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European VC Funding Bounces Back, Information Technology Is “Star Performer”

On July 28, 2010, In News, By admin

European VC funding as bounced back. That’s according to Q2 figures produced by Dow Jones VentureSource which reports that investment is up by 50 percent compared to the record low of this time last year. €1.1 billion into 289 deals against 252 deals, which raised just €735 million. But specifically, says Dow Jones, the Information Technology (IT) industry, which apparently accounted for much of the venture market’s losses during the economic downturn, was the “star performer” in the most recent quarter. IT saw a 69% increase in investment from the second quarter last year to €334 million, as well as a 13% increase in deal flow to 90 completed deals. For the first time in two years, the report notes, IT was Europe’s largest industry for venture investment, taking 31% of overall investment. Here’s a few more interesting tidbits quoted from the report:

European VC Funding Bounces Back, Information Technology Is “Star Performer”

Hungry For Growth, Search Marketing Startup KENSHOO Raises More Funding

On July 28, 2010, In News, By admin

Search engine marketing startup KENSHOO has secured an undisclosed late-stage round of funding from Sequoia’s Growth Fund, the Israeli company announced this morning.

This marks the fourth time Sequoia Capital has injected capital into the company, which claims it is now profitable and has doubled in valuation since 2009.

KENSHOO offers search marketing campaign management and optimization tools (KENSHOO Search and KENSHOO Local are its flagship products) and provide automation solutions for advertisers’ online demand generation needs across channels like Google, Yahoo, Bing, Facebook, AOL, Baidu, and Yandex.

It’s a very crowded market, but with lots of room for growth left, particularly geographically speaking.

KENSHOO currently already operates from nine locations on four continents, including a recently added office in Sydney, Australia. Armed with fresh funds from the famous Silicon Valley VC firm, the company will be opening two new offices in Europe (in Paris and an unnamed city in Germany) and also look at way to expand its presence in Asia.

The new funding will also enable KENSHOO to enter into additional domains such as new social media advertising channels, and enable the development of re-targeting technologies.

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Hungry For Growth, Search Marketing Startup KENSHOO Raises More Funding

Tagged with: aol • continents • development • europe • facebook • from-the-famous • search • sequoia-capital • yahoo

IPS Company Blog – Easier Documentation Search

On July 27, 2010, In News, By admin

IPS is constantly looking for ways to improve, and one area of focus is documentation. We get a lot of feedback regarding documentation, and quite frequently the feedback we receive is, unfortunately, too vague to act on specifically. It’s always a pleasant delight to get specific, focused feedback on how we can improve.

Last week I happened across a topic on our forums with just this kind of feedback, and after reviewing the suggestion and what it would take to implement, we agreed that the work was worth it. Cap’n Refsmmat posted some well-thought-out, clear and concise feedback on a specific action we could take that would make finding documentation easier, and I’m happy to announce that this change has been put in place on our website.

It was pointed out that as a user, it doesn’t matter too much where the documentation you are searching for is located specifically. Whether it is a community article, official documentation, or an error code – you just want to find out more information, regardless of where that information is located. Today I built a few Sphinx search indexes of our downloads area, our error codes database, our official documentation, and our community-submitted articles, and then built a search interface to query all of these areas at once. We have replaced the search form in our documentation area with this new search utility.

Feel free to test out the new search tool and let us know what you think! Just head on over to our documentation page and use the search box at the top of the page to look for whatever it is you need to find. We may evolve this new tool further in the future, but for now we hope that it helps you find what you are looking for with less hassle and bouncing around.

IPS Company Blog – Easier Documentation Search

Tagged with: areas-at-once • documentation • downloads-area • feedback-on-how • find-out-more • head-on-over • search • specific-action • suggestion • work

Apple’s Innovative New… Battery Charger?

On July 27, 2010, In News, By admin

Apple unleashed a range of new and updated products earlier today — everything from new Mac Pros to new iMacs to a new Magic Trackpad device. Lost in the shuffle was a tiny new product Apple also unveiled: the Apple Battery Charger.

But just because it’s not as big or a pricey as Apple’s other new toys, don’t think Apple loves it any less. In fact, when I spoke to Apple today about their new products, they made sure to dedicate some time to talking all about this new battery charger.

Apple says it’s proud of its new “sleek and very compact” battery charger because they managed to take a product that other companies have been doing for a while and perfect it. “The honest truth is that most [manufacturers] don’t care about these,” an Apple representative told me. This allowed Apple to come in and create a product that performs ten times better than the industry average, they say. What they mean by this is that their battery charger uses only 30 milliwatts when it completes a charge cycle thanks to sensors — many other draw 300 or more milliwatts in the same setting. “We’ve engineering these chargers to have the lowest power vampire draw of any AA chargers,” Apple says.

Vampire draw. Nice.

Apple is selling this charger for $29 but that comes with 6 rechargeable AA NiMH batteries. “These are very long shelf-life batteries,” I was told. Apple’s website claim they can last up to 10 years. “No more late night trips to Walgreens,” an Apple representative joked.

So why six? Apple envisions people using two of them in their wireless keyboards, two in their Magic Mouse or new Magic Trackpad, and then two that will remain in the charger in case the others run out.

No word on the margins Apple is seeing on these bad boys.

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Apple’s Innovative New… Battery Charger?

Tagged with: apple • apple-battery • battery • battery-charger • case-the-others • companies • industry • magic • pricey-as-apple • wireless

37signals Buys Campfire iPhone App Ember

On July 27, 2010, In News, By admin

Collaboration software developer 37signals has bought Ember, an iPhone app for Campfire, according to a blog post. on the company’s site. 37signals develops Campfire, which is a popular real-time group chat tool used by developers and businesses. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

37signals founder Jason Fried says that Ember’s iPhone app, which was developed by app developer Overcommitted, lets you chat, view transcripts, jump between rooms, share pictures in a Campfire chat. The app caught Fried’s eye earlier this year and the company decided to buy the developer and re-launch Ember as Campfire for the iPhone.

The app, which was priced at $9.99, is now free. 37signals also develops Basecamp, a project management and collaboration application; Highrise, a contact management platform; and Backpack, and information organization application.

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