CES Roundup: BitTorrent’s new Taiwanese partner and more

Here’s a selection of stuff that caught our correspondent, Greg Weinstein’s, eye at last weeks’ CES in Las Vegas. More to come.

BitTorrent partners with Taiwanese institute on new tech

We talked to Simon Morris, the VP of Marketing and Product of video-sharing service BitTorrent Inc., who announced a development partnership with the Communications Research Laboratories at Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI)  to define and deploy new standards for consumer electronics device manufacturers.

It appears BitTorrent is moving from merely facilitating individuals sharing videos to a new position as the creator of innovative
technologies to transfer large files efficiently through the internet using its “BitTorrent Certified technology ecosystem.”

According to Morris, there are now over 100 million users of the service.  In addition, BitTorrrent claims:
- Average daily active users: Over 20 million
- Average daily client downloads: Over 400,000
- Number of languages: 52 (including English)
- Clients checking in from over 220 countries every day

Device convergence for the connected home

The Vulkano Blast is the successor to the Vulkano originally announced last July. It’s an embedded appliance that allows content from a consumer’s digital devices to be viewed throughout the connected home, plus (with accessory apps) on mobile devices such as Blackberry, Apple, and Android-based. As the Blast features a 160GB hard drive, flexible Digital Video Recording options are available across devices.

This new product will be available this month at http://www.myvulkano.com and various online and physical retailers in the US. The makers of the device, Monsoon Multimedia, has operations in India, Singapore, Russia, and is headquartered in San Mateo, California. It sells for USD199 while iOS, Android and other applications go for USD9.99 on the respective app stores. More information is at www.myvulkano.com.

We talked to Colin Stiles, EVP Sales and Marketing, describing the capabilities of the system.

SugarSync demos its Dropbox fighter, now with 5GB of storage

SugarSync’s VP of Product Management, Drew Garcia, demos its cloud-based storage to permit multiple devices, including desktop, laptop, and mobile/smartphone computers, to automatically share designated files and folders. The service has been recently enhanced to permit up to 5GB of content to be shared between multiple devices, including Android, Apple iOS, and
Blackberry-based.

Available immediately at no cost, a larger 20GB storage capacity is USD4.99 a month. Users of either the free or paid service can receive additional storage at no cost by referring friends to the service.

Greg Weinstein has published two books and numerous other feature and news reports in the field, currently serving as News Editor and Producer on Future Talk. He can be reached at greg@futuretalk.net. He has degrees in Computer Science and Computer Engineering and worked on the design of four embedded systems. He has contributed to National Computer Tectonics, Web Developers’ Journal, and was editor-in-chief of PC Register.

Link to full article

Read More

A Blogger Taking The Same Vendor Machine Photo For More Than 5 Years

A Japanese blog “Watashi ha Mainichi (no you ni) Jidou Hanbaiki no Shashin wo Totte imasu. Gomen-nasai” [J], which means “I am taking a photo of the vendor machine (almost) every day. Sorry”, is a blog dedicated for the same coca cola vending machine in Sapporo, Hokkaido with over 5 years’ successful story.

The blog started on August 5th, 2005. The blogger Ryuichi Ikeda has been taking a coca cola vending machine about 20 days every month, which seems his working day. Now the number of photos (and the blog posts) are about 1,300, in over 5 years.

On recent entries, you see the photos of the same date in past years. He records all canned and bottled beverages name, quantity and price after photo.

Most of the posts are titled “Henka Nashi”(nothing changed). When any changes happen, he writes how the placement and the sold drink are modified on the day.

Sometimes the blog readers will mail him on unrecorded changes he had overlooked. He also records which cans are changed from hot to cold, cold to hot as seasons change.

The biggest change on this unchanged blog was on 2009-08-07 to 2009-08-08. The original machine,

was replaced with the new one,

According to Ikeda, The new machine supports Edy, one of the most popular e-money available on IC card and cellphone.

On the profile, he states that his least favorite byword is “Endurance makes you stronger”. The favorite vendor machine is “if I have it, I must be a freak”.

He began this blog because “I dislike troublesome tasks and wanted to find easy contents you can update within 5 minutes. I feel angry when there are changes on the vendor machine as it makes me write more”. He also confessed on the 3rd anniversary of the blog that he got this idea on the first death anniversary of his younger sister, who loved foolish and nonsense things.

For the case you want to see higher resolution photos of them, he uploads them on Flickr, too.

There is a fan-made tetris-like game featuring the vendor machine photos from the blog,

Link to full article

Read More

Ebay India to Launch a Group Buying Portal

The group buying frenzy is not yet over and after the original daddy, i.e. Groupon entered India, leading ecommerce portal eBay too has started their own daily deals service.

