Accord Technology LLC was recently authorized TSO-C145c for its latest receiver/sensor in the NextNav product family, the NextNav MAX GPS WAAS Class Beta-1, -2, -3. This successful GPS development is a key solution in a series of Accord Technology’s affordable civil aviation GPS receivers and sensor, the company said.
Available as circuit card receivers (CCA) for avionics OEM hosting or as line replaceable sensor units (LRU) for aircraft installations, MAX is affordable and meets the latest standards, worldwide. It supports ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-broadcast), all normal GPS procedures, as well as precision approach requirements such as LPV (Localizer Performance with Vertical Guidance) and RNP AR (Required Navigation Performance with Authorization Required).
The NextNav MAX GPS technology is the most advanced in the world and is compatible with Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS) solutions such as the United States’ WAAS, the European EGNOS, Japan’s MTSAT, and GAGAN in India.
“This TSO authorization for the NextNav MAX gives us greater flexibility to serve our customers with WAAS Beta 1 Only or Beta 1, 2, 3 LRU’s and CCA’s to fit their need,” commented Hal Adams, chief operating officer for Accord Technology. “The NextNav MAX is another important first for Accord Technology and we are anxious to move forward now with our AC 20-165 approved GPS sensor,” added Adams.
Accord Technology received TSO-C145c for its NextNav mini in 2010. The NexNav mini GPS technology was the first GPS WAAS sensor to be authorized by the Federal Aviation Administration TSO-C145c WAAS Class Beta-1 Only. The NexNav mini solution is a market-breaking hybrid of automotive technology and aviation requirements providing an affordable solution for ADS-B GPS source.
NextNav MAX’s DO-229D compliant aerospace GPS-SBAS receiver is certified by the FAA for TSO-C145c Class Beta-3 operation and is the enabling technology for several key applications, including:
Primary means of navigation
Localizer Precision with Vertical guidance approaches (LPV)
Airborne spacing assurance
Airborne Collision Avoidance (Non-TCAS System)
Constant descent approaches
Surface area movement management
Current and advanced Terrain Avoidance Warning System (TAWS)
“Whether it’s a need for LP/LPV approach precision or highly reliable PVT, NextNav MAX offers standard and custom solutions according to what our customers need,” Adams said. Designed around a small form-factor, the NextNav MAX CCA is delivered ready to integrate into host avionics systems, an LRU sensor or as a standalone module to ARINC 743 requirements. “We can even package the CCA in a module, tailored to your application,” Adams said.
Broadcom Corporation, maker of semiconductor solutions for wired and wireless communications, has introduced a new location architecture to provide more responsive outdoor and indoor positioning capabilities for smartphone devices. With proven third-generation multi-constellation support and tight integration with sensor components and Broadcom’s connectivity sub-system, the new solution opens the door to innovative applications, such as indoor positioning and place-based mobile commerce, Broadcom said.
The architecture features a new GNSS chip that significantly reduces time-to-first-fix (TTFF) for outdoor positioning applications, cutting the time smartphone users have to wait when first checking their position, Broadcom said. The platform solution also uses data from inertial sensors, Wi-Fi access points (including those based on recently announced 5G Wi-Fi), and future technologies such as Bluetooth beacons to enable ground-breaking indoor positioning capabilities, such as “personal shopper” applications that can direct users to specific stores within shopping malls, and even specific shelves within those stores. In addition, platform integration with NFC enables smarter, more secure mobile payments, with users able to specify countries, cities or even stores where digital wallets can be used, Broadcom said.
The BCM4752 GNSS chip provides advanced multi-constellation support by simultaneously collecting data from four satellite constellations (GPS, GLONASS, QZSS, and SBAS) and using the best received signals, resulting in faster searches and more accurate real-time navigation. Building on the success of previous GNSS chips, Broadcom’s multi-constellation technology, coupled with advanced signal processing, provides faster positioning performance for improved user experience, especially in challenging urban environments where buildings and obstructions can dramatically impact accuracy and time-to-fix, Broadcom said.
The new chip and accompanying software are tightly integrated with Broadcom’s InConcert wireless connectivity sub-system, featuring the most advanced and complete technology offering in the industry. By developing its various connectivity components to operate as a unified system, Broadcom can offer more expansive location features that extend beyond GNSS capabilities, the company said.
