India Calling Cards

[UK] You know how it is, you wait for a bus and then three arrive at once. Although NextBuses ( iTunes link ), a new iPhone app by London-based developer Malcolm Barclay , doesn’t quite solve this problem, it does promise to make it easier to know when the next bus is due and even, in some instances, tell you if it’s running on time. The app, which costs 59p, delivers departure information for 370,000 bus, coach and tram stops throughout England, Scotland and Wales to Apple’s smartphone.

Read more here:
When’s the next bus due? There’s an app for that too

[UK] Brownbook , the business directory, has integrated seed data for nearly 4 million businesses for several countries to fill up their pages and grow the site’s index to 34 million listings . A move that is clearly an investment on their part to reach new countries and increase activity where they already have coverage.

Read this article:
Wiki-style business directory Brownbook hits 34 million listings

[Sweden] Stockholm-based Videoplaza , the video ad server startup, has secured a €3.5 million funding round from leading Nordic VCs Creandum and Northzone Ventures . This follows seed investments of €80,000 and €420,000, bringing the total raised to-date to €4m. The company, which currently has a staff of 20 based in Sweden, the UK and France, will use the new capital to continue to expand operations in Europe including Germany, Spain and Italy, and attract new customers for its Monetizer ad server platform for managing, displaying and tracking video advertising.

The rest is here:
Videoplaza secures €3.5 million from leading Nordic VCs

From a Reuters report : The NTRA had tolerated mobile internet telephony until a drop in international call volumes over recent months pushed them to tell Egypt’s operators to enforce the ban, Badawy said. “We monitor what is happening on international voice calling and it has had an adverse effect on it,” he said by phone. Tarek responds to a Global Voices post : It’s official now, the NTRA – the government – is the one responsible for this and not the mobile operators.

More:
Egyptian government orders Skype mobile blocked

[Russia] The Moscow-based social games company Nival Network , part of the Nival Group , has raised $7 million in new funding from DST , 1C Company and Nival Group founder & CEO Sergey Orlovskiy, according to a report (russian) in the Vedomosti newspaper. DST have invested $4 million for a 12.5% stake, with software vendor 1C (a previous investor) providing an additional $1 million and Nival Group CEO, Sergey Orlovskiy putting in $2 million. As a result , 1C and Orlovskiy now own a 26.56% and 60.94% stake, respectively

See the article here:
Social games company Nival Network raises $7m from DST, 1C and Sergey Orlovskiy

[France] Social location-based search service Tellmewhere or Dismoioù has released a new version of its iPhone app as part of its quest to conquer local markets. The Paris-based startup is also preparing for US expansion later this year. The company’s current platform – a personalized local search engine – grew out of a former wiki map project, officially launched in 2008.

More:
Tellmewhere revamps iPhone app, prepares for US expansion

[Germany/Poland] Team Europe Ventures , the Berlin-based VC firm focused on early stage Internet companies, has made a minority investment in Infakt . The Polish startup provides web-based accounting and invoicing solutions for small companies locally.

Go here to read the rest:
Team Europe Ventures invests in Polish web-based accounting startup Infakt

Al Jazeera ’s mobile Media unit has been quite busy lately. After making their iPhone apps free, the broadcaster has added live streaming to their mobile website . Live streaming is supported on the iPhone only for now, but Al Jazeera’s Mobile media unit is planning on adding support for other mobile platforms soon

Read more:
Al Jazeera adds live streaming to mobile website and makes iPhone apps free

[Germany] Berlin-based aka-aki , the location-based social network for mobiles, has hit something of a milestone. The startup is claiming 500,000 sign-ups, up from 350,00 last October . Writing on the company’s official blog , CEO Gabriel F

Read this article:
Mobile social network aka-aki hits 500,000 members

Having now written two books about my failures in work, life and love, I think I’m qualified to say that the only difference between a memoirist and a prostitute is timing. A prostitute sells sex for money – that money being payable either immediately before or immediately after the act. A memoirist also receives money for having sex – but our payment comes via a publisher, months or years later, once we’ve recounted the amusing or titillating details in print .

Original post:
NSFW: ‘Tis Pity We Called Her A Whore – And Other Ineffectual Digital Apologies

[France] French startup Stupeflix , the XML-based online video platform, launches its new Stupeflix Play feature today which turns content from a website into a dynamic, broadcast quality video with just “a couple lines of code.” The company’s aim is to considerably lower the barriers for site owners – from ecommerce to publishers – to add video to their offerings in order to increase stickiness and advertising opportunities. The way Stupeflix Play works is as follows: First you insert some javascript into a site, then select the bits you want turned into a video and voila, a video appears of your content.

