Most startup founders dream of being the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg. Ijad Madisch, [...]]]>

Most startup founders dream of being the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg. Ijad Madisch, the co-founder and CEO of science network ResearchGate — a five-year-old service that has just announced a new round of venture funding — has rather different ambitions.

“When I first met [board member and partner at Benchmark] Matt Cohler, he asked what I really wanted to do,” he says.” I explained that my goal is to win a Nobel Prize.”

And he’s not kidding. The Harvard-trained virologist and computer scientist put a fast track medical career on hold in order to concentrate on building a website that he hopes can change the face of science. The reason is simple.

“I was on my way to becoming a professor, I’d published a lot,” he tells me, speaking from the company’s headquarters in Berlin. “But I noticed that I wanted more. Sure, I could be changing one discipline, but I wanted to change more than that… and I think if you can make it easier to share research, then it can change the world.”

In the simplest terms, ResearchGate is referred to as “Facebook for scientists” — a social network where professional researchers can share their work, communicate with each other and ask questions. But because it focuses on sharing knowledge, rather than activity, it’s probably got more in common with the likes of Quora or Stack Overflow.

And it’s proven very popular, with 1.4 million users from around the planet, sharing ideas and talking to each other about their work in fields from biology to physics to social science. By asking questions of each other, scientists are able to identify the academics who can help them, and perhaps avoid constantly reinventing the wheel.

“People tend not to share information on experiments that didn’t work,” says Madisch. “It means we end up making mistakes that other people have made already.”

The ability to learn from each other is what has driven ResearchGate’s popularity — and that popularity is something that has convinced investors including Founders Fund, which has just formally announced its participation in a series B round. Although the amount of money is not being disclosed, it comes on top of previous funding from the likes of Benchmark and Accel.

They all see value in a service that can capture the collaborative trend in a huge industry that — by and large — remains stuck in silos.

Online collaboration in science may still be in its infancy, but it is a powerful, growing trend — driven by the same technologies that underpin social networking and business collaboration. In a story last year, I spoke to several people who were at the cutting edge of ‘open science’, a loose movement trying to break down some of the barriers and take advantage of the online tools now available.

The internet, now an indelible part of our lives, allows like-minded individuals to seek one another out and share vast amounts of raw data. Researchers can lay claim to an idea not by publishing first in a journal (a process that can take many months) but by sharing their work online in an instant.

And while the rapidly decreasing cost of previously expensive technical procedures has opened up new directions for research, there is also increasing pressure for researchers to cut costs and deliver results. The economic crisis left many budgets in tatters and governments around the world are cutting back on investment in science as they try to balance the books. Open science can, sometimes, make the process faster and cheaper, showing what one advocate, Cameron Neylon, calls “an obligation and responsibility to the public purse”.

And given the trillions of dollars pumped into scientific research each year, it is perhaps no surprise that investors think ResearchGate is on the threshold of a major opportunity. But still, there is a serious question about how the site makes the sort of money that venture funds require — a point made recently in a piece in The Economist which dubbed Madisch “Professor Facebook.”

At the moment, most of those users are in their 20s. Their favourite activity is to ask each other questions about practical research problems, from DNA-sequencing techniques to statistical tricks. They are also busy reading each other’s papers: more than 10m have been uploaded.

Scientists whose reputations are established may be more hesitant, though, and not just because they are set in their ways. Science is not only about collaboration but also about competition. This limits what people are willing to share.

Board member Simon Levene, who is a partner at Index Ventures but put independent money into the company in the previous funding round, says that he sees a great opportunity to shake things up.

“The reason I fell in love with ResearchGate is that, in my opinion, the market for academic research in science is broken and ripe for disruption,” he says. “The dream of the web for Tim Berners-Lee was to allow researchers to collaborate, but the irony is that it hasn’t worked out that way.”

Madisch accepts that not everybody is convinced — many scientists simply refuse to share their knowledge, since they need to boost their own careers in order to receive funding. But like any good researcher, the 31-year-old relies on data to back up his response. Yes, the user base is young, but it’s skewing older as time goes on.

And then he pulls out a piece of anecdotal evidence to show precisely what he means.

“When I started ResearchGate, I was in Germany and my professor — 62 years old and a distinguished academic who has published more than a thousand papers — wouldn’t let me divide my time between research and the company,” he says. “He didn’t believe that scientists would do this, that they would share their ideas and answer questions about their work.”

“Six weeks ago I noticed that he’d signed up for ResearchGate.”

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When serial entrepreneur Martin Varsavky launched Fon in late 2005, his goal was to blanket [...]]]>

When serial entrepreneur Martin Varsavky launched Fon in late 2005, his goal was to blanket the world with easily-accessible, crowdsourced WiFi. While the service hasn’t quite made it everywhere yet, Fon has just announced that they now have over 5 million hotspots in operation across the globe.