Key Features and Benefits:
Enhances performance and reliability:
Acquisition engine with advanced multipath mitigation techniques provides faster time-to-first-fix performance in challenging environments, as well as a more accurate urban navigation experience.
Multi-constellation capability collects data from four satellite constellations (GPS, GLONASS, QZSS, and SBAS) simultaneously and uses the best received signals, resulting in faster signal searches and more accurate real-time navigation.
Low board space, power consumption, and cost:
Fabricated in 40-nm process, the BCM4752 is tiny, occupying 44 percent less board space in a device.
Integration of key components such a low noise amplifier (LNA) enables low bill of materials cost.
The BCM4752 uses 50 percent less power than previous generations, allowing location-aware applications to remain active for longer periods of time.
New applications such as geofencing that provide alerts or services based on location can be completely off-loaded from the smartphone’s CPU for ultra-low system power operation.
Opens doors to new applications, with a proven software platform capable of:
Ground-breaking indoor positioning through integration of Wi-Fi (including 5G Wi-Fi), Bluetooth low energy, NFC and handset inertial sensor data into positioning applications.
Urban navigation by applying handset inertial sensor readings into the position computation.
Assisted GNSS (AGNSS) with both GPS and GLONASS assistance data available worldwide from Broadcom’s hosted reference network.
Availability
The BCM4752 is production ready and shipping to early access partners.
At the GIS In Action 2012 conference last week, I asked a Google presenter if he thought the mobile phone is going to be the primary mobile device people will carry. He said, “No, it’s going to be the tablet computer.”
Certainly the Apple iPad, since its introduction in April 2010, has sparked the tablet computer business. Google’s Android operating system has done its share of stimulating the tablet business, and just in the last few months, the fantastic success of the Kindle Fire (based on the Android operating system) has given Apple something to think about. I bought my wife a Kindle Fire for Christmas a few months ago. For the most part, it has replaced her notebook computer for the majority of her computing activities.
It’s not that the Kindle has amazing functionality and zippy computer power. The beauty of the Kindle Fire is that it’s inexpensive ($199), and has the basic features that make it very useful; web browsing, email, and ebook reading. The previous ebook readers by Kindle lacked web browsing and email functionality, so they were limited to being pure ebook readers. You can bet that the Kindle Fire has Apple thinking twice charging $600 for an iPad.
Continuing the subject of low-priced tablet computers, the I-slate, developed by the Institute for Sustainable and Applied Infodynamics (ISAID), a joint venture of Houston’s Rice University and Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, is being developed for the educational environment and has a targeted price of $45. Yes, $45 U.S. dollars.
Check out the following story:
India’s Mahabubnager District, Indian non-profit Villages for Development and Learning Foundation (ViDAL), Rice University and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore announced that the district plans to adopt 50,000 of the low-cost electronic I-slate tablet computer into middle and high school classrooms over the next three years.
According to the announcement, the I-slate, a low-cost learning tool designed for classrooms with no electricity and too few teachers, is under joint development by the I-slate Consortium, which includes hardware and software experts at Rice and NTU, social outreach partners from ViDAL, and a Los Angeles-based design team.
The district of Mahabubnagar in the Indian state Andhra Pradesh has about 500,000 students in government schools. Consortium leaders and Mahabubnagar officials said they hope to supply I-slates to at least 10 percent of the students over the next three years.
“The I-slate project is about empowering local communities with education and knowledge,” said Rajeswari Pingali, ViDAL founding chairwoman. “Based on two years of lab-to-school testing rounds, today we have a fully functional I-slate which will be adapted by the district education department for expanding the footprint of technology and bringing learning opportunities backed by the latest in modern communication technology for the benefit of rural communities.”
According to the announcement, about 30 fourth-generation I-slates were delivered this month to a class of 10- to 13-year-olds at the Mohamed Hussainpalli Village School, which is located in Mahabubnagar District, about 70 miles from Hyderabad. The new I-slates are the first to feature a new “sense-optimized” user interface designed to improve educational outcomes in rural India.
