planning to charge customers for using FaceTime over 3G, though the revelation isn’t particularly out of character. → Read More
The Oppo Finder currently holds the silly title of being the thinnest smartphone in the world. Measuring in at a svelte 6.65mm, the Finder is 1.95mm and 2.75 thinner than the Galaxy S III and iPhone 4S, respectively. But the thin size doesn’t mean the phone is fragile. In fact the company recently demonstrated the phone’s toughness by using it to hammer several nails into a wooden board. → Read More
Yahoo’s surprise scoop of Marissa Mayer as its newest CEO has unleashed a lot of positive comments about how this represents a new day, and a refreshing risk, for the beleaguered Internet brand. It will improve morale inside the company, and will give it more credibility outside. And it looks like it will also mean a new direction for Yahoo, with a much stronger focus on product — a word mentioned 19 times, by Mayer and others, in the official release confirming her appointment. That, of course, could mean a million different things — which, actually, is part of the problem at Yahoo. One of them could be — it really should be — mobile.
This an area where Yahoo was once very aggressive but has really dropped the ball (or phone as the case may be….).
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Yesterday, we got a glimpse at a leaked front-casing for what we believe to be the iPhone 5, showing a centered FaceTime camera hole. Today, however, we have but the WSJ’s word for it that Apple is working with supply line manufacturers to implement a thinner, more beautiful display into the next-gen handset.
According to the report, LCD makers such as Sharp and Japan Display (which comprises Toshiba, Hitachi, and Sony as well as LG Display) are mass producing panels that use something called “in-cell technology”, which should make the display itself thinner. → Read More
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: taking pics with a tablet is offensive to the human race. That said, viewing pics on a tablet is a very natural experience and Instagram’s latest build adds support for the N7.
This comes a few weeks after it was discovered that Instagram didn’t run on the new tablet. Owners trying to run Instagram were greeted with an incompatibility message. But now, with the latest version of Instagram, owners can view and share pics along with taking mugshots with the 1.2MP front facing camera. → Read More
Samsung has acquired the mobile business of British chipmaker CSR for $310 million. CSR, a public company, has been hit by the falling fortunes of its customers such as Research in Motion and Nokia, with its share price dropping by as much as 50 percent in the past couple of years. There also appears to be a global patent play here for Samsung in its ongoing fight with rivals such as Apple. CSR could prove a useful arrow in Samsung’s quiver.
Samsung is also purchasing a 4.9 percent stake of the main CSR company itself for another $35 million, which secures its access to CSR’s IP and its ownership of 21 U.S. patents in mobile technology. → Read More
Kiip, a startup allowing brands to promote themselves in mobile apps through rewards and contests, has raised $11 million in Series B funding.
The company sells its approach as a smarter, more engaging approach to mobile ads, where developers can give their users real-world rewards for achievements in their apps. Kiip says it’s giving out an average of five rewards every second across more than 400 apps, leading to more than 100 million “moments of happiness” in the United States every month. → Read More
Live Nation Labs, the investing arm of music giant Live Nation, has purchased music discovery app Rexly for an undisclosed amount. The deal, which had been in the works for several months, was finalized Friday and announced Monday via both companies’ blogs.
“This isn’t really an exit—it’s a continuation of the vision,” Rexly co-founder and CEO Joel Resnicow tells me. “Our startup is basically joining another startup with goals that are just as big, if not bigger.” → Read More
To say that 2012 is make or break for Microsoft would be an understatement. The typically quiet and somewhat boring juggernaut has been on a roll as of late with the announcement of the Surface, Windows Phone 8 and the end of the year roll out of of its flagship Windows product, Windows 8. Today’s press conference in San Francisco is no different with the introduction of the next generation of Office.
Armed with a Samsung Series 7 tablet running Windows 8, I’ve been testing out a build of the new Office for close to a week. While it might not be as sexy as most every other product in the lineup, Office makes up a huge portion of Microsoft’s revenue and it’s something that clearly needs to be protected. But let’s clear up the different versions of Office and why it’s not just being called Office 2013 or even Office 15. Here’s the breakdown straight from the horse’s mouth.
The following are some impressions of the new Office based on a build run on a tablet and not the final consumer version. → Read More
We’ve seen the evidence pile up in front of us over the past couple months, but T-Mobile has just made the Galaxy Note‘s destiny official by the law of social media. After user @epicrivas asked “What’s up with the Galaxy Note for T-Mobile?” the carrier responded with the following:
@epicrivas We are excited to confirm the Samsung Galaxy Note will be coming to T-Mobile! More info to come.^JM
— T-Mobile USA (@TMobileHelp) July 16, 2012
Revenues from mobile ads are only a small fraction of the overall digital advertising pie — and an even smaller slice of overall advertising revenues, but some research out today from the Interactive Advertising Bureau underscore why that may well change in the future: ads that appear on touchscreen devices like tablets and smarphones are showing some of the highest levels of engagement of all digital ads.