It’s a pretty impressive number considering that other big WiFi networks like Boingo advertise “over 400,000” hotspots in their network, but it’s made even more notable when you consider each of Fon’s hotspots is essentially a person who decided to share their own internet connection.

The signup process is a novel one — in order to access the full list of Fon hotspots out there, users have to share their own internet connection first with the help a special wireless router. Non-sharers looking to get their own wireless internet fix can take part in the fun too, but it comes at a cost — they have to pay a fee in order to access a Fon hotspot, part of which ends up with the hotspot’s owner.

Much of Fon’s growth can be attributed to strategic partnerships with companies like SFR, British Telecom, and Belgacom, all of whom have folded support for Fon’s network into their consumer-facing hardware. With other partnerships in the works, Varsavky says on his blog that he expects Fon’s growth to continue unabated:

“This year, I predict that Fon will grow its number of hotspots by at least 50 percent, so there is lots of work ahead to make sure this happens.”

Yelp is ready to hit the marketplace with a $100 million IPO on March 2, [...]]]>

Yelp is ready to hit the marketplace with a $100 million IPO on March 2, and both investors and the tech community will be watching to see how the location network will fare.

While the numbers are certainly nowhere near Facebook IPO territory, Yelp has proven itself over the long haul with steady user and revenue growth since 2005. But despite the upward climb, Yelp has yet to turn a profit, posting a net loss of $16.8 million in 2011 — its biggest shortfall to date. It’s presumed public investment will garner Yelp the capital it needs to finally get into the black.

SEE ALSO: How 9 Tech Giants Traded After Going Public [INFOGRAPHIC]

Our friends at Statista have aggregated Yelp’s financial history and created the infographic below for a clearer picture on where the company has been, and where it might be headed.

Do you think buying stock in Yelp is a sound investment? Does the site have what it takes to stave off other up-and-coming location networks? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Infographic courtesy of Statista.

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Apple Store in Shanghai

The fight over whether Apple has the right to sell the iPad [...]]]>

Apple Store in Shanghai

The fight over whether Apple has the right to sell the iPad in China continued Wednesday in Shanghai, China’s most populous city and one of the most important places for Apple doing business in the country. Chinese manufacturer Proview wants to ban the iPad from all stores in Shanghai over a trademark dispute. Apple’s lawyers argued that it is in China’s national interest to keep iPads on the market.

Apple contends that Proview is trying to dispute a trademark and remove a product for sale even though it has no alternative product. ”Proview has no product, no markets, no customers and no suppliers. It has nothing,” one of Apple’s lawyers told the court, according to Reuters.

Proview Technology, a manufacturer of flatscreens, launched a tablet called IPAD in 2000 and registered the trademark. In 2006, Proview Electronics, which shares a parent company with Proview Technology, sold Apple the use of the IPAD name, but the companies are at odds over whether Apple is covered to sell the devices everywhere in China market. Proview is also in some deep financial straits, so it is probably to be expected that it is offering Apple a deal: Proview says it will settle the case for about $1.6 billion.

Apple wants to continue the fight. Here’s Apple’s official statement:

 “We bought Proview’s worldwide rights to the iPad trademark in 10 different countries several years ago. Proview refuses to honor their agreement with Apple in China and a Hong Kong court has sided with Apple in this matter. Our case is still pending in mainland China.”

Apple lost this argument in lower courts in China, including a ruling back in December. Proview has since broadened its case, and asked last week that the iPad not be shipped in or out of China.

Though not being able to sell in Shanghai — Apple has three stores in that city alone — would be a a huge setback, not being able to ship the devices, which are made in China — would be a bigger blow to the iPad business. China is the second-largest market for Apple, and the company’s expansion there in the last year has been a huge boon to its bottom line. But Apple’s argument of how important the iPad is to China too is undeniable.

Apple’s lawyer in Wednesday’s proceeding put it this way: “Apple has huge sales in China. Its fans line up to buy Apple products. The ban, if executed, would not only hurt Apple sales but it would also hurt China’s national interest.”

The Shanghai court has not yet issued a ruling on the matter.

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At the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona later this month, LG will introduce the [...]]]>

At the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona later this month, LG will introduce the Optimus Max 3D smartphone (PDF). The Google Android 2.3 handset will continue the company’s push towards using 3D technology to differentiate its phones from competitors. That strategy has yet to see a reward, however, as LG slashed smartphone sales estimates by 20 percent in the middle of 2011. The company didn’t hit its revised overall handset sales estimate of 114 million devices either: Research firm Gartner estimates LG sold 86.3 million phones in 2011.

