Android – Iphone – Applications

     It is rumored that you might be seeing commercials when you boot up your favorite App Store apps! Imagine paying for Beejive only to have an unauthorized ad crammed down your throat everytime you open it to chat.

     AdMob, one of the larger mobile advertising companies, is said to be launching these “in app” advertisements very soon. It’s believed that you will be able to fast forward, or even skip the advertisements, but it still seems like more of a pain than it’s worth. How would you feel if everytime you opened an app you had to skip…

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written by Duy Phong \\ tags: App, Iphone

Google Image Swirl recently launched and it makes searching for images more fun. When you search for a monument or any other image and click on it, a tree form of other images show up. Google Image Swirl graduated from Google Labs. When searching for an image, twelve other thumbnails show up. You’ll see several different images at various angles. Image Swirl uses technology from Similar Images and Picasa Face Recognition to determine what other thumbnails come up. There are currently about 200,000 queries that are supported. The announcement was made by Google Product Manager Aparna Chennapragada and Google Researcher Yushi Jing.

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written by Duy Phong \\ tags: Google

Norwest Venture Partners is a technology venture capital firm that is based in Silicon Valley, California. Norwest has invested early in many technology companies such as Kayak, Arbortext, Rackspace, MyYearbook, Playdom, Sulekha.com, Ngmoco, and Yatra.com. The company raised a new round of funding at $1.2 billion. This is the eleventh fund raised in the history of the firm and is the largest. The new round of funding will be used for international expansion. Norwest already has offices in India and Israel. The company has invested in Chinese companies as well.

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written by Duy Phong

Steve Case is the co-founder, former CEO, and former Chairman of AOL. AOL will be spinning out of Time Warner soon and will be going IPO. Steve Case is a shareholder in Time Warner so he will benefit from the IPO. And on top of that another startup company started by Case is being bought out by the American Express Company (NYSE: AXP) for $300 million. Revolution Money is a PayPal competitor that allows merchants to process payments at lower fees than many other traditional credit card companies.

The full press release is after the jump:

American Express Company (NYSE: AXP) today announced it has agreed to acquire Revolution Money, a Revolution LLC company.

Revolution Money, launched by AOL Co-founder Steve Case’s Revolution LLC in 2007, provides secure payments through an internet based platform. No names or account numbers appear on Revolution cards and transactions are authorized by using a PIN number. The company’s online person-to-person payment accounts are FDIC insured and ideally suited for social and instant messaging networks. It also offers a prepaid card linked to those accounts that can be used for offline payments or to withdraw cash from ATMs throughout the United States.

“New payments products and platforms are evolving rapidly and it’s important for us to keep identifying Cutting Edge technologies that can extend our leadership beyond the traditional payments arena,” said Kenneth I. Chenault, chairman and chief executive officer of American Express. “While Revolution Money is a young and relatively small company, we believe it has big potential. This is a smart, nimble business. It’s run by an accomplished management team who have quickly developed some cutting edge e-payment offerings. Joining with American Express will help unlock their potential, while allowing us to deliver competitive online payment products more rapidly and efficiently.”

“Revolution Money has a lot of room to grow as it competes head-to-head with other online and person-to-person payment providers. We are committed to using our global brand recognition, marketing reach and network expertise to help reach a critical mass of customers,” said Mr. Chenault.

The transaction, which is subject to regulatory review, is expected to close in the first quarter of 2010. The purchase price is expected to be approximately $300 million. Upon closing, Revolution Money would operate as a subsidiary of American Express and be the first component of its recently formed Enterprise Growth organization. Enterprise Growth was formed to leverage American Express’ existing assets and capabilities to generate incremental fee revenue and to drive the company’s entry into new payment areas and related businesses.

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written by Duy Phong \\ tags: App, OS, Unlock

Twitter Inc. is being sued by Cooper Notification, a subsidiary of Cooper Industries Plc. Cooper Notification is based in Sarasota, Florida and the reason that they are suing Twitter is because of patent infringement.

“Cooper has suffered, and will continue to suffer, and is entitled to be compensated” stated Cooper in a complaint to the federal court in Wilmington, Delaware. Cooper Notification sends security alerts to the community and employees.

Twitter is not the only company that Cooper is going after. Cooper Notification is also suing Rave Wireless Inc. and Everbridge Inc.

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written by Duy Phong