More here:
Stupeflix launches its Play feature, easily turn website content into a dynamic video

Last Thursday saw the third edition of Plugg , a conference I started in my home country Belgium back in 2008 that essentially aims to launch and inspire European tech entrepreneurs and advance the startup ecosystem in these parts. The event is closely tied to TechCrunch, with myself as lead organizer and TC Europe editor Mike Butcher running things on stage

Go here to see the original:
European startups, take note: Plugg 2010 in videos and pictures

[UK] AlertMe , the Cambridge-based home energy monitoring service, has hired ex-Tiscali UK boss Mary Turner as its new CEO. Turner ran the ISP’s UK business from 2001 where she took the company from less than half a million dial-up customers to the third largest DSL provider in Britain with revenues of €608m in 2008, according to the press release. She also oversaw the acquisitions by Tiscali of npower’s telephone base in 2003, Video Networks IPTV business Homechoice in 2006, and the Pipex broadband and telephone business in 2007

View original post here:
Ex-Tiscali boss takes the helm at home energy monitoring service AlertMe

[France] Zimbalam , the digital music distributor from Believe Digital , launches in the US today. The service lets artists submit and distribute their music through 25 of the most popular music platforms, including Apple’s iTunes and Spotify, in addition to “several hundred additional stores worldwide”. This makes Zimbalam the largest music distribution network as measured by number of stores and geographic reach, says the Paris-based company

Read more:
Believe Digital’s digital music distribution service Zimbalam opens in the US

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that publishers, McGraw-Hill Cos, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt K-12, Pearson Education, and Kaplan Inc., have signed with ScrollMotion to adapt their textbooks for Apple’s new iPad tablet. Though Apple didn’t outline its strategy to target the educational sector with its iPad last week, people familiar with Apple’s thinking have said that the iPad’s use in schools was one of the focal points of discussions in developing the product.

See the original post here:
Major Textbook Publishers Sign with ScrollMotion to get on iPad

Over the last 5 weeks of the 3rd Annual Smartphone Round Robin , the editors of our sibling sites, Casey from AndroidCentral.com, Kevin from CrackBerry.com, Matt from NokiaExperts.com, Dieter from PreCentral.net, and Phil from WMExperts.com have all had their chance to review TiPb’s flagship iPhone 3GS.

View post:
TiPb Responds to iPhone Reviews — Smartphone Round Robin

According to our sibling site, Android Central, in the wake of Apple’s iPhone 3.1.3 update and new iPad hardware, Google issued a Nexus One software update of their own — one that enables multitouch pinch-to-zoom in the built in apps like the web browser, maps, and gallery. Oh, and there’s also a coincidentally timed Chrome OS tablet “concept” making the rounds. We’re being more than a little facetious in linking Google’s Android updates and Chrome OS concepts to any iPhone and iPad news.

See the original post:
Nexus One Update Brings Pinch-to-Zoom, Chrome OS Tablet Gets Conceptual — The Competition!

Enagdget tipsters, digging deep into the iPad ’s iPhone 3.2 SDK and iPhone 3.1.3 firmware , have found more evidence of the 4th generation iPhone (likely to ship this June/July) namely it’s code name — N89. Buried way inside the platform simulator lies a set of folders dedicated to specific models of iPhone OS-ready devices, including the iPhone 3GS, second generation iPod touch, something called the “K48″ (yep, the codename we were told was the internal name for the iPad), and… the “N89.” Sure, it sounds like a Nokia phone just waiting to happen, but this is — according to our extremely knowledgeable and trusted sources — likely the codename of the next iPhone (previous versions were called the M68, N82, and N88). There’s also news on the 4th generation iPod touch as well (likely to ship this September): Apple’s just released firmware (3.1.3) also includes another new model, the “N80,” which we’re told will most likely be the next version of the iPod touch

The rest is here:
4th Generation iPhone Code Named N89; iPod touch G4, N80

[Israel] Israeli genealogy site MyHeritage has completed its third acquisition, buying Germany’s OSN. OSN operates seven genealogy sites including Verwandt.de in Germany, Moikrewni.pl in Poland and Dynastree.com in the US.

See original here:
MyHeritage buys Germany’s OSN, now 540 million profiles strong

Operator claims it has won over ‘significant numbers’ of iPhone users. Vodafone claims ‘significant numbers’ of Apple iPhone users are defecting to its network in search of better network coverage. Speaking to Mobile Terry O’Brien, Vodafone’s retail director, said: ‘A significant number of iPhone users have migrated to Vodafone since we launched the iPhone.’ He added: ‘It is quite astounding..

