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The World's Leading Resource on SOA / Web Services
SYS-CON Media (press release)
Additionally, application stores have existed on non-mobile platforms for years as well such as Debian's synaptic....

GP-GPUs: OpenCL Is Ready For The Heavy Lifting
Linux Magazine (registration) (blog)
As a supporter of OpenCL, AMD has recently released the ATI Stream SDK v2.01 for both Linux (RHEL 5.3, Ubuntu 9.10, openSUSE 11.0) and Windows (XP, Vista, ...

Lucid Imagination Secures $10 Million in Series B Funding
SYS-CON Media (press release)
Additionally, application stores have existed on non-mobile platforms for years as well such as Debian's synaptic.... Key Challenges in Cloud Computing and ...

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With Microsoft becoming increasingly marginalized in areas like mobile media, DirectX is becoming less of a must-use toolset and more of a gaming-specific one. The other side of the coin is, of course, the increasing relevance of standards like OpenGL, OpenAL, and OpenCL: powerful cross-platform systems for graphics, audio, and parallel processing. You may remember OpenCL from its debut on the Mac in Snow Leopard, and OpenGL ES of course powers the UI on the iPad. OpenAL is still a ways from being brought under the public eye, but it’s getting there. In the meantime, OpenGL 4.0 was announced today at GDC, and clearly it has DirectX in its sights.

Read the rest of this story on CrunchGear…

As mobile gaming takes off, developers will need in-depth analysis to determine consumer behavior with their games and adjust their games accordingly. Motally, which provides user-action tracking services for the mobile web and apps, is expanding its product base today offering a targeted analytics service aimed towards mobile games on the iPhone, Android and Blackberry platforms. The service is currently in private beta, but developers will be able to sign up to use the service.

Motally’s game-oriented analytics platform allows publishers to track in-game data including where users drop out in-play and which levels users interact with most. Motally also allows for the dynamic changing of the game’s design, allowing developers to measure the impact of changes immediately. As a result, publishers can tweak their games including design, performance, and ad placement by pinpointing areas of the game with the most traffic and identifying trouble areas.

Motally’s game analytics allows publishers to analyze what level players are reaching and then dropping off, determine the top players and their high scores within a game, and to reach out to those on the leaderboard and present them with special offers or advertisements. The data also includes which virtual goods on an application are most popular, which games are most popular in a developer’s portfolio of games, and the conversion rates of players opting into paid premium game offerings.

Game developer Portable Zoo has already been using Motally’s analytics, and claims that data collected from the platform allowed the developer to adjust games to increase average engagement time, and the overall appeal of games.

Motally’s venture in gaming is smart considering the rapid growth of mobile gaming, especially on smartphones. Motally, which recently launched an extension of their mobile analytics to include content developed on Apple’s iPad and rolled out a flexible API, support analytics for applications on the iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry platforms as well as the mobile web. Motally offers more advanced features that allows developers to troubleshoot and debug their products from anywhere in the world, without having to re-deploy apps and games to the Apple iPhone store. For a young startup, Motally has seen significant traction as a mobile analytics provider. Backed by renown investor Ron Conway, Motally’s clients include Twitter, Yelp, Fandango and Verizon.

CrunchBase InformationMotallyInformation provided by CrunchBase

I handle a lot of mice in this job (right now I'm using the Mionix Naos 5000) and I have to say that if a mouse were, like the Magic Mouse, shaped completely wrong for human hands, I would throw it away and never speak of it again. Others, while perhaps more crafty, are far less principled, and will go so far as to fabricate a silicone crutch to rest their hand on. There, I fixed it!

If I were a spit takin' man, I'd do a spit take right now. Motorola, stalwart of freedom, will work with Chinese carriers to add Bing to Chinese Android-based phones, ousting Google Search and Maps from the scene. Now this isn't meanness on Motorola's part although Reuters notes that this move could have something to do with that whole Great Chinese Google Hacking Incident a few weeks ago.

