Game Golf in funding phase, tracks your round shot by shot on iPhone and more

Anyone for tee?

There have been plenty of gadget golfing aids over the years, from laser pin finders and GPS positioning navigators to RFID golf balls you can find in the rough. However, few, if any, will help you improve your actual game. They serve different functions, sure, but when you're out on the course, it really is down to you.

Game Golf, a device currently seeking backing on crowd-funding site Indiegogo, is different in that it works much like a Fitbit or Nike Fuelband. It tracks your game in play and provides thorough statistics on each round so you can see what it is you need to do to improve.

The Game Golf GYG device straps to your waist, while you also get a set of tags, one to attach to each club. Before you are about to take a shot, you tap the club to the receiver and away you go. Game Golf then builds a complete picture of every shot and every location you visited on the course. And that includes the bunkers, although not the tree you had a sneaky widdle behind.

There's NFC, Bluetooth, GPS, a compass, an accelerometer and a gyrometer built in. It has a USB port to connect it to a PC or you can hook it up to an iPhone (not sure about Android) to read the data on the Game platform.

The stats can show you what club you perform best with, your hitting distances, accuracy, the lot. You can even upload the results to Twitter or Facebook. We probably won't be doing that ourselves. Not with our average scores.

You can even create challenges for your friends to participate in, such as driving distance. And the Game Golf has been tested by Lee Westwood and Graeme McDowell.

Considering that part of the development team is based in Galway and two British golfers have been involved in some capacity, you'd expect it to be available in the UK and/or Ireland at some point. However, the funding process is only open to US backers at present, it seems. Initial backers can get the device for $149 (normally $249) and it will be available in America from July.

Hopefully, once its funding goal is reached, we'll have more news on availability this side of the pond.

You can check out the Game Golf on Indiegogo at indiegogo.com.

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Tags: Sports Golf Game Golf Indiegogo iPhone

     

Game Golf in funding phase, tracks your round shot by shot on iPhone and more originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Tue, 05 Mar 2013 15:06:00 +0000

Source: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/50240/game-golf-funding-tracks-iphone

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Yammer CEO David Sacks: Here's How I Avoided Getting Crushed By Salesforce.com (CRM, MSFT)

It's cheaper than ever to launch a startup. And a theory of running companies inexpensively, known as the Lean Startup movement, has gotten popular.

Yammer CEO David Sacks, who raised $142 million from investors before selling his business-collaboration company to Microsoft last year for $1.2 billion, isn't a fan.

"I'm not a believer in the lean-startup theory once you get traction," Sacks told interviewer Jason Calacanis at the Launch Festival conference in San Francisco. "That's fine when you're throwing things against the wall and seeing what sticks. But once you know it works, you've got to pour gasoline on the fire.

"That's why we kept raising money. I said, 'We've got to expand as much as possible, we've got to hire in sales.'"

Yammer debuted in 2008 at a previous startup-launch event organized by Calacanis. One of the judges evaluating Yammer was Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who declared on the spot that he wanted to buy the company.

Sacks didn't sell, and Salesforce went on to create its own collaboration service, Chatter, that was very similar to Yammer. It launched in 2010.

"It's easier than ever for people to copy you," Sacks said. "Marc Benioff saw us on stage, and he said, I'm going to do that.

"When we first launched Yammer, it was easy to copy. It had been developed in nine months with less than 15 people. If a big company had moved fast enough, they could have crushed us. We moved fast to add ... depth to the product. Salesforce copied Yammer 2008. We were on to Yammer 2010."

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/52IPs9XsMrM/yammer-david-sacks-survival-strategy-2013-3

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BII REPORT: Inside The Mobile Showrooming Threat That's Changing The Retail Industry

The practice of “showrooming,” or viewing an item in a retail store and then buying it online, has brought the e-commerce threat directly to bricks-and-mortar retailers. 

Mobile raises the showrooming threat to a new level since price comparisons are available to shoppers immediately, as they make decisions and browse e-commerce websites in stores.

In a new report from BI Intelligence, we analyze mobile showrooming's influence, examine the various different types of consumer behavior that make up showrooming, look at what the big retailers are doing to combat showrooming, and identify the five broad strategies that will help brick-and-mor ter retailers win business from showroomers. 

