#Facebook Unveils Facebook At work Lets Businesses Create Their Own Social networks About six months ago we reported that Facebook was working on a new product aimed squarely at the enterprise market under the working title B@Work
. Now that product is officially coming to light: today the company is launching new ios and Android apps called acebook At Workalong with a version of Facebook At work accessible via its main website
which will let businesses create their own social networks amongst their employees that are built to look
and act like Facebook itself. Facebook At work is now available for download on ios and wel update with a links to the Andriod version once it live though both are usable via a limited pilot to start with.
Check out Josh follow-up story for more screenshots details on privacy and analysis.)Employers can create separate logins for employees to use with their Work accounts
or users can link these up with their other profiles to access everything in one place.
The product puts Facebook head-to-head with the likes of Microsoft Yammer Slack Convo Socialcast and a huge number of others who are trying to tackle the nterprise social networkspace.
Even Linkedin conveniently let drop last night that it too was looking at building a product for coworkers to communicate
and share content (but not chat as a Linkedin spokesperson tells me). Not all of these have been a hit:
Lars Rasmussen the engineering director at Facebook who is heading up the project had in his past once headed up one of the failed efforts at an enterprise social network Google Wave.
Facebook is positioning today debut as a bold first step. ee putting the app into the app stores
so that we can begin testing the productasmussen said in an interview. In fact Facebook has already been running tests of the service with very small setof external businesses around the world Rasmussen says;
this is the next step in that process. The aim initially will be companies with 100 or more employees.
In fact the existing Facebook Groups product is used already by smaller organisations. Because of the early nature of the product there are a lot of questions in the air.
The company has yet to work out for example how it might price the app whether it will monetise the service through ads
or how third-party apps will work. For now Facebook Platform has been disabled on the Work product meaning no ads or apps.
That may not always be the case (t could be paidhe says. This beta state of affairs is in some ways ironic.
Rasmussen says that Facebook has effectively been working on Work for the last 10 years because it is based on
what Facebook own employees have been using to communicate with each other pass on news plan meetings and share documents.
That long-time use and Facebook familiarity to all of us are part of what makes Facebook confident that it can carve a place for itself in a market that already is crowded very. acebook At work strength is spent that wee ten years
and incorporated feedback from 1 billion active usershe says. ll embedded of that is now in the same product
but adapted for different use cases. nd it actually used by staff hen Mark Zuckerberg the CEO makes an announcement he just posts it on Facebook at Workrasmussen says.
In fact Facebook own popularity could be Facebook At work biggest advantage. A lot of efforts in offices to get employees to collaborate more with each other have been stymied
because employees don want to use the software. It yet another new thing to learn and doesn feel essential.
A lot of messaging apps (Microsoft Yammer being one of the notably early movers) have tried to tap into onsumerizationor getting enterprise apps to look
and feel more like consumer apps to encourage usage. In that vein Facebook At work built essentially on Facebook itself will be arguably the closest of all to an authentic onsumersocial experience.
Here a run-down of some of the key points about the service as told to me by Rasmussen:
Pricing. As noted above no firm details on this yet but consider that most of the other apps offer tiers of pricing.
By making this free Facebook could potentially drive a lot more users to its wider network.
The fact that Rasmussen would not rule out advertising as an option down the road to me suggests that Facebook could consider tiers of its own where some businesses may pay for the product
and have it ad-free while others might take it free and get ads. Again most enterprise apps are paid based on a model
so it probably more likely to remain the case here too. Plus this would give Facebook another revenue stream beyond ads and app-related payments.
How it will work Facebook wouldn show me a demo ahead of the launch but this is how Rasmussen describes it:
hen an employer adopts Facebook At work they can construct it with a set of new accounts.
Users can then link their work and personal accounts together so that they are logged into both at the same time. his would work much like Groups
and public profiles do today. On mobile you would have two mobile apps running at the same time he adds. ven
if the employee chooses to link there is no crossover. The content stays entirely within your personal or work Facebook. hat not there/integrations.