The portal (http://kuponanindia.ebaysocialapps.com) currently offers deals in only 2 cities (Mumbai/NCR) and it seems, eBay has been testing group buying concept in Philippines ( http://kuponan.ebaysocialapps.com/) as well.

It’s important to note that this is a direct consumer service (and not a white label solution for sellers).

From the FAQs

How does eBay Group Buying work?

The merchant agrees to offer customers a specific product or service at a highly discounted rate (usually 50% off or more) if eBay Social Shopping  can generate more than the specified minimum number of sales chosen by the merchant. Once the minimum number of sales is reached, the deal becomes activated (called the tipping point) and all the customers that signed up for the deal become eligible. In the event the deal becomes eligible, the customers will get an email voucher specifying the details of the deal; in case the deal does not get eligible, the customer will get the refund of the amount that he paid to participate in the deal.

Recommended Read: eBay India Census 2010–Delhi sells most dual SIM mobile in India

Hat tip: Vivek

Link to full article

Read More

Latest Startup Jobs – 16 Jan 2010

If you are reading SGEntrepreneurs, you are probably already partial to startups, perhaps having founded one yourself or are working in one.

If not, why not consider joining a dynamic startup to see for yourself what it is like working with just two other people in your entire company?

If you are looking for a job as a developer, programmer, or you want something in business development, sales, or perhaps
you are a designer and looking for creative jobs, check out these newly listed open positions at these diverse startups.

Web Programmer PC/Mobile/API/Backend/Flash at RADIOActive Lab

System Administrator at Brandsfever Pte. Ltd

Content Manager at Brandsfever Pte. Ltd

Junior Developer at Brandsfever Pte. Ltd

Senior Developer at Brandsfever Pte. Ltd

Web Designer/Developer at Brandsfever Pte. Ltd

Backend Engineer at Insync

Business Development Manager at Fashion Space

Management Executive at Game Ventures

iPhone Developer at PocketDeals

Game Developer at Manga Castle Pte Ltd

View previous post.

Visit the portal for more job vacancies.

Dedicated at startups, a job listing at Triple Point Job Board can cost as low as $25 and together with our partner sites, we have combined monthly pageviews of 0.25 million that reach individuals who love code, beautiful design, innovative businesses and creative thinking. For a job seeker who wants to work in startups, this is a perfect tool to find that position that you’ve been looking for. It costs nothing to browse and apply for a position.

Image courtesy of arxetures, CC.

Link to full article

Read More

Okay! Groupon is in India, But Not Really [Hint: The Domain Name]

Alright, Groupon has theoretically entered India, and while SoSasta deal seems more of talent acquisition (and not at all user/reach acquisition), only time will tell whether Groupon can really mark a dent among Indian consumers.

Coming back to the article title, the .IN domain name, i.e. Groupon.in is not owned by Groupon, but by another group buying site, GroupOff!

The Groupon.in redirects to Groupoff.com and while they might enjoy some initial traffic, do you expect a legal story in the making?

What’s your take?

[Hat tip: Techgoss]

Link to full article

Read More

Flipkart Has a new Logo, to soon expand into Consumer Electronics Space

Flipkart has launched its brand new logo (plus brand colors) and while the company has moved from being an online book store to selling mobile phones as well as music, games etc, the big news is that Flipkart will very soon (as early as this week) announce the expansion into the entire range of consumer electronics – i.e laptop, TV etc etc.

Flipkart has seen consistent growth in the traffic and lately has started using adwords to drive traffic to the site. The early days of organic growth probably reached its maxima and Flipkart now wants to compete with eBay (s ) of the Indian online world (that pegs a question – Is there a ceiling to online book selling in India?).

What’s your take on Flipkart’s new brand colors, as well as the expansion into all things consumer electronics? Do you think that’s too much of dilution, or a logical step?

Note to Flipkart team – maybe they should change the favicon as well?

Link to full article

Read More

Travel Search is more ‘Green’ [Than the OTA Model]

[Editorial Notes: Guest article contributed by Khushnood Naqvi, founder of 90di, a travel search engine. Though ‘Green’ is used as a metaphor, the article gives a good insight into the difference between search and OTA model.]

‘Green’ is the word in vogue, along with other phrases like ‘Carbon footprint’, and rightly so, whenever there is talk about eco-friendliness or lack of it.

So here is one simple thought to ponder. Travel Search is more ‘green’ …!

To complete the phrase:

‘Travel Search’ model is more ‘green’ than the Online Travel Agent (OTA) model.

First lets define what ‘green’ means in this context. Green means being eco-friendly, which means doing things in a way, which is light on the environment. That is, in simple terms we can define it as: ‘Consume less and produce more’.

For the uninitiated: Travel Search Engines allow the users to search on their sites and for booking take them to the Airline site (or Railways/IRCTC). Whereas OTA sites give a search option to the user, and also make the users book with them.

Now lets go on and explore why Travel Search is more ‘green’.