See the rest here:
iPhone users ‘migrate’ to Vodafone

Apple has just released iPhone 3.1.3 (7E18), a minor OS update for iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G, iPhone 2G, iPod touch G1, iPod touch G2, and iPod touch 3G. The update includes: Fix for iPhone 3GS battery level reporting Fix for app crashes on launch Fix for app crashes while using Japanese Kana Keyboard iPhone 3.1.3 security-related update details can be found in Apple’s knowledge-base article

See original here:
Apple Releases iPhone 3.1.3 for All iPhone, iPod touch Devices

UPDATE: PatternMusic reveals that the issue is (mis)use of the DCIM folder (digital camera image folder — where your camera roll pictures are stored) to transfer non-image related files. Apple, however, precludes apps from reading or writing data files to any other place except the app’s “sandbox” document folder through their developer agreement.

Read more from the original source:
UPDATE: Apple has Stanza App Remove DCIM Work-around for USB Sharing

The night before Steve Jobs introduced the world to the iPad, Engadget scored pictures of the device — but did they score a picture of the 4th generation iPhone as well? That’s what AppleInsider claims: People with an impeccable track record in matters such as these say the iPhone in below photo, published by gadget blog Engadget in the hours leading up to Apple’s iPad announcement last Wednesday, is a prototype of one of the handsets due to hit the market in roughly five months. Let the speculation about bezels and cameras/smudges begin! After all, it’s just under 5 months until WWDC 2010 , the likely venue for the next iPhone unveiling! This is a story by the iPhone Blog

Read the original post:
4th Gen iPhone Peeked in Engadget iPad Leak?

Yes we are back with yet another give away for all of the TiPb readers out there. This time the folks over at eBuddy have given us 10 FREE copies of their instant messenger client, eBuddy Pro! [ iTunes Link - $4.99] A few weeks back we had the chance to check this app out and came away pretty impressed and just the other day it was updated to include 11 high quality, colorful themes! A good IM client has just gotten better and for your chance to win a copy all you have to do is visit this thread right here in our forums and post a single comment regarding a feature you’d like to see added to eBuddy Pro. That’s all there is to it

Read more here:
TiPb Give Away: 10 FREE Copies of eBuddy Pro for iPhone!

[France] Spotify is no longer invitiation-only in France. The streaming music startup now lets anyone register, but for some reason – probably to make sure you actually live in France – they’ll allow you to register only by verifying your phone number first. The company says it’s now because they are sure they can “maintain the quality of service for many users.” Despite scepticism from TechCrunch that Spotify is going to have a tough time launching in the US, it seems to be on its way to rolling out across Europe, at least

Follow this link:
Spotify removes the invitation-only lock in France

[Ukraine] The 10th Startup Crash Test event took place on 29 January in Kiev, Ukraine. Startup Crash Test (SCT) is a monthly event aimed at “stress testing” Ukrainian web-related startups’ market strategy, business model, distribution, roadmap, etc.

See the original post:
Ukrainians crash-test their startups every month. Do you?

France’s Resto’in just scored €2 million investment from NextStage Capital to develop their online platform for high-quality food delivery. Founded in 2006, the young founders, Clément Benoît and Pilar Granell, claim to have stumbled upon the idea for the company after a visit to Boston, where they noticed Americans ordering food online

Read the original here:
E-cuisine site Resto’in wins €2 million to expand

[Russia] Yandex , the leading search engine and contextual advertising company in Russia, has reported a decline in USD revenue for the first time in the company’s history. Although it’s not quite as it seems

Read more:
Russia’s leading search engine Yandex sees decline in USD revenue

[Spain] Teambox , a collaborative project management platform, is another Spanish home-grown initiative that aims to compete on an international scale, with the likes of Basecamp , incorporating a social, Yammer-like model. The startup has recently secured €140,000 in a small round through SeedRocket Investors Day and  Keiretsu Forum Barcelona, a large international business angels network. Funding mainly comes from Albert Feliu, ex-CTO from Infojobs, previously Grupo Intercom, Diego Mariño, Abiquo’s CEO, both SeedRocket mentors and private investor, Jordi Priu. Teambox is taking a WordPress-like deployment approach.

Here is the original post:
Teambox for project management secures €140,000 funding

This one is bound to send web publishers’ heads spinning. While ad-blockers are nothing new, those who install such browser pug-ins tend to be geeks and/or those who believe that the web should remain commerce-free. But what if users could replace ads on any site they visit with ones for a variety of good causes and generate money for those causes at the same time.

Originally posted here:
Another headache for web publishers, DoGooder blocks ads for a good cause