On paper, it sounds like the Optimus Max 3D has most of the right specifications to compete in the mid-range market, even without 3D capabilities on the 4.3-inch display, which is limited to 800 x 480 resolution; something we’ve seen on phones for two years now. LG chose TI’s OMAP 4430 chip; a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor to power Android 2.3, and later, Android 4.0, which LG says will be available soon after the phone launches in Korea and Europe.

Other key specifications include support for 21 Mbps HSPA+ networks, HDMI output in 2D and 3D to an HDTV set, 8 GB of internal storage, integrated NFC chip, and a 5 megapixel dual lens camera. The 3D functionality includes a 3D converter feature, allowing users to convert Google Earth, Google Maps and other road views into a 3D image.

For a select few that have embraced 3D imagery, the Optimus Max 3D could appeal. But for most consumers, 3D is still considered gimmicky on a handset; it’s simply not enough to create a hit handset. I like that LG is trying to break out from the pack, but it could be better served by taking an Apple-like approach — something that Samsung successfully did with its original Galaxy S — and devote resources towards one great handset model that appeals to a wider audience.

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Where Turntable.fm offered a new spin on going clubbing, Berlin-based service wahwah.fm is a modern [...]]]>

Where Turntable.fm offered a new spin on going clubbing, Berlin-based service wahwah.fm is a modern take on the pirate radio concept — with the advantage that it’s more mobile and legal.

The app, which is launching today on iTunes Germany, turns every iPhone into a social radio transmitter: users can create web radio stations based on their iPhone libraries, listen to other people’s stations, message those people and list broadcasts as Facebook events.

And crucially, they can only listen to what the DJ is playing at the time. They can look back through that person’s playlist history to get an idea of what to expect, but they don’t know what’s coming up. This promises a live and serendipitous experience, but it also makes dealing with the music industry a damn sight easier.

“Today technology allows us to have social networking, to know what others are listening to, but when it comes to mobile it hasn’t happened so far,” CEO Philipp Eibach told GigaOM. “This has been the basic observation, but finding ways to do this from a technical and licensing side is tricky.”

Right now, the service is iPhone- and Germany-only. But the app’s reach will expand by region before it goes onto more platforms: the U.S. will get its turn around the time of SXSW, with the UK and France coming next. An Android version will emerge sometime in the second half of the year, and there are plans to address the Windows Phone platform after that.

As any digital music provider will be able to attest (yes, Spotify, that’s you), rolling out across multiple countries is a world of hurt. Record labels like to maintain a complex international web of separate arrangements, and cross-territorial licensing is not in their DNA.

Wahwah.fm hopes to skirt this issue by having partnered with U.K.-based 7digital as its music provider. Tough luck for those hoping to stream their own recordings on their stations – although wahwah.fm hopes to include this functionality in the future, for now the app simply finds what music the user has in their iPhone library and offers up whatever matches 7digital’s thankfully hefty catalogue.

The advantage of this approach is that 7digital, not wahwah.fm, takes over most of the haggling with the labels. Wahwah.fm still has to bargain with a few record companies, but its main dealings are with various countries’ collection societies — and because its streaming is not on-demand, the company considers itself to be a radio service, and it intends to pay royalties on that basis.

“We definitely want to go worldwide as soon as possible,” Eibach said. “Taking the radio-licensing approach makes it easier to bring it to other countries – you don’t have to negotiate with each label for each country.”

The company has had quite a bit of backing from the German old guard. It originally came out of Telekom Laboratories and the company, founded in 2010 by Eibach, got early funding through Deutsche Telekom’s Entrepreneurs Program. Wahwah.fm also completed a funding round in November that was led by the venture capital fund of SAP co-founder Hasso Plattner.

Income, for now, mostly comes from location-based marketing. The company offers labels and music retailers their own stations, along with the opportunity to target users in a specific place when a new album is coming out there.

But more location-based advertising is on the cards, as are in-app purchases that could let users customise the appearance of their channels or send out push notifications inviting people to listen in.

As for future updates, wahwah.fm told GigaOM it intends to upgrade the app with live audio capabilities, so users can provide on-air-style links between their tracks. A gamification element may also be added at some point, rewarding users for broadcasting for a certain number of hours or gaining a target number of followers.

This is technically wahwah.fm’s second app in the iTunes store, as the company briefly tested a “pre-version” last year. But unfortunately for those who enjoyed the way that version used Soundcloud as its music source, that functionality is not found in the new iteration.

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If you want to see what your friends or contacts are up to, you can [...]]]>

If you want to see what your friends or contacts are up to, you can check out Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram for a realtime feed. But what if you want to read news about your friends? That’s a little bit trickier, which is why Newsle was born. Axel Hansen and Jonah Varon created the site in early 2011 as a way to find out more about what their friends and people they met at school were up to during the summer, and beyond. At the time, Hansen and Varon were sophomores at Harvard, but they’ve since taken leave and have moved to San Francisco to focus on Newsle full-time. (Sounds like a familiar story, doesn’t it?)