You can share documents today but for now there will be no in-app editing urrently. gain that leaves this open as something that will come down the line. he set of features are identitcal to personal Facebook
but just to get it out sooner wee disabled the Platform so the APIS that third parties work with are not there
but we are keen to turn it back on. Hopefully in the future other enterprise tools will integrate with Facebook At work. ackstory on development.
Back in June I deduced that Facebook At work was connected with Rasmussen work in London but what
I found out from sources after that report was that this was more than casual: this was his baby.
Rasmussen is not shy to bring this up himself (which I have to admit is refreshing to hear
because people do like to posture a lot in tech don they). can say that the challenges of making work more efficient is something that has been on my mind for a long time and
I come to it with a lot of passion and the knowledge of a failure of doing this at a different companyhe says referring of course to Google Wave. thought that maybe Facebook experience was
what was needed. When I worked on search here it was always at the back of my mind so later
I picked back up on that idea joined in on the conversation. he caveat to all this however is one that Facebook will have to continue to grapple with all the more
so as it continues to grow. Canvassing opinion on a Facebook At work product I heard not only once people shy away from the idea concerned with the thought of Facebook wningyour data
and the potential lack of confidentiality resulting from it. That can be frustrating when related to pictures of you too drunk
when you were in college or frankly scary looking when you were in high school but potentially very costly and illegal if proprietary work information is involved e
#Ford#s Applink Will Soon Support Third-party Navigation Apps Most carsbuilt-in navigation systems tend to be compared a bit clunky to modern smartphone apps like of Google maps.
It looks like Ford is among the first car manufacturers to acknowledge this. The next version of Applink its system for connecting smartphone apps to its SYNC infotainment system will allow third-party navigation apps to project their maps from the phone onto the built-in screens in its cars.
Ford will roll out the latest (and much improved) version of SYNC later this year but Applink 3. 0 will only become available at a later date (SYNC can be updated over Wifi and through a connected smartphone).
The company is already working with Alibaba to bring its navigation and music services to its in-vehicle screens.
Chances are other companies will jump on board as well though it worth noting that Ford has to explicitly whitelist applications to run on Applink.
There no reason to believe the company will stop Google Microsoft Telenav or Here from offering its mapping services on its platform though.
Applink currently focuses mostly on audio apps but with Glympse it has featured long a location-sharing service As well as Ford notes Applink 3. 0 will use the Genivi alliance open-source Smartdevicelink service
and its APIS to enable this feature. The members in the Genivi alliance besides Ford include the likes of BMW Honda Nissan renault Volvo and John Deere as well as chip manufacturers like Intel Qualcomm and Nvidia and plenty of aftermarket manufacturers.
Earlier this month the Genivi Alliance also announced that it would offer open source middleware to support Android Auto integration into car infotainment products r
#Paypal Credit Expansion Now Lets Merchants Set Terms Including Option For Interest-Free Payments Last July, Paypal rebranded its Bill
Me Later service as aypal Credit, as a part of the company efforts to bring its credit products ore to the center of Paypal.
Today, as promised earlier, Paypal Credit is expanding its support for monthly payments with an option for retailers that allows them to decide on the number of months and interest rates that work best for their customers.
Retailers will also be able to choose to interest-free credit options for the first time for their customers shopping online.
The announcement is being made at the National Retail Federation conference on Monday, where Paypal also announced a newly added Business Consulting service.
With the upgraded Paypal Credit feature, customers will be able to divide larger purchases into smaller ones allowing online shoppers to pay via Paypal
when they may have turned otherwise to their credit cards. The Paypal Credit offering that had been offered previously was if a customer spent $99,
they would have had no interest and no payments for six months. Paypal says it will still make that available to retailers
but this change allows for them to offer more flexible credit to their customers. The company said in July that it sees consumer spending go up 30%after a customer adopts a Paypal credit vehicle,
citing studies that have tracked usage of the older Bill Me Later service as well as the GE-issued Paypal credit card.
Paypal also said it was buying back the GE portfolio in 2016 as part of its strategy to increase
and expand its credit offerings something the company notes is key as it expands into the offline world,
and omni-channel. The company later plans to expand Paypal Credit more directly to retail and point-of-sale
but that for a future date. For now, it about bringing more online consumers to Paypal Credit.
