Nokia set broad targets for the launch of Music+ that left some of its audience wondering just when they’d have their turn. For the UK, that’s now. Those willing to drop £4 per month (or use a one-week trial) will get the promised unlimited offline downloads to their Lumia, improved audio quality, unlimited radio skips and web streaming. Americans still don’t have a firm date for their turn at a Music+ subscription, although they’ll get a better deal with a $4 monthly outlay.

[Thanks, Alam]

Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio/Video, Mobile, Nokia

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Via: Symbian Tweet, WMPowerUser

Source: Nokia Music (Twitter)

It’s been three years since we first heard about DARPA’s ARGUS-IS, but thanks to a PBS Nova special entitled “Rise of the Drones,” we finally have more information about the 1.8-gigapixel camera that is supposedly the highest-resolution surveillance system in the world. The documentary showed video footage of the imaging system in action, though the camera itself remains shrouded in mystery for security reasons. Designed to be used with UAVs like the Predator, the ARGUS-IS (which stands for Autonomous Real-time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance – Imaging System) can spot a six-inch object within a ten square mile radius from 20,000 feet in the air. As shown in the clip after the break, the high-res cam doesn’t quite reveal facial features, but you can spot details like a bird flying around a building and the color of someone’s clothes.

The video goes on to reveal that the camera’s internals are actually a collection of 368 sensors that are identical to the ones found in 5-megapixel smartphones. But the ARGUS-IS wouldn’t be much without the processing power of the platform behind it. We’re not entirely sure how this is done, but the camera allegedly streams around 1 million terabytes (that’s an exabyte, folks) of video, which adds up to roughly 5,000 hours of HD footage per day. Thankfully, there’s software that helps guys on the ground filter through the mass of data. As seen in the image above, it lets them track moving objects with up to 65 simultaneous windows. The military potential here is obvious, but DARPA is keeping mum on any future implementations of the ARGUS-IS — or if it’s been in use all this time.

Filed under: Science, Alt

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Source: ExtremeTech, PBS

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Today, the streaming music startup Serendip is bringing its “lean back,” serendipitous music discovery service to mobile with the debut of the Serendip iOS application. Like the web version which launched last fall, the new app offers a continuous stream of the music popular among friends, or others you’ve dubbed your “music soulmates.”

However, unlike on-demand services like Rdio or Spotify, for example, which also offer this level of social insight, Serendip aggregates music from YouTube, Vimeo, SoundCloud and Bandcamp to create its playlists. That puts it more in the same camp as startups like This is My Jam or Musicplayr, perhaps. Today, the company reports its catalog has over 50 million songs, and continues to grow.

Also unlike those in the streaming music space, which have you build radio stations based on artists you like, Serendip is focused on helping users find new things to listen to, even if they’re not quite sure where to start. To do this, the service tracks what music is trending on Facebook and Twitter in order to play the most popular tracks. Or, as the company describes it, it’s the “sound of now.” And if you find that some of your friends aren’t into the same music as you are, you can just unfollow them.

The service also recommends a few “DJs” upon first launch (there are over 15 million of them!), to help you get going. And as you get more into using the app, you’ll come across others with similar music tastes, and you can then follow their music which becomes a part of your own playlist.

As you listen, your playlist from DJs and friends is updated in real-time, and you can give the DJ a “rock on” (basically, Serendip’s take on the “like/love” button) or you can share the track out to your own followers so it ends up in others’ playlists, too. You can also optionally post your love for a track to Facebook or Twitter. Because some of the songs are sourced from video sites, those videos will play right within the app, which is another fun feature, which sets it a part from many radio apps in the space.

Asked how Serendip compares to the competition, co-founder Sagee Ben-Zedeff says, “our playlist  is not boring and predictable, because it is curated by people…the ‘curated by humans’ part may resemble turntable.fm or Songza, but it is done on a much larger scale, and at your convenience (you are not dependent on others to use the service at the same time),” he adds. “And we let you control it, and move across your feed so you can freely explore and enjoy the music the way you like.”

The company behind the new app, Serendip Media (which we spotted back in September hanging out at TechCrunch Disrupt’s Startup Alley), was founded in 2011 by Ben-Zedeff and Asaf Atzmon. Based in Tel Aviv, the startup has $850,000 in seed funding from Gigi Levy, The Jeff Pulver Micro Angel Fund, Yossi Gofman and Tron Capital, and is now raising.

