Muzio’s beautiful iOS app makes it easier than ever to curate & share memories What's next in mobile? Find out at MobileBeat, VentureBeat's 7th annual event on the future of mobile, on July 8-9 in San Francisco. Register now and save $400! Tons of apps let you share photos and videos. Heck, just this week, Facebook-owned Instagram added video sharing, and it’s already popular. But what if you want to easily share a set of photos, videos, audio, and text in a single album? Muzio was founded and launched by Reshma Chattaram Chamberlin and Elizabeth Buchanan (both pictured above), two designers who own B&C, a small boutique design firm. So Buchanan and Chamberlin built an app on top of Amazon Web Services that would make it easy to share an experience like that with photos, videos, audio, and text all in a single place. Muzio isn’t trying to be yet another social network — it’s a tool for compiling media and sharing it on social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Google+) and over email. Check out more photos of the Muzio iPhone app below. Photos via Muzio
Pearltrees Hits Android, as it Prepares to Become a File Manager Pearltrees is a content curation startup that we’ve been tracking for some time now, and today it’s launching an app on Android. However, there’s a twist, as the launch points towards an expansion of exactly what this service is all about. As with the Web and iOS versions of Pearltrees, the Android app allows you to create, share and explore mindmap-style ‘trees’ of content. So, I could create a tree of articles, images and notes related to a particular theme and then if you searched Pearltrees for that theme, you’d find my tree and related ones by other people. It’s a highly visual, logical way of organizing and sharing ideas and information, and the Android app benefits from the OS’ built-in sharing capabilities. Any Web page can be added to a tree straight from the share menu in your browser. A ‘post-PC’ file manager? It’s fair to say that Pearltrees hasn’t found mainstream fame quite yet as an alternative to more traditional social bookmarking services. ➤ Pearltrees / Google Play
Levée de Fonds : de la Pertinence de la Valorisation ! Au total, si je mets bouts à bout les différentes levées ou opérations que j'ai faites pour Photoways et Inspirational Stores, on dépasse les 50M€... Et tout ça m'a appris une chose, la "valo" utilisée pour l'opération ne doit pas être l'élément principal, sauf quand on vend définitivement sa société et qu'on en sort. Dans ce cas, et uniquement dans ce cas, il n'y a évidemment qu'un but à rechercher, vendre le plus cher possible. Combien de fois ai-je entendu comme 1ère question lors de l'évocation d'une levée, et ce aussi bien d'entrepreneurs, de leveurs de fonds que de VCs, "et la valo, elle est de combien" ? Totalement irrelevant pour moi ! Certes, ça fait plaisir de pouvoir dire "j'ai levé 10M€ sur une valorisation de 50M€", sous entendu que ma boite vaut 50M€, mais franchement le but dans les affaires n'est pas de se monter le bourrichon mais bien de faire des affaires fructueuses, de gagner de l'argent ET d'en faire gagner aux autres. Soyez souple, voire très souple sur la valo.
La battaglia sulle batterie che decideranno il futuro delle auto elettriche - Steve LeVine La guerra per i brevetti hi-tech ha aperto un nuovo fronte, trascinando due delle più grandi aziende del mondo in una battaglia legale miliardaria sulle batterie agli ioni di litio. Al centro della vicenda c’è la composizione chimica delle batterie, che secondo molti esperti potrebbe permettere un’ampia diffusione delle automobili elettriche. Le contendenti sono la tedesca Basf, prima azienda chimica del mondo, e la belga Umicore, una delle maggiori produttrici mondiali di batterie. Il 20 febbraio 2015 la Basf ha citato in giudizio la Umicore davanti a una corte federale del Delaware, accusandola di aver venduto un componente chiave per cui la Basf ha una licenza esclusiva e di aver minacciato di fare causa alle aziende che avessero fatto affari con i tedeschi. La Basf ha chiesto un risarcimento miliardario. Se non sarà risolto prima del processo, il caso costringerà i giudici a districarsi nelle sottigliezze della struttura atomica degli elettrodi. Ma qual è la vera differenza?
How social media is transforming the fashion industry Image copyright Brooklyn Beckham/Burberry When Brooklyn Beckham revealed on his Instagram feed that he would be photographing Burberry's latest fragrance ad campaign, the outrage was palpable. Commentators rushed to criticise the fashion house's choice of the 16-year-old son of David and Victoria Beckham for the shoot, instead of an established industry professional. "Insulting to every artist out there"; "completely disrespectful to the artist community"; and "so tired of these celebrities buying their kids into everything" were some of the printable reactions. But Burberry boss Christopher Bailey suggested it might have been Brooklyn's 5.9 million Instagram followers, rather than his parents, that got him the gig. "Brooklyn has a really great eye for image and Instagram works brilliantly for him as a platform to showcase his work," he said. Image copyright Brooklyn Beckham / Burberry Model behaviour The influence of social media has also rapidly changed how models are chosen.