People who want to travel need to compare flight (or train) options before buying –  i.e. search the cheapest and the best flight (or train). So some kind of search on top of the Airlines sites and Railway sites is required. Else the user will have to do the comparison on various sites themselves. Both the Travel Search model and the OTA model fulfill that need.

One thing which OTA also additionally provide to the user is booking. I contest, it is this aspect which makes it less eco-friendly to the entire flight booking eco-system. It creates an extra (larglely redundant) middle layer of providing the booking itself. Which the Airlines themselves do, very nicely.

In doing so, it adds a thick layer of actions, which are largely duplicated and can easily be performed by the Airline itself (Or by the Railways/IRCTC).

To meet this extra cost, it has to charge heavy commissions. So it adds significant cost to Air travel, by charging commissions often as high as 7-8%.

In addition, the OTAs charge their own cancellation fee (or a change fee), in case of cancellation or a change in itinerary. It also has to run call centers, since it does booking. Also it can come in the way of loyalty programs between the customer and the Airline (Some of them make it workable, but its not straight forward).

Now compare this with what ‘Travel Search’ does. It serves an essential function, of allowing travellers to compare flight options (or train options or both) and choose the best flight (or train or a bus). And doesn’t duplicate the function of booking, which the Airlines do equally well.

It costs less to the eco-system. The referrals paid to travel search players are typically just about 1/10th of the hefty commissions which the Airlines pay to the OTAs. (For this reason its less attractive to VCs, but that’s another story)

It costs less to build. Just a small team of may be around 10/20 people, who sit in a garage (and largely survive on Maggie noodles!) to build a nice and strong search engine. Which allows the users to search the best flight and book directly at the Airline.

Compare this with typically hundreds of employees employed by an OTA, largely to fulfill the additional function of booking.

But don’t the OTAs offer lots of deals and discounts? Yes they do. But in simple terms, it adds further to your average travel cost, as the discount and deals on may be less than 5% of all the bookings/routes, increase the cost of overall bookings. As they have to earn money, and somebody has got to pay for it. The deals and discounts, serve mainly a marketing purpose.

So Travel Search, costs less to build. And gives more value to the user – in terms of providing just what the user wants and then getting out of the user’s way. Less is indeed More – and Travel Search model is yet another example of that!

This is our honest opinion, and would love to debate this, and learn more about it. If you agree to this, then please spread the word about us and this model, to your family and friends (we don’t have the budgets for a TV advertising you see!)

Footnotes:

1. Travel Agents: We believe all the field travel agents (i.e. the ones having a physical presence in form a store, you can walk-in to), serve a very important need, and the above argument does not apply there. Majority of the folks in India, still purchase their travel offline.

2. OTA evolution: It will be unfair to not even mention a bit on the history of this Industry. In the pre-internet days, when travel agents in US had to do bookings for their customers, they relied on Global distribution systems (GDS) – like Sabre, Amadeus etc. to do the booking. So in a way, the GDSes, used to manage the entire Airline seat inventory. The first generation of online booking sites, didn’t sort of look at the system, from a clean slate view, and just moved everything online –> Online Travel Agent (OTA). Travel Search is a clean-slate perspective, of looking at things overall. It has established itself in US, firmly, with the likes of Kayak. Now, in India, its in the process of establishing itself.

3. Disclosure: We allow users of our site, to compare flight results from Airlines with OTAs. Also we get a commission from the OTA if a booking is done there. So in a sense, you may detect a shade of hypocrisy, in what I say, above.

But I have an explanation for that. We do see that the majority of the bookings happen through the Airlines itself. Something like more than 95% of the bookings, we see, happen on the Airlines’ site. We give an option to the user, to catch any deals, which may happen at that point in time, which the OTAs do as part of their marketing.

So this blog post is about our world view, but we do accept the reality (of OTAs commanding a large mind share) and we try to make the best use of it. But we totally stand by what we say above, and believe that, it will serve the people better, when ‘Travel Search’ is the dominant model, rather that the ‘OTA’. Since Internet is also about removing redundancies, we believe ‘Travel Search’ is the model, which is going to survive and do well in the long run. Only time will tell…

Link to full article

Read More

Bring your laptop – First taste of Drupal 7

In this month’s Drupal meetup, participants will be able to get first hand experience with Drupal 7. Drupal 7 is the most user-friendly version of Drupal yet as a result of tremendous amounts of work overhauling the user interface to create a far more intuitive user experience. Among the goals of this redesign was to minimize the notorious Drupal learning curve and make Drupal site building more accessible to a larger number of people. Bring along your laptops as there will be a pre-configured drupal 7 setup for you to use over the WiFi network.

