The European mobile space already has its contenders, but a large global player has now entered the continent to see what it can do. PayPal Here has launched a mobile payments reader in the UK, the next largest country in the mobile payments space after the US. PayPal already has an established presence in the UK, so it already has brand … [Read more...]
TransLattice Becomes First Database System to Mix/Match Multiple Clouds
February 25, 2013 Leave a Comment
By MATT GALLAGHER, Red Herring journalist When Amazon goes down, so does everyone else. Outages last October and June caused the disruption of Flipboard, Foursquare, Netflix, Pinterest, Instagram and others. So why put all your cloud data in one basket? With the release of version 3.0 of the TransLattice Elastic Database (TED), you no … [Read more...]
US Security Firm Tracks Cyber Criminals to Chinese Army Hotpoint
February 25, 2013 Leave a Comment
Mandiant, a US securities company specialized in identifying sophisticated cyber attacks on both corporate and government entities, has tracked members of some of the most notorious Chinese hacking groups to the doorsteps of the Chinese military, making it increasingly difficult for the Chinese government to deny it does not engage in hacking … [Read more...]
Google to Launch Glass by End of Year for Less than $1,500
February 22, 2013 Leave a Comment
Google has made it official. The company announced plans to launch a “fully polished” version of Google Glass, a wearable headset combining Internet exploration with fashion, to the consumer market by the end of the year, the Internet giant told the Verge. The glasses will be priced less than $1,500. That’s in line with a date the New York … [Read more...]
Low on Cash, LivingSocial Raises Another $110M, Strives for Profitability
February 22, 2013 Leave a Comment
Amazon has thrown LivingSocial a lifeline. The daily deals company has raised another $110 million, bringing the company’s investment funding to a staggering $910 million since its founding in 2007. Investors in this latest round include Steve Case, Grotech Ventures, Revolution, US Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, JP Morgan, T. Rowe … [Read more...]
Square Offers Merchants Complete Sales System w/ “Business in a Box”
February 21, 2013 Leave a Comment
Known for its mobile reader, Square now offers merchants a sales system they can actually nail down. Built to use an iPad, its recently debuted Business in a Box for Square Register provides a complete point of sale system that includes everything the average retailer needs to manage commerce, all for a starting price of $299, not counting the … [Read more...]
Pinterest Raises $200M at $2.5B Valuation, Buys Time to Monetize
February 21, 2013 Leave a Comment
Pinterest has raised a $200 million round that values the company at $2.5 billion. The cash essentially buys the social sharing site more time to figure out how to actually make money to justify that valuation. The round included participation from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners and FirstMark Capital, along … [Read more...]
China Takes #1 Spot as World’s Largest Smartphone Market
February 18, 2013 Leave a Comment
Step aside USA. China has become the world’s largest smartphone market, surpassing the US for the first time for actively used smartphones and tablets, according to recent data released by Flurry, the mobile analytics firm. Flurry tracked more than 2.4 billion application sessions across more than 275,000 applications around the world. The … [Read more...]
German Court Rules in Facebook’s Favor on Real Names Policy
February 15, 2013 Leave a Comment
A German court ruled in favor of Facebook’s real names policy, stating that because the social network is headquartered in Ireland, it does not need to comply with an earlier German agency demand for the company to allow pseudonyms, the AP reported. Last December, the Unabhaengiges Landeszentrum fuer Datenschutz maintained that as German law … [Read more...]
Israeli VCs Raise Less in 2012, yet Number of Funds Nearly 2X
February 15, 2013 Leave a Comment
2012 remains a mixed bag for the Israeli VC community. According to a recent IVC report, “Most Active Venture Capital Funds in Israel,” Israeli venture capital funds raised $607 million in 2012, a 30 percent drop from the previous year. Nevertheless, more than 90 venture capital funds made first investments in Israeli-related companies in 2012, … [Read more...]