“Sense optimization is a systematic way of improving the user experience by taking advantage of our knowledge of how the human brain processes the information so we can invest the minimum amount of resources for the effectiveness level we’re trying to reach,” said I-slate creator Krishna Palem, a professor at both Rice and NTU. “The I-slate is not a tablet computer. It is a device designed for a single purpose — education in a low-resource environment.”
Mahabubnagar is primarily rural and has a population of around 4 million. District officials plan to use the I-slate in middle and high school classrooms. With sufficient volume, the unit cost for the I-slate will be around $45 (56 Singapore dollars), Palem said.
Palem, Rice’s Ken and Audrey Kennedy Professor of Computing, initially conceived the I-slate in 2008. He thought power consumption would be the biggest hurdle, because many rural schools in India lack electricity, and a solar-powered I-slate would need to run on no more than three watts of power. However, as soon as students in Mohamed Hussainpalli Village began testing early prototypes, it became obvious that usability and effectiveness would also be a challenge.
The I-slate’s Los Angeles-based design team, which includes Marc Mertens, CEO of the Seso Media Group, and project leader Henrik Andersson, volunteered their time to work with ViDAL, NTU specialists in human-computer interaction and Rice student interns. The designers evaluated feedback from children at Mohamed Hussainpalli Village School and spent thousands of hours scrutinizing the placement and flow of features and the way children interacted with the I-slate both visually and by touch.
It was reported that the designers incorporated elements from video games and social networking to draw students in and hold their interest. For example, a colorful cartoon creature in the corner of the I-slate screen watches the student and changes expression based upon the child’s actions. The more the student studies and the better her grades, the happier the creature appears. (EDITOR’S NOTE: to see the user interface in action, watch the video linked at the end of this release.)
The I-slate is a joint project of the Rice-NTU Institute for Sustainable and Applied Infodynamics (ISAID). Palem, who directs ISAID, is a Nanyang Visiting Professor at NTU.
“It is very exciting to see the early work on the I-slate expand to a larger user base,” said ISAID affiliate Vincent Mooney, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Georgia Tech, who worked on the I-slate as a visiting faculty member at NTU.
According to the announcement, the hardware and graphic content for the I-slate are being developed in tandem because they will ultimately use a revolutionary low-power computer chip — another of Palem’s inventions. The new chip, which could be ready for use in the I-slate by 2013, will cut power requirements in half and allow the device to run on solar power from small panels similar to those used on handheld calculators.
Javier Benedicto, the head of the Galileo Project Office for the European Space Agency (ESA), set an aggressive schedule for launching some Galileo satellites as many as four at a time in 2014 and 2015, in an effort to meet a target provision date of Galileo's initial services in 2014 and full services in 2015. The announcement emerged at the Munich Summit on March 14.
The hurry-up to carry a further 22 satellites into orbit will get underway with continued dual-satellite launches aboard Russian Soyuz rockets, as was the case for the most recent in-orbit validation (IOV) launch in October, 2011. There will be three Soyuz launches in 2013, for a total of six new satellites boosted into orbit, and two Soyuz launches in 2014, adding four more. Then the burden will shift to European rockets provided by Arianespace, according to a contract signed in February of this year. One Ariane 5 rocket is slated to carry four Galileo satellites aloft in 2014, bringing the projected total of IOV and eventually operational Galileo satellites in space to 16 by the end of 2014.
Previously, ESA had aired plans to continue with Soyuz-borne IOV launches in 2012, but the schedule announced in Munich did not mention these.
In 2015, two more Ariane 5 launches will add eight satellites, for a total on orbit of 24, estimated to be sufficient for Galileo full operational capability.
In subsequent talks with European satellite manufacturers OHB Systems and Astrium, GPS World contributing editor Don Jewell was told that the future launch schedule is "subject to change."
ESA has made no official announcement of a detailed launch schedule; inquiries regarding the Benedicto remarks were referred to the February contract statement, cited above.
CoreLogic announced the release of its Tornado and Hail Risk Beyond Tornado Alley report. The new research findings from CoreLogic, based on historical weather patterns, reveal that severe weather risk extends far outside the narrow eight-state corridor in the U.S. Midwest, commonly known as “Tornado Alley,” traditionally considered to be the area in which tornado and severe hail risk is highly concentrated.
