C'est lundi prochain, a San Francisco sur la 8e rue  que va s'ouvrir la grande messe du TechCrunch50, le Festival de Cannes de la High Tech en Silicon Valley...
Michael Arrington et son comite editorial a souhaite organiser depuis 2007 une conference pour les startups, toutes les startups, rien que les startups... L'objectif est d'avoir la possibilite pour elles de presenter leur nouveau produit, leur nouvelle application, leur nouveau service...

C'est l'objet d'un travail de plusieurs mois pour les jeunes pousses qui ont souhaite postuler (il y a un second choix pour les societes non retenues : exposer au DemoPit) : preparation, presentation, jury...

On y retrouve un peu de tout, y compris de jeunes entrepreneurs sans veritables moyens qui revent de l'exposition proposee pour rencontrer le Prince Charmant... je veux dire un Business Angel voire un VC qui tombe sous le charme de la proposition de valeur ...

En attendant, c'est le blackout total pour les societes retenues : limitation des acces a la version Beta, pas d'interviews, pas de screenshots, pas de produit visible avant le grand jour... Pas evident de faire du Business Developpement le temps qu'on passe enfin devant les projecteurs !

Le Pannel d'Experts de ce cru 2009 est assez varie, marriant des hommes d'experience comme Ron Conway, Tim O'Reilly ou encore Paul Graham et des personnes cles de societes qui font un bien grand bruit comme Twitter, Digg, Facebook voire Ning... et l'indispensable Robert Scoble of course !

Avec Altaide Valley, on va faire un petit tour des force Francaises et Europeennes en presence, et voire ce que chacun espere de cet evenement, car se jeter dans le bain Californien n'est pas chose aisee, surtout avec la perspective de vouloir trouver des investisseurs...

Pour avoir sa chance ici, il faut clairement son intention de s'installer localement, et cela peut tourner a l'aventure si on n'y est pas vraiment prepare.
D'autres startupeurs souhaitent aussi simplement profiter de l'evenement pour buzzer... On fera le tour de tout ca !
En tout cas ca parle un peu Francais ici et la, a South Park, a L'Atelier de mon ami Dominique Piotet, dans les coulisses... bon je dois y aller, les Austaliens eux aussi ont debarque, et je dois les aider a decharger leurs specialites locales...

Le gagnant de l'annee derniere etait Yammer (une plateforme de microblogging pour les entreprises)... Cela tombe bien, j'ai une interview prevue avec leur CEO lundi soir... on pourra en savoir plus sur l'apres-TechCrunch50 !

Je suis plutot cense publier des informations sur la Silicon Valley, mais quand il s'agit de l'iPhone, les informations passent toutes (ou presque) ici, meme si cela concerne une marche qui se trouve de l'autre cote de l'Ocean... Pacifique !

Alors je vous en fais profiter !

Toshi est blogeur au Japon, et publie des informations utiles pour developper des applications sur le marche Japonais.

Il a transmis recemment sur un forum de la Silicon Valley dedie a l'iPhone l'information selon laquelle NGI group, un incubateur Japonais qui a recemment ouvert un fond dedie a iPhone qui s'appelle
Il recherchent des developpeurs pour investir dans leur compagnie.

Le Business Model est base sur le principe du "profit share model".

Voici comment fonctionne le fonds (volontairement en anglais pour etre tres precis sur le mode operatoire) :
- Applie fund selects plans for application development and seeks
investors publicly. (The amount of the fund for each project is
estimated to be $50,000 - $100,000, but not limited.)
- Developers are responsible for the development, promotion, release,
and support of the application.
- The revenue is to be shared with investors, Applie fund and
developers. The investors will receive the shares preferentially until
the break even point. (It is assumed that the developers portion will be 50%
after Apple's deduction until the break even.)
- The details such as term, IP(intellectual property), share potion,
roles&responsibilities, plan after the break even, application
maintenance plan after the release, need to be discussed after the
project is picked up.

