| Flipboard Gets a Big Upgrade: Adds Search & More to Its iPad App Widely celebrated iPad social stream reading app Flipboard (Apple's iPad App of the Year for 2010) tonight unveiled its first upgrade in more than 6 months; the upgrade delivers cross-network search, a partnership with popular iPhone photo sharing service Instagram and big speed improvements. The news was embargoed until 6am Thursday but was just disclosed on the company's own blog. Upgrades are becoming available around the world on a rolling basis. The changes are dramatic and positive - but they also point toward big improvements the service will need to make in the future.
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My 5 Must-See SXSW Panels - What Are Yours? For those of you lucky enough to be attending SXSW in Austin, Texas this week, we'd like to know which panels you regard as Must-See. The panel list for this event is overwhelming, even with the help of scheduling services like Sched.org. This is my second SXSW. Last year, my (belated) debut, I got a bit overwhelmed with business meetings and I didn't attend many of the panels. This year I'll again be focusing mostly on meetings and networking, but I've resolved to squeeze in at least 5 panels. I hope I get to more than that! These are personal choices and most likely won't match yours. So let me know in the comments which panels YOU regard as Must-See at this year's SXSW.
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8 Tech Companies That Announced Funding Today: Which is Most Likely to Change the World? We're highlighting eight diverse companies that announced venture capital investments today. Investors have made a wager on each of these companies, but the odds are only so good for the group. We want to know, readers, which one do you think is most likely to prove viable and change the world? We've got a photo-based social networking site (looks like another fun means of communication), a question and answer site where different folks from programmers to home cooks can get their questions answered, a web-based advertising platform and five more promising companies to pay attention to. We also reveal who interested you voted the most interesting out of yesterday's line up.
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Cameroon Bans Twitter In an attempt to stave off future Tunisia- and Egypt-inspired opposition protests, the government of the West African state of Cameroon has banned mobile Twitter. The opposition had planned protests against the country's longtime president, Paul Biya, last month. But those were put down by security forces. Clearly, President Biya believes he can cut off future protests by eliminating one of the tools those protesters might use.
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The Fabulous Prizes of SXSW: Free Phones, Plane Tickets, Vacations & Cars How do you get noticed at the jam-packed tech extravaganza that is this week's South by Southwest Interactive event in Austin, Texas? How about giving away free cars and flights around the world? A number of startups in the location tech market appear to be trying to one-up each other with bigger and better give-aways at the event. It's sure to make some people moan "tech bubble!" while other folks will just say "Yipeee! See you in Fiji!" Who's giving away the most fabulous prizes? There will probably be many more contests unveiled over the next few days but here are three we've gotten pitches for already.
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Zaarly: Is This The Future of Mobile Money and Markets? As the president of Kauffman Labs, the Kauffman Foundation's program that supports entrepreneurship, Bo Fishback has seen a lot of startups. He's heard a lot of pitches from companies who insist they're "the next big thing." So it would have to be a pretty "big thing" to make Fishback jump from what he admits has been "the greatest job in the world," quit the Kauffman Foundation, and launch a startup of it's own. But that's what he's doing, effective immediately. And by many accounts, it appears that his new project Zaarly will be - something huge. Built a few weeks ago over the course of the LA Startup Weekend, Zaarly has been in a whirlwind since: winning first prize at the Startup Weekend, getting tweets from celebrities like Levar Burton and Demi Moore promoting his pitch, and now securing $1 million in funding from some big name investors, including Ashton Kutcher and Paul Buchheit. So what is Zaarly? It's a "proximity-based, real-time, buyer-powered market," says Fishback. But a better explanation might invoke one of Demi Moore's most famous movies, Indecent Proposal, and the notion that everything and everyone has a price. Zaarly's job: facilitate that transaction.
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Group Messaging Service Convore Goes Mobile with iPhone App Convore, the real-time, Web-based group message system, just went live in the iTunes App Store. Previously, Convore was available only as a Web-based messaging service and this was one of the things that set it apart - though perhaps not in a good way. "Basically, it's a contemporary version of IRC," said co-founder Leah Culver, when last we looked at the service. Now, the service has hit iOS and taken this new form of IRC on the road. Will an app change anything? Or does this just mean that all of you Convore addicts (and it seems like there are quite a few already) can get your fix from wherever you are?
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Google Funds Preservation of Apartheid History Google has awarded $1.25 million apiece to the Nelson Mandela Foundation's Memory Programme and the Desmond Tutu Peace Center. The money is earmarked for the preservation, digitization and sharing of thousands and thousands of documents tracing the transition of the Republic of South Africa from apartheid to democracy. Mandela's organization will be preserving and digitizing the archive of a man who served as the democracy movement's most public face, a long-term prisoner on the notorious Robben Island and later the first black president of the country.
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Kinect Gets Into Guinness Book of World Records In four short months, Microsoft has sold more than 10 million Kinects. The device, which serves as a controller-less gaming system (among other more innovative things) burst out of the gates last November, selling 2.5 million units in less than a month. At that pace, it seemed, the Kinect was bound to break records. Today, it has done just that and the Guinness Book of World Records has named the device the "Fastest-Selling Consumer Electronics Device." Just how fast has Kinect been selling? Read on.
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Gmail Gets Smart Labels to Help Filter Messages and Fight Email Overload Google has just announced a new feature in Gmail aimed at helping us address the pain of the email inbox. It's a follow-up to some of the recent changes that Google has made to help tackle email overload, most notably with the addition of the Priority Inbox. The new feature, only available in Labs at the moment, is called Smart Labs and it adds filters to your incoming email based on their type - Bulk, Notification, or Forum.
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