U.S Tornado Risk (Source: CoreLogic, 2012)
According to CoreLogic, the report was developed to provide the insurance industry additional insight into the true extent of tornado and hail risk in the U.S. following a record-breaking year of weather related disasters in 2011 and has been released in tandem with the launch of two new CoreLogic risk assessment products, Wind Probability and Hail Probability. These data layers will provide insurers with a unique level of spatial and content granularity to assess property level wind and hail risk.
“The extensive destruction wrought by convective storms in 2011, which produce hail, strong winds and tornados, captured the attention of the public and forced many insurance companies to rethink the way they assess natural hazard risk,” said Dr. Howard Botts, vice president and director of database development for CoreLogic Spatial Solutions. “The apparent increase in the number of incidents and shift in geographic distribution of losses that occurred last year in the U.S. called the long-held notion of risk concentration in Tornado Alley into question, and is leading to changes in risk management policy and procedure.”
The Tornado and Hail Risk Beyond Tornado Alley report analyzes hazard risk at the state-level across the U.S using the new CoreLogic wind and hail data layers. Key findings include:
Tornado risk actually extends across most of the eastern half of the U.S. rather than being confined to the Midwest.
According to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), of the top ten states with the highest number of tornado touchdowns between 1980 and 2009, only three actually fell within Tornado Alley.
At least 26 states have some area facing extreme tornado risk.
At least 11 states have significant areas facing extreme hail risk, and almost every state east of the Rocky Mountains has some area facing a moderate or higher level of hail risk.
The area of highest hail risk extends outward from the central Great Plains to include states as far east as Georgia and the Carolinas.
U.S. Damaging Hail Risk (Source: CoreLogic, 2012)
CoreLogic reports that unlike most generalized wind and hail data, which provide a risk rating for large geographical areas, the new CoreLogic risk assessment products pinpoint and predict the probability of a wind or hail event using 10 x 10-meter property-level grid cells. Developed using highly scientific models, these new data layers are much more precise than the more traditional calculations based on ZIP codes or counties. Using a probabilistic rating in addition to a general risk rating allows users a more precise understanding of the risk of damaging winds and hail for properties in question. Individual addresses or a complete portfolio can be evaluated and the usual ranges of “high” or “medium” risk are now broken down into specific probability ranges.
“Insurers cannot afford to rely on inprecise data,” said Botts. “Decision-making based on general risk rating over large geographic areas is little more than a best guess and can lead to common errors, such as incorrectly identifying properties or assigning risk to the wrong property. The additional precision of the products CoreLogic is introducing today provides insurers with the information necessary to better assess wind and hail risk, minimize loss and maximize underwriting profits.”
According to the announcement, the new CoreLogic Wind Probability product predicts the likelihood of multiple damaging wind events including tornadoes, hurricanes, straight-line winds striking an individual property and takes into account special wind areas (isolated areas designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in which the magnitude of the local wind speeds is affected by local conditions). Additionally, the model used to derive both the wind and hail data layers also factors in short-run randomness of events. Used together, the wind and hail data layers offer an industry-leading level of accuracy and the most complete picture of the risk that is inherent in these weather related events. Both of the wind and hail products offer nationwide coverage and can be integrated directly into existing geospatial or underwriting systems, or can be accessed via the Xiance™ Desktop, a platform that CoreLogic recently introduced to provide insurers easy access to precise hazard risk and premium tax data.
Javier Benedicto, the head of the Galileo Project Office for the European Space Agency (ESA), set an aggressive schedule for launching some Galileo satellites as many as four at a time in 2014 and 2015, in an effort to meet a target provision date of Galileo’s initial services in 2014 and full services in 2015. The announcement emerged at the Munich Summit on March 14.
The hurry-up to carry a further 22 satellites into orbit will get underway with continued dual-satellite launches aboard Russian Soyuz rockets, as was the case for the most recent in-orbit validation (IOV) launch in October, 2011. There will be three Soyuz launches in 2013, for a total of six new satellites boosted into orbit, and two Soyuz launches in 2014, adding four more. Then the burden will shift to European rockets provided by Arianespace, according to a contract signed in February of this year. One Ariane 5 rocket is slated to carry four Galileo satellites aloft in 2014, bringing the projected total of IOV and eventually operational Galileo satellites in space to 16 by the end of 2014.
