VentureBeat |
- MicroVentures gives accredited investors access to early stage startups
- First iPad 3 game “screenshot” looking sharp, but Retina display concerns developers
- Star Wars: The Old Republic has a chance to get more than 1M long-term subscribers (exclusive)
- GM is halting Chevy Volt production, for now
- Yelp finishes IPO day strong with 63% gain
- Interactive adventure game wows Exploratorium crowds
- iPad 3 sought after by one-third of mobile web users, says study
- Facebook cozies up to three more international banks pre-IPO
- Here are the 76 products that vied for attention at DEMO Asia
| MicroVentures gives accredited investors access to early stage startups Posted: 03 Mar 2012 02:00 AM PST This sponsored post is produced by Microventures. Investing in startups has often meant writing checks for $50,000 or more to a company looking for funding. To get access to those deals you need a network that can refer those deals to you. Most angels make several investments per year to spread the risk around. That means you need $200,000 or more per year to be an angel. That traditional scenario left a lot of interested angel investors sitting on the sidelines. Today, it's a lot easier to become an angel investor, due to crowdfunding, micro lending and investment sites like MicroVentures, which is opening doors to those looking to invest $1,000 to $30,000 or more. The way to win at angel investing, of course, is to invest in the right startups. To get there, you need: 1) Good deal flow from which to spot potential winners. Getting good deal flow is often the stumbling block for the average person looking to get started in angel investing. And it's one of the reasons Bill Clark founded MicroVentures. He wanted to begin investing, but didn't have access to good deals. Like many others thinking about making angel investments, Clark wanted to invest smaller sums in more companies, allowing him to spread out his risk and also increase his changes of picking a winner. And he wanted access to great companies outside of the Austin area, which is his hometown. More than 2000 investors have joined MicroVentures since Clark launched the investment service in 2010. The service matches companies seeking money with investors looking to invest anywhere from $1,000 to $30,000 or more. MicroVenture helps investors learn about companies they may never have heard of, and to invest smaller sums, which is virtually unheard of with traditional investing. MicroVentures also helps with the initial due diligence process by filtering start-ups and then providing documents to help investors conduct their own due diligence to help them make a final decision. When you sign up be sure to put "VentureBeat" in the referral code and we will send you a $100 gift card after you make your first investment. Filed under: Entrepreneur, VentureBeat        
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| First iPad 3 game “screenshot” looking sharp, but Retina display concerns developers Posted: 02 Mar 2012 03:38 PM PST The iPad 3 won’t be officially unveiled before March 7, but an independent developer has already posted images that simulate how the rumored Retina display resolution would improve the visuals of his latest game. Former EA-staffer Kevin Ng is operating UK-based studio Pixels on Toast. The graphics in his platform game Food Run are created using vectors rather than bitmaps, so the visuals automatically take advantage of higher screen resolution. Ng captured screenshots running at the alleged iPad 3 resolution of 2048×1536 pixels and compared them side-by-side with a 1024×768 version representing iPad and iPad 2 displays. The difference is quite striking, with “a crazy amount of detail” for the iPad 3 version added, as Ng puts it. He emphasized the results by zooming in on a small portion of the whole screenshot: “It's worth bearing in mind that the advantage in real life at practical viewing distances would be somewhat less.” But one has to be impressed by how much crisper the rather simple graphics of Food Run appear by using four times as many pixels in total. Now imagine what all those extra dots would do to games with more detailed visuals (… I can almost smell the Infinity Blade 3 announcement).
