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- Tesco Buys E-bookseller Mobcast For $7.2 million As It Squares Up To Amazon And B&N In The UK
- Y Kant Junior Fbricate Smiknduktrs: Tinkermite Tablet Teaches Kids The Basics Of Hardware Design
- Watch Out, Big Dog: Swiss University Builds An Improved Quadrupedal Robot
| Tesco Buys E-bookseller Mobcast For $7.2 million As It Squares Up To Amazon And B&N In The UK Posted: 04 Sep 2012 03:40 AM PDT  Another development in the UK market for e-readers, tablets and e-books as Amazon and Barnes & Noble move closer to launching more of their services and devices in the UK and Europe: the retail giant Tesco has purchased Mobcast, a digital bookseller co-founded by pulp fiction writer Andy McNab. Tesco tells TechCrunch that the price of the acquisition is $7.2 million. Tesco notes that Mobcast has a catalog of some 130,000 books, but the main idea behind this acquisition for Tesco, already one of the biggest booksellers in the UK, will be to give Tesco its own digital book distribution platform, including cloud-based storage for the books. “They provide excellent end-to-end service, from injecting the material from publishers all the way to retail to customers,” the spokesperson told TechCrunch. One of the big benefits of Mobcast, which first entered the market in 2007, is that it is available across all major mobile platforms. Tesco also already sells the Kindle from Amazon among its wide range of other consumer electronics. The deal comes on the heels of Tesco buying movie and TV streaming service blinkbox in 2011 and internet radio service WE7 in June 2012. “We want our customers to have the widest choice in digital entertainment. We are already one of the UK's largest booksellers and Mobcast will help us offer even more choice for the large and growing number of customers who want to buy and enjoy books on their digital devices whenever and wherever they want,” said Michael Comish, CEO Tesco Digital Entertainment, in a statement announcing the deal. Mobcast co-founder and CEO Tony Lynch (understandably, given how huge Tesco is) points to how this will give Mobcast much wider exposure in the UK market: "We are delighted the products that Mobcast has developed will now be used to introduce the joys of eBook reading to more book lovers in the UK,” he said. Given that the site was co-founded by bestselling author McNab, it seems like a perfect fit for Tesco, a purveyor of mainstream titles. McNab highlights the cloud-portability element of the deal: “As an author I always thought the ability to carry your library around and read on all your personal devices would be a huge benefit to all. We have developed a product that makes this possible, and being acquired by Tesco ensures that this original vision will be available to as many people as possible.” What’s not clear is how this deal will affect existing business for Mobcast, which works with operators like Singtel, Everything Everywhere (T-Mobile and Orange in the UK) and Nokia to power e-bookstores. Nor is it clear yet when Tesco will integrate all of its current catalog on to the Mobcast site, and whether the platform will be used for more than just books. Or whether the acquisition will mean that Tesco will preload the app on to devices that it sells, rather than simply using it as a part of its already-extensive e-commerce operation, which includes online ordering and delivery of groceries, electronics, and much more, which it uses to complement a massive, Walmart-style physical operation. We are asking Tesco and Mobcast about these details and will update as we learn more.
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| Y Kant Junior Fbricate Smiknduktrs: Tinkermite Tablet Teaches Kids The Basics Of Hardware Design Posted: 03 Sep 2012 12:10 PM PDT  Modern parents will recognize the dilemma: we want our children to learn about hardware engineering and design at birth but we don’t want them using soldering irons until they can keep their heads upright and/or develop gross motor skills. What’s a parent to do? Enter Tinkermite, a Kickstarter project aimed at offering the wee ones the opportunity to understand the rudiments of mobile phone design without an advanced degree in telecommunications technology. The toy consists of a small puzzle featuring phone parts like the battery, CPU, and memory chips as well as a front draw-and-wipe screen so the little ones can pretend they’re using Dad’s iPad. Creator Jacob Sullivan designed the toy after realizing kids could learn basic electronics concepts alongside the traditional educational toys. So we began to think about barnyard animals, and began to wonder about the perspective of a baby. If you are a baby and didn't know anything about anything … is it really any harder to learn the names, shapes, and colors of barnyard animals than it is to learn about computer parts? Or do we start teaching our kids the same ideas our parents gave us, because those are the ideas their parents gave them? The Tinkermite will cost $50 and they’re $3,000 into a $15,000 pledge so there’s a small chance this might not make it. After all, parents know all too well that kids don’t want fake phones. My kids have been sliding to unlock since before they were born, I’d be curious to see what they make of this wooden tablet. However, if your little Alexandra Graham Bell is interested in sucking on some non-toxic wooden memory chips, this may be just the treat.
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| Watch Out, Big Dog: Swiss University Builds An Improved Quadrupedal Robot Posted: 03 Sep 2012 11:33 AM PDT  Big Dog is the huge quadrupedal robot that stomped its way into our hearts a few years ago with its wild gait and hydraulic whine. Now, however, there’s a new Dog in the mix, the StarlETH, a smaller robot made at ETH Zurich. This guy may be tiny but he’s uniquely suited to running through and over obstacles and in environments that Big Dog may not be able to tackle. This wee robot can right itself if it falls and runs at 1.5 mph. It also handles obstacles a bit better than Big Dog and has improved hip movement. You can see it fall below – it has active and passive damping so it can either right itself in one motion or bounce around a bit to fix its gait. Starl stands for Series Compliant Robotic Leg and is designed to handle multiple terrains and environments. It’s a bit small right now but scaling this monster up should give Big Dog a run for its money.
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