Previously, ESA had aired plans to continue with Soyuz-borne IOV launches in 2012, but the schedule announced in Munich did not mention these.
In 2015, two more Ariane 5 launches will add eight satellites, for a total on orbit of 24, estimated to be sufficient for Galileo full operational capability.
In subsequent talks with European satellite manufacturers OHB Systems and Astrium, GPS World contributing editor Don Jewell was told that the future launch schedule is “subject to change.”
ESA has made no official announcement of a detailed launch schedule; inquiries regarding the Benedicto remarks were referred to the February contract statement, cited above.
The 37th Annual Time and Frequency Metrology Seminar will be held June 5-8, 2012, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado. Don Jewell, GPS World’s contributing editor for Defense and PNT (positioning, navigation, and timing), will be attending.
The Time and Frequency Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology is offering the course on understanding clocks, oscillators, atomic frequency standards, RF and optical synchronization, optical oscillators, quantum information, optical cooling and heating; making precise frequency, time, phase-noise, and jitter measurements; and establishing measurement accuracy and traceability. This four-day course is the most comprehensive available, organizers say.
The 2012 Seminar will include lectures in direct-digital PM noise measurements, how to specify frequency uncertainty, oscillator needs for new radars and surveillance systems, GPS vs. other global navigation satellite systems, photonic (laser-based) oscillators, chip-scale atomic clocks, femtosecond laser dividers, active PM-noise reduction techniques in oscillators, millimeter-wave applications and noise measurements, and ultra-low noise amplifier design techniques.
The 37th Annual Time and Frequency Metrology Seminar will be held June 5-8, 2012, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado. Don Jewell, GPS World’s contributing editor for Defense and PNT (positioning, navigation, and timing), will be attending.
The Time and Frequency Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology is offering the course on understanding clocks, oscillators, atomic frequency standards, RF and optical synchronization, optical oscillators, quantum information, optical cooling and heating; making precise frequency, time, phase-noise, and jitter measurements; and establishing measurement accuracy and traceability. This four-day course is the most comprehensive available.
The 2012 Seminar will include lectures in direct-digital PM noise measurements, how to specify frequency uncertainty, oscillator needs for new radars and surveillance systems, GPS vs. other global navigation satellite systems, photonic (laser-based) oscillators, chip-scale atomic clocks, femtosecond laser dividers, active PM-noise reduction techniques in oscillators, millimeter-wave applications and noise measurements, and ultra-low noise amplifier design techniques.
It wasn’t quite a call to arms, but Bill Ford, head of Ford Motor, called on the wireless community to work with car makers to avoid global gridlock and create a future of “urban mobility,” a network that will track vehicles and automatically instruct cars to change lanes, exit a road, or park. Vehicle connectivity was one of the major themes of the Mobile World Congress, held in February in Barcelona. For some of us, it brought up memories of the PATH automated highways project of the 1990s. You have likely seen photos of that prototype automated highway with platoons of driver-less vehicles riding on I-15 in southern California. The vision has changed, and we are headed towards autonomous, connected vehicles and away from the specialized, and prohibitively expensive, infrastructure that defined earlier efforts.
By 2020, 90 percent of cars will have mobile connectivity, compared to 10 percent today, predicts Machina Research in a study funded by the GSMA. The industry is aflutter with connected activity. Sprint Nextel is partnering with Chrysler Group’s Uconnect voice-activated vehicle communications system that enables Sprint phones to connect to the vehicle’s audio system. The Ford Sync will be available to European customers. The Family Locator from TCS will be incorporated in connected vehicles.
Smartphones Overtake Feature Phones. For the first time, close to half of Americans own smartphones, edging out feature phone ownership, reports the Pew Internet and American life project. According to its report, 45 percent of adults identify themselves as smartphone owners, compared to 41 percent who identify as feature phone owners. There was a notable increase in smartphone ownership by almost every demographic group, including men and women, younger and middle-age adults, urban and rural residential and wealthy and lower-income people.
