Hasta La Gadget!

The Yahoo acquisition train just keeps on rolling! Rockmelt, the social browser news portal social content discovery service will be joining a growing cadre of properties that Marissa Mayer has snatched up. The platform, which seems to straddle the line between Pinterest and StumbleUpon, focuses on personalization and social networking as a way to highlight and serve up content it believes you’ll want to read or watch. Yahoo, especially through its homepage portal, has always been about serving up content, and the expectation is that Rockmelt will help the company better hone its understanding of you and what you love. The announcement post makes it clear that Yahoo plans to actually integrate Rockmelt’s technology with its existing platform, though, we’re gonna have to wait a bit longer to see exactly what that marriage may look like. Rockmelt will shut down its existing apps and services on August 31st this year.

Filed under: Internet

Comments

Source: Yahoo, Rockmelt

Apple has been known to acquire small startup companies every now and then, and well they’re usually nothing to write home about, this one is particular interesting. The Cupertino-based company has acquired Locationary, a location data company that relies on crowd-sourced information for real-time data.

While Apple has declined to comment on the acquisition and what it plans to do with the new resources, it’s no doubt that the buyout will go towards improving Apple Maps, which experienced a dismal launch when it was released alongside iOS 6 last year. The company is continuing to make improvements, but it seems they’re wanting to add a bit more to it.

It’s possible that the Locationary acquisition may be the chance for Apple to put control of the Maps app into the users hands. Seeing as how Locationary is like a Wikipedia for local business listings, Apple could rely on its users to input points-of-interests and other landmarks to keep their maps up to date.

Apple could also make their Maps app a bit more like Waze, with crowd-sourced traffic information that Apple users could submit. Of course, this method isn’t entirely foolproof, but it’s treated Waze well, and it gives you a real-time look at travel information as you drive. Apple hasn’t been to open to the crowd-sourcing trend, so the likelihood of something like this happening seems pretty low. However, Apple has never been without surprises, so a crowd-sourced Apple Maps could be in the works in some way, but we’ll ultimately have to wait and see what happens.

SOURCE: AllThingsD

Apple acquires Locationary for crowd-sourced Maps improvement is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

AT&T has announced that it will be acquiring Leap Wireless for the hefty sum of about $1.19 billion, something that will bring the prepaid service Cricket under its ownership. The move still needs to be approved by regulators, but one source who spoke to The Wall Street Journal states that there are “pretty good” odds it will go through.

The announcement was made by AT&T today, with the carrier paying $15 per share for the company, more than double its current stock price of $7.98 per share. Leap Wireless is currently the sixth largest company in the industry, while AT&T holds position as fourth out of the four major U.S. carriers. Such a merge, as many have pointed out, will further centralize the wireless carriers in the country.

Leap Wireless currently has in excess of 5 million subscribers, all of which will be transitioned under AT&T’s wing if the merger goes through. As part of the acquisition, the buyer will be taking over Leap’s wireless spectrum, boosting its 4G rollout, as well as the carrier’s retail stores and its substantial $2.8 billion worth of debt.

In addition, AT&T will be retaining the Cricket name while giving those users access to its 4G network, as well as expanding service under Cricket to additional US markets. Overall, Leap will bring with it spectrum that covers approximately 137 million people in the US, which is said to be “largely complementary” to what it already has.

Such a move comes at a time when other carriers have been involved in various acquisitions, such as T-Mobile US taking over MetroPCS earlier this year, as well as SoftBank Corporation nabbing Sprint Nextel. Presently, AT&T has about 107 million subscribers.

SOURCE: Android Community

AT&T purchase of Leap Wireless brings Cricket under new ownership is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

SoftBank today announced the completion of acquisition of the America’s 3rd-largest mobile carrier, Sprint Nextel Corporation.

SoftBank spent $21.6 billion to gain 78% of the new Sprint’s shares. In accordance with the transaction, Sprint has been renamed Sprint Communications, Inc., and Masayoshi Son, Chairman & CEO of SoftBank became Chairman of the Sprint Corporation.

SoftBank said that they plan to invest approximately $16 billion in new Sprint for their LTE network during the next 2 years to make them competitive with Verizon and AT&T.

When Astrid was acquired by Yahoo in May, it warned us that its task management service would close within 90 days. Today, it has a more specific date: customers have until August 5th to export any data they can’t afford to lose. Astrid suggests alternative services like Any.DO, Sandglaz, Wrike and Wunderlist for those who want to import their tasks and pick up where they left off. The firmer schedule won’t ease the pain for Astrid loyalists, but it should prevent any rude surprises in the weeks ahead. Check out Astrid’s email to users after the break.

[Thanks, Alex]

Filed under: Cellphones, Internet

Comments

Source: Astrid, Sandglaz, Wrike