This sentiment is echoed by several other iOS game developers that were questioned by website PocketGamet.biz. Rising production costs due to increasing art budgets and a further fragmentation of the iOS market are common concerns. Even bigger companies seem cautious: “That sounds awesome from a user experience but a bit scary from a developer perspective as the art impact is quite substantial,” says PopCap’s global mobile business developer director Andrew Stein, “iPad 3 will need bumps in processor speed and lots more memory to ensure that the real-world performance of an iPad 3 app is comparable to the same ‘non-Retina’ game on an iPad 2.” We will have to wait until Thursday to learn whether the iPad 3 will be all sunshine and roses for gamers and app developers. Are you eager to upgrade, content with playing on a non-Retina iPad a little longer — or instead tempted by Sony’s new PlayStation Vita portable gaming system? Filed under: games, mobile        
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| Star Wars: The Old Republic has a chance to get more than 1M long-term subscribers (exclusive) Posted: 02 Mar 2012 03:29 PM PST Electronic Arts’ Star Wars: The Old Republic has a chance to grow to more than 1 million long-term paying subscribers, according to an analysis of usage figures by DFC Intelligence and the Xfire gaming social network. The game is one of the most ambitious video games ever made with a reported $200 million development budget spent over six years by EA’s BioWare division. It debuted as a massively multiplayer online role-playing game on Dec. 20. While high-end subscriptions games have suffered with the rise of free-to-play games, where users play for free and pay real money for virtual goods, DFC believes Star Was has a chance. If the game gets beyond 1 million users, EA will be well on its way toward recouping the investment and making a profit from the whole enterprise, which is one of the biggest gambles in video game history. DFC surveyed more than 4,000 Xfire users in January and has reviewed usage numbers of Xfire users. DFC believes the game could reach more than one million people who would pay the game’s $15 a month fee for more than six months. “The current trend among large massively multiplayer online games is to have strong initial sales, after which users quickly lose interest and are not converted to long-term paying subscribers.” said DFC Intelligence analyst Jeremy Miller. By contrast, Activision Blizzard’s blockbuster game World of Warcraft has maintained a large subscriber base since its release in 2004. The data on Star Was is still preliminary. “While early signs are fairly positive, over the next few months the plan is to closely monitor usage and consumer reaction to gauge how well Star Wars: The Old Republic performs over time,” said Miller. “The next three to six months will be critical to determine if the game can attract a large and sustained paying subscriber base." Xfire’s user numbers can be an indicator for the popularity of titles, as Xfire users give their permission for their game playing to be tracked. Filed under: games, VentureBeat        
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| GM is halting Chevy Volt production, for now Posted: 02 Mar 2012 03:18 PM PST
GM will also temporarily lay off 1,300 employees who work on the Volt’s production line between March 19 and April 23, Detroit Free Press reported. The company cites the need to “align our production with demand” for the production halt, meaning it’s been producing far more cars than it can sell. The Volt was released in 2011 and sold a mere 7,671, missing its 2011 10,000 sales goal. Sales have been up this year: In January and February it sold more than 1,600 models. But GM’s 2012 plan is to produce 45,000 Volts for the United States, and with only 1,600 cars sold in the first two months, there is a low likelihood it will be able to push that many units off the lot. It seems GM is taking this time to scale back production and rethink its strategy. GM announced in early January that it will be improving the Volt’s battery cooling system in response to two Volts that caught fire after their batteries were punctured. Chevy stands by the safety of the Volt, but the bad press from the fires have clearly hurt the Volt’s image and haven’t helped the car’s sales. Filed under: green        
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| Yelp finishes IPO day strong with 63% gain Posted: 02 Mar 2012 02:13 PM PST Reviews website Yelp debuted today on the New York Stock Exchange at $15 a share and closed the day at $24.52, a 63% gain from the original price. It was questionable how well Yelp would perform, considering the company earned just $83.3 million in net revenue in 2011 and lost $16.7 million during the same period. The site touts about 66 million monthly unique visitors, but it’s not exactly killin’ it when it comes actually making money. At the very least, Yelp raised more than $107 million with its IPO. Yelp’s shares were priced at $15 a share last night, but when the stock actually become available on the market this morning, it started at about $22. That indicates non-institutional