Access The Full Report By Signing Up For A Free Trial Today >>

Here's a brief overview of the impact of showrooming: 

• It has a massive impact on every day sales: Deloitte Digital believes smartphones influenced $159 billion in U.S. store sales over the course of 2012 or 5% of the total, and will influence $689 billion of store sales in 2016.
• Holiday season sales are particularly impacted by showrooming: IDC predicted that smartphone use influenced between $700 million and $1.7 billion in U.S. holiday season retail sales in 2012. Fifty-nine million U.S. shoppers will use their smartphones to showroom in 2013. 
• Specific retailers, such as JC Penney, suffer more from the practice: A recent study revealed that JC Penney — which just announced a disastrous 32% decline in same-store sales for the fourth quarter of 2012 — is at risk from showrooming because showroomers visited its locations 14% more frequently than the average U.S. shopper did in January 2013. Other chains like PetSmart and Kohl's had even worse results.
• Dramatic responses underscore the threat: U.S. electronics retailer Best Buy announced last month that starting March 3, 2013, its stores would match the prices of 19 major online competitors, including Apple, Amazon, and Buy.com. Target also has a price-matching policy in effect. 

In full, BI Intelligence's report on Mobile Showrooming:

• Analyzes mobile showrooming's influence
• Examines the various different types of consumer behavior that make up showrooming
• Look at what the big retailers are doing to combat showrooming
• Identify the five broad strategies that will help brick-and-morter retailers win business from showroomers.

To access BI Intelligence's full reports on Mobile Showrooming, sign up for a free trial subscription here

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/-m7NMEEHRC0/bii-report-mobile-showrooming-threat-2013-3

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Startup Canada Aims to Kickstart Canadian Startup Scene

It’s not too often that you find anyone talking about the American startup scene. Rather, entrepreneurial loyalty lies with “the New York startup scene” or “the Chicago startup scene” or sometimes “the Midwest scene.” But Canada is different. With a smaller startup scene that gets less press, the whole country has a sense of brotherhood:...

The post Startup Canada Aims to Kickstart Canadian Startup Scene appeared first on Tech Cocktail

Source: http://tech.co/startup-canadacanadian-startup-scene-2013-03

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MSI's mid-range S30 laptop is coming to Europe for 699 euros, we go hands-on (video)

When we first heard MSI was showing off a device at CeBIT called the S30, we assumed it was the successor to the S20, the company's first Windows 8 Ultrabook. Alas, though, it's not quite an Ultrabook, and it's certainly not as well-specced a system as the S20. What we have instead is a 13-inch thin-and-light, one that's headed to Europe for €699 and up. To start with a quick rundown of the specs, it comes either a Core i3 or i5 processor, along with 4GB of RAM and a variety of storage options, with the best one being a 500GB / 64GB SSD combo.

Oddly, that 1,366 x 768 display doesn't support touch -- a surprise given the price, and given that other machines in its class do include that feature. At least the touchpad seems to do a capable job of handling all the various Windows 8 gestures. Finishing up our tour, that 23mm-thick chassis (a bit too thick by Ultrabook standards) is wide enough to accommodate an Ethernet jack, along with HDMI-out and a VGA socket. Only one USB 3.0 port (plus one 2.0 connection) seems a bit stingy, though. In any case, enjoy our hands-on video, and maybe even stay tuned for a closer look at that S20 Slider.

Gallery: MSI S30 hands-on

Filed under: Laptops

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/06/msi-s30-hands-on/

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Cocktail dispensing robot wins our hearts and petrifies our livers

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Source: http://www.stuff.tv/news/life-etc/news-nugget/cocktail-dispensing-robot-wins-our-hearts-and-petrifies-our-livers

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Cluster: Share Photos after a Group Outing

San Francisco startup Cluster launched its free iPhone app yesterday to help friends and family share photos after experiences like a party or dinner. You start an album by uploading a bucket of photos and inviting other friends to collaborate. Cluster detects the date and location of those photos, and automatically recommends to your friends...

The post Cluster: Share Photos after a Group Outing appeared first on Tech Cocktail

Source: http://tech.co/cluster-share-photos-for-groups-2013-02

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