'Those who want to take power through the back door will die' - Gov Akpabio

The Governor of Akwa Ibom state Godswill Akpabio has pronounced death on any politician who tries to gain political power through the backdoor come 2015, adding that the PDP in the state will continue ruling the state.

The Governor made this declaration yesterday July 16th at the ground breaking ceremony for the construction of the new PDP Secretariat in Uyo, the state capital.

He also stated that all those who betrayed him in politics would not enter into the government house "Just as God threw Lucifer unto the Earth, those who have betrayed the governor of Akwa Ibom State will not enter the Government House. And because of impatience, Absalom (son to King David) wanted to take over by killing King David.

And when David heard, he asked the people to leave him. This did not end up well with Absalom. He died before his father. Those who want to take power through the backdoor will die and the PDP will continue,” he said.

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Yahoo Gets To Keep More Of Its Stake In Alibaba

As part of today’s earnings release, Yahoo revealed that Alibaba is allowing it to keep a greater portion of its stake when it issues its initial public offering. Yahoo will be required to sell 140 million shares in the Chinese e-commerce company, compared to the 208 million the two companies agreed to last October.

That previous deal was already a huge win for Yahoo, as it brought the number of shares it had to sell down by approximately 20 percent from 261.5 million. As Re/code’s Kara Swisher pointed out back in May, the October agreement left the door open for an amended amount, should Alibaba feel generous:


Still, if it does not offer up Yahoo shares for sale, Alibaba will probably have to gin up more from its own kitty. So — since the initial IPO filing gave no indication — we’ll see how generous it wants to be. If it were to allow Yahoo to keep more shares at all, sources said it will still be a very small amount.

Yahoo owns 523.6 million shares of Alibaba that should hold a value in the tens of billions of dollars after the company’s IPO. Many have speculated about what Yahoo will do with the capital it would have to work with once it sold those shares, including major acquisitions. By keeping more shares, Yahoo gets less money in the short-term but potentially greater returns from post-IPO growth in Alibaba’s stock. It also gets to maintain a tighter relationship with Alibaba, one it has been cultivating since Yahoo exec Jacqueline Reses joined Alibaba’s board in late 2012.

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Apple Teams Up With IBM For Huge, Expansive Enterprise Push

Apple has announced a strategic partnership with IBM that will see the enterprise giant transfer over 150 of their enterprise and IT apps and tools to Apple platforms natively, and will also have IBM selling Apple iPhones and iPads to its business clients all over the world. In an interview with CNBC, Apple CEO Tim Cook and IBM CEO Virginia Rometty both told the network that Apple and IBM are like “puzzle pieces” that fit perfectly together.

“We knew that we needed to have a partner that deeply understood each of the verticals,” Cook told CNBC. “That had scale, that had a lot of dirt under their fingernails so to speak from really understanding each of these verticals and we found a kindred spirit in IBM.”

Apple touts the access the partnership gives them to IBM’s big data and analytics capabilities, and talks about how the apps that it produces with IBM will be developed “from the ground up for iPhone and iPad.” These apps will supplement new cloud services aimed at iOS specifically, including security and analytics solutions, and device management tools for large-scale MDM deployments.

The so-called IBM MobileFirst for iOS solutions will see apps created that are designed to give specific industries solutions tailored to their unique problems – Cook and Rometty described in speaking to CNBC apps tailored to pilots, for example. To do this,Apple cites the expertise resident in over 100,000 IBM industry and domain consultants as a valuable resource in making apps tailored to different needs. This isn’t about owning the general office; it’s about turning Apple’s software and devices into the core functional software in every vertical possible.

Apple has made headway on its own in the enterprise, thanks in large part to the iPad, the iPhone and the trend of bring-your-own-devices that we’ve seen arise over the last few years in workforces around the world. And while it has made efforts to highlight the advantages of its platform for business users, this is a very different thing and involves a huge, targeted effort to sell through to enterprise users of all stripes. BlackBerry, in other words, has every reason in the world to be terrified.

Industries Apple and IBM look to be tackling first include retail, healthcare, banking, travel, transportation, telecommunications and insurance (among others) per the official press release, with a planned rollout starting this fall and continuing in earnest through 2015. The solution is designed to be end-to-end, covering everything from cloud storage to security and MDM, as well as private app stores and deployments. In many ways, this sounds like what Google is trying to do with Play for Enterprise, but backed by the expertise of a partner that already has extensive expertise identifying and addressing the needs of enterprise customers.


