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Loom Lets You Sync & Store Your Photos In The Cloud, Save Space On Your Devices
Loom, the new cloud storage and syncing service emerging from the ashes of Y Combinator-backed Popset, is today opening its doors, and heading into beta. Though the company’s long-term vision for Loom is to offer users and developers a better alternative to Apple’s iCloud, the app that’s launching now on Mac and the iTunes App Store is only the first step. It allows users to sync their photos to Loom’s cloud storage, so they can delete the hundreds or thousands eating up space on their iPhone or iPad’s Camera Roll or computer hard drive.
When Loom first announced its plans in May, co-founder Jan Senderek had explained that the team had realized they were trying to solve the wrong problem with Popset – people weren’t struggling to share photos with groups, they were in search of better tools to organize and manage their photo libraries. Chief among users’ complaints were their sometimes overwrought routines for backing up their phone’s photos – syncing to their computers or external hard drives, syncing through iTunes, and then losing too much room to store photos on their smaller MacBook SSD drives, for example.
With Loom, the idea is users can sync their photos to the cloud, and then access them on any device – that’s also what iCloud promises, of course. But Senderek claims that consumers still find iCloud confusing – especially because Photostream appears like another album in the Apple Photos app.
The Loom iOS app is more straightforward in its design than Apple’s Photos. After signing up for Loom, users can start uploading their photos to its cloud, where they receive 5 GB of free storage. Photos can also be quickly organized into albums in Loom – you just title the album then swipe your finger across the photos or videos you want to include.
Meanwhile, on Mac, Loom creates a folder that automatically syncs with your account, like Dropbox does, and it can automatically download the photos, videos, and albums you create with your phone or tablet to this folder for easy access. You can also check off your “Photos” folder and others, in order to have those files added to Loom as well.
Saving Storage Space
Though not visible to end users, Loom’s space-saving technology is what makes the app interesting.
“We take every photo in its original size, upload it to the server, and as soon as it’s uploaded, we create multiple versions that are smaller than the original that we store alongside the original,” explains Senderek. “That makes the experience of loading photos on multiple devices much faster, and we can also store 200 times more photos on a mobile device than before.”
Users can’t tell the difference between the smaller versions of the files when viewing the photos on their iPhones. The resolution on iPhone 5 photos is 11 times larger than the screen of the iPhone 5, notes Senderek. Once the photos are in the cloud, you can then go into your iPhone Camera Roll and delete photos to free up space. (Loom can’t do this for you because of Apple’s restrictions.)
Within Loom, there are also simple tools for sharing photos, too. Currently, you can email, text or grab a link to the photos you want to share, but sharing to social networks is not available. Senderek claims that omission is by design. “We want to give users a feeling this place is safe…that your photos are yours,” he says.
The company plans to add full support for videos in the future, which will also make use of similar technology to make the file sizes smaller. When videos are played back, the stream will start at low resolution, then switch to medium and high-resolution when it has buffered enough – similar to the experience users have with Netflix, for example.
Though Loom’s technology may be its differentiating factor, consumers will likely view it as an alternative to Dropbox, so it’s worth noting that’s Loom’s price points are a little lower.
Pricing
Loom’s business model comes into play after users surpass their initial 5 GB of free storage (which I did on my first upload, as it turns out). A 50 GB plan is $39 per year, while $99 per year will give you 250 GB. Dropbox, meanwhile, offers 2 GB for free (though up to 18 GB is available if you refer friends), and Dropbox Pro is $99 per year for 100 GB, $199.00 for 200 GB, and $499.00 for 500 GB.
But Loom doesn’t just compete with Dropbox, it’s also up against other freemium services like Flickr or 500px, as well as free photo sharing sites like Google+ Photos and Facebook (yes, this is why people don’t quit it, despite their whining). Both of these services also have apps that can automatically upload photos to a private album in the cloud with no user interaction.
Senderek, however, doesn’t believe that social networks are the ideal solution. Every time you upload something you have to go through a decision-making process about what or who you’re going to share with, he says. Plus, those services run on ads, which not everyone cares for either. “I don’t think that’s what people really want. They want a simple, straightforward solution that is for one thing only – storing and accessing,” he says.
Loom is launching now, but the beta rollout is taking place over the course of several days. Initially, several thousand users may be allowed in – including those already on the waitlist – as the service needs to be careful able scaling since every user will be creating gigabytes of data upon first use. The Loom app is available here in the iTunes App Store and here for Mac.
Google Pays $600K To Give Free Wi-Fi To 31 San Francisco Parks
31 San Francisco playgrounds, plazas, recreation centers, and parks are getting two years of free Wi-Fi thanks to a $600,000 gift announced by Google today — with no strings attached. Pending approvals, installations could start in November and be done by April 2014. The gift is designed to empower citizens and community groups, and serve as a pilot for city-wide free Wi-Fi.
Six years ago, San Francisco, EarthLink, and Google tried to set up a Wi-Fi network for the whole city, but Mayor Gavin Newsom, the Board of Supervisors, and the companies couldn’t agree on a contract. The program was derailed partly because of public and officials’ fears that these tech companies would profit. The initiative announced today in conjunction with SF’s Department Of Technology and Ron Conway’s sf.citi includes no plan for Google to make money.
Google’s $600,000 gift will pay for equipment, installation, and maintenance of the wireless network for two years. After that it’s unclear what will happen, but if the public’s reaction is positive, Google’s gift could pave the way for a wider Wi-Fi. Google has paid for limited Wi-Fi networks in neighborhoods of New York and Boston, and also set up a paid fiber-optic network in Kansas City.