At conception, Newsle mostly focused its efforts on becoming an archive for interesting (older) news about friends and people you care about. (You can read Erick’s early coverage here.) But, in testing the idea with its some 10K beta users, the founders discovered that it turns out most people have friends who are in the news every single week. And this doesn’t just apply to those in the tech industry, nearly everyone has an acquaintance or five that appear in local papers, blogs, and beyond.

The startup’s beta users wanted a better way to keep track of their friends, loved ones, and contacts popping up in the news in realtime. So, Newsle has been heads-down in stealth mode for the past nine months building technology to enable this kind of news-based friend-tracking, and the new version officially launches today.

In its new garb, Newsle has basically built a massive RSS feed crawler that processes more than 100K news sources every day, culling together over 1 million articles from major media outlets, blogs, as well as local publications. The startup allows you to then pull your Facebook friends and LinkedIn contacts into its engine so that it can serve you a stream of news content that focuses on the people you want to stay in touch with. Users can then Facebook message or tweet the people they’re following directly from Newsle’s web interface. Or they can drill down, set more specific alerts that get sent to their inbox daily, weekly, and so on.

Users can not only follow their Facebook and LinkedIn friends, but also choose from a list of celebrities, comedians, actors, and business people, staying on top all news related to Lady Gaga. It sounds a little stalker-ish, but it’s a great tool for, say, startups looking to keep tabs on VCs, or for my many fans to keep track of my posts. (You’re welcome!) The founders tell us that they really wanted to pick up where Google Alerts leave off, focusing on friends and people we care about.

As Erick pointed out, if Newsle sounds familiar, it’s because the idea has been tried before in various incarnations, most notably Rohit Khare and Samil Ismail’s now-defunct Angstro, which eventually morphed into Knx.to to be later acq-hired by Google. Previous attempts haven’t been successful, but Newsle has a great UI to recommend it, works well, and looks snappy.

Obviously, tackling the enormous amount of news content out there on the Interwebs is no easy feat. The service will really live or die based on how relevant the content is that it serves to its users. Right now, since quite a few other TechCrunch writers are my friends on Facebook, Newsle is serving me their posts on TechCrunch, but if you’re looking for news about those people, and not written by those people, that could be a strike against. It’s no easy thing to separate the equivocating metadata or profile information that comes with bloggers’ news posts.

The founders have been hard at work creating and fine-tuning these disambiguation algorithms that allows Newsle to, among other things, distinguish between commonly occurring names in the news and those who are actually your friends. With so much content coming into its silo, that can be tricky.

But that’s where funding can come in handy. Newsle is officially announcing today that it raised $600K in seed financing from Lerer Ventures and SV Angel. The startup is using its new capital to hire engineers to help in tweaking its algorithms, and to launch mobile apps (which should be going live in the near future).

Newsle is still early in the process and hasn’t yet solidified its monetization strategy, but one can imagine that a service like this would be appealing to businesses, especially to marketers and sales people. The founders also said that they will add further local news sources as more users come on board, and they get a better sense of which particular outlets are most in demand.

While the goal has really been just to build an open-ended resource that allows people to track news about their friends, it also wouldn’t be surprising to see the startup eventually offer more targeted, subject-specific content and tracking.

For more, check out the new, new Newsle at home here, and let us know what you think.

Welcome to this morning’s edition of “First To Know,” a series in which we keep [...]]]>

Google’s Heads-Up Display Glasses

Google plans to launch glasses with a tiny heads-up display that will stream real-time information about the surroundings into the wearer’s field of vision, the New York Times reports. The glasses will cost approximately as much as a typical smartphone, and we could see them on the market by the end of 2012.

EU Court to Rule on ACTA

The European Commission has asked the European Court of Justice to rule on the controversial anti-piracy agreement ACTA, the BBC reports. Though the agreement has already been signed by the U.S., UK, Japan and several EU countries, Germany, Denmark and Bulgaria have postponed the signing, fearing the document might be detrimental for their citizens.

The European Commission said it “decided today to ask the European Court of Justice for a legal opinion to clarify that the ACTA agreement and its implementation must be fully compatible with freedom of expression and freedom of the Internet.”

Samsung Galaxy S II Coming to US Cellular

Samsung’s flagship Android smartphone, the Galaxy S II, will be coming to US Cellular “soon” for a price of $239 on a two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate. The 4.5-inch device sports a 1.2 GHz dual-core CPU, an 8-megapixel shooter and 16 GB of storage.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, DNY59

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