AppleCare for Enterprise is also part of the arrangement, and will provide IT customers with 24-hour, all-day support via phone and online, while IBM’s workforce will offer on-site support as well. iPhones and iPads will be sold by IBM to enterprise buyers, too, and those arrangements will include available leasing options. Apple currently offers business and volume sales, but it sounds like under IBM these will be more exhaustive and cover a wider range.

Apple incorporated a lot of new features for enterprise and education with changes introduced back in February, and promises additional improvements in iOS 8 via new means of informing users about device configuration, management or restrictions, and new security features and tools.

As industry analyst TIm Bajarin points out, this is a blow to both Google and Microsoft in terms of the enterprise aspirations of both of their mobile platforms – Apple already managed to disrupt enterprise IT with its devices, and working together with IBM essentially guarantees continued growth in this key market, regardless of any other potential outcomes.

Google also announced a key new partnership this year regarding its enterprise mobility efforts – at its I/O developer conference last month it detailed how it would be bringing Knox to all of Android thanks to the help of Samsung, to be recast as ‘Android for Work,’ offering a way to partition personal and work data on Android smartphones and tablets in much the same way they’re kept separate on BlackBerry 10 devices using ‘BlackBerry Balance.’ Google Play will be able to offer business-specific approved apps, which can be sold in bulk for enterprise-wide fleet purchasing, Google revealed.

At first glance, Apple’s partnership looks to be a more far-reaching overture to enterprise than that Google is making with Android L, but we’ll have to wait and watch how both arrangements shake out when they start to hit the market proper this coming fall.

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Boko Haram claims responsibility for Lagos blast

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has claimed responsibility for two explosions on June 25 at a fuel depot in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial hub.

“A bomb went off in Lagos. I ordered (the bomber) who went and detonated it,” Shekau said, according to the French news agency, which is usually the first to get hold of Shekau’s videos before they are distributed online.

The two blasts minutes apart last month in the country’s main port, Apapa, were almost certainly caused by bombs, three senior security sources and the manager of a major container company told a news agency. One was most likely the work of a female suicide bomber, they said.

Authorities said the blasts on Creek road were an accident caused by a gas canister, but the security sources told the agency that was a coverup meant to avoid panic in the southwestern city of 21 million people. At least two people were killed.

sources;punch

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Adtile Raises $4.5M To Create A Marketplace For Interactive Mobile Ads

Adtile, a startup that says it’s bringing an “app store”-style approach to mobile ads, is announcing that it has raised $4.5 million in Series A funding.

Earlier this year, I wrote about the company’s Motion Ads format, which asks users to interact with their ads by shaking, turning, and otherwise playing with them. For example, a coffee shop ad could ask users to shake their phones, emptying a virtual coffee cup in the process, which then reveals a list of nearby stores.

More recently, founder and CEO Nils Forsblom gave me a demo of new editing tools that should make it easier to create these ads, and he said the company is working with customers in North America, South America and Europe. However, he acknowledged via email that building these ads, with the custom interactions they require, can still be an “extensive” process.

So this fall, the company will be launching the aforementioned store, where it will sell “pre-designed and pre-coded Adtile Motion ads,” allowing advertisers to just plug their own designs and media assets into an existing ad. As Forsblom wrote:



So in essence, it lets Adtile developers to create unique Motion Ad interactions, that can later be used by brands and agencies by just incorporating design and storytelling to the flow. So instead of spending a lot of money and time on developing new HTML5 sensor enabled ads, they can simply get them from the store. Adtile has created very specific human interface design and developer guidelines for quality and constraint purposes.

The funding follows the $2.7 million that Adtile raised last year under its old name, TenFarms. The company is not disclosing the investors.

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MIT And Dropbox Alums Launch Inbox, A Next-Generation Email Platform

Founded by Dropbox and MIT alums, a new startup called Inbox is launching out of stealth today, hoping to power the next generation of email applications. Similar to the newly launched Gmail API, Inbox offers a more modern way to build apps that access end users’ inboxes. But instead of being limited to Gmail, it also works with Yahoo, Microsoft Exchange and others, the company says.

In addition, jabs the company’s website, “Inbox is an email company. Google is an advertising company. This product is our focus, and will not be ‘discontinued’ unexpectedly.” Burn!