The new app is available here in the Apple App Store.

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Few examples of gaming, online or otherwise, can boast the kind of longevity of Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, but Guild Software’s Vendetta Online has been up and running for just as long. The space exploration and trading MMORPG kicked off in 2002, and its dedicated, independent four-person indie studio has been diligently updating and improving it on a regular basis. The game is available on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and Windows 8 hardware, maintaining a persistent game world across each, and now Guild wants to bring it to iPad, too, and is turning to Kickstarter for help.

The Kickstarter project set up by Guild Software is looking for $100,000 to fund the title’s development, which will make Vendetta Online available for iPad 2 and later, complete with Retina display support and voice-overs added to early missions. The money will also help with the development of the newest Vendetaa patch, version 1.9, which is set for release in late 2013 and which includes “expanded and polished gameplay,” including improvements to graphics and sound as well as in-story elements like the economy, player-owned ships and the game universe in general.

Vendetta Online has been around for over 10 years, as mentioned, and it offers the kind of satisfying space trading and combat experience you might be familiar with from other games like EVE Online and the awesome single player Freelancer. Where Vendetta differs is that it tends to focus more on players getting hands-on, and definitely probably isn’t a good fit for casual players. That said, it has managed to attract an audience of dedicated followers, and recently debuted on Android, where it receives top marks on the Google Play store.

Guild Software, the company behind Vendetta, operates out of Milwaukee, and has been working on the game and the engine that powers it by paying close attention to user feedback and requests for years now. It’s impressive when a massive studio like Blizzard can keep the doors open on a MMORPG for multiple years – for a small, four-person team to manage not only that, but also porting said title to virtually every console imaginable is actually Herculean. The company has proven it has the chops to build and ship software, time and time again, so in that regard this is hardly a risky project. On the other hand, they’re targeting a pretty niche market, so I have to wonder whether that $100,000 goal might not be a galaxy too far to reach.

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Since launch, online banking provider Simple has sought to provide an alternative to traditional banking services. It’s done that with built-in data visualization and a beautiful and intuitive mobile app for iPhone. Now it’s expanding to Android, with the launch of a native app designed for Google’s mobile operating system. That will greatly expand the number of potential users for the startup’s alternative banking service.

The Simple Android app comes about eight months after the iPhone version and will have many of the same features that are available on the iPhone, including the ability to make mobile check deposits and to find the nearest no-fee ATM.

But it’s not just a carbon copy of the startup’s iOS app: On the blog post announcing the app, Simple Director of Mobile Engineering Dustin Barker says the company worked with mobile product development firm Two Toasters to build the Android experience from the ground up.

Over the past few months, Simple has been adding a number of features to its iOS app and web experience, making both a lot more useful. That includes the launch of mobile check deposits. It also includes the introduction of Goals, which is Simple’s way of helping users save up without really having to think about it.

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15Five, a startup that offers a cloud-based platform for employees to provide weekly feedback about their progress — and for CEOs and other managers to be able to read all of it quickly, is today announcing that it has raised its first VC money, a seed round of $1 million from a list of investors including Richmond Global, 500 Startups, Yammer Founder David Sacks, USTREAM founder John Ham, Jason Calacanis, ex-Mashable editor Ben Parr’s Dominate Fund, Sincerely CEO Matt Brezina, and Ben Ling.

Prior to this, San Francisco-based 15Five, which opened for business last year, had only raised a $250,000 friend-and-family round, David Hassell, CEO and founder of 15Five, told TechCrunch.

The market for online enterprise collaboration products, taking a page from social media services originally aimed at consumers, has exploded in the last several years, and 15Five is riding the wave of growing interest among businesses to invest more in these services to improve their productivity and communication among workers.

The inspiration for the concept, Hassell says, comes not from the world of tech but the world of adventure sports
(prior to 15Five he had also founded and run Kite Adventures, an adventure travel company): it was a concept first pioneered by the outdoor wear and equipment company Patagonia, which found that taking time for this kind of feedback actually helped the company be more productive, confident and successful. “The most productive people I know spend time reviewing and planning for their week,” noted Hassell.

15Five plays on the idea that it’s just as important for employees to reflect on the work they’ve done, as it is for them to share ideas about what is going on right now and to plan for the future. Equally so, it’s imperative that their managers are able to keep track of everything that is happening.

