Category Archives: Start-ups

Google acquires Summly like News summarizer ‘Wavii’ for Knowledge Graph : Techcrunch

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Wavii

Techcrunch through their reliable sources has learnt that Google has acquired Wavii, the Summly like news summarizer start-up to improve their Knowledge Graph. The value of the acquisition is said to be more than $30 Million. According to Techcrunch, both Apple and Google were in a race to buy Wavii – Apple for Siri and Google for Knowledge Graph – but Google wins the race. Recently, Yahoo acquired Summly, a news summarizer, for $30 Million and now Google.

WaviiWith an iPhone app launched recently, Wavii is still in Beta. Wavii is a natural language processing start-up which aggregates the online news content and summarizes it as feed.

Wavii is just a 25-person team which will move to Google’s Knowledge Graph division, including the founder Adrian Aoun. Rather than Apple using it in Siri, Google can efficiently make use of Wavii’s NLP algorithms not only in Knowledge Graph, but also in Google Now and Google News.

 

Dubai based Start-up Cobone acquired by Tiger Global Management [Acquisitions]

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cobone_logo

Cobone.com, a Dubai based Group selling Start-up which works very similar to Groupon, has been acquired by a New York Investment firm Tiger Global Management. Cobone that offers Daily deals all over the Middle East, was founded by Paul Kenny back in 2010 and was funded by Jabbar Internet group.

cobone_logo

Though the value of this acquisitions hasn’t been officially revealed, Techcrunch doubts it could be  $40 million. This acquisition marks the exit of Jabbar Internet group from Cobone but the CEO Paul Kenny and CMO Warrick Godfrey will continue doing what they were doing already.

Speaking about the acquisition to Gulfnews, Godfrey said,

“When we met, our visions instantly aligned as our vision is much longer than three years and having Tiger backing Cobone for the long term was critical for the management team and our employees but also our partners as we will continue to invest into this region.”

Though this acquisition has nothing to do with the end consumer who only cares about the best deal that he can get, this new change in the funding company could bring more innovative solutions and expansion in business activities and lets hope it doesn’t disappoint the consumers.

Posibl.com – For Dreamers and Dream-Makers!

Possibl

Have you ever found sometime to think about the unfulfilled dreams that millions of people in this world might have ?? Atleast, the list of  unfulfilled dreams you have ? Here is one such kind of person, who thought about others dreams and wanted to be a bridge between dreamers and dream-makers[who makes the dream a reality].

Possibl

His name is Argentine Martin Parlato and he has created a website Posibl.com.  All you have to do is create an account and start posting your dreams.

Does your dream need money ? You can tell them.

Does your dream need some gifts? You can ask them.

Does your dream need some contacts? You can search them.

It has all help one need to make her dream, a reality. Check out the below dream,yours can be as simple as this. Or it can even ask for helping 1000 kids for education or health care. There are people who can help you.

dream

We have been talking a lot about dreamers. What about the ones who make them true?? There is a place, where you can register yourself as a dream-maker. A dream-maker can be an NGO, a trust or a single person. Its just the help given to make some of the dreams come true,that counts.

Dream-makers

Parlato says this has been founded in honor of his father, who died when he was young and his father had helped him to realize how to find and help the needy.We can see the power of this idea when we hear that a kid from Argentine City of Cordoba needing 60,000$ for mother cells transplant, has been helped by a company and the transplant was done for that kid in China.

So,There is someone to hear about your dream and help you. There is someone waiting to get your help. Haven’t you registered yet ?

Mega is back! Kim Dotcom claims it’s Legal – What says Police?

MEGA

Kim Dotcom, the founder world’s famous file-sharing site Megaupload, his name in the world of internet is as big as him when his house was raided and he was arrested by Police back in 2012. Kim was charged with online piracy after Hollywood film producers claimed Megaupload was illegally sharing copyrighted material.

But the German born Computer Hacker doesn’t seem to give up. He is back with the same tag “Mega” and the same concept – “File Sharing” but claims it’s Legal this time.

Kim Dotcom is all set to launch his new online product, Mega, The cloud based file storage solution, at mega.co.nz on January 19, 2013.

MEGA

Explaining about the new Mega product, Kim says,

“This is not some kind of finger to the US government or to Hollywood, Legally, there’s just nothing there that could be used to shut us down.

This site is just as legitimate as Dropbox, Boxnet and other competitors,” he said, referring to similar file sharing services.”

According to Kim, the new Mega uses extreme Encryption techniques that make sure no one other than the user knows that’s in there. And now the Police and his ex-enemies can either file a new lawsuit against him or can sneak in their nose into this huge Mega.

[via Sky News]

LIFX, A Smartphone Controlled Light Bulb

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We do a lot of things with a smartphone in our hands. We play music. We go wherever we want. We find what we have never seen before. Have you ever imagined, you would switch off and switch on a light bulb with a smartphone??? yes,that’s what I am talking about right here.

They call it, LIFX, a light bulb, which can be controlled by a smartphone. This project has been put forth in KickStarter a day before and now it has got 2577 backers as of now and is pledged an amount of $341,729, which is really hopeful.

LIFX Courtesy: Techcrunch

So, it has got this many backers, what may be the impressive features its going to give us?? Here is the list:

You need not use the switches.

You can change the color of the bulb and set the mood of the room.

You can have disco effect for a music you play on.

If you have more than one LIFX bulb in your room, you can control one or all of them together.

You can dim or increase the intensity as for the need.

When not in home, you can use it in security mode.

Last but not the least, power consumed will be very less compared to the existing bulbs.

With all these features, for using this LIFX bulb, you need not change the wiring or existing setup. All you need is to replace your old bulb with this LIFX and download the free app, which will be available on the store,to your smartphone, be it , iOS or Android.And it costs around 69$.

You can find the project space and a cool video about this project here:  LIFX on KickStarter

After the launch in India, I am gonna get one of these smartphone controlled smart bulb and have fun with the colors! Whats your plan???