Je ferai suivre les informations pour ceux qui sont interesses, et pour cela j'aurai besoin (toujours en anglais) :
1. Application Overview: what does it do, target platform other than
iPhone if possible, target price
2. Application Detail : detail description about the application
3. Appealing Point : special features, why users buy the app, what is
better than other competitive applications
4. Pricing Model : Paid/Subscription/Ad
5. Target : user target and volume
6. Download Simulation : number of download estimation based on actual
numbers
7. Revenue Simulation : revenue projection time line estimation after
the release
8. Cost Simulation : cost for development, promotion, etc.
9. Promotion Plan : detail plan for the application promotion
10. Schedule : schedule for planning, design/development, release,
upgrade, etc
11. Application Development Record : name of application, release date,
number of sales
12. Organization Overview : contact, description of business, financial
information, core members background
13. Enthusiasm : how seriously you are working on this application

Si vous avez des questions, laisser un commentaire sur ce post. J'y repondrai rapidement.

Je connais des studios Francais qui ont d'ores et deja commence a attaquer le marche Japonais avec leurs applications iPhone... et localement ! Sur ce marche, il faut aller vite, tres vite... Les places a prendre seront de moins en moins nombreuses...

This is a Press Release from Argonne National Laboratory

    If you wanted to perform a single run of a current model of the explosion of a star on your home computer, it would take more than three years just to download the data.  In order to do cutting-edge astrophysics research, scientists need a way to more quickly compile, execute and especially visualize these incredibly complex simulations.

These days, many scientists generate quadrillions of data points that provide the basis for visualizations of everything from supernovas to protein structures—and they’re quickly overwhelming current computing capabilities. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory are exploring other ways to speed up the process, using a technique called software-based parallel volume rendering.

Volume rendering is a technique that can be used to make sense of the billions of tiny points of data collected from an X-ray, MRI, or a researcher’s simulation. For example, bone is denser than muscle, so an MRI measuring the densities of every square millimeter of your arm will register the higher readings for the radius bone in your forearm.

Argonne scientists are trying to find better, quicker ways to form a recognizable image from all of these points of data.  Equations can be written to search for sudden density changes in the dataset that might set bone apart from muscle, and researchers can create a picture of the entire arm, with bone and muscle tissue in different colors.

“But on the scale that we’re working, creating a movie would take a very long time on your laptop—just rotating the image one degree could take days,” said Mark Hereld, who leads the visualization and analysis efforts at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility.

First, researchers divide the data among many processing cores so that they can all work at once, a technique that’s called parallel computing. On Argonne’s Blue Gene®/P supercomputer, 160,000 computing cores all work together in parallel. Today’s typical laptop, by comparison, has two cores.

Usually, the supercomputer’s work stops once the data ha­s been gathered, and the data is sent to a set of graphics processors (GPUs), which create the final visualizations. But the driving commercial force behind developing GPUs has been the video game industry, so GPUs aren’t always well suited for scientific tasks. In addition, the sheer amount of data that has to be transferred from location to location eats up valuable time and disk space. 

“It’s so much data that we can’t easily ask all of the questions that we want to ask: each new answer creates new questions and it just takes too much time to move the data from one calculation to the next,” said Hereld. “That drives us to look for better and more efficient ways to organize our computational work.”

Argonne researchers wanted to know if they could improve performance by skipping the transfer to the GPUs and instead performing the visualizations right there on the supercomputer. They tested the technique on a set of astrophysics data and found that they could indeed increase the efficiency of the operation.

“We were able to scale up to large problem sizes of over 80 billion voxels per time step and generated images up to 16 megapixels,” said Tom Peterka, a postdoctoral appointee in Argonne’s Mathematics and Computer Science Division.

Because the Blue Gene/P's main processor can visualize data as they are analyzed, Argonne's scientists can investigate physical, chemical, and biological phenomena with much more spatial and temporal detail.

According to Hereld, this new visualization method could enhance research in a wide variety of disciplines.  “In astrophysics, studying how stars burn and explode pulls together all kinds of physics: hydrodynamics, gravitational physics, nuclear chemistry and energy transport,” he said. “Other models study the migration of dangerous pollutants through complex structures in the soil, to see where they’re likely to end up; or combustion in cars and manufacturing plants—where fuel is consumed and whether it’s efficient.”

