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$8m to be pumped into Mexico’s startup ecosystem as NXTP Labs and naranya*LABS team up

May06
by on May 6, 2014 at 4:30 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider, Latin America

Argentina-born seed fund and accelerator NXTP Labs has joined forces with Mexico-based seed fund and mobile-focused corporate accelerator naranya*LABS to create a new early-stage fund that will invest at least $8 million in Mexico (disclosure: NXTP Labs is an investor in my company, MonoLibre). The announcement was made today in Miami during the first edition of the eMerge Americas conference. Part of the fund will come from public funding granted by Mexico’s National Entrepreneur Institute (INADEM). According to Naranya Ventures’ managing partner Pablo Salazar, the $8 million will be used to invest in 48 startups in Mexico, while also covering follow-on…

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Google debuts Classroom, a free Apps for Education tool to help teachers create and collect assignments

May06
by on May 6, 2014 at 4:20 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Google, Insider

The Google logo is seen at the Google he
Google today launched a new free tool called Classroom as part of its Google Apps for Education suite. In short, Classroom helps teachers create and organize assignments, provide feedback to their students, and communicate with their classes. Google says Classroom, which is still in preview, is based on the principle that “educational tools should be simple and easy to use” and is designed “to give teachers more time to teach and students more time to learn.” Here is what the company is promising the tool will offer: Create and collect assignments: Classroom weaves together Google Docs, Drive and Gmail to…

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Google Maps turbo-charges turn-by-turn directions on iOS and Android and gets Uber transit option

May06
by on May 6, 2014 at 4:16 pm
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, Google, Product Updates

Google Maps Returns To Apple's iPhone
Google Maps for iOS and Android were updated today with a bevy of new features designed to make travelling just that little bit easier. For starters, the app will now tell you which lane you need to be in as you drive along the freeway. That way you’ll know how to avoid traffic, but also make sure you don’t miss that all-important turning. Furthermore, Google says you’ll have “easy access” to alternate routes while you’re driving, so you can easily find another avenue when you’re caught in an unexpected traffic jam. Storing maps for offline use has always been an…

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Why large tech companies are hopping on the app ‘unbundling’ trend

May06
by on May 6, 2014 at 4:05 pm
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, Insider, Investigations, Social Media

messenger_android_3
Recently, Google split up its Drive apps into three separate standalone apps: Sheets, Slides, and Docs. Facebook separated its chat offering, Messenger, into its own standalone app, and Foursquare broke its app in two to launch Swarm, an app focused on social mapping. A strategy that all of these large tech companies share: the conscious uncoupling of products colloquially called unbundling. The unbundling of technology is the act of breaking something into smaller parts – whether that’s a product, service, piece of content or app. In the case of Foursquare, Facebook, and Google, however, this unbundling was all about streamlining the app…

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Time.is takes its uber-accurate atomic clock app to iPad

May06
by on May 6, 2014 at 3:56 pm
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, Insider

Time.is has launched an iPad version of its uber-accurate, online time-keeping ervice. For the uninitiated, Time.is displays the time for your chosen location, rather than the time according to your computer or tablet’s clock. The server which hosts Time.is is synchronized to atomic clock time, which is about as accurate as you can get – Time.is claims to be accurate down to ±5 milliseconds which, admittedly, is more accurate than most people will need. You can manually add any number of locations to the main homescreen, and it lets you swipe between the various cities.     If you’re already a…

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