investors likely weren’t able to get their hands on the offering until it hit the market. The highest price point in trading for the stock was $26.00 in early trading. At this point, we will have to see how Yelp continues to perform. PrivCo CEO Sam Hamadeh told VentureBeat yesterday that Yelp’s long-term prospects aren’t pretty, citing the company's inability to turn a profit, competition from Facebook and Google, and low annual revenue. "Beyond the opening day of trading, we don't think Yelp will perform well given its many business model issues," Hamadeh said. "Yelp can't seem to be able to lose less as it grows, showing the unattractiveness of a business model based primarily on local advertising salespeople to sell to small local merchants.” How do you think Yelp will perform long term? Happy stock trader image: Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock Filed under: deals        
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| Interactive adventure game wows Exploratorium crowds Posted: 02 Mar 2012 01:12 PM PST Last night, visitors to San Francisco’s Exploratorium After Dark were given the opportunity to walk through a game-style art installation full of stories and characters from the San Francisco music scene. “Hiss Pop” took participants through an adults-only adventure-style interactive gaming experience full of air guitar, music, cocktails and actors tasked with engaging invitees. Check out the video below to see more. "Hiss Pop is a story that unfolds through a variety of interactions with its characters, both electronically and in real-life. Using Thinfilm memory cards, we were able to give each participant a different starting point and then personalize the game based on decisions each player made," explained Sara Thacher, interactive game designer and a co-creator of the event. The memory cards, fully printable stickers, in actuality, contain technology that frees developers from needing the kind heavy network infrastructure usually associated with tracking users, according to co-creator Ken Eklund. He added, "The simplicity of storing and updating data on the card makes the technology very appealing for these types of exhibits and events." San Francisco’s Exploratorium is a museum of science, art and human perception, known for a hands-on and experimental approach to learning. Hiss Pop was designed by Sara Thacher and Ken Eklund, illustrated by Michael Wertz and implemented by Sean Ross, Naveed Alam, and Scott Minneman of Onomy Labs. Thin Film Electronics is a publicly listed Norwegian technology company with its head office in Norway, product development in Sweden, and sales offices in San Francisco and Tokyo. Thinfilm provides fully printed non-volatile, rewritable memory for applications in toys and games, logistics, sensor, and ID systems. Filed under: games, VentureBeat        
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| iPad 3 sought after by one-third of mobile web users, says study Posted: 02 Mar 2012 01:09 PM PST About 30 percent of mobile web users plan to purchase the much-anticipated Apple iPad 3 upon its release, according to a just-released study by independent mobile ad network inMobi. Apple's iPad 3 event is scheduled for Wednesday, March 7, and it promises to be a much-watched event for the company. The rumor mill has been in full force concerning the new device, with reports suggesting the iPad 3 will be slightly thicker and will include a higher-resolution Retina Display, better cameras, and the inclusion of LTE 4G chips. Other rumors suggest that the unit will offer a new quad-core A6 processor to replace the iPad 2′s dual-core A5 chip, which will make processing high-end games and apps much smoother. inMobi’s report polled 689 regular mobile data users in the U.S. and found that 29 percent of respondents planned to buy the iPad 3. A notable number from that sub-section indicates that 54 percent of those who plan to buy have never owned a tablet. Anne Frisbie, inMobi’s Vice President and Managing Director of North America, said that just having an iPad 3 event, with all its hype and media coverage, will help convince people in grabbing an iPad. So not only will people be interested in the iPad 3, they will also be considered the iPad or iPad 2 at a reduced price. “Interestingly, 65% of those who intend to buy an iPad 3 would consider buying an iPad or iPad 2 at a reduced price instead, indicating that whether or not consumers purchase an iPad 3 versus an older model, the excitement around the iPad 3 release will likely increase iPad penetration in the tablet market,” Frisbie said in a statement. Among specific features respondents were asked about, the three most wanted additions to the iPad 3 were: faster processor speed, better battery life, and higher-quality screen. Will you be picking up an iPad 3? Or perhaps a less-expensive iPad 2 might be more your style? Cat with iPad photo: Rick Weiss/Flickr
