Wednesday, January 22, 2014Media Temple Moving Entirely To Solid State DrivesLos Angeles-based web hosting provider Media Temple -- which was recently acquired by GoDaddy -- said it is moving its flagship hosting platform over to solid state disk drives. According to the company, its hosting platform, the Grid, will be completely off spinning drives by the end of January, a move that the company has been making over the last six months. Media Temple has been in the process of moving to SSDs since last year.
posted on Wednesday, January 22, 2014(Full story)
UST Global Buys Testhouse Consultores S.A.Aliso Viejo-based UST Global, an international provider of IT services, said this morning that it has acquired Spanish company Testhouse Consultores S.A., the Spanish arm of UK-based Testhouse Limited.
Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. UST Global said the move will help it shorten its time-to-market in Spain. UST Global says it currently has more than 14,000 employees internationally.
posted on Wednesday, January 22, 2014(Full story)
Metacloud Snags Google ExecPasadena-based private cloud provider Metacloud announced today that it has hired on Conner Grey, the former head of Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) at Google for Southern California, as its new VP of Operations. Metacloud--which helps companies deploy enterprise scale, private clouds based on OpenStack--said that Grey will be responsible for heading up its scalability efforts and architecture. Metacloud said Grey had been at Google for the last decade, and also has served at Yahoo!, Earthlin (More info...)
posted on Wednesday, January 22, 2014(Full story)
NearWoo Connects With Google DoubleClickSanta Monica-based NearWoo said today that it has linked up with Google's DoubleClick Ad Exchange, allowing its 4,000 local mobile advertisers to access the ad inventory on DoubleClick. According to NearWoo, the deal gives its local mobile advertisers access to the sites, apps and games where Google delivers it mobile ads. NearWoo's customers include small businesses like plumbers, nail salons, and dentists, who use NearWoo's service to help attract local customers. NearWoo was originally part o (More info...)
posted on Wednesday, January 22, 2014(Full story)
How Tillster Is Unifying Your Restaurant ExperienceThe world today is going increasingly digital, to such a degree that even quick serve and fast casual restaurant chains are eager to connect with consumers online, via smartphone, and even in their stores--so that they can better get to know you, market to you, and encourage you to visit. To help them with that, Los Angeles- and San Diego-based Tillster (www.tillster.com), which until recently was known as EMN8, has been developing a wide range of technology in the area. The company's President (More info...)
posted on Wednesday, January 22, 2014(Full story)
Lynda.com Bolsters Executive TeamCarpinteria-based online education company lynda.com announced this morning that it has bolstered its executive team with four new hires. According to the site--which offers up online, video-based training courses on a wide range of software and other subjects--it has hired Alex Zivoder as VP and Managing Director, EMA, Shveta Mujumdar as VP of Corporate Development, Ken Sandy as VP of Product, and Michael Lydon as VP of Technology Operations. Zivoder was previously at Viagogo, and also served a (More info...)
posted on Wednesday, January 22, 2014(Full story)
Snapchat Ramps Up Security With Captcha FeaturesVenice, California-based Snapchat seems to have learned its lesson from its recent security breach, and has proactively added a new CAPTCHA feature -- asking new users to select images containing its trademark ghost to prove they are human, and not a machine when creating an account. The new feature rolled out Tuesday. The move comes after the company was embarassed by a major exposure of its users using software which would randomly input phone numbers into its "Find Friends" feature to link us (More info...)
posted on Wednesday, January 22, 2014(Full story)
BuyAutoParts.com Gets $18.6M In Private Equity AcquisitionSan Diego-based online auto parts retailer BuyAutoParts.com has raised $18.6M in funding, the company said Tuesday. The funding round came from Gladstone Investment Corporation and Gladstone Capital Corporation. According to the online retailer, the funding included $13.0M from Gladstone Investment, with the remainder from Gladstone Capital, giving it an ownership of a portion of BuyAutoParts.com. Specific ownership percentages were not announced. BuyAutoParts.com offers up new, aftermarket new, (More info...)
posted on Wednesday, January 22, 2014 (More)(Full story)
CheckAlt: More Than $4 Billion Processed In 2013Los Angeles-based CheckAlt, the check and payments technology company headed by Shai Stern, said late last night that it processed over $4 billion dollars in transactions in 2013. The company did not say how that translates into revenues for the company. CheckAlt offers up Check 21 processing, mobile payments, services for financial institutions and financial services firms, and other related offerings. The company offers up its payments services to banks, credit unions, and businesses, allowing (More info...)
posted on Wednesday, January 22, 2014(Full story)
Intuit Dangles Up to $200 For TurboTax ReferralsIntuit said this morning that it is offering up to $200 in Amazon gift cards for referrals to its TurboTax online tax preparation service. Intuit--which runs its TurboTax unit out of San Diego--said it will give customers $10 for every friend they refer to TurboTax for online tax preparation, up to $200. Intuit says it already has 26 million customers for the online tax preparation service.
posted on Wednesday, January 22, 2014(Full story)
Broadcom Powers Haier Smart AppliancesIrvine-based Broadcom said today that its wireless Internet chips are being used as part of a new line of smart appliances from Haier. According to Broadcom, Haier is using its Wireless Internet Connectivity for Embedded (WICED) platform for a number of smart appliances, including Internet-connected an air conditioner, wine cooler, refrigerator, water heater and washing machine. All of those appliance connect via WiFi and Bluetooth into systems for home appliance control. Financial imapct of the (More info...)
posted on Wednesday, January 22, 2014(Full story)