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Google Launches Maps Engine Lite, Makes It Easy To Create Advanced Custom Maps
Mar 27, 9:14PM
For years now, Google has offered its Google Maps Engine to enterprises that want to visualize their custom geospacial data. Starting today, anybody will be able to use a subset of this functionality, thanks to the launch of Google Maps Engine Lite (beta). This new tool, Google says, will allow any mapping enthusiast to “create and share robust custom maps using this powerful, easy-to-use tool.” Maps Engine Lite allows users to upload small spreadsheets with locations and visualize them on a map. They can also compare up to three different data sets for, the company stresses, non-businesses purposes. These custom maps can have multiple layers, and users who don’t have spreadsheets to upload can also manually draw lines, mark specific areas and set place markers. Google offers a total of nine base maps, including its usual satellite and terrain maps, as well as styles that emphasize city boundaries, political boundaries and highways. Maps Engine Lite also offers about 150 different icons that can be used to mark specific places. To help new users get started, Google also published a tutorial that offers a few sample data sets and a step-by-step guide to publishing a custom map. Google says it will still offer My Maps, its earlier custom mapping tool, for the time being and My Maps users can import their maps into the new Maps Engine Lite. Over time, however, Google product manager Beth Liebert writes in today’s announcement, My Maps will be “incorporated into Google Maps Engine Lite.” For now, Google is officially labeling Maps Engine Lite as a beta, and it’ll only be available in English for the time being.Store Charging Patrons $5 For 'Just Looking', To Offset Losses From Internet Shoppers
Mar 27, 9:01PM
To make up for pesky competition from the Internet, the owner of an Australian retail store is charging patrons $5 for "just looking", in order to offset losses from shoppers who browse and then buy online. "If you're going to be asking bucketloads of questions, you've got to pay for the information," said Celiac Supplies owner, Georgina, to the Brisbane Times, who asked that her last name not be published, after her store's policy inadvertently went viral and led to Internet infamy.Spanning And Mozy Team Up, A Storage Marriage With Investment Questions Galore
Mar 27, 8:36PM
Last week, Spanning, a Google Apps backup service, announced a $6 million investment from an unnamed strategic investor.Encoding.com Adds Dynamic Text Overlays To Its Cloud Encoding Platform
Mar 27, 8:00PM
Encoding.com is trying to add a few features that will set it apart from the competition. One of these features is dynamic text overlays, which was showed off as part of a Google Hangout campaign late last year. For the Google campaign, the dynamic text overlay was part of a custom workflow that Encoding.com worked on to enable the custom message.Google Street View Launches Imagery Of Deserted Town Next To Fukushima Nuclear Plant
Mar 27, 8:00PM
Two years after the devastating Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Google has launched Street View images of Namie-machi in the Fukushima exclusion zone. The area encompasses Fukushima Daichi Nuclear Plant, which after the disaster was the scene of the largest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. The 360-degree panoramic imagery, showing ruined buildings on empty streets, is both eerie and heartbreaking.Google Gives Tablet Video Viewers A Taste Of Its Knowledge Graph With Play Movies & TV Update
Mar 27, 7:27PM
We've all been there: you'll be watching a movie when someone familiar enters the frame, and you just can't place a name to the face. Well, if you're watching said movie on an Android tablet, those days may soon be over. Google has just pushed out an update to its Play Movies & TV app lets users tap into the search giant's Knowledge Graph as soon as they pause a flick.Duo Is A DIY 3D Motion Sensing Controller
Mar 27, 7:25PM
The Duo is a 3D motion sensing controller, much like the Leap Motion Controller and the Kinect – but with a DIY twist. Whereas the Leap Motion Controller comes in a small and elegant package, the Duo is meant to be tinkered with. A $20 contribution on their Kickstarter page is enough to nab detailed instructions, a comprehensive list of the off-the-shelf components, and CAD files – enough for hardcore DIYers to jump right in and assemble their very own motion controller. For the less courageous, a $140 contribution will get you a fully assembled Duo, ready for plug and play out of the box. The Duo uses two PlayStation Eye cameras (a webcam for Sony's PS3 gaming console that is readily available in stores) to detect motion. The demo videos on Duo's website show that the webcams, coupled with Duo's motion tracking software, work just a well as the Leap Motion