Hasta La Gadget!

The folks at Yahoo have made another purchase this week with the group known as Xobni, here aiming for Smarter Contacts in a rather basic way. With this service, Yahoo will expand its current app user base with email and social services, taking expertise from the development team at Xobni for what must be assumed to be their own already-developed apps. This sort of acquisition is one of those made more for the talent, rather than the app the developers have in play.

With Xobni, Yahoo racks up a total of two (that we know of) businesses that they’ve acquired in so many days. This trend isn’t new – they’ve been collecting startups and small groups of developers and services for several months now – and we bet you can guess who’s behind it all. Earlier this week they purchased a group known for their short-movie sharing and power to take on Vine.

That same app – Qwiki, it’s called, was seen by former Google higher-up Marissa Mayer. As Mayer is now the CEO of Yahoo, she’s seen this and a variety of apps like it as powerhouses worthy of being picked up by this original search giant. With her aim to pick and choose some of the most powerful up and coming names in the app universe, Yahoo is positioned well for growing from without.

At the moment, according to Xobni itself, most of its services are about to be done for – or at least sucked up into Yahoo in full.

“Xobni is no longer accepting new purchases of premium products. This includes Xobni Pro, Xobni Enterprise, Xobni for Teams, the Xobni Salesforce Gadget, and the Xobni JIRA Gadget.”

The full collection of licenses for services with Xobni will continue through July 2nd, 2014 – one year from now – while “Premium Support” for the full set of apps and services will continue “throughout the duration of your premium subscription.” Nice of them, yes?

Yahoo acquires Xobni for address book boost is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Several Israeli news agencies are reporting that Korean electronics giant Samsung purchased set-top box company Boxee today. The Tel Aviv-based company apparently got less than the $30 million it was reportedly seeking, thus coming up at a loss since being founded in 2007. Boxee’s approximately 40 employees are said to be staying on, including president Avner Ronen. A Boxee rep tells Engadget “We can’t comment on the accuracy of those reports.” Samsung has not yet responded to our inquiries, but we’ll update this post as we learn more.

Update: TechCrunch is also confirming the acquisition, and cites its own “reliable sources.”

Update 2: Samsung confirmed the acquisition to us this afternoon. A Samsung statement reads, “Samsung has acquired key talent and assets from Boxee. This will help us continue to improve the overall user experience across our connected devices.”

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, Software, HD, Samsung

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Source: Calcalist, The Marker

This week the folks at Quiki have confirmed that they’ve been acquired by Yahoo, the latter company aiming to make use of the former’s video sharing app environment. That said; if you’re able to keep track of all the clever names for companies aiming for mobile glory these days, you deserve a gold star. Quiki will make Yahoo a real competitor for top spot in mini-video sharing if they keep with the aim of the original app, that’s for certain.

What you’re seeing here is an app that you may have seen appear back at the tech event TechCrunch Disrupt 2010. It was there that then-Googler Marissa Mayer was a judge of apps and digital creations of all kinds, and here that she, now CEO of Yahoo, aims to pick it up.

This app works with filters for video captured by smartphones that are then shared with friends in iOS. At the moment you can have a peek at this app on your iPhone, iPad, or camera-toting iPod touch, and we can imagine an Android app coming up quick as well (especially with Yahoo’s recent efforts in dominating the mobile landscape with apps galore).

“Have you ever listened to an old song and all of a sudden a favorite vacation, concert, or summer memory pops into your mind? The Qwiki app automatically turns pictures and videos that you already have on your iPhone into quick, beautiful movies to share, including transitions and a soundtrack.”

Inside the app you’re also – at the moment – able to edit video, add soundtracks, transition between clips, and generally go wild in making what’s captured as boring into something exciting. Yahoo’s capture of such an app will certainly also be giving Flickr a boost, one way or another.

UPDATE: it would appear that NYC Mayor Bloomberg likes this team a whole lot, as well – almost like a boost for a vote!

“Qwiki is a great example of the momentum in New York City’s booming tech sector,” said Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. “While the company was started out west, they relocated here to be a part of our surging tech community… We congratulate them on their partnership with Yahoo!, and hope they continue to grow and thrive in New York City.”

Have a peek at Quicki on your iOS device now and stick around as it becomes clear what Yahoo intends to do with it. It might be smart to keep out of love with this app as it stands today, as all good things transform once acquisiton terms have their say.

VIA: Tumblr (another recent Yahoo acquisition); Engadget

Yahoo acquires Qwiki to battle Vine with video sharing is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Bell tried to shake up the Canadian media landscape last year by acquiring Astral Media, but it ran into a CRTC-sized roadblock — regulators didn’t want 25 TV stations moving to one provider. After some big concessions, however, Bell has received approval to buy Astral for $3.2 billion. The revised deal gives Bell control of 12 channels that include The Movie Network, HBO Canada’s owner. Bell is offloading some important TV content to move forward, though. Corus gets several recognizable channels that include the Cartoon Network and Teletoon, while big stations like Disney XD and MusiquePlus are on the auction block. Not that Bell will complain too loudly when the buyout closes on July 5th, mind you. The merger still gives it 35.8 percent of the English Canadian TV market and 22.6 percent of its French Canadian equivalent, or enough to immediately eclipse rivals like Rogers and Quebecor.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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Via: Variety

Source: Astral Media

And with that, Dish is (seemingly) out of the running: following a decision to back away from buying Sprint, the satellite TV giant has also withdrawn its bid for Clearwire. The company is bowing out due to a “change in recommendation” at Clearwire — in other words, shareholders now prefer Sprint’s recently sweetened offer. Between that and Sprint’s lawsuit, we’re not expecting Dish to make another acquisition attempt, especially when Softbank’s acquisition of Sprint (and thus Clearwire) could close in a matter of weeks.

Filed under: Wireless, Mobile, Sprint

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Via: Bloomberg News (Twitter)

Source: Dish