Comunicano

TrueCar Surpasses $1 Billion Saved for Car Consumers

Major milestone represents growing support for upfront pricing movement in retail automobile industry
 

Santa Monica, California (April 27, 2011) – TrueCar, Inc. -- the data-driven automotive website providing shoppers with real, fair and transparent pricing information for new and used car purchases -- today announced it has facilitated more than $1 billion in savings for auto consumers through the company’s innovative online car-buying platform and Certified Dealer network.  
 
The cumulative $1 billion in savings off of the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price[1] (“MSRP”) occurred when a customer of one of TrueCar’s affinity auto buying programs purchased a 2011 Toyota Avalon from Toyota of Fairfield, CA and saved over $4,200 off of MSRP.
 
This milestone follows TrueCar’s recent announcement that over 270,000 cars have been sold through the company’s auto-buying platform, a figure that translates into quadruple digit growth since the company’s 2006 launch.
 
“Surpassing a billion dollars saved by the buyers of automobiles stands as testimony to the power of providing consumers with radical clarity and transparency in terms of pricing,” said Scott Painter, TrueCar Founder and CEO.  “This is about much more than just reaching a goal.  We believe it further confirms the arrival of the intelligent marketplace in the auto industry, one where haggle-free pricing and consumer empowerment become the foundation of how a car is sold.”
 
Consumers using TrueCar save on average $4,154 off the MSRP[2] of a new car.  TrueCar’s service, which is free to consumers, is also available through more than 60 partner-branded websites.  TrueCar works with an elite nationwide network of nearly 5,000 Certified Dealers who also believe in the mission of bringing truth, trust and transparency to auto purchases, ensuring car buyers get a fair deal through upfront pricing that results in an easier, faster selling process and greater customer satisfaction.  
 
[1] Cumulative savings off of (“MSRP”) since April 2006 for new vehicle sales through Certified Dealers.  Includes all applicable manufacturer-to-customer cash incentives.
[1] Average savings off of (“MSRP”) through Q1 2011 for new vehicle sales through Certified Dealers.  Includes all applicable manufacturer-to-customer cash incentives.

 

Diversinet and CounterPath Listed in Branham300

Diversinet Corp. (TSX Venture: DIV, OTCBB: DVNTF) and CounterPath Corporation (TSX-V: CCV; OTCBB: CPAH) have been named in the Branham300, a list of Canadian Information and Communication Technology (ICT) leaders. Additionally, both companies were listed in the Top 250 Canadian Technology Companies for 2011.
  
This year marks the eighth time that Diversinet and the fourth time that CounterPath have been recognized by Branham Group, a leading ICT industry analyst and strategic marketing consultancy.

With a tagline of “Healthcare. Connected and Protected,” Diversinet uses its patented MobiSecure^® platform to enable healthcare organizations to rapidly deploy HIPAA-compliant mobile healthcare (mHealth) applications to anyone, anytime, anywhere.

CounterPath Corporation is an award-winning provider of innovative desktop and mobile VoIP software products and solutions, with a product suite that includes SIP-based softphones, server applications and  Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) solutions.

Voxbone, Jajah Create Service That Localizes International Calling

  Voxbone delivers phone numbers from across the world for O2 International Favorites service 

 

BRUSSELS – April 14, 2011 – Voxbone has collaborated with Jajah to develop a value-added telecommunications service that makes international calling simple and affordable. The International Favorites service, which Jajah provides for mobile customers of O2 in the United Kingdom, offers a subscriber a virtual overseas number so friends and family abroad can call at local rates.

As part of the new service, Voxbone supplies an international “Call Me” number that directly reaches a customer’s mobile phone.

The customer adds this second phone number from a country of choice to an existing mobile subscription. Calls to the number are dialed, delivered and billed like local PSTN calls. These calls are transmitted through Voxbone’s IP network to the O2 user’s mobile phone. The subscriber doesn’t need a special phone or application.

The virtual number complements the subscriber’s U.K. mobile number, enabling two phone numbers to be mapped to the same device. The service works with most O2 phones.

In addition, Voxbone is supplying numbers for another feature of International Favorites: provision of three local outbound numbers per subscriber that the customer may use to reach selected international landline and mobile numbers. A flat fee of £10 per month covers 3,000 minutes (50 hours) of calls to these numbers.

“We are enthused about this opportunity to help a global telecom leader use our phone numbers and global VoIP backbone to create value for its customers and its business,” said Voxbone CEO Rod Ullens. “International Favorites enables customers to keep in closer touch with friends and loved ones in other countries, while it benefits operators by promoting customer loyalty and international calling.”

“A new kind of geography is being formed that is about local presence and global relationships superseding distance or national borders,” said Trevor Healy, Chief Innovation Officer for Telefónica Europe. “International Favorites gives us a tremendous opportunity to innovate, reflect our users’ needs and open new revenue streams.”

