TechCrunch
Red Pitaya Lets You Measure All The Things
As a wannabe science nerd I’ve always been fascinated by oscilloscopes, wave generators, and sensors of all types. Sadly, because of my inability to add simple figures (even with a calculator) nobody ever let me play with their lab equipment. That’s about to change.
Red Pitaya is a Slovenian-born sensor system that can turn any computer into a real lab-quality tool. To be clear, you have to be pretty smart to use it but, out of the box, the board acts as an oscilloscope, spectrum analyzer, waveform generator, and a frequency response analyzer. The group responsible is also building an open source “app store,” called the Bazaar, where users can grab programs to use with the board.
It has a dual core ARM Cortex chip on board and features two analog inputs and two analog outputs as well as four lower-speed I/O ports. It supports Ethernet and includes a Micro SD slot.
Clearly this is some hacker-grade stuff and if you don’t know what you’d do with a Red Pitaya you’re probably not the right market. However, given the $299 price tag and unique functionality, it would be definitely interesting for, say a hackerspace or educational environment. They are looking for $50,000 and have already raised $6,000 and, I suspect, there will be quite a bit of demand for this thinger. It’s rare to see something this powerful available for, what I assume, is a pittance so it may be worth picking up a few, if only so you can finally get your hands on a darn oscilloscope.
This Is The Moto X
Meet Motorola’s next flagship smartphone: The Moto X. Reportedly assembled in the great state of Texas, nearly every aspect of the phone has leaked prior to the phone’s official unveiling on August 1st. @evleaks and The Unlocker have steadily been releasing everything about the phone. The X’s case, its specs, and even its nearly-stock Android experience have hit the Internet the last few days.
And it’s a damn good-looking phone.
There’s a lot riding on this phone. After Google acquired Motorola in the summer of 2012, Samsung tightened its grasp on the Android smartphone market. Motorola is in a distant third, trailing even behind imploding HTC. Motorola and Google need a killer device that will appeal to mainstream customers. That’s the Moto X. At least both parties hope so.
Motorola seems to be pulling out all the tricks for this phone. It’s customizable, allowing owners to order the phone with different colored Kevlar backplates. The phone is assembled in America, giving Motorola a big marketing point in the States and abroad. And the phone features a nearly stock Android experience, something that consumers and Android fans will enjoy alike.
The phone is sleek. It features a Kevlar backplate, large rear-facing speaker and a massive battery in a slender housing.
Motorola has long played with Kevlar. Released in early 2012, the Droid RAZR was the first Motorola smartphone with the durable and thin material. Since then it’s made its way onto most Motorola smartphones.
The Moto X is said to have a 4.5-inch screen, making it a touch smaller than the Samsung Galaxy S 4 and HTC One, though it doesn’t quite match up when it comes to horsepower. If the reports hold true, the X will feature a slightly older dual-core Snapdragon. Rounding out the specs the FCC previously revealed that the phone will have a not-too-shabby 2,200mAh battery.
Overall the Moto X is not anything special. It’s not a Samsung GS4 slayer. It’s not better looking than the HTC One. That’s okay. Motorola doesn’t need a phone that appeases the phone nerds. The company needs a high margin phone that appeals to moms and dads, to the average user, to the Candy Crush crowd. And that’s the Moto X as long as the price is competitive.
The Moto X is just the beginning. Motorola is on the cusp of a rebirth. Expect big things from the Google division including a massive expansion of wearable electronics. With tighter Google integration, Motorola is slowly, albeit perhaps too slowly, turning into a smart, lean, and influential consumer electronics brand.
Just act surprised when Motorola announces the Moto X next week.
Yahoo Buys Back 40M Shares From Hedge Fund Third Point ($1.2B In Value) As Loeb, Wilson And Wolf Resign From Board
Looks like Yahoo is trying to take control of its own destiny once again. The company today announced that it would repurchase 40 million shares owned by the hedge fund Third Point LLC at a price of $29.11 per share, working out to some $1.164 billion in value. As a result, Third Point, led by activist investor Daniel Loeb, will own less than 2% of the internet company, and the three people it appointed to the board last year — Loeb, Harry J. Wilson, and Michael J. Wolf — will resign, effective July 31.
Entrepreneur Max Levchin, a joint appointment between Third Point and the Yahoo board, is staying on, and “the remaining directors are committed to revisiting the Board’s size and composition,” the company says. Levchin first joined the board in December 2012.
The move marks a sea change for Yahoo, with Loeb — an activist shareholder pushing through some significant changes at the very top of Yahoo at a time when the company was falling rapidly against competition from Google in search, ads and more — now taking a step back. Changes instigated by Loeb have included pushing out Scott Thompson and putting in Ross Levinsohn as the interim CEO before Marissa Mayer appointed as the permanent CEO.
“Harry, Michael and I are pleased to have played key roles in Yahoo’s resurgence since we joined the Board last spring,” said Loeb in a statement. “Since our Board’s rigorous search led us to hire Marissa Mayer as CEO, Yahoo!’s stock price has nearly doubled, delivering significant value for shareholders. I’m confident that with Marissa at the helm and her team’s focus on innovation and engaging users, Yahoo! has a bright future.”
For its part, Yahoo has released a courteous farewell statement, all the while acknowledging that there is still a lot of work to do — not least by integrating and making some sense of the 19 acquisitions Yahoo has made to date under its current CEO. (The latest, of social networking data startup Ztelic in China, was announced three days ago.)
“Daniel Loeb had the vision to see Yahoo for its immense potential – the potential to return to greatness as a company and the potential to deliver significant shareholder value,” said Mayer in a statement. “On behalf of the Board and our entire team, I’d like to take this opportunity to personally thank Dan, Michael, and Harry for the tremendous opportunities they created here at Yahoo!. They have been incredibly supportive as we have built our executive staff and developed our strategy, and they have helped position Yahoo! for future success. While there’s still a lot of work ahead, they’ve given us a great foundation.”
Yahoo says it expects to fund the transaction “primarily with cash, and the transaction is accretive to earnings per share (EPS).” Third point now owns around 20 million shares in the company’s common stock, Yahoo adds.
This share repurchase is part of a bigger $5 billion buyback program at the company.
Last week, the company said it repurchased $653 million in shares during Q2. Yahoo says it previously announced a plan to purchase an additional $1.9 billion of Yahoo! common stock: “The new repurchase agreement becomes part of that plan,” it notes. This means that there is an additional $700 million left in share buybacks remaining to be executed. We have reached out to the company to ask whether that will be in this quarter or later.
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