Is cloud computing ready for government work? Not yet, but a new U.S. Government Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap draft sets out action items that government IT gurus say will speed up the adoption of cloud implementations that are safe and secure enough for government use. Read More »
We’re big believers in a connected world enabled by ubiquitous broadband here at GigaOM, which is why when Ericsson asked if we wanted to see a new video about the future of a connected society, we said yes. We figured you guys would enjoy it … Read More »
Venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is raising a second $250 million fund to invest in Chinese companies, according to a filing. Kleiner hasn’t closed on any of the funds yet, called the KPCB China Fund II, according to the document. Read More »
Nielsen’s third-quarter metrics show that 62 percent of the 25-to-34-year-old U.S. population has a smartphone. But the fastest-growing age group adopting smartphones last quarter is a surprise: It’s the 55-to-64-year-olds. That means mobile app developers have an opportunity right now. Read More »
Location-based safety app Life360 now has more than 5 million families relying on the service, up from 300,000 a year ago. The surge has come in large part from the growth of smartphones and the increasing awareness and acceptance of location-based safety services. Read More »
Scale-out SAN vendor Coraid raised $50 million in additional venture funding in a Series C round led by Crosslink Capital, joined by other new investors Seagate, Kinetic Ventures, and Silverlake AG. That brings Coraid’s total VC take to $85 million in 7 years. Read More »
After turning down an acquisition offer, shopping assistant start-up ShopSavvy is moving ahead with plans to go it alone. It raised $7 million in a Series A round led by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin. ShopSavvy is looking to ride the exploding mobile commerce market. Read More »
Big data technology is attracting some big bucks. Kaggle, a startup that helps companies outsource large business analytics projects by turning them into large-scale competitions for scientists around the world, will announce Thursday it has secured $11 million in venture capital funding. Read More »
The iPod of thermostats is sold-out until 2012. Nest Labs, makers of the connected, smart, “learning” thermostat, say on their website that the hot thermostat is “sold out through early next year.” In the meantime, the company has closed its online store. Read More »
Groupon is set to make its debut on the stock market any day now, with several reports saying the IPO will take place by week’s end. But some analysts say that Groupon does not deserve the $11 billion valuation at which it’s set to debut. Read More »
Do startups create jobs, or more accurately, do they create jobs the way they used to? In a House hearing Wednesday, a researcher said the number of startups created have been declining since 2006, and when they are created they tend to generate fewer jobs. Read More »
Sprint and C Spire Wireless (formerly Cellular South) can go forward with their joint lawsuit to try to stop the AT&T proposal to buy T-Mobile, a merger that the U.S. Justice Department has also sued to stop in a separate proceeding. Read More »
More Must Reads
Netflix will launch in the U.K. and Ireland early next year, but where is it going after that? A recent job offer revealed a number of candidates, including countries like Korea, Germany, Russia and France. Now all Netflix needs is profits to make those plans happen. Read More »
Apple has long referred to Apple TV as a hobby, but that could soon change with the launch of a full-fledged HDTV. But if Apple hopes to succeed at getting content providers on board, it’s going to need to open up and allow third-party ad serving. Read More »
As experts have studied the “Arab Spring” revolutions that took place in Tunisia and Egypt, it has become increasingly clear that while social-media tools such as Facebook and Twitter may not have caused these events, they played a crucial role in how they occurred. Read More »
The folks at the Kauffman Foundation have teamed up with Google to create a portal where folks can submit their ideas for gigabit application that could use the proposed fiber to the home network that Google plans to build in both Kansas Cities. Lucky them. Read More »
Meshin, a Xerox-funded incubator project at PARC, updated its beta Android application that hopes to “bring order to communication chaos.” The free app unifies Gmail, phone calls, text messages and social network streams into a centralized application, helping to separate important information from noise. Read More »
Cloudera founder Christophe Bisciglia launched a new company today called Odiago, whose WibiData product utilizes Hadoop and HBase to let businesses make the most of online user data. Big-name investors aside, under the covers WibiData shows the future of how Hadoop-based products will look. Read More »
Twitter’s web interface has a couple new additions, seemingly aimed at making it easier for users to find relevant content when searching the site. For certain users, Twitter’s website now includes a featured “Top News” and “Top People” sections at the top of search results. Read More »
Google released a native Gmail client for iPhones, iPads and iPod touch devices, but quickly pulled the software from the iTunes App Store due to some app errors. As a long-time Android user, I like what I see in the client, but it needs work. Read More »
Facebook plans to build a solar system on the rooftop of its headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., from startup Cogenra Solar that will generate both electricity and heat. Read More »
ReachLocal announced it was shutting down Bizzy, a local discovery service, after it failing to get enough consumer adoption. By mid-November, the mobile app and website will be shut down, the company said in a blog post. Read More »
Research indicates that 88 percent of people who own tablets use them while watching TV. Yahoo is primed to take advantage of that trend by launching an iPad version of its social TV mobile app IntoNow, with new social media features to complement TV content. Read More »