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About Voxbone

Voxbone is the market leader in providing worldwide geographical, toll-free and iNum^® telephone numbers. The company delivers high-quality inbound communications (often referred to as direct inward dialing, or DID) from more than 50 countries and more than 4,000 cities. Voxbone enables Internet communications services providers, global carriers and national operators to extend the reach of their voice services internationally, rapidly and with limited costs. Voxbone is the only operator of its kind with self-owned licenses, telephone number ranges and network infrastructure in its footprint. In 2010, Voxbone's private global VoIP network carried 2.1 billion minutes of voice traffic. The company excels through its quality of service, best-in-industry management tools and regulatory compliance. Voxbone has more than 600 wholesale customers around the globe, including Skype, IDT, Global Crossing, Jajah and Arkadin. Founded in 2005, Voxbone is privately held and has offices in Brussels, Los Angeles and Singapore. For more information, visit www.voxbone.com.

About Jajah

Jajah’s IP Communications Platform offers flexible, next-generation integrated communications solutions for enterprises, telecommunications companies and individuals. Jajah’s award-winning services make it easier for people to stay in touch using any device, on any network, anywhere. Leveraging a universal open telecommunications platform, Jajah's managed services allow mobile operators, landline carriers, cable companies, technology companies and other businesses to adopt its voice solutions with minimal investment and time to market. The leading global IP communications company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, with offices in Israel. It is wholly owned by Telefónica Europe. For more information and details of Jajah's portfolio of consumer and business solutions, visit www.jajah.com.

 

Tout Launches First Network for Real-Time Video Status-Updates

 

 

 

SAN FRANCISCO, April 12, 2011 — What Twitter brought to text-based communications online, Tout is now delivering via video – a vibrant community of people instantly updating their Facebook friends and Twitter followers with short video status updates captured via their smartphones.

 

The Tout application is now available for free download at the iPhone App store, and once downloaded enables users to point, shoot and share short, real-time “video status updates” with friends.  At the Tout website (www.tout.com), users can follow family, friends or people with shared interests and get real-time updates as they “Tout” moments from their lives.  Each Tout -- a short smart phone video of 15-seconds or less provides a streamlined way to connect, communicate, update their status and engage with friends and followers.

 

“Some moments in life just can’t be reflected in text.  Tout delivers ‘life as it happens’ in full-motion color and sound, as opposed to ‘life as it’s written in 140 characters or less’,” explains Tout founder and CEO Michael Downing.  “Not everybody has witty and well-crafted writing skills to express themselves in blogs or Tweets, but we all have unique visual perspective and, these perspectives will be the basis of a new form of conversation and storytelling moving forward.”

 

The Tout experience draws on the emerging consumer behavioral movement called  “visual conversation,” a distinctly more human, natural way to socially connect online.  Visual conversation draws from the converging trends of the ubiquitous ability to capture media anywhere on the fly with smart phones, blend billions of visual elements already on the web that can be re-mixed/mashed into new messages, and the primal ability to quickly process visual media. The result is a hyper-expressive ecosystem of high-engagement activity, unencumbered by complex barriers-to-participation.

 

Tout has been testing the application for the last month with a small group of influential personalities from the technology and entertainment industries. "Being able to give my followers and friends an instantaneous window into my world, literally enabling them to see what I see, is incredibly powerful; it lets me build new kinds of relationships with my community," said Stephen Fishbach, finalist on CBS’s Survivor.

 

"Services like Tout represent the media wave of the future. Tout rides a fast-moving trend that's being propelled by our 'I like to watch' culture, an Ubertrend I've dubbed 'Voyeurgasm,'" said Michael Tchong, analyst at Ubercool.

 

 

 

All About Tout

Tout, based in San Francisco, is a social communications network that enables people to instantly update Facebook friends and Twitter followers with short video Status Updates captured via your smart phone. Tout is a technology spin-out of SRI (Stanford Research Institute). Tout’s investors include Horizons Ventures, the investment arm of Hong Kong-based billionaire Li Ka-Shing who invested $120MM in Facebook, New York-based Seavest Venture Capital, and Anduin Ventures. Life is all about perspective, Tout it!

For more information on Tout:

www.Tout.com

 

Twitter:
@TeamTout:  http://twitter.com/#!/TeamTout

Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Team-Tout/141900349212309

Video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PedRP4AosHA

CounterPath Releases Bria 3.2 for Apple Mac and Windows OS

CounterPath announced last week the update of their enterprise grade desktop and laptop softphone, Bria with the release of Bria 3.2 for Apple Mac and Windows operating systems. We wanted to let you know that Bria 3.2 is now available.

Current Bria 3.0 and 3.1 retail users will be automatically updated to Bria 3.2. Pricing for a single copy of Bria is $49.95, with additional volume pricing available. Bria is available in CounterPath's online store at www.counterpath.com.

The update includes user requested functionalities and new options making the release of Bria 3.2 more than the usual mid-point update that occurs between the usual "point" release schedules. With the addition of a richer user interface, wider ranging presence capabilities and enhanced contact and account integration, CounterPath further provides what the business customer needs to have when it comes to voice, video and presence capabilities on their laptop or desktop.