With the new offering, merchants are paid immediately and Paypal settles with the customer. Additionally, Paypal announced a new set of Business Consulting services that will allow businesses to learn more about best practices like reducing cart abandonment, improving conversion,
or making international sales, for example. The consulting team had earlier been available only to select (read:
larger) Paypal merchants, where it says to have increased incremental revenues by the millions. Now it opening to all, no matter the merchant size.
The program had been in pilot testing for several months, and to date, Paypal has worked with hundreds of merchants.
Some of the new Paypal consulting services will be offered for free, while Paypal will charge for others,
like custom development, depending on the merchant needs. The company has yet to announce pricing, but notes in most cases there no charge e
#Sony's Just Released A Worthwhile Waterproof Phone Waterproof phones have been around for ages. But to be waterproof,
there are little flappy covers on the ports. Like the Microusb card port. And these covers always break off.
Always. But now there the Sony Xperia M4 Aqua, an Android smartphone that waterproof without those annoying caps.
The microusb port is naked but, sadly, there is still a cover on the SD Card slot.
The rest of the phone is on par with other mid-range phones. There are 13mp/5mp cameras
and an octa-core 64-bit Snapdragon 615 powers the Lollipop device. Sony notes that the phone has a two-day battery life.
Sony says the phone is waterproof under a few conditions. First it cannot be submerged past 1. 5 meters.
So youe out of luck if you throw it in the deep end. Next, salt water is advised not
and the phone should only occasionally be chlorinated in water, and it needs to be rinsed off afterward.
And of course, before the phone is recharged, the USB port needs to be dry. The M4 Aqua will have a starting price of 299 EUR
and will be available in 80 countries, but not the U s. Sony tells us that the company is focusing on its flagship offering in the States.
The M4 Aqua is only waterproof to a point. Yet that point is distinctly farther under the water than any other major cell phone maker.
I wouldn take the M4 Aqua swimming, but I wouldn have any issue reading a Kindle book on the phone
while taking my nightly bath l
#Cairo Witnesses A New Kind of Spring: The Egyptian Startup Spring The Arab spring of 2011 ignited not just Egypt society and political landscape.
It also lit touch-paper on the bonfire that has become its new tech startup ecosystem.
Consider this: Prior to 2011, it clear no one in Egypt had heard ever of Angellist. In that year, only three companies ended up creating a profile under Angel. co/egypt.
Then, as the country went through further convulsion in 2012, that figure jumped to 21.
But through 2013 that figure jumped to 47, and a further 48 appeared in 2014.
Another 19 were created in February this year alone. What these previously unlighted raw numbers show is that the entrepreneurial scene is exploding.
And it not just homegrown startups: Uber launched a couple of months ago and is gradually opening up the city to riders.
The mass of young, educated and enlightened graduates in Egypt are now turning out an array of startups.
True, funding is hard to come by, but local entrepreneurs are figuring out their own ways,
often via a number of accelerators which have sprung up, as well as crowdfunding campaigns. Among them, perhaps Flat 6 Labs is known the best.
It gave birth to the startup Instabug a platform for in-app feedback for mobile apps,
which has moved since to the US. Last week a stone throw from Cairo iconic Tahrir Square where the Arab spring reached its apotheosis,
I participated in a tech startup conference Startup Addventure which brought in international speakers to help inject some more expert knowledge into the ecosystem.
The companies I came across included: Slickr, a fashion social network. Swipentap. com a POS ipad app.
Integreight which develops novel products for the electronic hobbyist and education market. Filkhedma A concierge for household services Baby Boons modern baby ecommerce Wallstreetchamber Which claims to have an algorithm for automated share investing.
Zex a mobile ad platform that serves offers to users smartphone via their lock-screens Eventus for creating and analysis social events.
Tennra A a gamified crowdfunding platform. Usertalk An embedded call button for customer support over VOIP.