Apple Grown Maps. For a year, there have been signs that Google was developing its own mapping and navigation service. Apple has acquired digital mapping companies and listed licenses from many third-party location service companies. 9to5Mac reports that Apple’s mapping contract with Google expires at the end of 2012, and hasn’t yet been renewed. The just-released iPhoto application uses Apple-grown mapping, and not Google.
Disappearing Ovi. Nokia is closing down the Ovi Share media sharing site to focus on offerings by its location and commerce division, dedicated to building consumer-centric social location products and applications, as well as platform services and local commerce solutions. Services include Nokia Drive, Nokia Maps, and Nokia Transport.
Gambling Geo-Fence. In the U.S., online and mobile gambling is only legal within the state of Nevada. The location of the mobile user must be determined to ensure she is within state boundaries. Locaid Technologies is the first company to meet all the requirements of the Nevada Gaming Control Board to certify the location of a mobile gambler. Locaid uses geofencing to build virtual, digital perimeters around the state of Nevada and reports it can “prove that a user is physically with a mobile device, and whether the person is located within Nevada state borders, across any major carrier mobile network — whether the mobile device is indoors or outdoors, GPS-enabled or not, and whether the device is a smartphone, feature phone, or laptop computer.”
February Black Friday. Shopkick announced results of an experiment to create a one-day boost in foot traffic at partner retail stores using holiday tactics during a non-peak shopping period. “We asked a simple question: What if retailers could create Black Friday shopping behavior any day of the year that they wanted?” said Cyriac Roeding of shopkick. The company reports that by doubling the incentives they deliver via smartphone, none worth more than a dollar, their retail partners experience double-digit increases. Retail partners include American Eagle, Macy’s, Old Navy, and Best Buy.
Effectiveness of Mobile Shopping Apps? Smartphones are increasingly used for shopping, researching products, comparing prices, and finding retail locations. Nielsen metered the smartphones of 5,000 U.S. volunteers during the 2011 holiday shopping season. Nielsen’s analysis reveals that retail websites are more popular than retail apps. Both genders prefer retailers’ mobile websites over mobile apps. The top retail apps and websites combined were Amazon, Best Buy, eBay, Target, and Walmart, and reached nearly 60 percent of smartphone owners during the end of 2011.
What Was Ford Thinking? In his Mobile World Congress address, Bill Ford, great grandson of Henry, warned that unless the wireless and automotive industries find a solution, global gridlock could one day become a “human rights issue.” In addition to working to end torture, does Mr. Ford think that Amnesty International should pursue the issue of vehicle traffic mitigation?
Green Dot Corporation, a provider of banking and payment solutions, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Loopt, a social location-based service that connects people.
Green Dot indicated that the acquisition will provide a number of key strategic benefits that are expected to improve customer acquisition and retention of its current prepaid debit card products, drive the adoption of new banking and payment products targeted to new segments of consumers, and provide the opportunity for Green Dot to become a leader in mobile wallets, rewards and payment solutions at retailers nationwide, the company said.
Furthermore, Loopt holds several patents that are applicable to mobile marketing in the context of location-based messaging delivered real-time to a mobile handset. Green Dot believes that these patents will be important strategic assets as it pursues its mobile business opportunities.
“We believe that mobile phones have the potential to change the way people interact with their bank, control their money and pay for goods and services,” said Steve Streit, Chairman and CEO of Green Dot. “Loopt has innovative mobile technology, market leading mobile programming capabilities and compelling intellectual property. Meanwhile, Green Dot has a large customer base, a robust enterprise-level financial services infrastructure and retail point-of-sale financial transaction capabilities deployed at major retailers nationwide. When Loopt’s assets are layered into Green Dot’s platform, we believe that a significant opportunity emerges for Green Dot to become a large-scale player in mobile technology solutions at the retail point of sale.”
Loopt co-founder and CEO Sam Altman stated, “It’s been exhilarating to see mobile become such a critical part of our collective daily lives. As this technology truly reaches the masses, I believe we’re going to see the banking and payments industry fundamentally reshaped in a way that’s better for everyone. My team and I look forward to being part of this transformation and are eager to bring cutting edge mobile banking and payment solutions to Green Dot’s retail partners and Green Dot’s millions of current and future customers.”