Controller. The minimum operating range seems to be further away than the Leap, although that’s purely based on observation and I couldn’t find any concrete specs on their website. The video also shows the Duo breezing through Windows 8's gesture based interface, just as you would with a Kinect. And of course, the Duo passed the prerequisite Fruit Ninja test with flying colors. Given that the Leap Motion Controller will soon be hitting retail stores for $79.99, it's true that you're paying a premium for a device that has pretty much the same functionality. Motion sensing technology is red-hot and there are plenty of other projects we've chronicled that are also worthy of your attention. If anything, the one thing that Duo has going for it is that you can take it apart and mod it to your heart's content. If you're willing to pay a premium for that ability alone, you can check out Duo's Kickstarter page here.Google Glass Will Be Made In The U.S.A., Report Claims, At An Assembly Facility In Santa Clara
Mar 27, 7:13PM
Google Glass, the advanced head-mounted computing project the company is gearing up for a possible launch later this year, will be assembled in the U.S., according to a new report from the Financial Times today. The assembly will take place in a facility located in Santa Clara and managed by partner Hon Hai Precision, also known as Foxconn.Mailstrom, A Machete For Overloaded Inboxes, Makes Its Official Debut With 400M+ Emails Already Under Storage
Mar 27, 6:55PM
410 Labs, home to products like Shortmail and Replyz, was trying to fly under the radar when it first launched Mailstrom, a new email service aimed at helping those who consistently receive large numbers of email messages daily achieve "inbox zero," so to speak. But those plans were soon thwarted, when the company was surprised by unsolicited bloggers' reviews, followed by sudden, rapid growth.GreenLancer Raises $275k From Michigan Investors To Move Engineering To The Cloud
Mar 27, 6:51PM
Don’t be mistaken. GreenLancer, while seemingly just another consulting firm, is a technology company utilizing the cloud for ambitious engineering projects. Instead of hiring a technology firm to plan, say a solar power array, GreenLancer collects all the pertinent data and farms out the work to contractors through its propitiatory and standardized platform. GreenLancer, a Detroit-based startup, currently focuses on designing solar energy products, but is looking to quickly expand into more alternative energy markets. And with the additional $275k it just raised from four Michigan funds, GreenLancer is quickly headed towards that goal. The startup got off the ground with $160k in seed funding from the owners of Mersino, a Michigan-based construction company. This latest funding comes from investors throughout Michigan: Bizdom (Detroit), Start Garden (Grand Rapids), Blue Water Angels (Midland) and Northern Michigan Angels (Traverse City). "GreenLancer has created a hybrid business model that leverages technology with the flexibility of the human touch," said Rick DeVos, Founder and CEO of Start Garden, one of GreenLancer's newest investors. "Their assembly line approach has proven that they can provide professional engineering support that is far more cost effective than their brick-and-mortar competitors. This is exactly what the renewable energy industry needs to reduce the soft cost associated with developing clean energy projects." This round of funding helped the company hire five full time staffers including the two web developers and a database engineer. With these new hires, GreenLancer is looking to build an API to increase its efficiency. In the coming months the company hopes to expand into other green markets including hydro-power, geothermal, solid outside fuel cells, and energy efficiency. “We’re not experts in the fields. We’re experts on the platform” co-founder CEO Michael Sharber told me. GreenLancer is seemingly off to a good start. Founded in late 2011, the company is already showing revenues from projects spanning 32 state and six countries. It’s even more impressive considering the jobs were acquired just from the co-founders personal contacts. GreenLancer plans on opening its platform to general use in early April.Developers Can Now Target Facebook Mobile App Ads To Wi-Fi Users And To Specific OS Versions
Mar 27, 6:47PM
Facebook just announced some improvements to the mobile app install ads that it launched last fall, allowing app developers to target their ads with more nuance. These ads run in Facebook's news feed, and when clicked on, they open up the download page in the Apple App Store and Google Play marketplace. The company says that by using these ads, Poshmark has seen a 3x increase in ROI compared to "other advertising channels" and its user acquisition cost on Facebook has gone down 30 percent.Atlassian Extends Confluence Collaboration Platform, Now Competing More With Jive Software And Other Social Providers