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| Facebook cozies up to three more international banks pre-IPO Posted: 02 Mar 2012 01:06 PM PST Facebook has reportedly hired three more banks to underwrite its IPO, bringing the total number of financial institutions on that merry bandwagon to nine — not including Ernst & Young, which is overseeing accounting and auditing for the deal. Today, the social network may have added Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, and Citi to its already large list of financial institutions for the IPO. Facebook listed firms Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Barclays, and Allen & Company in its S-1 filing with the SEC. According to an anonymous Bloomberg source, the firms are being added to increase Facebook’s cash flow and help the startup deal with a Yahoo patent claim, as well as taxes. Facebook hasn’t yet priced its shares, but analysts expect a late spring or early summer public offering. "Some analysts are saying May; I would say it won't be after August, barring any unforeseen economic catastrophes,” said Dunn & Bradstreet IPO expert Lee Simmons in a recent VentureBeat interview. As for which market the stock will debut on, the company stated in its original S-1, "We intend to apply to list our common stock on the NASDAQ Global Select Market or the New York Stock Exchange." However, even after the company goes public, CEO Mark Zuckerberg will still maintain control of the company and the board through an unusual power play that lets him control the votes of a huge and influential block of shareholders. "This is not common at all," said Menlo Ventures partner Mark Siegel, who has monitored quite a few IPOs in his time in Silicon Valley, in a recent VentureBeat interview. “He negotiated a very unique deal…I'm sure there's a point where shares were offered with that as a contingency." Filed under: deals, social        
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| Here are the 76 products that vied for attention at DEMO Asia Posted: 02 Mar 2012 11:15 AM PST
The motley group of companies came from 14 companies and showed off innovations across the spectrum, from cancer-tracking technology developed in Singapore to a personal day-tracker service developed in Mongolia. Here’s a quick overview of all the contenders. Also, check out our post on the winners. MobDis is a mobile marketing platform servicing local businesses. It helps build mobile sites for businesses so that their customers can find them on their mobile phones. MobDis provides lead generation tools like forms, store locators, and coupons to convert visitors into customers. It is based in Singapore. 9 Degrees Freedom provides a new way for althletes to train with its WhackIT product. WhackIT gives you quantitative statistics about the strength and fluidity of your movements. Using attachable sensor devices, data is communicated wirelessly to your mobile device and analysed instantly. This gives you real time statistical feedback on your performance in such sports as fencing, dancing, tennis, and golf. The company is based in Singapore. 3D International makes the Chromatic Light Deflector, a patent-pending optical element that dramatically improves the brightness, clarity, and transitioned viewing angle of displaying 3D images – glasses free. Chromatic Light Deflector enables consistent high quality images over an extended time, as it is able to absorb heat without changing its optical properties – unlike some competing plastic lenses. It's now available for the first time in a detachable filter, called Visuz, so that the user can switch between 2D and 3D by simply lifting the filter that is secured to the LCD/LED screen with a magnet. 3D International is based in Singapore. Asial Co. has developed a cloud-based mobile app development platform called Monaca. Its target audience is web developers and designers who are not familiar with difficult programming languages. Asial is based in Japan. BCZ.com, Business Connections Zone, offers an all-in-one business platform that connects professionals, businesses, job seekers, and those looking for deals of the day. It's a centralized social network platform with real-time content publishing. It comes with ecommerce, free website creation, an email newsletter service, and a huge online storage account for all content creation needs. The company is based in Singapore. sureCELL is a system designed for non-invasive cancer diagnostics. It uses circulating tumor cells in human blood as a biomarker. This system can effectively isolate tumor cells from patients' blood and report its quantity. Isolated cells can be easily eluted out for further molecular analysis. Information derived from sureCELL analyses will help doctors to predict the course of disease progression and to choose available treatment options for personalized cancer management. The company is based in Singapore. Business.me is the place to share and discover videos about business. The company curates business videos and personalizes the content using its recommendation engine, which is based on the user's LinkedIn professional interests and connections. The company is based in Singapore. Dropicon is a smartphone-based social network. Dropicon will map a user's actions throughout the day, such as watching TV, eating, driving a car, working, meeting people, and sleeping. The network tracks these activities in proper sequence, with start and end