Realistically, though, we are all time poor, and so the idea is to make the process of creating and reading that feedback as painless as possible. Hence the name and concept of 15Five: 15 minutes to write the reports, 5 minutes to read them — courtesy of some algorithms that help sort and manage the feedback, and an interface that allows for quick browsing (see examples below).

Similarly, to help bring on companies that may be cautious of the concept at first, 15Five is based on a pay-per-use model, rather than long-term subscriptions. The cost is $49 for the first 10 employees and $5 per month every month after per employee, on a month-to-month rolling basis.

Hassell declined to give details on user numbers since 15Five came out of beta in August 2012, but noted that the service so far appeared to resonate with “Fortune 500 companies, universities, churches and non-profits.” He also told me of several startups that rely on distributed workforces, which are using it — although names haven’t been cleared yet for public disclosure.

At a time when we are hearing a lot of talk about funding crunches — but also seeing some startups positively swimming in cash — Hassell told me that he was actually turning people away from 15Five’s seed round because he likes to keep the company lean and mean.

“I’m happy with just $1 million for now,” he said. “We are really focused on a certain set of key milestones at this point and I originally put it out to do the round at $750k. I wanted to raise enough but not more than we need. Our team works great with constraints, where we are frugal and every dollar counts. We run a lean and tight organization and I want to make sure that we are focused with the money that we have all we need to prove out the next milestones of the company.” At that point, he says, 15Five may raise more.

Of course, providing employee feedback is not a new concept, but what is is the idea of using technology to make that process more efficient. That’s a concept that clearly appealed to Sacks, who has many times celebrated the concept of startups that are using new tech to sold old problems.

“I discovered 15Five when they presented at the Launch Conference. I was a judge and agreed to invest on stage,” Sacks told me in an email. “There’s a big opportunity for an employee survey tool. Think SurveyMonkey meets Yammer. In particular, 15Five does a great job rolling up employee feedback. Yammer integration helps.”

Indeed, where there is a lot of potential for 15Five is in how it integrates with other services that enterprises are already using, whether that be something from Salesforce or a mixture of software from several smaller vendors.

“We have a 2.0 product in the works out later this year, using everything we’ve learned and building on it,” says Hassell. “Our aim is like Apple’s: elegant simplicity to help with inherently complex problems. In our case, that challenge is how to create employee feedback that highlights the most important things without taking up too much of people’s time.”

That is a challenge the investors think is being solved now and is only improving over time.

“David and his team know exactly what they need to do to turn 15Five into a large and profitable company that changes the way teams and organizations interact,” Parr told TechCrunch. “They are executors who will overcome all challenges.” He sees 15Five as a potential successor to Success Factors (now part of SAP). “They are absolutely ripe for disruption.”

Further down the line, Hassell says the company has “a number of integrations planned” once version 2.0 is released. “There is a big opportunity for us to pay with other systems in the communication and collaboration space.” Whether that will take 15Five closer to Yammer’s new owner in Redmond remains to be seen.

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Sport and action cameras are big business, and even though there are a couple of main players, it doesn't stop other's trying to get a bite of the apple. Geonaute, however, have come at the situation from a different angle. Heck, they're coming at it from every angle, with its 360-degree offering. Equipped with three 8-megapixel wide-angle lenses the camera captures an almost spherical field of view. This might initially sound like a strange idea... after all, who wants all of that in one video, won't it all be warped beyond recognition? The short answer is no, in fact it's much better than you would ever have thought, and we'll explain why shortly. Going back to the camera itself, it looks a little like the innards of those security cameras you find in government buildings etc that peer at you ominously. However, in this case, the three lenses have color detail around them which makes them look anything but sinister, and the circular base section might look a little large, but in fact it's light in the hand -- and actually helps it sit quite comfortably atop a helmet.

In 360 video mode the advertised resolution is up to 2,048 x 1,024. In photo mode you'll get single shot, burst and time-lapse modes with a top resolution of 4,096 x 2,048. The actual FOV is 360 degrees on the horizontal, and 150 degrees vertically, but the end result is a fairly complete viewing sphere. The 3,000 mAh battery should be good for two hours of footage, and the microSD card slot will take cards of up to 32GB. While there is a waterproof housing, the camera itself will take the elements on pretty well thanks to its IPX7 rating. Read on after the break for more impressions.

Gallery: Geonaute's 360 degree sports camera catches all the action, even our hands on

Continue reading Geonaute's 360 degree sports camera catches all the action, even our hands on

Filed under: Cameras, Portable Audio/Video

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