Others included Codly, Shareequity (crowd equity platform), and a new project from the public sector: Egyptinnovate. com, an ambitious project to support entrepreneurs and investors
which launches this summer. At the Rise up Summit in October, the organisers hope to attract over 4, 000 participants to
what will be Egypt biggest ever startup event. There is still a long way to go for Egypt young society.
The day after I met the startups, a prominent civil right activist was jailed. But from what I could gather in just a short visit to Cairo,
it looks like Egypt is now witnessing a new kind of Spring: The Egyptian Startup Spring E
#Realtyshares Now Lets Investors Put Money Into Individual Real estate Markets About a year ago Realtyshares launched as a new way for investors to put small amounts of money into real estate projects kind of like a endingclub
for Real estate. Now the company is launching a way for them to focus on investing in specific markets around the U s. Realtyshares works to crowdfund available real estate investments allowing investors to put in as little as $5000 into single-family homes multifamily homes and even commercial
real estate projects. The cost of those projects ranges from $100000 to the tens of millions.
For developers looking for funding Realtyshares provides an easy way to quickly raise money for their projects.
It funds about 10 to 20 projects per month and it takes an average of just four days for each Realtyshares investment to be funded.
That compares to weeks or months for more traditional funding sources. In the past year the company had amassed about $300 million in real estate property value through more than 200 different properties across 59 different cities and 17 states.
According to founder and CEO Nav Athwal average return on investment has ranged from between 8 percent and 29 percent depending on the type of project funded.
Athwal says most investors that have joined the platform so far have been IT professionals who are looking for new investment opportunities.
As a result the company has rolled out a new product that will allow them to focus on the areas that they know best that is the cities they live in.
Realtyshares has identified five specific markets with burgeoning tech and real estate sectors where it sees opportunities for investment.
Those markets are Seattle Dallas Austin Miami and Chicago where the company hopes to more efficiently connect borrowers and investors.
Those market-specific products will enable developers to find funding from local investors who have an interest in development in their cities.
And investors get the benefit of profiting from better yields in markets that have not yet been overdeveloped.
Realyshares has raised $1. 9 million in funding led by General Catalyst with other investors that include E*Trade COO Greg Framke and president of Gold bullion International Savneet Singh t
#Uber Latest Experiment Is Uber Cargo A Logistics Service In Hong kong Uber is talked often about for its potential to develop into a global logistics service,
and customers in Hong kong are getting a glimpse at what that might look like after a new ent-a-vanservice called Uber Cargo launched in the city-state.
The U s. company often trials new project in single cities. It launched bike couriers in New york last year, for example,
and Uber Cargo looks to be another experiment that is telling of what the company is planning to offer beyond just taxis.
The Cargo service has actually been in quiet beta in Hong kong according to an Uber blog post.
Uber said that the service is ideal for ferrying any kind of item around: With Ubercargo, a van arrives wherever you want it to be in minutes.
You can load your items in the back of the van yourself or request the driver assistance
if you need an extra hand. Deliveries can easily be tracked in real-time through the app,
the item location can be shared with the recipient and you can even ride along with your goods so youl have ease of mind that your items are safe.
Prices are based on the distance of the trip and also time taken, Uber explained. Why Hong kong?
The busy city-state is already a thriving market for van rental services. Two ber for logisticsstartups already exist there,
and both have raised significant amounts of funding from investors. Lalamove also known as Easyvan raised $10 million just this week,
while rival Gogovan closed a $6. 5 million seed round and scored a $10 million investment from Chinese social network Renren in 2014.
Lalamove and Gogovan are based both in Hong kong, but have wider plans for Asia. Lalamove is already present in six cities across China and Southeast asia and, with new money in its coffers
it plans to expand in both of those regions. Gogovan hasn gone beyond Hong kong yet, but its founders have spoken of plans to enter China, Japan and Southeast asia this year.
Correction: Gogovan currently serves nine cities across six countries and its founders are keen to move into new territory this year too.