Ex-Tiger Doug Baker sells '84 World Series ring on eBay
Boston Herald
By AP DETROIT — Former Detroit Tigers infielder Doug Baker is selling his 1984 World Series ring on eBay for $5000. The 48-year-old Baker, who lives north ...
Cost of a Tigers '84 World Series ring? $5000The Detroit News

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CNET
Meet Ubuntu Linux's new CEO (Q&A)
CNET
She joined Canonical in June 2004, two months after previous CEO Mark Shuttleworth founded the company with a few programmers he recruited from the Debian ...

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Auctionbytes
eBay Canada Tests Best Match Search Algorithm
Auctionbytes
eBay Canada told users it would begin testing the Best Match sort order on eBay.ca this week. It will apply some recent Best Match changes ...

Do you remember to the days of college, when you were required to sort through your curriculum and career goals with your designated college advisor? Education startup MyEdu aims to replace this by helping students virtually access their academic information and create a roadmap tailored to their career goals.

To date, over 2 million students at 750 universities have used MyEdu to earn their degree. MyEdu’s suite of online products try to streamline the entire process of a college student’s lifecycle, from selecting a college through to earning a degree. The suite includes detailed course descriptions, grade distributions, official course evaluations, and student reviews to pick the right classes; and schedule Planner to build the best schedule that fits a student’s time constraints and goals.

MyEdu also includes a graduation and degree roadmap to help students build a plan and stay on course towards the degree they want in order to graduate. And the academic progress dashboard allows students to track their grades in a centralized place. MyEdu charges a $20 annual subscription for the entire academic suite.

The startup, which just raised $5.5 million in funding from Bain Capital Ventures, has a compelling model to help both students and parents participate in the college planning process. And as colleges are now rapidly adopting web technologies as a educational tool (i.e. Blackboard); it makes sense for universities to do the same for college advising.

CrunchBase InformationMyEduInformation provided by CrunchBase

stv.tv
NHS medic who stole equipment from hospitals to sell on eBay facing jail term
Scottish Daily Record
AN NHS medic who stole thousands of pounds of surgical equipment to sell on eBay is facing a jail sentence. Anaesthetic assistant Douglas Stevenson, 31, ...
Medic nicked £23k of gear to flog on eBayThe Sun
Hospital thief stole supplies to put on eBaystv.tv
NHS worker stole £23k medical gearGlasgow Evening Times

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Lucid Imagination, the startup that commercially distributes the open source Apache Lucene and Apache Solr search technology, has raised $10 million in Series B funding from Shasta Ventures with Granite Ventures and Walden International participating in the round. This brings the company’s total funding to $16 million.

Lucid powers enterprise search technologies using the open source Lucene/Solr search. Customers include Zappos, Nike and Netflix. The new funding will be used to accelerate the adoption of Lucene/Solr search technology.

Launched in 2009, Lucid is seeing revenue in the “millions,” and counts Google’s enterprise search product as a direct competitor.

CrunchBase InformationLucid ImaginationInformation provided by CrunchBase

Sure, Opera Mini may (or may not) already be the most popular mobile browser in the world — but why stop there? Following up on the Android release of Opera Mobile 4 just over a year ago, Opera has just launched Opera Mini 5 for Android into public beta.

The jump from version 4 to version 5 is pretty huge, introducing a handful of features that Opera says “makes your mobile browsing experience as close as it can be to your desktop experience.”

Read the rest at MobileCrunch >>

How to Recovery LVM Partitions in Linux
Siliconindia.com (blog)
... FAT16, and FAT32 file system volumes. The software is compatible with all major Linux distributions, including SUSE, RedHat, Ubuntu, Fedora, and Mandriva.

How to Recovery LVM Partitions in Linux
Siliconindia.com (blog)
... FAT16, and FAT32 file system volumes. The software is compatible with all major Linux distributions, including SUSE, RedHat, Ubuntu, Fedora, and Mandriva.

Drugstore.com Sees Takeovers After 'Permanent' Consumer Shift
BusinessWeek
She's also been on the board of EBay Inc. since 1999. It was at EBay that Lepore met Howard Schultz, founder and CEO of Starbucks Corp., who was also on ...

