A few years back, Pure Digital launched The Flip, a handheld digital video camera at a great price — it shook up the marketplace and brought solid videocamera technology to the masses — and even found its way into a few professional productions as well.
This morning, Cisco announced that they had acquired Pure Digital.
The Wall Street Journal has this to say on the deal:
Cisco will pay around $590 million plus up to $15 million in retention bonuses for Pure Digital Technologies Inc., a San Francisco-based company that makes the Flip handheld video camera. Closely held Pure Digital has raised at least $68 million from a number of venture capital firms since its inception, with backers including Sequoia Capital and Benchmark Capital.
The Flip camera has gained popularity because of its small size, ease of use, and low price tag – a standard camera costs less than $200. Cisco said Thursday that Pure Digital has sold more than two million of the devices since introducing the product in May 2007.
The Flip has been a great tool for bloggers, videographers, podcasters, and others who are looking for a slick, affordable, easy to use video camera – even in HD. I expect Cisco to continue to evolve this platform in interesting directions after the acquisition closes later this year.
More: Engadget, GigaOm
Microsoft has announced the release of Internet Explorer 8 this morning:
Today Microsoft Corp. announced the availability of Windows Internet Explorer 8, the new Web browser that offers the best solution for how people use the Web today. It can be downloaded in 25 languages at http://www.microsoft.com/ie8 starting at noon EDT on March 19. Internet Explorer 8 is easier to use, faster and offers leading-edge security features in direct response to people’s increasing concerns about online safety. A new study commissioned by Microsoft and the National Cyber Security Alliance and conducted by Harris Interactive Inc. shows that 91 percent of adults in the U.S. are concerned about online threats in the current economic climate, and 78 percent are more likely to choose a Web browser with built-in security than they were two years ago.
I’ll be sticking with Firefox which I use almost exclusively on any machine that will run in here in my home or office. I even use it in corporate environments where it is not supported. It’s stable, offers plugins, and has all of the functionality that I really want… IE8 just doesn’t interest me as an end-user or as a consultant.
An interesting side note, one of my large local corporate clients is still using IE6 – almost ten years later!
Over at his blog, Hugh Briss takes a look at Tweet Later’s new semi-automated twitter follow verification tool:
I’ve gotten to the point that I’m getting anywhere from 50 to 100 new followers a day and vetting them manually takes too much time, so I was very happy to see Tweet Later’s new semi-automated vetting option. They’ve put all the information I need to make my decision on one page with a simple radio button to approve or reject or even block new followers. As you can see from the screen shot, at a glance I can see every twit’s avatar (or lack of one), their following/follower counts, the date they joined, their total tweet count, a link to their website, and their latest tweet. In most cases that’s enough information for me to make a pretty darned accurate assessment and instead of a minute or two per follower I can vet a list of 50 in a couple of minutes, total.
I tried this tool earlier this morning – as we’re getting 25-30 new follow requests each day for Telegraphik since we’ve re-started blogging here – it is a great time-saver.
You can register on Tweet Later and evaluate the tool as well.
A bit belated, but last week Automattic released p2, a new microblogging theme replacing their prologue theme from 2008.
The announcement reads, in part:
Live notifications, comments on the homepage, and in-line editing are just part of what makes P2 revolutionary. With these features, you never have to refresh, and rarely need to visit the dashboard. Everything you need to communicate with other users on your blog (and your readers, too), is right there on the front page. We like to think of it as a really cool version of Twitter for groups.
P2 is the perfect theme to use when you’re collaborating with remote teams and far-flung friends. It’s also a great tool for school projects, as a class or as a group. We Automatticians use it internally to keep each other up to date, both on a company-wide level and on a project-by-project basis.
P2 would make a great individual microblogging theme – or even for a group microblog within a company, small business, or project theme. Personally, however, I prefer the suite of tools from 37signals for collaboration and project updates.
With the upcoming release of the new Star Trek film in May – the media has finally started to take a look at Star Trek fans again.
Witness: an article in today’s New York Times about Trek fans who have built a replica of Kirk’s Chair in their homes:
THERE is nothing particularly unusual about the living room of the two-story town house that Scott Veazie shares with his wife in Washougal, Wash., except for one piece of furniture in a corner: a full-size replica of the captain’s chair from the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise, as seen in the original “Star Trek” television series.
Mr. Veazie, 27, was not yet born when that show first went on the air in the 1960s; even his parents were only teenagers. During his childhood, there were “Star Trek” spinoffs on TV with more sophisticated special effects than the original, and a more contemporary sensibility, and there were also movies featuring the old show’s actors aboard updated versions of the Enterprise. But Mr. Veazie, who watched endless reruns of the original series with his mother in the 1980s, was never drawn to those later incarnations.
I may be a strong Star Trek fan – but you’ll find no such chairs in my home, office, or anywhere near my other half.
The tech world is all abuzz with the rumor that IBM is in talks to buy Sun Microsystems. The Wall Street Journal has this to say:
If the deal does go through, which could happen as early as this week, IBM is likely to pay at least $6.5 billion in cash to acquire Sun, the people said. Including $1.4 billion in cash on Sun’s balance sheet, the total deal value would be about $8 billion, or about $10 to $11 a share. That would translate into a premium of more than 100% over Sun’s closing price Tuesday.
A combination would require melding companies with distinct, dissimilar cultures. IBM, an East Coast stalwart that helped invent the computer industry, grew up with a button-down style and a philosophy of delivering what customers want. Sun, which grew up in the go-go environment of the 1980s in Silicon Valley, is an engineering-driven maverick with a record of major innovations that has lately struggled to profit from them.
All is well and good – and IBM and Sun may make a potent combination in terms of the Web – and other dataserver intensive markets.
That said — what happens to Sun’s MySQL subsidiary – which they acquired not so long ago.
MySQL, of course, really sits at the heart of the Web 2.0 world as one of the most commonly used database platforms – it’s the default database for systems like Automattic’s WordPress, which we use on most of our blogs – even when we were still running on Movable Type.
Sun has had a long-term commitment to the open source movement – one that we hope would be continued should they become part of IBM.
Also see: Why Cisco, not IBM, should buy Sun over at GigaOm.
Some companies may pretend to “get” social media – when it’s clear that their own policy makers really have no frakkin’ clue how to approach the issue.
For example, take this little “Web 2.0″ / Social Media clip from an article in today’s New York Times:
Organizations of all sorts have been trying to figure out how they can adapt social networks, blogs, wiki’s and other Web tools to their traditional operating methods in order to connect to customers and partners.
But it is tough. “We have a Facebook page,” said one official of the Department of Homeland Security. “But we don’t allow people to look at Facebook in the office. So we have to go home to use it. I find this bizarre.”
One of our largest long-time clients here in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota – has a similar issue. They have a significant presence on Facebook – yet prohibit their employees from contributing content or participating in their facebook presence from work.
What sort of social media policy is that?
So far, our attempts to change their approach to this policy have been met with opposition. How many of your companies have similar policy issues?
