In a bid to beef up the ways it sends tweets—and, eventually, “promoted tweets”— to mobile carriers around the world, micro-messaging service Twitter has acquired mobile messaging service CloudHopper. Twitter has been working with CloudHopper over since late 2009, and during that time it has become “one of the highest volume SMS programs in the world.” Twitter has decided it’s time to bring the operation entirely in-house; financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Although many folks think of Twitter as an Internet-based service—or at least something that runs over their phones’ data connection—the idea for the service was originally built on SMS messaging—that’s the origin of Twitter’s 140-character message limit. Twitter has been using CloudHopper’s services to interface directly with mobile carrier networks around the world to deliver tweets to users; according to Twitter, they process more than a billion SMS tweets per mont, and that number is only expected to grow.
The acquisition is Twitter’s second this month: earlier in April, Twitter announced it was acquiring the popular iPhone Twitter application Tweetie and rebranding it Twitter for iPhone.
Here’s the entirety of the blog post from Twitter about the acquisition:
Twitter was inspired by SMS and we continue to embrace this simple but ubiquitous technology. In fact, Twitter’s 140 character limit was designed specifically to allow for any tweet to be read in its entirety whether you’re using a rudimentary mobile phone, or a more sophisticated Internet enabled device.
Over the last eight months we have been working with a startup called Cloudhopper to become one of the highest volume SMS programs in the world—Twitter processes close to a billion SMS tweets per month and that number is growing around the world from Indonesia to Australia, the UK, the US, and beyond.
To help us further grow and scale our SMS service, we are happy to announce the acquisition of Cloudhopper, a messaging infrastructure company that enables Twitter to connect directly to mobile carrier networks in countries all over the planet. Please join us in welcoming both Joe and Kristin to Twitter’s mobile team.
Mozilla is giving Firefox’s Smart Window two new tricks. If you haven’t tried it yet, Smart Window is an optional AI mode in Firefox with a built-in chat that helps you get things done while you browse. With this update, it can fill out online forms using details from your tabs and keep an eye on websites for you.
Tired of typing the same details into every form?
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.