The San Francisco program could help recreation centers improve their infrastructure from existing dial-up connections and make it easier to sign up kids for summer camps. Citizens without connections at home could travel to the parks to access the Internet. And for the tech community, it could make leaving the office to work from Mission Dolores Park, Justin Herman Plaza, Marina Green, or Civic Center Plaza a lot easier.
The press conference for the announcement begins shortly, and we’ll have more details and and comments from public officials soon
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Here’s the full list of public areas gaining free Wi-Fi in San Francisco, via the SF Chronicle:
Alamo Square, Balboa Park, Bernal Heights Recreation Center, Boeddeker Park, Chinese Recreation Center, Civic Center Plaza, Corona Heights, Crocker Amazon Playground, Duboce Park, Eureka Valley Recreation Center, Gene Friend Recreation Center, Hamilton Recreation Center, Huntington Park, Joseph Lee Recreation Center, Justin Herman Plaza, Margaret S. Hayward Playground, Marina Green, Minnie and Lovie Ward Recreation Center, Mission Dolores Park, Mission Recreation Center, Palega Playground, Portsmouth Square, Richmond Recreation Center, St. Mary’s Recreation Center, St. Mary’s Square, Sue Bierman Park, Sunnyside Playground, Sunset Playground, Tenderloin Recreation Center, Upper Noe Recreation Center, Washington Square
MobileSpaces Raises $8.6M From Marker LLC, Accel To Boost Enterprise Mobile Security
One of the complaints I often hear from VCs here in Silicon Valley is that there just aren’t enough enterprise mobility startups. Clearly, with employees bringing their own devices to work in lieu of company issued Blackberries and Apple now dominating the enterprise tablet market with 88 percent of activations, there’s a market opportunity here.
Silver Spring, Maryland-based MobileSpaces is one of the few companies attacking this space and they’re raising an $8.6 million second round of funding from Marker LLC and Accel Partners. (Accel has been in a few other enterprise mobility deals like 3LM, which sold to Motorola back in 2011. They previously led MobileSpaces’ $3 million Series A with partner Rich Wong joining the board.)
MobileSpaces secures mobile apps and covers the 1.5 million apps available in both Apple and Google’s stores.
They use proprietary application virtualization technology to create a secure workspace where employees can use any mobile app — whether it’s a custom, public or built-in one.
IT administrators of companies can create policies for workspace use of each of these apps. They can remotely deploy applications, whitelist specific ones for company use and remotely remove or wipe apps from employees’ phones.
Within that workspace, these enterprise apps can run natively just like consumer ones while their data gets secured and isolated. IT managers can set up of copy and paste restrictions to prevent data leakage, separate a file system, prevent personal apps from using enterprise data and remotely wipe company data.
MobileSpaces’ technology creates a divide between the personal data of employees and corporate data. The company says that other mobile device management competitors only typically allow for employees to use a handful of apps, while MobileSpaces covers the full range of apps available in the two major stores. The company has a pretty experienced team as well with co-founder David Goldschlag formerly serving as McAfee’s vice president of mobile.
A.Manzoni & Fils Crowdfunds A Bit Of Haute Horlogerie
After the success of timepieces like the Bradley, it’s no wonder watchmakers are turning to crowdfunding to get their products out the door. The latest example is something called the A.Manzoni & Fils Canopus, a very nice automatic moonphase calendar watch made by the creator of Ikepod, Oliver Ike, and designer Ilkka Suppanen.
Ikepod is best known for its pod-like design and is very well known in the world of fancy watches. Ike is an important figure in watchmaking and this watch, which is very definitely in his style, is a major work. The timepiece has some amazing, Ikepod-inspired styling and a solid Soprod A10 movement. The overall goal is to reinvigorate the brand A.Manzoni & Fils, a watch company that fell on hard times during the quartz crisis and closed in 1978. To be clear, this is a common MO for watch designers who often buy up old brands to lend their new watches an air of credibility.
Now here’s where the world of high-end watches and Kickstarter bargains diverge. The watch itself requires a pledge of $5,000 which is on par with an automatic, Swiss-made watch with a solid movement and very unique case. I can’t fault the company for asking for so much simply because of the work involved in grinding a curved crystal and building a usable, steel case with such a bulbous shape.
Then things get weird: for $1,250 they want to send you a fruit bowl. For $875 you get a credit card holder. For $175 you get a handmade wooden bookmark. While I understand Ikepod has a solid following – primarily abroad, as evidenced by the Japanese translation on the Kickstarter site – it’s pretty tough to swallow that brand loyalty will be high enough to encourage people to pick up a wooden stick for two bills.
In my other like I rail endlessly against the ridiculous things watchmakers do and, while I agree that $5K isn’t bad for a watch, the suggestion that Kickstarter folks will settle for a $1,200 fruit bowl is ludicrous. Fools and money, however, are soon parted because they’ve already sold two limited edition (of 8,888) jeweler’s loupes for $200. They’ve hit $90,000 out of an $850,000 goal, a number that I’m almost certain they will reach – Ike is that good.
Regardless, it’s fascinating that such an éminence grise in the watch world is turning to Kickstarter. There are plenty of watches (and plenty of scams) on the site and that this watch, which would normally go through standard distribution channels and end up costing $8,000, is appearing online signals a crack in the icy heart of the watch industry. In fact, fruit bowls aside, that Ike did this at all is a good thing.
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