---

Event Details

---

Date: 27 Jan 2011
Time: 7:15pm-9pm
Venue: Maxus Media & Software
179 River Valley Rd, #04-10 River Valley Building Singapore 179033
For any queries, contact: Sven Berg Ryen (8163 5663)

---

Agenda

---

7.00: Registration
7.15: Welcome.
7.20: Working smarter with the new admin interface
- Unified toolbar
- Overlay
- Settings that have moved
- Automated updates
7.40: What was moved to the Drupal core from modules?
- Overview of the modules you don’t have to install any more :)
8.00: Break/Networking
8.20: Finally, image handling that works!
- Media browser module
- Remote media integration
8.40: Questions/Conclusion
9.00 End

Link to full article

Read More

Jan 2011 Monthly Drupal Meetup

The Drupal Meetup is a good venue to connect with other Drupal enthusiasts or learn more if you’re new to Drupal or Web Content Management. Presentations will be targeted mainly at beginners and intermediate users. In addition to that, there will also be a comfortable corner for Drupal geeks to meetup and discuss the most techie Drupal related ideas and topics.

---

Event Details

---

Date:18 Jan 2011
Time: 7:15pm-9pm
Venue: Maxus Media & Software
179 River Valley Rd, #04-10 River Valley Building Singapore 179033
For any queries, contact: Sven Berg Ryen (8163 5663)

---

Agenda

---

7.15: Registration
7.30: Welcome, brief intro to drupal
7.40: Joe Chin: OTP (one-time password) module presentation
8.15: Break and networking (Feel free to bring some light refreshments/drinks to share)
8.30: Kiat Lim: Wedding Portal in drupal
9.00: End

Link to full article

Read More

Video: Lovely Google Android toys that can be used as a MP3 player

There have been pretty much Google Android toys around. Those Android toys all look cute, but really don’t have much difference from each other. But when you see these two, I bet you want one at once! They looks lovely, and what’s more, they can play music for you. All you need to do is plus a microSD card with MP3 files stored in it, they will play for you. Besides being able to be used as a MP3 play, it has FM radio. Or you can connect it to you notebook and use it simply as a loudspeaker.

They have a loudspeaker hidden in the bottom, and a MicroSD card slot, and a mini USB port. You can control the sound volume by switching its head, and switching to FM radio by press the head for a bit long time.

[Source:M8cool]

• Video: Android handset with a QWERTY keyboard
• Android handset W180 hands-on video
• Shenzhen Gosund Gpad 701 Android tablet with HTC style
• IHKC X1 Android Handset Only For 999 Yuan
• T-Smart G68 Android phone
• Sub-$100 Android handset caught in video
• Video: Samsung i5500 Android handset got hands-on treatment
• EKEN 7-inch MID doesn’t looks like iPad
• HTC Magic clone Cool A6161 boats multi-touch support
• ZTE Smooth Android phone spotted at MWC2010

Link to full article

Read More

HungryZone Sells 60% Stake to UK Based Just-Eat

Online food ordering service, HungryZone has sold 60% stake to UK based Just-Eat, who will invest $ 5-10 million over the next three years into this Joint Venture.

HungryZone - For all ye Hungy souls

HungryZone started as HungryBangalore (Read our Interview with HungryBangalore Team) and later expanded to other parts of the country (raised half a million dollar from India Angel Network).

The online food ordering space category hasn’t grown at a substantial rate in the country, as opposed to lead generation channels (i.e. local search services) adopted by companies like Burrp, askLaila, Zomato etc.
Practically speaking, HungryZone hasn’t managed to grow (online ordering is limited only to Bangalore), given the first mover advantage they had in this space.

What’s your take on the deal? Especially the monetization model, which is playing middlemen role vs. a technology driven lead generation role.

—————-

Excerpts from the press release

This deal is the first major investment of its kind where European e-commerce has invested in India and will provide a strong foundation for the Joint venture to expand into all Indian metropolitan  and metropolis cities starting with Mumbai and Delhi shortly.
Commenting on the deal Ritesh Dwivedy, founder and CEO of Hungry Zone, said, “Just-Eat is the leading global player in online food ordering, so the combination of Just-Eat’s best practices, with our strong local knowledge and technical prowess derived from 4yrs of operations in India, will drive growth for many years to come. Our proven business model and 200,000 loyal customers will only grow with our new partners thereby helping us expand our footprint in other major cities.”
Klaus Randel Nyengaard, Group CEO, Just-Eat said, “The acquisition of a controlling interest in Hungry Zone marks the first step of Just-Eat’s expansion into Asia.  The synergy between the two companies is compelling and we’re very excited to be working with such a strong local team. India has an exotic and rich culinary heritage; thereby catering to the variant foodies requires an innovative company like Hungry Zone to understand their preferences and I’m very impressed with their results to date.”
The Just-Eat Group operates in the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Spain, Netherlands, Ireland, Norway, Canada and India.

Link to full article

Read More