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SYS-CON Media (press release)
If I Had a Hammer…
SYS-CON Media (press release)
Additionally, application stores have existed on non-mobile platforms for years as well such as Debian's synaptic.... How and Why is a Flexible IT ...
Mucho Gusto Miami! - How's $0.99/Gallon Gas for an Ice Breaker?SYS-CON Media (press release)

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Pelago knows that just about every location-based app in the world is seeking coverage right now just prior to SXSW where they will all battle Highlander-style. So they approached me with a pretty smart pitch: curing the “social rut.” What they mean by that is these days, despite the prevalence of social networks, people are actually less social than ever because they’re being roped into playing games like Farmville and Mafia Wars for hours on end. Sitting in their rooms. Alone.

While that may be a part of social networking (a rather large, hugely profitably part), it’s not really social. That’s why location-based networks excite me: they have the potential to bridge social networking with actual social activity. And that’s exactly how Pelago is positioning the latest version of its location-based app, Whrrl 3.

The core idea behind the new iPhone app (which launched in the store today) is that people inspire others to do things. So when you see a friend is out doing something fun, you may want to join them. Or it may entice you to go out and do something else, and hope others see it on Whrrl and join in. It’s the grouping of people with similar interests into “Societies” that is a key to Whrrl 3. For example, a basic society is that each venue in the application has its own set of “regulars.” If you visit the place enough times, you unlock the badge making you a regular, and giving you access to member-level activities, such as recommendations and specials nearby.

One of these societies, launching alongside the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas this week is the Austin Underground which “will provide members with at-your-fingertips access to the hottest parties, events, and other fun things to do at the conference,” according to Whrrl. Over 50 merchants in Austin are participating to provide exclusive offers, apparently. To unlock the membership, you have to check-in at some of the following places: Four Seasons Hotel Austin, Outback Steakhouse, Cool River Cafe, Chuggin’ Monkey, J Black’s, Red Fez and Third Base, and others.

Other key features of Whrrl 3 include Recommendations — you create these (with photos, if you choose), to let others in your social graph (or your society) know fun things to do in an area. Ideas, are recommendations served up to you from societies you’re a part of, your friends, or Whrrl’s algorithms. Fun Facts are shown each time you check-in to a venue, with information about it. And of course, there is a point system (Influence Points) that turn the whole thing into one big game. What’s interesting about Whrrl’s game is that you can get point by inspiring others to do things with the app. Points also allow you to level up in your societies for more special deals.

All of this is an extension of the “footstreams” idea that Whrrl launched last December. That’s where they also first introduced the society idea as well. The key to both of those is about real people doing real things in the real world.  That, in turn, shows what you’re interested in, and allows Whrrl to clump you into these groups with out like-minded people.

So that all sounds great, but will anyone use the app? After all, adoption has been a problem in the past and this isn’t the first time Whrrl is pivoting its product. In fact, they actually did exactly a year ago with Whrrl 2 just before SXSW.

Their main problem is convincing people to use Whrrl instead of the current location-based darlings, Foursquare and Gowalla. That’s going to be difficult because those networks are quickly building up social graphs and once those are established, users are less likely to leave. So Whrrl needs something to differentiate itself, and while their pitch to me is good, it’s an entirely different matter convincing users. And the things that would seem to help differentiate networks like Whrrl actually hurt them sometimes. For example, since location-based services are still new to so many people, it’s best to keep things as simple as possible. But Whrrl is piling on features that, while maybe cool, are likely to confuse new users.

Still, if Whrrl is able to secure some solid deals around Austin to get people using the app and checking-in, that could certainly get people using it. Of course, Foursquare and Gowalla have their own deals too. Then the problem becomes one I’ve had this past week while testing out all these location apps: fatigue. I can’t possibly check-in with each of these apps each time I move from place to place. The people I’m with have started rolling their eyes at me while I take my 10 minutes to check-in to all the different apps.

I’m not saying there can be only one. But one would sure be nice.

Find Whrrl 3 in the App Store here.

CrunchBase InformationWhrrlPelagoiPhoneInformation provided by CrunchBase

User View: 97% of consumers research products online
BizReport
In a coordinating study, the Online Retail Payments Forecast found that 63% of consumers are 'comfortable' shopping online with credit cards; ...

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