There’s Life Left In Delicious Yet For a long time, the web-based social bookmarking service Delicious was a poster child for the Web 2.0 movement. It was open, collaborative and full of the tags and user-generated content that made VCs instinctively open up their checkbooks at the time. It’s been 10 years, since the service opened to the public – then still running on the del.icio.us domain – and while it’s changed owners a few times since, it’s still up and running and its original concept hasn’t changed all that much. But the site did give itself a fresh new design for its 10th birthday, so it’s worth taking another look. Yahoo famously acquired Delicious back in 2005, two years after it was founded, and then let it linger for years. That’s what Yahoo did with way too many of these popular Web 2.0 services (Flickr being the other key example) and by 2010, it looked like Delicious’ days were over. Yahoo, however, didn’t close Delicious. I’m not sure its latest redesign is going to make a big difference, either.
Pearltrees 2.0 Launches with a Brand New User Interface Today Pearltrees officially separated itself from its unique visual interface made of pearls and pearltrees, finally succumbing to the trend of Pinterest-like user experience. It might be more practical for the majority of users to sort and collect content with the new Pearltrees 2.0, however, some people might regret the innovative former interface that allowed to discover related content rapidly by browsing an “ocean” of Pearls. Users still have the possibility to go back to the “pearly” version accessible from the menu in the settings section. Now the Pearltree has been replaced by the “Collection” which is basically a “folder” (or a board) containing various types of content of a topic, for instance, you can collect web pages, images, and notes, just like you can do with Evernote and Pinterest. Pearltrees kept the ability to discover related content with the “My Interests” button that allows to see the closest collections related to the type of content you like.
Welcome City Lab : l’incubateur parisien dédié au tourisme du futur Et si les start-up bénéficiaient de l’intérêt des touristes pour notre capitale. Anne Hidalgo, la maire de Paris, a inauguré le Welcome City Lab, premier incubateur dédié à l’innovation touristique. Son but : « créer une culture de l’innovation dans cette industrie stratégique ». Basé rue de Rennes, dans le VIème arrondissement de Paris, le Welcome City Lab dispose de 1000 m2 de locaux dédiés à la thématique du tourisme urbain. Les jeunes pousses de l’incubateur sont choisies selon trois critères : le caractère innovant de leur projet, leur capacité à créer des emplois et la solidité de leur dossier. La promotion 2014-2015 compte près d’une trentaine de start-up, dont 20 en phase d’amorçage (première année d’activité) et 10 en « décollage » (deuxième et troisième année d’activité). En outre, de grands groupes industriels font partie des membres fondateurs du Welcome City Lab, comme Aéroports de Paris, Air France, le groupe Galeries Lafayette, Viparis ou encore Sodexo.
Australia finds $1 BEELLION to replace No-SQL DATABASE That sound? The first drops of a cool billion Australian dollars (US$770m, £520m) that the nation's government has started pouring into a honeypot for the world's technology community. The sweet, sweet pot of dosh is there because Australia has decided it can't go on running System 204, an eighties database, to run its welfare payments agency Centrelink. The agency sends 180,000 letters and emails, and dispenses $290m, every day. System 204's doing that handily, but has reached the point at which meaningful changes are becoming tricky. System 204's deficiencies have been known since about 2004, but the government now says replacing it will “reboot” Australia's welfare systems, “ boost efficiencies and help advance many welfare reforms”. Projects of this size don't come along too often, anywhere in the world. Vulture South is willing to wager a decent bottle of red on the work being done by a consortium, primed by a top-tier multinational.
How Technology is Driving the Fashion Industry Forward - Slyce You probably can relate to the idea of doing research on your phone to determine what shirt would look nice with your new pants while in a shopping mall or boutique. Or maybe you can relate to the practice of taking a picture of yourself in the changing room and having your friend or partner tell you whether they like what you’re wearing or not. A lot has changed in the fashion world in the last several decades, and I’m not talking about the demise of Juicy sweatpants or the disappearance of chain wallets. Technology has turned the entire fashion industry upside down – making all types of fashion more accessible to a large spectrum of consumers, but also more of a challenge for designers and retailers when it comes to competition. Beginning in the mid-1800s, fashion brands were sought through retail catalogues – allowing access from even the most remote locations. Manage Your Payments, Inventory & Costs With Technology The Emergence Of Social Savvy Retailers & Brands So what do you think?