Mar 27, 6:44PM
Atlassian is getting more competitive with social collaboration companies like Jive Software with a new offering thst extends its social collaboration service beyond its core users.OUYA Could Become Emulation Destination With New Projects Covering Game Boy, Genesis, NeoGeo And More
Mar 27, 6:17PM
OUYA is coming soon (tomorrow is the planned ship date for the earliest Kickstarter backers), and recent reports of emulators of classic gaming consoles made for the Android device are generating some buzz. Today, emulator developer Robert Broglia, who's responsible for some of the most popular Android emulators including Snes9x EX+, has revealed to OUYAForum that he's working on emulators for Game Boy Advance, Sega Genesis, NeoGeo and more.Fancy 6 Months Free In The Italian Alps Building Startups? Check Out TechPeaks
Mar 27, 6:11PM
A new kind of tech accelerator has launched in one of the more unlikely places: the Italian Alps. TechPeaks (see what they did there?) calls itself a "People Accelerator" because individuals and teams will be able to join it without an idea but a desire to build something. It will launch with €13 million in funding. It's also taking more of a partnership rather than competitive approach, working with seven Technology Universities (via the European Institute of Innovation and Technology ICT Labs) and seven other international tech accelerators, listed here. The idea is to help unite the many fragmented European tech initiatives. And oh my are they are fragmented.Google Translate For Android Gets Offline Mode With Support For 50 Languages
Mar 27, 6:08PM
Google Translate is a very useful tool for when you are travelling internationally but sadly, that’s also the time when you are least likely to have an always-on connection to the Internet. Obviously, there are a number of offline translation apps available, but if you are partial to Google Translate and you use an Android phone, you’ll be happy to hear that the latest version of the Google Translate app for Android (2.3+) now lets you download offline language packages for about fifty languages. You can now simply select [Offline languages] in the app menu and see all the language packs available for download. You just need to download the language packs for the two languages you want to translate between and you are good to go. Google notes that these packs are “less comprehensive than their online equivalents,” but even a smaller dictionary is more useful than not having one at all. Google also offers a Translate app for iOS, but it’s not clear when (or if) this version will get an offline mode, too. While the offline mode is obviously the main feature in this new version, the app now also allows you to translate vertical text in Chinese, Japanese and Korean with your camera. Google added support for using camera input to translate texts last August and added basic support for translating Chinese, Japanese and Korean this way last December. This could be a killer feature for Google Glass, too, and it’d be a surprise if the Google Translate team wasn’t working on this already (especially given that Google Translate’s Josh Estelle is already a Glass user and that Translate has made some cameo appearances in Google’s Glass promo videos).Fortumo Adds Windows Phone Support To Let Developers Offer Carrier Billing For In-App Purchases
Mar 27, 5:58PM
Fortumo, the mobile payments company that puts carrier billing in the hands of developers, has announced that its brought its in-app payments solution to Windows Phone -- a move that it claims makes it the only third-party payment provider to offer cross-device integration via a single SDK for payments on Windows 8, Windows RT and (now) Windows Phone.Eventful 2.0 Gives Its 20M Users A Personalized List Of Everything Going On Nearby
Mar 27, 5:54PM
It's not going to win any beauty pageants, but Eventful's 2.0 could make sure you never get bored. It's racked up 20 million registered users and shows of 4 million events at a time, but with today's big relaunch Eventful gets personalized thanks to your Facebook, iTunes, Spotify, and Last.fm data. That lets it show you concerts you'll love, along with movie times, conferences, festivals and more.Eventbrite Passes $1.5B In Sales, One-Third Of It In The Last 9 Months
Mar 27, 5:24PM
Champagne corks are a-flyin' this morning at Eventbrite, where the online event ticketing company is about to announce that they've just sold their 100 millionth ticket. All in all, that works out to $1.5 billion in gross ticket sales, up from a total of $1B sold by June of last year.TurboTax Maker Funnels Millions To Lobby Against Easier Tax Returns
Mar 27, 5:06PM