time and overall time spent. As a result, users get an icon-based diary of their day. The company is based in Mongolia. Epsilon Mobile had developed an on-demand digital content publishing service called Papyrus, targeted at mobile and tablet devices. It enables publishers to register, customize, publish, and monetize their digital content with no technical skills required. It also provides tools for converting static material into highly interactive format. The company is based in Singapore. Fitness Buffet provides a selection of sport, fitness, and health activities to customers for a fraction of the normal cost. It has beta-launched in three cities to date. The company is based in Singapore. Evvolution Technologies has built a social marketing application called iKnow, which enables local businesses to reach out to potential customers through the mobile market. Local businesses have a low entry-barrier to the application and end users have a simplified communication and decision making process. The company is based in Singapore. Flexiroam's Mobile App is an easy-to-use mobile client that lets you make and receive unlimited international roaming calls while overseas for a flat rate per day. The company is based in Malaysia. GameMaki is a social discovery app that lets you create and participate in real-world challenges for rewards on the web and mobile. Brands and individuals can create challenges such as "a photo with your favorite chef". Anyone can "check-in" to these challenges for virtual points, items that can become tangible incentives. GameMaki also provides a gamification platform for businesses to rapidly create their own white-label games out of challenges, therefore enhancing consumer engagement and experience. The company is based in Singapore. George Mobile integrates free talk, text, and video-chat with popular social networks to create a convenient, all-in-one message center with the option to earn ("unlock/level-up"), or pay for, services like SMS and calls to any phone in over 40 countries. The company says it is the first app in the VoIP space to add game mechanics to enhance the user experience with fun rewards and virtual dollars. George is based in Canada. GClue has developed GOcta, a runtime engine for WebGL to run on the Android environment. It enables a mobile web browser to execute WebGL 3D graphics that are currently only executable on PC. It lets users access and enjoy graphically rich applications through the web rather than downloading through the Android Market. The company is based in Japan. Gilcrux lets you schedule email backup in the cloud. It also provides email migration between cloud email providers and one view for all your backed up emails. The company is based in Singapore. GreenPost lets users automatically and securely get all their electronic bills and statements in one place. Bill due reminders, bill archiving, and spending analysis are all free. Calendar syncing, bill exporting, and one-click bill payment are coming soon. The service has just launched and is free on Web, iPhone, iPad, and Android. The company is based in Singapore. HeyaWanna is not just another events listing site. The company doesn't want to be a place where users discover events; it wants friends to use the service to plan events. Users can bookmark ideas, share them, and form groups with friends to plan them. Simply log on, view friends who have bookmarked the same idea, and invite them, message them, and vote on a mutually agreeable date within a few clicks. The company is based in Singapore. Hanasake Pictures has developed Style Share, an avatar-SNS integrated social commerce platform for the fashion market. Comprised of a virtual outfitting simulation system and a social community, Style Share allows users to configure their own avatar onto which they put clothing that they choose on on-line stores. Style Share features proprietary image integration technology that automatically modifies images of given clothing items and fits them to the avatar. The company is based in Japan. Hoiio API is a product that helps developers build communication apps easily. Developers can create apps such as conferencing, click to call, IVR system, SMS broadcast, voice broadcast, voicemail, interactive phone polling, etc. The company is based in Singapore. Hoiio Live provides live updating of your phonebook data. Hoiio Live will fill in the blanks of people in your phonebook by adding their photos, emails, social networks, and job details. And it will also keep them automatically updated magically whenever your contacts change their photos, numbers, or other details. The company is based in Singapore. Lobangclub provides location-based crowdsourced price comparison. It's based in Singapore. Innova Technology has developed a loss-prevention device that it claims is the thinnest in the world. Place the card into your wallet, and theft or loss is prevented through an alarm from your phone. If you did not hear your phone ring, you can login to GPS to the last known location of your valuable. The company is based in Singapore. MeSixty has developed an app called Chatworthy. It's for chatting with people about things they've posted