Author: David Lux

Just weeks after snapping up TweetDeck, Twitter has acquired social analytics start-up BackType. The company’s main product, BackTweets, has helped companies like AOL and Microsoft understand the influence of their tweets. BackType has also been in the midst of developing Storm, a new data-processing tool that the company calls the “Hadoop of realtime processing.” “Joining Twitter gives us the opportunity to bring insight to tens of millions of publishers around the world that are using Twitter to communicate and connect with their audience,” BackType wrote in a blog post. “We’re also…

In the wake of the Google Plus launch, Google’s online photo-sharing service Picasa has received a mild overhaul, including improved tagging and unlimited storage for photos and video. The update looks to be another blow to Yahoo’s Flickr, one of Picasa main rivals. Users uploading content through Google Plus will automatically be adding to Picasa. However, those same uploads will not count toward the service’s storage limits. Exceptions include videos lasting longer than 15 minutes or photos beyond 2048 x 2048 pixels. Larger photos can still be uploaded directly to Picasa, but doing…

The future of aviation was on display at the recent Paris Air Show. Many concepts at the show featured super-fast speeds and low emissions, but one concept, the VoltAir, stood out for its zero-emission, all-electric propulsion technology. As powerful as it is efficient, the VoltAir will be powered by a pair of advanced li-ion batteries beneath its nose, which send power to a pair of co-axial, counter-rotating propellers shrouded at the rear of the aircraft. It’s expected to be far quieter than traditional combustion engine aircraft. Although its innovative propulsion system would radically…

Skype has become a popular app for the iPhone, bringing video calling to millions of mobile users. Now the service appears to be heading to Apple’s iPad very soon. After accidentally leaking a video of the new product, Skype confirmed that it’s preparing an iPad app, but has yet to provide a release date. The leaked video shows a very polished product which looks just about ready for release. The app will benefit from the iPad 2’s large screen size and camera, but it will feature much of the same functionality of mobile and desktop clients. One item that’s missing is file sharing, and that’s…

Electric vehicles are finding buyers, even while range anxiety persists. But those that worry about their vehicle suddenly running out of electricity while driving need not worry, as AAA has you covered. AAA has just announced the addition of EV mobile charging units to its roadside assistance operations. The organization is starting off with just six units in select states in August. Each of these charging units should be well-equipped to handle the needs of most electric vehicles, and will feature Level 2 chargers and super-fast Level 3 chargers that can power up a car in a matter of minutes….

Loopt has announced a new service that’s essentially a reverse Groupon, allowing users to get custom deals made on demand. The geo-social app company believes u-Deal will be able to turn a merchant’s best customer into its biggest advocate. And, since the service empowers consumers to create the deal, it’s far less obtrusive than Groupon, which provides daily deals for places you’ve never been to, or may never want to go. u-Deal gives users the ability to create a deal and get friends to sign up for the deal. Finally, Loopt sends the deal to the business for approval. This is a unique system…

Although Tumblr has only been around for about four years, the microblogging platform now hosts most blogs than Wordpress.com. As recently as January of this year, Tumblr was home to just 7 million individual blogs. However, that number has ballooned to more than 21 million blogs today. While Tumblr’s growth has always been impressive, it hasn’t come without pitfalls. Last December, Tumblr experienced a monumental crash, causing the site to be down for approximately 24 hours. Since then, the company has focused almost entirely on scaling. New features were put on hold as Tumblr hired executive…

Advances in mobile search are now leading to changes in desktop search. On a mobile phone, users can search using their voice or by using a picture. Now that same functionality is available on desktops to get even faster results. Voice Search on mobile devices has been around since 2008, but at the Inside Search press event in San Francisco today, Google announced that Voice Search will now be available on the desktop. Voice search has become so common on mobile devises that it’s only natural to bring that functionality to the desktop. Google says that Voice Search is especially helpful for long…

At the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco this week, Apple introduced iCloud, a set of free new cloud services that work with applications running on numerous devices automatically. In addition to being able to send content to iCloud automatically and wireless from your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac, the service also works with your PC. iCloud’s robust features could make it a game changer as it takes on competing offerings such as Microsoft’s Office365 and Google’s Small Business Apps. Users can sign up for iCloud for free on an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch running iOS 5 or…

Ford has an innovative solution to reduce car accidents and curb congestion. Combining technologies like WiFi, GPS, and radar-based safety features, vehicle-to-vehicle communications systems can be used to create intelligent vehicles that wirelessly “talk” to each other and warn of possible hazards. “Intelligent vehicles are the next frontier of collision avoidance innovations that could revolutionize the driving experience and hold the potential of helping reduce many crashes,” said Sue Cischke, group vice president, Sustainability, Environment and Safety Engineering….