“Those kinds of problems often lead to questions that are very complicated to pose mathematically,” Hereld said. “But when you can simply watch a star explode through visualization of the simulation, you can gain insight that’s not available any other way.”

            Argonne’s work in advanced computing is supported by the Department of Energy’s Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR).

The U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation’s first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America’s scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

More information is available at:

http://www.anl.gov/Media_Center/News/2009/news090730.html

About Qualcomm

Qualcomm Incorporated (Nasdaq: QCOM) is a leader in developing and delivering innovative digital wireless communications products and services based on CDMA and other advanced technologies. Headquartered in San Diego, Calif., Qualcomm is included in the S&P 100 Index, the S&P 500 Index and is a 2009 FORTUNE 500® company. For more information, please visit www.qualcomm.com.

Qualcomm Ventures was launched in the United States in November 2000 with an initial US$500 million allocation. Qualcomm Ventures' aim is to support Qualcomm's mission of enabling and fostering 3G (WCDMA) and wireless Internet markets through strategic investments in privately owned startup ventures. These strategic investments include companies focusing on wireless communication technologies and products serving consumer, enterprise and vertic

3-7 July: Calvi On The Rocks on Awdio.com

Aeroplane, Anoraak, Arnaud Rebotini, Brodinski, Ebony Bones, Friendly Fires, Full Nelson Half Nelson (TBC), James Murphy, Jennifer Cardini, Klaxons (TBC), Man Like Me, Magistrates, Phoenix (TBC) Superpitcher, We Have Band, Yuksek !!!

Click on the picture to broadcast music played live during music Festival organized in Calvi, Balagne, Corsica from Jule 3rd to 7th...

Too bad, I can't be there this year...

WEDIA, a software content management and cross-media publishing company, announced a fundraising of 2.6 million euros. Achieved with BNP Paribas Private Equity and X-Ange, a historical partner of WEDIA, this fundraiser is designed to accelerate the development of new offerings around SaaS model (Software as a Service), and to pursue WEDIA external growth.

In the era of media convergence, content publishing is becoming a strategic issue for companies and media groups, as they can reach their customers and readers via numerous media (paper, web, mobile, e-paper ... ). To enable them to increase the impact of their publications to all these media, WEDIA proposes Open4, the solution of content management and cross-media publishing (multichannel editorial systems for the Press, communication cross-media platforms, solutions for operational multichannel marketing).

With this positioning, WEDIA meets a great success today with Communications and Marketing Directions and the Press, and is one of the main players in this sector with over 100 references (large accounts and newspaper groups), a turnover of 6.5 million Euros in 2008 and net income increased by 4 over the same period.

In this context, this fundraiser helps to speed up two main areas of development:

• SaaS offer (Software as a Service) to meet market demand in a logic of rationalization of projects and rapid return on investment solutions in place;
• External growth (web-to-print players, mobile technology, international competitors).

"In a difficult economic context, the entry of BNP Paribas Private Equity to our capital and the renewed confidence of XAnge with us for over 2 years reflect the relevance of our positioning and of our growth potential in the cross-media publishing market. We believe that the 2009 year is ideal for launching new offers and new approaches (SaaS) in the market, while refining our offering to our customers large accounts and newspaper groups,"says Nicolas Boutet, CEO of WEDIA.

"We are particularly keen to accompany WEDIA - a pioneer in cross-media offerings – for a new stage in its development. Having conquered many renamed large accounts with its software offer, we firmly believe that SaaS will offer a growth accelerator for WEDIA, while responding to a clearly identified and real market need. We have confidence in management team who has already proved its worth in the past, to carry out this new phase in the life of WEDIA" said Nicolas Vaillant, director of investment at BNP Paribas Private Equity.

Dominique Agrech of X-Ange Private Equity, said: "After a very good route from our entry to the capital WEDIA at the end of 2006 and two years marked by the growth of business with clients in industry and commerce services, WEDIA has a way to accelerate and achieve a new stage in its development on a fully confirmed position of its bid."

We are sincerly happy to see Wedia developing so well and succeeding to raise money in such a period: CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Benoit Secher, Partner art Wedia, was part of the entrepreneurs taking part of our Geektrip in November last year...