to social networks geo-tagged to your current location. It lets you discover media that you would find interesting, such as posts by real friends or by strangers with similar interests to you. Its goal is to show you that there's something worth chatting about, everywhere you go. The company is based in Brunei. Mobilewalla is a "big data" and "deep analytics" solution, providing developers and advertisers with comprehensive views of how mobile apps are performing in the global marketplace. It combines data from the major stores along with data extracted from social media to provide insights into an app's performance across categories and geographies. The company is based in Singapore. Eyeland is a real-time, location-based service that lets you talk to people nearby and share things of interest, without connecting to any social media networks. On the Eyeland, all of your neighbors are your friends, and communicating with them is fun and easy, says the company. If you want to know better about your area, you can check in on the Eyeland and see, real-time, what your neighbors are saying. The company is based in Japan. Nundino is a social community platform for online traders that revolves around the sharing of real market transactions. Online traders are invited to share their transactions and follow each other to replicate successful trading strategies. The company is based in Singapore. Pixtelz has created CuteChat a tool that lets video chat users change their background images or videos real-time without a blue/green screen, providing the illusion that users are somewhere other than where they really are. Users can also stylize their live streaming video into cartoons, making it fun and cool. By cutting out the background, CuteChat reduces the bandwidth by a factor of three, thus providing less dropped calls and screen freezes. The company is based in Singapore. Qooco has developed an interactive tablet and smartphone app for learning English. The product uses speech technologies and analytics to create fun, game-like learning environments where students can practice speaking English. Exercises range from one word vocabulary acquisition exercises to full length dialogue exercises. The company is based in Beijing, China. Rival Edge has built a mobile game- and app-development platform called CloudyRec. The platform supports cross-platform development and promises developers it will get the whole back-end stack up and running in the cloud in 3 simple steps. The company is based in Singapore. Reventive has built a service called Chu-Lip that lets you hold a party anywhere. You make up a party team of Facebook friends and invite other teams. The company is based in San Francisco. Sageby offers a new mode of payment whereby users don't pay with money, but with their idle or waiting time. Sageby offers 4 channels (in order of launch): Dine4Free, Credits4Free, Shop4Free, Cab4Free. These channels push targeted surveys and tasks to users with time on their hands and reward the users with instant credits that they can use to pay for their purchases with partnering merchants. The company is based in Singapore. Secqme wants to put a bodyguard in your mobile phone to ensure your safety. If a user is in a dangerous situation, the service will automatically call for help, without the user's intervention. The company is based in Malaysia. Splaype is a desktop application plugged into Skype that helps families with young children solve the problem of keeping kids engaged during video conferences with distant family members. Splaype adds age-appropriate content such as eBooks or chess, on a freemium model like the app stores and with an intuitive and easy-to-use system specially designed for children and grandparents. The company is based in Singapore. Sofshell Padding is a composite material that hopes to disrupt the current industry standards for shock absorbent materials used in personal protective wear against mechanical injury. This material is soft to the touch yet hardens upon impact, serving as an effective cushion for falls and other mechanical aggression directed against the human body. Sofshell Padding absorbs and dissipates point load force, which translates into greater reduced transmitted force. The company is based in Singapore. Squiryl incorporates social and trading elements into customer loyalty making it more engaging, fun, and more effective. The company is based in Singapore. Studio Ousia wants to make mobile searches easier. When users come across an interesting keyword while browsing, they typically want to search on it. However, current smartphones require tedious steps to users such as selecting the keyword by holding and swiping their fingers, copying and pasting into the search box, and selecting a link from the search results. The company's Phroni app addresses this problem by converting "interesting" keywords into links. It enables users to obtain further information about the keyword by just tapping it. The company is based in Japan. Tera-Barrier Films produces ultra-high performance gas barrier films for OLED lighting, OLED displays and other printed electronics applications requiring a moisture barrier of 10-6 