FocuSoft Tech Blog

Something really, really bad went down at high flying startup Canopy Financial.

This is one of the high flying startups that had a lot of buzz the last couple of years. They’ve raised at least $85 million in venture capital with the help of an investment bank, Financial Technology Partners. Their most recent round, a reported $62.5 million, was funded by Spectrum Equity Investors.

Canopy debuted on the 2009 Inc. 500 List at #12 in terms of the fastest growing private companies in America.

In 2008 CEO Vikram Kashyap said his company had 2007 revenues of $9 million. More recently, we’ve heard, the company was saying they’d hit $60 million in revenue and $9 million or so in EBITDA.

All of this may have been lies.

Until recently all the venture capitalists involved proudly placed Canopy Financial on their portfolio pages. Now all trace of the company have been erased from the portfolio pages of investors GGV Capital, Spectrum Equity and Foundation Capital. And their investment bank has erased them from their trophy page as well. But here’s what these pages looked like very recently:

So what happened? Multiple sources have told us that Canopy was absolutely making up their financial statements, even forging audited statements with fake KMPG letterhead. And somehow the investment bank and all the investors never figured it out.

A call to KPMG before investing tens of millions of dollars would have been a good start, although I have the benefit of hindsight here.

Spectrum took the biggest hit, with their recent $62.5 million investment in the company. And we’re hearing that they’re now suing to try to recover some of that money. One of the early investors, GGVP, may have taken as much as $25 million of the recent round “off the table” from the Spectrum investment, and they’re now a defendant in the lawsuit, says one source.

Canopy’s website right now is a simple information page. All deep links are broken, and the old site has been taken down (we have a screenshot here from a few months ago).

We’ve reached out to just about everyone involved with the company for comment.

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Canopy Financial Accused Of Serious Financial Fraud, Investors Burned

Knuckle Duster Corkscrew	iMo Pivot Touch unveiled	MUJI Lego kits make Lego an even more creative toy	LG rolls out first netbook in the US
Intouch IT7150 wireless Internet frame	USB Whirl Wind Warmer Cup	3D Rendering not difficult with ProFORMA	Hitachi Starboard FX-77GII Interactive Whiteboard
Extend and bend your minutes with the Stretch Clock	Illuminated JetBib Feeding System

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Gadget Thumbnails for 23-Nov-2009

Love holding parties for family and friends? If you’re ever the perpetual entertainer for your family and inner circle, chances are you’re always thinking of new ways to keep them entertained whenever they drop by. Well, nothing does it better to enhance banter with a few good drinks and some choice wines, so why not make the Knuckle Duster Corkscrew another conversation starter in your home?

The Knuckle Duster Corkscrew is a tribute to the idea that great things sometimes can only be accomplished with a struggle.The Knuckle Duster Corkscrew looks great in your bar or office – no one should be brave enough to argue with you when they see it. And if they do become violent, just crack open a bottle of wine, and you will be instant friends. Knuckle Duster Corkscrew – peace through libation.

ThinkGeek is carrying this non-violent yet unique device for $12.99.

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Knuckle Duster Corkscrew

Mimomonitors have just expanded their range of devices with the introduction of its iMo Pivot Touch, where this is the first touchscreen monitor available to the masses that fall under the $200 price point, allowing one to enjoy the full touchscreen experience without breaking the proverbial bank, Featuring a fully pivoting ball-and-joint 7″ LCD screen, the iMo Pivot Touch can be detached fully from its stand and operate in stand-alone mode. You get 800 x 480 resolution with this alongside 350 cd/m2 brightness and 400:1 contrast. Apart from that, it is less messy to use since a solitary USB 2.0 connection brings both connectivity and power options.

Press Release

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iMo Pivot Touch unveiled

I’ve seen a lot of cool things done with Legos, such as the Lego Ferris Wheel and even the Lego Darth Vader TIE Fighter.

This one design from MUJI has got to be one of the most original that I have ever seen. As you can see, the basic kit comes with a bunch of bricks, and some material hardly ever used with Lego: paper.

Yes, the MUJI has some paper with some punch out holes as well as a hole puncher. The idea is that you take pieces of paper and stick them in between bricks for some unique creations, like that alligator that you see from the picture.

As someone who still plays with Legos as an adult, I can’t believe that I hadn’t thought of this use before. Especially since my wife is an avid scrapbooker, and has all kinds of hole punchers. I’m sure that one of them, along with a good handful of bricks, could have made this MUJI kit. I swear, it’s time I start inventing and marketing goods instead of reporting on them.

As you might have guessed by the label on the MUJI kit, it is only available in Japan. Hopefully the kits will be available in other countries, but if you are in Japan, you can get it starting November 27th.

Source

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MUJI Lego kits make Lego an even more creative toy

LG has finally joined the rest of the computing world (Stateside, of course) by releasing their first netbook in the US ever – with the LG X120 being the star of the show this time round. This is pretty surprising considering the LG X120 has already arrived in other countries some time ago, but still, the adage holds true – better late than never. With a deluge of netbooks already flooding the market in the US, is there room for one more? Why not take a closer look at the LG X120 after the jump before drawing up any conclusions, and who knows, you might just have that itch to purchase a brand new netbook for yourself or a member of the family this coming Christmas.

The LG X120 netbook is the first of its kind from LG, where it not only delivers all the benefits of a netbook, it also offers users a shortcut to the fun stuff with a unique Smart On interface which makes it a snap to stay connected faster and easier than ever. Regardless of whether you’re an avid social networker who just needs to check on your Facebook page round the clock or a college student who wants something light and yet functional, the LG X120 is able to deliver. Although I would think for the former, he/she would probably also own a cellphone or BlackBerry which already comes with a Facebook application to handle the mobile social networking aspect.