Google made waves with the announcement of a new “Gmail API” at its Google I/O developer conference earlier this month, which offers developers who build email applications new tools to access messages, threads, labels and other parts of the Gmail inbox without requiring full inbox access. The idea is to reduce the reliance on older protocols, like IMAP, when apps don’t have to work as an email client, but are rather focusing on a specific feature set – like snoozing messages, or only sending emails on behalf of an end user, for example.

Similarly, the idea with Inbox is to offer an upgrade of sorts from the “archaic protocols and formats” that developers would otherwise have to learn today in order to work with email. However, it supports a wider range of developers, from those who only need a simple feature to those who want to build full-fledged email clients for end users.



The company was co-founded by MIT alums Michael Grinich, previously an engineer at Dropbox and designer Nest, and Christine Spang, an early Linux kernel engineer at Ksplice (acquired by Oracle). The core team at Inbox also includes several other MIT alums, plus those with experience from Google and Firebase, as well as two graduates from the Parallel and Distributed Operating Systems group at MIT CSAIL, which spun out Meraki (acquired by Cisco).

“I actually wrote my thesis at MIT on email tools, and discovered how difficult it was to add features to email apps,” explains Grinich of how Inbox came to be. “One big issue was the underlying plumbing – IMAP, MIME, character encodings, etc. – which is what Inbox fixes for developers.”


But the larger goal with Inbox is not just to offer a suite of developer tools, but to create a new email standard. That means, Grinich says, the company has to provide the fundamental infrastructure as an open source package.

“The sync engine is available for free on GitHub, and we welcome discussion and pull requests,” he says. Currently the open source sync engine works with Gmail and Yahoo mail, with plans to expand soon to all IMAP providers. Meanwhile, enterprise users on Microsoft Exchange can request access to the Inbox Developer program, which supports ActiveSync, and is now in private beta.

There are a handful of apps on Inbox already, including a few demos on GitHub using the Inbox SDKs (JavaScript or iOS). With the Inbox API, developers can access REST endpoints for retrieving, modifying and sending email, as well as building custom filters, accessing attachments, creating drafts and more. Grinich also points out that developers can build using the Inbox APIs for free without sending email data to a third-party.

Today, developers can download the Inbox engine, sync an account, and begin buildingon top of the platform in a local development environment. In the future, however, the company will release a hosted version of Inbox that will allow developers to create applications without needing to also scale their own infrastructures.

San Francisco-based Inbox is backed by Fuel Capital, SV Angel, CrunchFund (disclosure: TechCrunch’s founder also founded CrunchFund), Data Collective, Betaworks, and others, but funding details are not disclosed.

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Amazon Asks FAA For Permission To Test Its Delivery Drones

Amazon has petitioned the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for exemption from rules barring it from testing drones in the United States.

The online shopping company made waves recently by showing off small unmanned aircraft that it claims will be able to deliver parcels to consumers in 30 minutes. The drone delivery service, called Prime Air, could greatly speed up Amazon’s delivery times, creating a competitive advantage for it over other digital marketplaces and lowering the time-threshold advantage that traditional stores still enjoy over their online competition.

Amazon’s plans are not small.

“One day, seeing Amazon Prime Air will be as normal as seeing mail trucks on the road today, resulting in enormous benefits for consumers across the nation,” the company adds. It asks for the exemption so that it can be ready to launch its drones when the legal framework is in place for it to do so.

The drones, it claims, are on their eight and ninth generation, and can fly up to 50 miles per hour.

The FAA is currently testing drones at a number of locations in the United States, but has come under criticism that its work has been too slow thus far to meet set targets. If true, the FAA could in fact retard the growth of the drone industry, something that Amazon obviously thinks will be large.


Why is there foot-dragging about drones? There are rules in place that allow hobbyists to have fun, of course, but commercial use has been frowned on by the government for some time. You can understand their concerns: The FAA is tasked with keeping the skies safe. What happens when a drone accidentally flies into a commercial air pattern and takes out the cockpit window and a few hundred people. That’s a dire hypothetical, but you get the drift.

I’d love to lay wagers on what major technology company is the second into drone technology on Amazon’s scale. Microsoft probably has something in the lab. Google is more focused on cars, and Apple? Well, I don’t see that happening.

Also, when will the first drone-first e-commerce company launch to take on Amazon. And finally, how much venture capital money will be expended in whatever becomes the drone sector rat-race to become Big Drone.

Let’s hope it’s not the next clean tech.

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