In the most technologically advanced countries, filing a tax return is free, easy and fast: Instead of taxpayers painstakingly calculating figures themselves, the government provides estimates of what they owe based on the very bank records and wages it already collects. Intuit, maker of the popular tax preparation software, TurboTax, has funnelled millions to oppose every effort to make tax day less painful. Intuit has spent $11.5 million lobbying the federal government — more than Apple or Amazon. Former California Senator, Tom Campbell, who felt Intuit’s power during his proposal for an easy-file system in California, wrote that he “never saw as clear a case of lobbying power putting private interests first over public benefit.” Intuit’s long and expensive campaigns over the years have argued that IRS-based service is a “massive expansion of the U.S. government through a big government program.” Intuit’s efforts have made friends from the most tech-savvy members of Congress, including Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (CrunchGov Grade: A) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (CrunchGov Grade: A). “Government should avoid impeding innovation in the private sector because commercial innovation almost entirely occurs in the private sector,” wrote former Lofgren to her colleagues in 2005. “Duplication of private sector innovation by the government may seem to have short term advantages, but the long term benefit of nurturing innovation in the private sector is usually lost.” (Publica, which filed the investigative report, stated that Lofgren declined to comment for the story, but her office quickly responded to us with this letter.) Examples of such innovations from TurboxTax would include live Q&A with tax professionals and automated tax deduction-finding features. Still, some tech-savvy policymakers are convinced a government system wouldn’t stop innovation. ”It’s voluntary,” argues Obama’s former chief economist, Austan Goolsbee, who authored a lengthy report on how return-free filing could save taxpayers billions. “If you don’t trust the government, you don’t have to do it.” [PDF] Moreover, Senator Ron Wyden (CrunchGov Grade: A) introduced a bi-partisan tax-reform bill in 2011 with a return-free file plan. Wyden and Lofgren rarely stand in opposition on tech issues, which makes opposition to an IRS system curious. One day, Americans may be as advanced as Estonia, Denmark and Sweden. Until then, try not to procrastinate doing your taxes — it’s a long and complicated process. [Image Credit: Zazzle.com]Mozilla And Epic Games Bring Unreal Engine 3 To The Web, No Plugin Needed
Mar 27, 5:00PM
Back in 2011, Epic ported its popular Unreal Engine 3 technology to Flash and showed how relatively high-end 3D games could run in the browser. It’s 2013 now, however, and Flash isn’t exactly a hot topic anymore. So to show off what game developers can do with a modern browser and without plugins today, Mozilla and Epic teamed up a little while ago to port Unreal Engine 3 to the web, something that was unthinkable back in 2011. As Vladimir Vukicevic, Mozilla’s engineering director and the inventor of WebGL told me earlier this week, Mozilla wants to make the web a viable platform for modern games. About six months ago, Mozilla started to work on using its emscripten compiler to port C and C++ code to asm.js, a strict subset of JavaScript. This combination allows the JavaScript code to run at a speed within 2x of native performance and the latest versions of Firefox Nightly now support these optimizations. Given the complexities of modern game engines and games, getting relatively close to native performance is a necessity for running something like Epic’s well-known Citadel demo and Unreal Tournament, which Mozilla showed running natively in the browser at the Game Developers Conference today. Porting the whole Unreal 3 Engine to the web only took Epic four days and a few small adjustments, Vukicevic told me. It’s worth noting that Epic had already done some work on bringing its game engine to the web before, but that’s still a very impressive result. The actual demo will be available online in the coming weeks. Until then, you can always check out Mozilla’s own BananaBread demo running on the latest Firefox Nightly. It’s not clear if Epic plans to make Unreal Engine 3 for the web available commercially. All of this work, Mozilla’s games platform strategist Martin Best also told me, will flow into Mozilla’s mobile browser for Android and, of course, Firefox OS. On mobile, Mozilla also expects games to run within 2x of native performance and the team already has some in-house demos working, but isn’t quite ready to share these with the rest of the world yet. As for bringing actual commercial products to market that are based on these techniques, Best noted that Mozilla is already working with the likes of Disney, Electronic Arts and ZeptLab (which already brought an HTML5 version of Cut The Rope to the web afterIf at any time you'd like to stop receiving these messages, just send an email to feeds_feedburner_com_techcrunch+unsubscribe-hmdtechnology=gmail.com@mail.feed2email.net.
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