Uber covers more than 200 cities worldwide, including 35 in Asia Pacific, so don be surprised to see its van service rapidly expanding into Southeast asia and China,
and potentially other markets, soon. The U s. company brand and visibility is such that it can allow young startups to take the lead on new business ideas,
but once they gain traction, it needs to follow suit rapidly. Uber move into logistics suggests that both Lalamove
and Gogovan may be on to something and it will be interesting to see how this business/service develops in 2015.
Uber confirmed that its latest $1. 2 billion financing round will go towards expanding its presence in Asia.
Wee already seen it put significant resources into India and add Baidu as a strategic investor in China Uber Cargo is another reminder that new Uber initiatives can
(and do) come from outside of the company U s. headquarters. We might yet see more services originate in Asia first as part of Uber newfound focus on the region.
Uber Cargo looks like it is primarily targeting business users, but Lalamove executive Blake Larson told Techcrunch earlier this week that he believes there is also a strong market for consumers.
Larson who heads up Lalamove outside of China, said this year is about validating the startup business model Uber move to rival it with its logistics service is ticked one checkbox for the startup k
#Kraftwerk Is A Power plant That Fits In The Palm Of Your Hand It looks and acts like a battery pack but kraftwerk is actually the first hand-held fuel cell generator that can regenerate energy in less than 3 seconds.
And it can power all your mobile devices for weeks. kraftwerk which translates to ower stationin German is the product of ezelleron an engineering team that spun out of German research firm Fraunhofer Gesellschaft.
So far the company has raised almost half its $500000 goal for kraftwerk in just three days on Kickstarter.
Three people have pledged even $10000 to get distributor rights for the product when it becomes available.
Fuel cell technology has been bandied about since the 1950 (Wikipedia says the first reference to it was in 1838)
but gas and other fossil fuels have eclipsed it as a preferred energy source. The reasons for low adoption of the tech are varied
(and it may continue if our current abundance of crude oil keeps up) but it does hold the promise of a cheap clean and efficient source of energy.
It works by converting chemical energy into electricity instead of needing to plug it into the power grid.
This means kraftwerk units can be taken all over the world including vast regions of Earth that aren connected to electricity
and your cellphone can get instant clean power for a long period of time. There have been a few other fuel cell Kickstarters for powering cellphones but none look as slick as kraftwerk.
The Devotec Micro Fuel Charger a key ring sized fuel cell cellphone charger added about 20-30 minutes of extra talk time
if plugged in. There was also the unsuccessfully funded HALO fuel cell charger. Touted as emergency preparedness for the outdoorsy type with an ipad it was a bit clunky looking.
But you could charge two devices at the same time on it. The kraftwerk units come in three different colors rbanutdoorand lamand run on a short spray of camping gas or standard lighter fluid.
This is something you can easily find at most corner stores throughout the world. It will charge anything that can be plugged into a USB cable such as your iphone tablet or even a Gopro.
One illingsupplies power for up to 11 iphones. Once depleted the unit will recharge itself in the aforementioned 3 seconds w
#Hardware Battlefield 2015 The majority of home climate control systems in the world just won work with Nest,
because theye not managed from a central control point, and instead consist of individual window or wall-mounted units that use an IR-based remote control to vary air temperature and fan speed.
Sensibo is a startup that wants to make the approximately 1 billion climate control devices that aren smart to smart with a little more Nest-like.
Sensibo is a small IR-compatible blaster that also connects to an app on your smartphone,
which can not only remotely control the settings of your unit, but also automate your home climate control with intelligent features,
including location-based activation, timer settings and a learning algorithm that the company claims can save you up to 40 percent on your home heating and cooling bills over time,
and which learns your habits and cooling and heating schedules based on your behavior over time.
It can also detect if a room is occupied actually, and turn off your unit to conserve energy and save money.
The unit itself is even monitoring temperature and humidity locally, meaning it can adjust based on various conditions that the AC device itself might not necessarily detect.
The company raised over $165 000 on Indiegogo during a campaign earlier this year, more than doubling its target of $70, 000.
and additional units are $80 apiece to let you expand your system to cover multiple rooms.
and while it still conceivable that the Google-owned company could build a Sensibo-style device,
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