Monthly Archives: June 2011
PayPal Announces the End of Their Money Market Fund
PayPal’s Money Market Fund was a way for customers to accrue interest on money in their PayPal accounts, but the company announced that the service will be shut down by the end of July of this year. TechCrunch reports that the Money Market Fund held $471 million in PayPal customers’ money, but that the company could no longer justify the service by its now-diminishing returns. PayPal will transfer all of the Fund users’ money to their PayPal accounts once the Fund closes.
Categories PayPal, PayPal Money Market Fund
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The Great Firewall May Be Slowing Google+ Use in China
Chinese authorities have possibly already censored Google’s days-old Google+ social platform. Sites like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube are blocked from viewing in mainland China. While the censored site is not actually blocked yet, its slow load time in China is likely the result of web throttling. Penn Olson‘s Steven Millward reports that his computer registers a 26.7% info packets loss when he pings Google+ and that it would register a 100% loss if the site were actually blocked.
Categories China, Google, Penn-Olson, Steven Millward
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AT&T Partners with Games Company Zynga
Zynga and AT&T have announced a partnership that will benefit AT&T customers as well as benefiting both companies. The deal will have Zynga games featured in AT&T’s Android Market, providing great advertising for the games company. AT&T customers will get free credits in some Zynga games, a definite incentive for some Zynga fanatics to switch to AT&T. According to TechCrunch, AT&T will work with Zynga on developments of their mobile games.
Categories AT&T, Zynga
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Mathai Leaves Yahoo to Build OpenPhoto, a Flickr Rival
Jaisen Mathai used to work as an engineer at Yahoo, and has left the company to start his own photo service. The service is called OpenPhoto, and Mathai has been securing funding through Kickstarter because, as TechCrunch notes, photo apps have not been popular with venture funding lately. Mathai believes that users should be in control of their photos and that any uploaded photos are the property of that person and not of the company. As a result, OpenPhoto lets users choose what service they use as a cloud data storage provider.
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Categories Github, Jaisen Mathai, Kickstarter, OpenPhoto, Yahoo!
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ANSYS to Buy Apache Design Solutions for $310 Million in Cash
ANSYS has agreed to acquire Apache Design Solutions for about $310 million. The deal is cash-only, with provisions for current Apache employees. Both companies are in the simulation software business. TechCrunch reports that Apache’s software focuses on low power integrated circuits, which will work well with ANSYS’s software handling everything from integrated circuits and electronic packages to printed circuit boards.
Categories ANSYS, Apache Design Solutions
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Smartphone Popularity Grows to 38% of Current Mobile Phone Owners
Nielsenwire reports that Nielsen’s recent survey showed that 38% of mobile customers now own smartphones. Of those who purchased a new mobile phone in the past three months, 55% bought smartphones. The data indicates a definite trend toward smartphone purchases. Nielsen’s May survey also shows that most smartphone buyers get Android devices, but that iPhones have shown a greater growth in buyers recently. How long until smartphones are the majority? It could happen very soon, going by these statistics.
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Categories Nielsen
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Citrix Adds Graymatics and Gizmox to Their Investments List
Today Citrix announced their investments in Graymatics and Gizmox. Graymatics is a cloud platform that does content-based for video and digital media. Gizmox is the developer of Visual WebGui, a platform for mobile and cloud delivery. Citrix’s Citrix Startup Accelerator seed investment initiative has previously invested in Primadesk and Core Mobile Networks. TechCrunch reports that Gizmox and Citrix will be working together on HTML5 app delivery.
Turntable.fm Fosters Community with Social Music Experience
Turntable.fm, an invite-only service that lets users DJ for each other and rate the experience, is impressing users and observers alike. Evolver.fm‘s most recent report on the site praises the Turntable.fm communities for “crowdsourced crowd control,” with their organization and polite attitudes. The DJ rooms progress in an orderly fashion that keeps everyone pretty happy. The service is still very new and has bugs to work out, but looks like its popularity will only grow.
Categories Billy Chasen, Facebook, MediaNet, Seth Goldstein, Stickybits, Turntable.fm
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Myspace Sells to Specific Media, Loses CEO, Gains Justin Timberlake
Today Myspace sold to Specific Media for $35 million, but the surprising part of the sale is that Justin Timberlake will be taking an ownership stake in the company. In a move reminiscent of Lady Gaga’s partnership with Polaroid, Timberlake will be more than just a name associated with the company: according to Mashable, he will be contributing his vision to Myspace as well. Another report from Mashable says that Myspace’s CEO Mike Jones will be leaving the company after a transition period. Specific Media, an advertising network, plans to focus Myspace on entertainment.
Categories Justin Timberlake, Mike Jones, MySpace, Specific Media
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SeeVolution Adds More Options to Their Web Traffic Heat Maps
SeeVolution, which provides real-time heat maps of traffic for website owners as a visual alternative to analytics data, is ending its beta option to offer a version with premium features for larger sites. The free version, which will still be available, shows users a heat map of their website that analyzes mouse movement and clicks and scrolling statistics. The premium version of the site is available for $14 to $199 a month, according to Mashable, and has options for more domain pages and more detailed tracking. CEO Edo Cohen says the program simplifies analytics data for user ease, and does for analytics what Tumblr did for blogging.
Categories Edo Cohen, SeeVolution
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