Tipping the scales at 2.8lbs, the slim and stylish LG X120 will feature a sleek white matte exterior and fashionable blue trim, capable of running for up to 7 hours on a full charge. You also get round-the-clock Internet connection thanks to a built-in AT&T 3G wireless connection, although that remains subject to the area you’re at as well as the signal strength, so be prepared to surf at EDGE speeds sometimes as well. Other features include 1GB RAM, a 160GB hard drive, a 10.1″ screen with crystal clear LED backlighting, an integrated 1.3 megapixel camera, HD stereo speakers and Wi-Fi connectivity. You can pick up the Window XP-powered LG X120 for $179.99 with a 2-year AT&T DataConnect service agreement, accompanied by a $60 monthly 5GB plan.

Press Release

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LG rolls out first netbook in the US

It’s just another day in the gadget world and another clock meant to bend your mind.  No one really knows why they insist upon creating clocks that do nothing but make your head ache.  However, they keep on doing it, so there must be plenty of people out there dying to snatch them up.  At least with the Stretch Clock you won’t be stuck staring at the same boring clock you see in every office and home.

The stretch clock is meant to bend and extend the minutes of your day.  Those hoping that time will fly right by should probably keep away from this clock.  The clock comes with a cardboard template with four pegs.  Those pegs and the template allow for you to stretch the clock yourself from 9 inches on up to 12.  You can hang it asymmetrically or in a square shape.  To purchase the clock it’ll cost you $50 through Uncommon Goods.

Source: CraziestGadgets

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Extend and bend your minutes with the Stretch Clock

As rumors continue to swirl around LinkedIn’s possible IPO, the professional social network is steadily adding useful features that help transcend the platform’s technology into other applications.

LinkedIn recently launched two-way integration with Twitter and also rolled out a plug-in to pull in your LinkedIn contacts within Microsoft Outlook. And today, LinkedIn is opening up its API to start letting developers make applications that tap into LinkedIn’s social network.

While LinkedIn is releasing 11 different APIs, they fall into three distinct categories. First, developers will be able to let users easily access their information, profiles, connections and messages via oAuth login. The second functionality is to give users the ability to make actionable decisions about information, but letting them message their LinkedIn contacts, post updates, accept contacts and more. And the third piece of the puzzle is search. So developers will now be able to embed LinkedIn search in other applications. The social network’s search engine was re-launched last year and has done over one billion queries in this year alone.

Over the past year, LinkedIn has made select business development partnerships with technology companies for integrations, such as IBM, Microsoft, Research In Motion, and Twitter. While these partnerships created additional channels for LinkedIn’s platform, the opening up of the social network’s API is no doubt going to expand its presence across the web, perhaps representing a new level of growth for the social network.

LinkedIn has already tested the API with several developers and applications are already going to be launching in the near future. Twitter, MySpace and Facebook client TweetDeck will be integrated with LinkedIn in its next version. From the client, you’ll be able to see a stream of updates from your contacts, view profiles of contacts and comment and message contacts directly from TweetDeck. Posterous, Box.net, and Ribbit will all launch LinkedIn integrations in the near future as well.

LinkedIn’s VP of search and platform products, Adam Nash, told me that over the past year, the network has received 4,000 requests from developers to integrate LinkedIn with their applications. Nash says that this is the first step for LinkedIn to become an open ecosystem and there are future plans for additional APIs to be released down the line.

50 million users strong, LinkedIn could expand its already powerful growth with development of third-party applications. It’s a no-brainer for LinkedIn to open up its API. As Twitter’s platform has shown, an open ecosystem produces innovative and sometimes, extremely popular, products around a product. And it doesn’t hurt to have a loyal developer community as well.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Originally posted here: 
An Ecosystem Is Born: LinkedIn Opens Up API

When it comes to the mobile Web, increasingly there are only two mobile platforms which matter: Apple and Android. According to AdMob’s October, 2009 mobile metrics report, the iPhone/iPod Touch and Android phones accounted for 75 percent of mobile Web traffic in the U.S., as measured by all the mobile ad requests it tracks. That number is up from a combined 65 percent in September, 2009.

The iPhone is miles ahead of everyone else, but Android is quickly rising as a strong second. While Android phones managed to increase their share from 17 percent in September, 2009 to 20 percent in October, 2009, the iPhone and iPod Touch gained even more, going from 48 percent to 55 percent share. Meanwhile, during that same month the Blackberry ’s mobile Web traffic share went down from 14 percent to 12 percent, and Palm’s webOS shrank from 10 percent to 5 percent (Ouch).

On a global basis, the iPhone OS now accounts for 50 percent of all mobile traffic, up from 43 percent the month before. Android has an 11 percent global share, which makes it third globally after Nokia/Symbian’s 25 percent share. The U.S. makes up 49 percent of all the mobile Web traffic, according to AdMob’s stats. Thus strength in the U.S. translates to strength in the worldwide numbers.

As major new carriers come onboard, the numbers can shift dramatically. Since Verizon launched the Droid two weeks ago, that single device now makes up 24 percent of all Android mobile Web traffic. The HTC Dream, which is the oldest Android device, is the only one with more, at 36 percent of Android traffic. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Droid passes that within the next two weeks.

AdMob was recently acquired by Google for $750 million. Hopefully, it will continue to share this mobile market share data in the future.

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