How a banner ad for H&R Block appeared on apple.com—without Apple’s OK

R66T, pronounced “Root 66” and intended as a play on the famous American highway Route 66, describes itself as “one of the nation’s leading publisher of targeted content, information and advertising to private Wi-Fi and High-Speed Internet Access (HSIA) networks, conducting tens of millions of individual user sessions—approaching one-billion user-minutes per month.” The company says that it supports Wi-Fi networks at places like airports, hotels, coffee shops, and malls, often providing free access in exchange for showing “hyperlocal” advertisements.

via How a banner ad for H&R Block appeared on apple.com—without Apple’s OK | Ars Technica.

This might be a good opportunity to mention that everyone should use AdBlock Plus, a plugin available for many web browsers, which will block these kind of advertisements.  Blocking ads is also a good PC security measure since ads provide a vector for a lot of malware to inject themselves.

Bigelow Aerospace

Developing an astronaut corps and conducting operations aboard a space station can dramatically transform a nation’s image both internally and externally. The creation of jobs and lucrative economic opportunities via microgravity research, development, and manufacturing can inspire a new cadre of domestic scientists and engineers while attracting the best and brightest minds from around the world to a country’s universities and companies.

via Bigelow Aerospace.

Per the information above, utilizing a Falcon 9 and Dragon, for only $51.25 million, a client can travel to the Alpha Station for two months and enjoy dominion over 110 cubic meters of volume for 60 days.

Mailbox – Put Email In Its Place

We redesigned the inbox to make email light, fast, and mobile-friendly. Quickly swipe messages to your archive or trash. Scan an entire conversation at once with chat-like organization. Snooze emails until later with the tap of a button.

It’s a whole new inbox.

via Mailbox – Put Email In Its Place.

Who would have thought a company could arise out of good old email?  According to this article this mailbox app has added 1.25 million people while processing 50M messages per day (i.e. ~40 emails per user).  I wonder what percentage of that are old fashioned spammers and name squatters?

Startup Creates Software to Give Companies an Edge Recruiting Tech Talent

Since launching in beta last March, Gild has profiled four million software developers and has 70 customers, from high-profile Silicon Valley startups such as Palantir Technologies and Box to large IT providers such as Salesforce and EMC.

via Startup Creates Software to Give Companies an Edge Recruiting Tech Talent | MIT Technology Review.

One of Gild’s biggest data sources is Github, a software developer collaboration site that hosts the most open-source code in the world. Github profiles are already replacing programmers’ résumés in many cases.

Mobile Grabs $813.6M in February Funding

TruPhone: This London-based company develops low cost voice-over-IP software. The company got $118 million in February from the Russian business tycoon Roman Abramovich, who is currently worth over $10 billion, according to Forbes.

via Light Reading – Mobile Grabs $813.6M in February Funding.

From: http://www.truphone.com/en-GB/Business/

Truphone is the mobile phone network specially designed for international businesses.

  •  Save between 30-90% on voice, text and data compared with major UK operators
  •  Enjoy price plans that cover usage in the UK, plus Europe, the US and Australia
  •  Experience business-class coverage in 220 countries
  • Multiple international numbers on a single handset

  • A Look At YourKarma, A Tiny Wi-Fi Hotspot On A Mission

    The YourKarma device creates a WiFi hotspot that moves around with you, and connects your WiFi connected devices to the Internet. This is just like the tethering option available on your pocket computer; but YourKarma sends data through Clearwire’s cellular network.

    via A Look At YourKarma, A Tiny Wi-Fi Hotspot On A Mission | TechCrunch.

    Start-Up Tawkon Rides Radiation Scare To Build Phone Coverage Maps

    It also gives other data. According to the findings, Latin Americans tended to answer their calls significantly quicker than the rest of the world. In Panama, the average time the phone is left ringing before an answer is 6.42 seconds, while in Libya it’s almost double that – 11.16 seconds.

    via Start-Up Tawkon Rides Radiation Scare To Build Phone Coverage Maps.

    Data is the new currency.

    Internet TV Startup Aereo Could Help Cord-Cutting Catch On

    Aereo began a year ago in New York City and is now expanding into 22 markets. It is going after the growing contingent of TV “cord-cutters” who would rather watch on-demand content online than pay for cable or satellite packages. Aereo charges a minimum of $8 a month for a subscription.

    via Internet TV Startup Aereo Could Help Cord-Cutting Catch On | MIT Technology Review.

    The interesting thing about this idea is that they somehow figured out how to associate a single antenna to each subscriber.   Content delivery networks, which this seems to be, are difficult to implement on a large scale.

    Yammer Competitor Jostle.me Raises $3.1M For Enterprise Sharing Platform Anchored By Pictures, Not Text

    Visualization is what binds Jostle.me. You can view activities that are popular across the organization and how people relate to each other.

    via Yammer Competitor Jostle.me Raises $3.1M For Enterprise Sharing Platform Anchored By Pictures, Not Text | TechCrunch.

    I find it interesting the different ideas people come up with.  This might be useful in certain situations.

    Irish Newspaper Collective Wants to Charge License Fees for Links

    Note that this is not paying for an excerpt, which is not that unreasonable, or some punitive measure for the copying of an entire article. No, the NNI wants to charge for links like this, this, or this.

    For those 3 links, I now have to pay the NNI 300 euros. Seriously. Apparently this group of 15 newspapers is under the impression that merely mentioning an article on one of websites is not legal; they think it is copyright infringement.

    via Irish Newspaper Collective Wants to Charge License Fees for Links – The Digital Reader.

    Also.  From: 2012: The year Irish newspapers tried to destroy the web

    These are the prices for linking they were supplied with:

    1 – 5 €300.00
    6 – 10 €500.00
    11 – 15 €700.00
    16 – 25 €950.00
    26 – 50 €1,350.00
    50 + Negotiable