E-commerce site Etsy has grown to 25 million unique visitors and 1.1 billion page views per month, and it’s generating the data volumes to match. Using tools such as Hadoop and Splunk, Etsy is turning terabytes of data per day into a better product. Read More »
As more and more of our ‘computational’ needs that span from work to entertainment transition to the cloud, is it time to start writing the obituary for local storage? With a 100 Mbps connection, local storage is going the way of the dodo for me. Read More »
With 500,000 apps for sale, standing out as a developer in Apple’s App Store is intimidating. Apple’s done some curation, but it could do much more by creating separate stores based on content themes, and perhaps creating new pricing models to go with it. Read More »
James Hamilton, VP and distinguished engineer for Amazon Web Services, has some hot tips on building or running a cooler, and more energy-efficient data center. Hamilton, something of a data center rock star, spoke at a recent Open Compute Project event. Read More »
The race to become the default identity platform for the social web continues to intensify, but while both Facebook and Google are determined to win and have substantial resources to throw at the problem, there are some compelling reasons to believe Twitter has the upper hand. Read More »
Location, location, location: It’s not just for real estate. Mobile advertisers are increasingly prizing location-based ads, according to real-time bidding exchange Nexage, which said that mobile publishers and developers are getting 3.8 times more for ad impressions that include location data in the last three months. Read More »
Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes has been critical of Netflix’s ability to compete with traditional TV networks. But he has softened his tone lately, talking up the additional value that subscription video-on-demand services services like Netflix and Hulu Plus can provide to the company’s financials. Read More »
Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography has clearly been successful, topping best-seller lists ahead of its release, but new numbers reveal the extent of that success. The 656-page book has sold around 379,000 copies in the U.S. during its first week, according to a Nielsen report. Read More »
I’ve written about robots powered by smartphones and the web, so you’d think I’d be comfortable seeing a new robot video. I saw one today showing the PETMAN, and I’m actually torn between amazement and fright. Then again, he might make for a good personal assistant. Read More »
Research In Motion’s BBM Music service moved from beta to general availability on Tuesday, allowing BBM friends to share music tracks. This is clever, adding new value to the old BBM service as RIM continues to transition from BlackBerry to its new BBX operating system. Read More »
Raspberry Pi, the British outfit trying to build and sell low cost computers to help teach children how to code, has garnered plenty of attention in the past few months. Now director David Braben says the first devices will be on the market in weeks. Read More »
Google TV users can now easily access local media within their home network as well as share videos with other users of the device, thanks to a new Plex app for Google TV. The app also offers access to various Internet content, including music from Spotify. Read More »
Comcast has slowed the loss of video subscribers over the past several quarters, as it rolls out new products and new ways to access its content. At the same time it strengthened broadband subscriber growth, with more of its customers opting for double- and triple-play offerings. Read More »
Square is making its Card Case wallet app hands-free, enabling users to walk into a store and pay without ever pulling out their smartphone. They just say their name and order. The company is showing it wants to perfect the entire buying process, not just payments. Read More »
In the tech blogosphere, chatter abounds about the latest collaboration tools, cutting edge ideas and the future of gadgets. But back on solid ground in cubicles, conference rooms and coworking spaces across the land, how much tech knowledge is actually filtering down to average employees? Read More »
Angry Birds has soared into some rarified air with the news that it’s eclipsed 500 million downloads after launching less than two years ago. Mikael Hed, aka Mighty Eagle made the announcement on stage at the Slush Conference in Helsinki. Read More »
The second chapter of the Cisco 2011 Connected World Technology Report shows that young workers are weighing their job decisions based on factors like social media access, choice of device and the desire for remote working arrangements, which can trump salary considerations in some cases. Read More »
Mobile handsets have a bad habit of oversharing with the networks they operate on, with some handsets being chattier than others. This signaling data, as it’s known in the industry, makes managing networks even more challenging, and Traffix wants to help operators handle it. Read More »
With the public beta of Cloudability’s cloud cost-tracking service, new APIs are available to help customers access their billing and usage information from popular cloud providers including Salesforce.com, Azure, Amazon Web Services and Rackspace. Oh, and if you refer a paying customer, there’s free beer! Read More »
Rounds, a startup that makes a popular video chat app for Facebook, has raised $3 million in new funding. The Israel-based company says it will use the money to expand its video chat service beyond Facebook to other social networks and onto mobile devices. Read More »
For our latest episode of the Green Overdrive show, we took Mitsubishi’s all-electric i MiEV out for a full day of driving — on the highway, in the city, searching for a charge, and packing it with people (and stuff). Here are our impressions: Read More »
Microsoft is launching Bing for Mobile Hybrid Apps this week that are built on HTML5 and take the best of native apps and blend with them with a robust mobile web experience, providing faster updates, more consistency between platforms and added search functions. Read More »
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