Upon closing of the transaction, Loopt’s current headquarters in Mountain View, California, will become the new Silicon Valley hub for Green Dot’s mobile technology and product development team.
Green Dot will pay total consideration of $43.4 million in cash for the company, which includes approximately $9.8 million to be set aside as a retention pool for key Loopt employees. Green Dot expects this transaction will result in approximately $14 million of incremental operating expenses during the remainder of this year which will reduce the Company’s previously guided 2012 full year adjusted EBITDA accordingly. This amount includes the above mentioned retention payments, ongoing salaries and benefits for retained Loopt employees, wind-down expenses of current Loopt services and other expenses associated with the costs of integrating Loopt’s technology into Green Dot’s operating infrastructure.
Millennial Media, provider of mobile advertising, announced that mMedia, its newest self-service mobile solution, has emerged from private beta to full release.
Within mMedia, developers and advertisers will be able to reach more than 200 million global mobile users via Millennial Media’s advertising platform, according to the company. mMedia complements Millennial Media’s full-service mobile advertising solutions, renowned for their scale across multiple regions of the world.
mMedia allows mobile app developers, franchises, and small or independent businesses to utilize mobile as a strategic piece of their marketing strategy. mMedia campaigns can be set up quickly, and advertisers will have access to a comprehensive dashboard that puts them in control of bids, creative, targeting, and more, the company said.
“mMedia extends our mobile ad platform to developers and advertisers who are looking for a complete self-service solution,” said Chris Brandenburg, Co-Founder and CTO, Millennial Media. “Whether their goals are to monetize an app or to promote a business, the technology behind mMedia helps our developer and advertiser partners unlock the power of mobile and drive results that will scale their businesses.”
In addition to traditional mobile targeting methods, mMedia includes a self-service hyper-local targeting feature. Advertisers can draw a virtual fence around their desired targeting area to deliver zone-based advertising with ease. Once drawn, the advertiser’s ads will reach users within that designated area.
Developers can now access mMedia through the same portal they currently use to monetize their mobile applications and sites.
Facebook is opening new APIs and documentation to developers, enabling the creation of third-party applications that allow consumers to add friends and location data directly from whichever app they’re currently using. “We’re introducing several improvements to the Facebook Platform that allow people to do all of the things they can do in a status update,” software engineer Alex Wyler writes on the Facebook Developer Blog.
Location and friends information can now be added as properties to any photo, link, or status written from an app, which Wyler calls “similar to the functionality a user has when they add a photo or updates their status.” To enable the new features, Facebook is issuing APIs and documentation to set location and tag friends on posts via Open Graph social discovery loop actions or with stream publish stories; apps can also leverage improved search for places, including optional latitude, longitude and distance parameters as well as support for finding posts from friends around a place.
“We have added familiar controls for managing tags,” Wyler adds. “New users select the audience they would like to share their app activity within the app permissions dialog. Users can choose to feature, hide, or route these stories for tag review.”
In addition, developers working with Facebook Open Graph can now build apps that display large, user-generated photos and playback video in a user’s Newsfeed and Timeline.
Since the Facebook Platform developer toolset expanded to mobile devices late last year, recommendation tools and Newsfeed updates are responsible for sending more than 60 million visitors every month to apps and games. Mobile visitors were responsible for more than 320 million visits to mobile apps in January 2012, Facebook adds. At February’s Mobile World Congress 2012 event, Facebook CTO Bret Taylor announced the social networking giant is now partnering with mobile operators across the globe to introduce streamlined billing practices enabling users to charge mobile web application transactions to their monthly wireless bill.
“Facebook and mobile phones were made for each other,” Taylor said. “At Facebook, we don’t think of our mobile products as an alternative interface. We think of [mobile] as the natural Facebook experience.” Taylor added that Facebook’s mobile experience is “the platform [co-founder and CEO] Mark Zuckerberg would have built” if today’s devices and networks had been available when Zuckerberg began constructing the social network in his Harvard University dorm room eight years ago.