The report, conducted in conjunction with ABI Research, is the result of interviews with 552 smartphone owners and 563 tablet users and presents a pretty comprehensive picture of how those users are interacting with ads on their devices — covering topics like what media they are consuming when they are viewing and responding to ads, where they are, what time of day it is, what ads work the best, and what users do after they see the ads. At a time when the mobile ad market is still thin on comprehensive and standard reporting metrics (although the IAB is working on that, too) and scale compared to online ads, the results could prove a useful tool for those looking for how best to tackle mobile ad campaigns in the future. → Read More
I’m still not convinced that mobile payments via NFC are on the road to ubiquity, but these fancy shmancy iPhone cases that double as card holders are all kinds of awesome. KillSpencer just debuted its latest, made almost entirely of exotic rosewood. It’s a beauty, to be sure.
The front and back are both attached using a removable adhesive, though there’s no side coverage for the iPhone. I’d have to review it and throw my iPhone across the room a few times before I could be sure, but it doesn’t look as though this case offers the most protection for your phone. But that’s not always what a case is about. → Read More
Another day, another leak.
On Friday we saw what was reported to be an iPhone 5 prototype unit, and today an entirely different version of the “iPhone 5″ casing has found its way on to the interwebs. Oddly enough, this latest leak looks an awful lot like images of iPhone 5 parts published by 9to5mac.
Of course, it’s possible that none of these leaks are the real thing, but it sure does help pass the time until Apple hops on stage in October. → Read More
It won’t be long at all before Microsoft pushes Windows Phone 8 into the wild, and that means we’re probably about to see some serious discounts on existing Windows Phone handsets.
In fact, that price-slashing process has already begun, as Nokia recently announced that their AT&T-bound Lumia 900 now sports a much lighter price tag — it can be had for the terribly-reasonable price of $49.99. The question is, should you buy one? → Read More
Jolla Mobile — MeeGo’s saviour in the making — is certainly ambitious, perhaps insanely so. The Finnish startup made up of a crack team of ex-Nokians is already committed to release not one but two MeeGo-powered smartphones, launching a new handset brand along the way. It’s early days, of course, the company doesn’t even have its own website yet, but today news comes of a tie-up with Chinese mobile phone retailer D.Phone that begins to hint at how this might just work.
First announced via a tweet (what’s a startup to do without a website), Jolla has signed a ‘Sales and Distribution agreement’ with D.Phone Group, the largest mobile phone retail chain in China with 2,000 stores, targeting China’s 150 million-strong smartphone market which Jolla hopes to penetrate. D.Phone also works closely with carriers China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom. → Read More
The Washington, D.C.-based think tank Future of Privacy Forum (“FPF”) released a study this week detailing the current state of mobile app privacy policies as of this past month, June 2012. The report found that many app developers are now responding to the increased pressure from U.S. regulators on this issue, and have now introduced privacy policies for their applications as well as new policies surrounding the use of customers’ private data.
Specifically, the report shows that the percentage of free apps with a privacy policy doubled on the iOS App Store since the last report in September 2011, going from 40% to 84%. The percentage of paid apps with privacy policies on iOS increased by 4%, from 60% to 64%. And on the Google Play platform, the percentage of free apps with a privacy policy actually started high at 70%, and increased to 76%. The percentage of paid apps increased as well, going from 30% to 48%. → Read More
Secure messaging service TigerText announced a partnership today with Dropbox that will allow users to send documents securely, with features like a pre-set lifespan and the ability to recall a file attachment at any time. Documents will be encrypted and cannot be downloaded, copied or forwarded.
President and Co-founder Brad Brooks tells us that the partnership has a wide range of targeted users, from “anyone who uses Dropbox” to businesses that need to send secure files. → Read More
Evernote, the multi-platform app that lets you capture notes, audio and images when you are on the go, and then access those mementos wherever you want to next, has carved out a position as one of the more consistently useful services out there for smartphone consumers. The growing number of users is a testament to that. In June, at the LeWeb conference in London, CEO Phil Libin noted that Evernote now has 34 million users, having reported 25 million as recently as May. And while paying users are a much smaller fraction, they are growing at a similarly strong rate: now they’re at 1.4 million versus 1 million in May.
When Libin was in London I sat down to talk to him about what we might see next from Evernote as the service continues to evolve. The topics ranged to new services in areas like photos and reading annotations; as well as the company’s philosophy on how to finance its service (it’s not about ads but about paying for things you love; a concept that’s come up more recently again, in Dalton Caldwell’s audacious proposal the other day). Evernote is currently at a $1 billion valuation and is one of the stronger candidates for a near-future IPO, and we’re not the only ones who think it’s one to watch.
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