The array of new capabilities in Bria 3.2 includes:

• Multiple Account Integration. Bria users can pull in and communicate with contacts from different sources and accounts, including local and company directories, Microsoft Outlook, XMPP, XCAP and WebDav servers. Contacts can be merged into a single view with all of their information from different sources in one place.                                                                
• Enhanced Contact Management and Display. The latest updates enable Bria users call or IM a contact with a single click, as well as expand or collapse their list to show more or less information about each contact.
• Bria Add-in for Outlook® (Windows Only). Bria 3.2 includes an add-in for Microsoft Outlook® 2010, allowing users to place calls directly from their email accounts. The new integration features also include a contextual display of contacts in Outlook’s To-Do bar, providing quick access to Bria communications options.
• Company Chat Rooms. Bria now enables organizations to create their own chat rooms, providing employees and authorized external users, such as business partners, with a convenient new way to communicate, connect and collaborate.
• Improved User Interface. Bria 3.2 puts volume/mute controls, frequently used features and key information, such as status, all in a toolbar for convenient access.
• New Workgroup Management Options. Bria users now can manage workgroup functions and add or remove contacts to a workgroup directly from the contact list.

 

 

 

FIVE OF TOP 10 RETAIL BANKS NOW SIGNED TO DEPLOY MITEK SYSTEMS’ MOBILE DEPOSIT® APPLICATION

Momentum for Flagship Mobile Payments Product Accelerates

SAN DIEGO, Calif. — April 5, 2011 — Mitek Systems Inc. (OTC: MITK.OB; www.miteksystems.com) reported today that the company and its channel partners signed 26 new agreements with banks, credit unions and other financial institutions -- including two more of the nation’s top 10 retail banks -- to deploy its leading mobile remote deposit capture (RDC) application, Mobile Deposit®, during its second quarter, which ended March 31.

During its first fiscal quarter, ending December 31, 2010, 10 major banks and credit unions -- including three of the top 10 retail banks by assets in the United States -- signed agreements to integrate and launch Mobile Deposit into the mobile-banking choices they offer their customers. Deployment agreements reached in the last six months now total 36, the company said.

“More than ever before, banks and credit unions are realizing that offering their customers a mobile check-deposit capability is a competitive imperative as they respond to consumers’ growing appetite for mobile-banking options on their smart phones,” said Mitek President and CEO James B. DeBello.

“Retail banking is so competitive these days that banks and credit unions see mobile check deposit as a must-have differentiator, leaving those who don’t yet have comparable apps scrambling to catch up,” DeBello said.  ”These competitive dynamics are accelerating demand for our products."

Mitek’s patented Mobile Deposit takes advantage of the cameras that come standard with devices such as iPhone, BlackBerry and Google Android handhelds.  To deposit funds into online accounts anywhere, anytime, consumers use their smart phones to snap photos to deposit checks.  The app does the rest, delivering electronic images of the checks to financial institutions in the required format.

Throughout 2010, Mitek succeeded in forging distribution partnerships for Mobile Deposit with all leading technology solutions integrators and applications services providers that supply banks, credit unions and other organizations with bundled technology solutions.  That widespread acceptance gained Mitek recognition as the “Gold Standard” in mobile check deposit using smart phone cameras.

Mitek’s Mobile Deposit delivers a superior consumer experience for users, who simply point, shoot and deposit any check with a single try.  The app is accurate, secure, easy to use and convenient in giving consumers an alternative to visiting bank branches or ATMs to make deposits.  It complies with all financial industry regulations and is most often offered under financial institutions’ “white label” brands.

The app stems from Mitek’s intellectual property portfolio of patents covering the company’s core expertise in analyzing, reading, capturing, converting and processing digital images of all pertinent data extracted from checks and other financial documents. Mitek applies that same expertise to other applications for the financial services industry, including Mobile Photo Bill Bay™ and Mobile ACH Enrollment™.

About Mitek Systems
For more than 20 years, Mitek Systems (OTC: MITK.OB) has provided financial institutions with advanced imaging and analytics software to authenticate and extract data from imaged checks and other financial documents.  Mitek’s patented technology has created the Gold Standard for Mobile Check Deposit and is currently used by leading financial organizations in the United States to process more than 10 billion items per year.

Today, Mitek is applying its patented technology and extensive expertise in image correction, optical character recognition and intelligent data extraction to mobile devices.  Using Mitek Mobile Apps, smartphone users can now deposit checks, pay bills, save receipts and fax documents while on the road or sitting at a desk -- eliminating trips to the bank, Post Office and file cabinet.  Simply take a picture of the document and Mitek does the rest -- correcting image distortion, extracting relevant data, routing images to their desired location, and processing transactions through users’ financial institutions.

For more information about Mitek Systems, contact the company at 858-503-7810 or visit www.miteksystems.com.