Google buys 3D graphics startup drawElements for north of $10M

In an effort to boost its mobile 3D graphics capabilities, Google has acquired 3D graphics firm drawElements. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Arcticstartup is reporting that the sale price was over $10 million.

Launched in 2008, the Helsinki, Finland-based company specializes in analyzing and assessing mobile 3D graphics. Its primary product, called dEQP, is a powerful toolkit used to benchmark the accuracy, feature conformance and stability of openGL ES and OpenCL GPUs.

It enables detailed quality comparisons between different vendors and GPU architectures, as well as providing high-quality tools for analyzing and debugging any issues uncovered by the tests.

"Over the next few months, we’ll be working with our colleagues on the Android team to incorporate some of our technology into the compatibility test suite", the startup said on its website.

For Google, whose Android operating system runs on hardware from different smartphone and tablet manufacturers, each having its own set of GPU parameters, the move seems logical as the company will likely use the newly acquired technology for device standardization and to make sure manufacturer fragmentation is low across devices. The company hasn't yet officially announced the deal.

While the startup's management will reportedly move to the search giant’s headquarters in Mountain View, California, the remaining members of the team will stay in Finland.

DrawElements is one of the smaller acquisitions made by Google so far this year. The company bought thermostat maker Nest Labs for $3.2 billion and satellite company Skybox Imaging for $500 million, among others.

Next The NES30 controller is a throwback that looks and feels like a true classicPrev Sony to settle PlayStation Network class action suit for $15 million in goods and services

View the original article here

Google buys 3D graphics startup drawElements for north of $10M

In an effort to boost its mobile 3D graphics capabilities, Google has acquired 3D graphics firm drawElements. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Arcticstartup is reporting that the sale price was over $10 million.

Launched in 2008, the Helsinki, Finland-based company specializes in analyzing and assessing mobile 3D graphics. Its primary product, called dEQP, is a powerful toolkit used to benchmark the accuracy, feature conformance and stability of openGL ES and OpenCL GPUs.

It enables detailed quality comparisons between different vendors and GPU architectures, as well as providing high-quality tools for analyzing and debugging any issues uncovered by the tests.

"Over the next few months, we’ll be working with our colleagues on the Android team to incorporate some of our technology into the compatibility test suite", the startup said on its website.

For Google, whose Android operating system runs on hardware from different smartphone and tablet manufacturers, each having its own set of GPU parameters, the move seems logical as the company will likely use the newly acquired technology for device standardization and to make sure manufacturer fragmentation is low across devices. The company hasn't yet officially announced the deal.

While the startup's management will reportedly move to the search giant’s headquarters in Mountain View, California, the remaining members of the team will stay in Finland.

DrawElements is one of the smaller acquisitions made by Google so far this year. The company bought thermostat maker Nest Labs for $3.2 billion and satellite company Skybox Imaging for $500 million, among others.

Next The NES30 controller is a throwback that looks and feels like a true classicPrev Sony to settle PlayStation Network class action suit for $15 million in goods and services

View the original article here

Yahoo acquiring startup Flurry to boost mobile business

In an effort to bolster advertising revenue from smartphones, Yahoo yesterday announced that it is buying mobile analytics and advertising startup Flurry.

"Our acquisition of Flurry will be a meaningful step for the company and reinforces our commitment to building and supporting useful, inspiring and beautiful mobile applications and monetization solutions", said Scott Burke, Yahoo's ad technology chief. Flurry also confirmed the deal in a blog post.

Although financial details of the deal weren't disclosed, reports suggest that the deal could be worth anywhere between $300 million and $1 billion, one of the largest acquisitions by Chief Executive Marissa Mayer.

Founded in 2005, Flurry focuses on optimizing the mobile experience for developers, marketers and consumers through personalized ads and mobile analytics. The service, whose technology is installed on 500,000 apps, gets insights from 1.4 billion devices a month.

Flurry's current list of customers includes Snapchat, the BBC, Zynga, and Skype. The startup has received just over $70 million in venture funding from players like Draper Fisher Jurvetson and First Round Capital, and its last $12.5 million round was in December.

For Yahoo, the move seems logical, as the company has been trying to up its mobile efforts. The web giant currently has more than 450 million monthly users of its mobile apps like Yahoo Weather, Yahoo News Digest, and smartphone versions of its email and Flickr services.

Although the company has started selling ads inside these apps, its mobile revenue is still small. In fact, it is so small that the company still does not break it out, other than to say that the figure is "meaningful".

Google and Facebook currently dominate the market for mobile ads with more than 50 percent and 22 percent share, respectively. On the other hand, Yahoo's share is estimated at well under 1 percent.

The news comes almost a week after Yahoo reported disappointing second-quarter earnings results, with display revenue falling as much as 8 percent from the same period last year.

Next Sony's Walkman gets resurrected as a high-res audio playerPrev Time Warner Cable to deliver one-gigabit broadband in Los Angeles by 2016

View the original article here