g/m2.day. The company is based in Singapore. Teamie is a cloud-based social learning platform that creates collaborative "classrooms" for students and teachers.. Teamie has a layer of social collaboration on top of easy learning management tools and has added an analytics engine to provide insights and recommendations to improve the learning process and performance. The company is based in Singapore. Thatz International has developed ThatzCard Mobile, which is integrated with ThatzContact, which enables business-card and contact information exchange and management. The company is based in Singapore. Tradesparq has developed Social Sourcing, a proprietary search engine that allows volume importers to filter product search using their online networks such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc. For logged in users, the social searching feature orders product search results by connections and shared connections, allowing buyers and suppliers to quickly and easily contact others in their network to verify potential new trade partners. The company is based in Hong Kong. VitalsTRAK is a mobile app that lets you track medication and numerous health conditions like diabetes, hypertension, asthma, fever, and obesity and share them online with loved ones and doctors. It reminds you and alerts your caregivers via several means whenever you miss your medication and time for health readings or have readings that exceed certain thresholds. It also makes automated calls to deliver different pre-recorded messages accordingly by caregivers for you in such events. The company is based in Singapore. Urbancook is a mobile/web service that uses geolocation to help users find recipes based on products they scan with their smartphones. The company is based in Singapore. Wildfire has developed InfluencerForce, an service that identifies and engages social influencers, alerts them to conversations, and recognizes their contributions through virtual badges. The platform continuously scans for relevant conversations and matches them with the most passionate respondents in real-time, people who genuinely care about a subject or brand, and have something to say. The company is based in Singapore. The following brave startups gave 90-second "alpha-pitches" rather than full demos. AfterShip helps online stores to auto track packages and notify their customers of the latest delivery status with a simple one-time setup. Without knowing the tracking number, customers always know where the package is. The company is based in Hong Kong. Appota is developing a mobile-application-based and web-based mobile content store, to help internet mobile users download mobile content easily with Vietnamese payment methods. The company is based in Vietnam. Agate Studio is a game developer creating a wide range of games. Established in 2009, the company is growing quickly and became one of the biggest game developers in Indonesia. Burpple is an app that lets you organize and explore your favorite food moments with your friends. The company is based in Singapore. CtrlWorks has developed Telepresence Puppet, which leverages fast Internet connectivity and advances in embedded computing to actively extend a person's presence many miles away. This enables the person to interact with distant surroundings and people effortlessly and instantaneously. The Puppet will be useful for a number of applications, including office telecommuting and home monitoring of the elderly. The Puppet hardware consists of a wheeled mechanical platform with a display screen, speakers, microphone, camera, and an embedded computer that is connected to the Internet either through Wifi or 3G/4G cellular network. The Puppet software consists of a scalable back-end network that allows a remote user to control the Puppet through a browser-based graphical user interface on a variety of platforms, such as a desktop, a tablet PC, or even a handphone. The company is based in Singapore Docubuzz has develped a smartphone and tablet app called Taccto, a virtual projector that lets users easily share digital media anywhere while keeping everyone on the same page during meetings. Collaboration tools integrated into the app make for more productive engagements. Automatic recording and indexing of the meeting stream makes it easy to review and follow-up on completed meetings. The company is based in Singapore. Coworkify is a Facebook app providing a peer-to-peer job marketplace for coworking spaces. To users, Coworkify is a tool to sell and buy small tasks directly from each other. To space owners, Coworkify is a CRM that lets people reserve space online by accepting payment via credit card. Coworkify is a Startup Weekend Kyoto 2011 winner. The company is based in Japan. FIETT has developed ISGLOVES, patent pending, eco-friendly, touch sensitive gloves that allow people out in the cold for a period of time, like snowboarders, to use their touchscreen devices like, iPhone, with precision and warmth. The company is based in Singapore. GIO Software offers an alternative to traditional loyalty programs with MobiPoint, which lets businesses give customers receipts with QR code. The customers scan this QR Code with the MobiPoint application to get mileage points. Customers do not need to carry membership cards anymore, and stores can get information about customers who scanned their QR code. The company is based in South Korea. iTwin Desktop is a Plug'N'Play device to access a computer's desktop from anywhere. Plug one half of the device into the computer whose desktop you want to access remotely and then plug the other half into any other online computer. You will then have complete access to the remote computer's desktop. The company is based in Singapore. HobbyMash is a Facebook and mobile application that's designed to connect like-minded people. Its algorithm calculates the likelihood of your new friendships and takes into account everything from your number of similar interests to who you're already friends with to extrapolate recommended people for you to talk with about whatever topic you wish. The company is based in Singapore. Intraix aims to provide energy management for home owners. It is based in Singapore. Lyrex is delivering an intelligent system with wireless connectivity that can monitor the body status (EEG, temperature, pressure) and perform the necessary actions needed by a patient. The company has implemented the system into a bed and aims to solve the bedsore crisis that occurs in developed countries. It is based in Singapore. OOSome is a wireless health monitoring device that detects irregularities in vital signs and immediately send an emergency notification (with GPS location of the patient) to relevant parties so that emergency action can be carried out as soon as possible. The company is based in Singapore. MyManisku has developed TradeHero, an app that empowers ordinary people to make money from the financial markets. The company is based in Singapore. PlayMoolah is an online platform that helps kids aged 6 to 12 to learn about money. It leverages game mechanics for behavioral change, empowering children with the curiosity, knowledge, skills, and tools needed for financial capability. Think Mint.com meets ClubPenguin. The company is based in Singapore. DappleWorks is an on-demand, web based business software. The product is built on 3 basic principles: Align people, align business, and align deliverables. It is one integrated system that runs everything from employee services to project tracking tools. The company is based in Malaysia. SGK Group has developed a multi-user interactive game that uses music in a creative way. It has a body touch interface and interaction with social media (Facebook, Twitter). The company is based in Singapore. Semantics3 provides 3-click downloads to rich datasets that powers applications and analytics. Its curated datasets include millions of business listings, product catalogues, and healthcare details aside from several niche category datapoints. The company is based in Singapore. Sheer Industries has produced Cairnsmith, a solution that empowers Interior Designers and Architects in shortening the design process and improves design communication of their 3D concepts with the use of Augmented Reality. The company is based in Singapore. StyleRocks is a website where you design your own jewelry, exactly as you want it. By changing the traditional way people design and purchase jewelry, it's bringing jewelry customization to the masses. The company is based in Australia. T-Ware has developed the T.Jacket, an integrated therapy system that provides controlled deep pressure stimulation for the wearer. The company is based in Singapore. Swordfish offers a cloud based platform that lets users experience playing virtual instruments e.g. air guitar by using motion sensors. It is based in Singapore. Tapit is a global Near Field Communications company that wants to simplify the way people access information on their mobile phone. The company is based in Australia. Techdrios has developed SafeDriver, a wearable driver alert system that pre-emptively detects before driver loses attention or falls asleep at the wheel. If the system detects that the driver is slipping into the critical level, its smartphone application will sound an alert siren and alert the company HQ. SafeDriver consists of a medical grade EEG brain sensor that is worn as a headband or a cap. It reads your brainwaves and capture your state of alertness and attention span. The company is based in Singapore. TranscribeMe hopes to disrupt the market of highly accurate transcription with the power of crowd-sourcing. It is based in New Zealand. TM Research and Development provides capabilities for business forecasting applications. It provides advanced measurement of error capabilities that allows for selection of the best model and model parameters. Forecasts are made simple and easy. It is designed and developed for non-statistical background users. It comes with ready-made "expert engines". The company is based in Malaysia. Ubersnap is a photo-sharing website that provides a platform for photographers to showcase their best work and progress through a system of rewards, achievements and social recognition. It is based in Singapore. Filed under: Entrepreneur        
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