SXSW News: Jerry Levin’s StartUp Health Academy for Entrepreneurs Announces First Class

It’s a nice break from similar groups that back companies designing apps to help people stalk each other at SXSW bars.
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News Byte

Order Takeout “Seamlessly” on iPad

Seamless, the popular Web site for placing food takeout and delivery orders, has launched an iPad app after seeing mobile sales increase to more than 25 percent of all transactions, up from 1 percent just two years ago. The free app features slider tabs instead of drop-down menus for selecting cuisines, the option to rate restaurants, and more prominent photos of venues and food items than are currently on the Web site. Seamless operates in 12 U.S. metro areas, including New York, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Austin; following its acquisition of Menupages, it claims 40,000 restaurant menus in its database. Seamless CEO Jonathan Zabusky says the company plans to launch an Android version of the tablet app sometime this year.

News Byte

Still Waiting on Office for iPad? OnLive’s New Subscription Service Has Office, Flash and More.

For those of you still holding your breath while you wait for an official Microsoft Office app to come to iPad, here’s something that might help in the interim: OnLive Desktop Plus, a premium, $4.99-a-month version of the OnLive Desktop app for iPad and other tablet devices. The newest version of the app offers a cloud-based Internet Explorer 9, Adobe Flash, and PDF capabilities, in addition to the full Office suite and the “accelerated browsing experience” that OnLive created for fast pushing and pulling of data on a remote-access desktop.

Apple: App Access to Contact Data Will Require Explicit User Permission

In the wake of the Path address book flap, Apple says all apps that want access to your data will have to ask nicely.
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Avid Brings Its “Pro-sumer” Video Editing App to iPad

Avid is best known for its high-end video production tools, as well as its desktop video editing app. Now it’s targeting tablet users.
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News Byte

Facebook Gifting App Bday Unwraps $2 Million in New Funding

Tel Aviv-based Bday, a gift-finder on Facebook, has raised $2 million in a first round of funding. The company also announced the launch of its Bday Gift Finder app on Facebook, which helps users identify good gift ideas, including gift cards for friends based on their “Likes” and other data. The round was raised by Tel-Ad Electronics, and will be used to expand the company’s product offerings.

A Gift to Developers: A Quarter of a Billion Apps Downloaded on Christmas

A record number of applications were downloaded on Dec. 25, making it a very “appy” Christmas for at least some mobile developers.
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Voices

AT&T Says Its Merger Withdrawal Beat Out FCC to Hearing Vote

AT&T Inc. said it withdrew its application with the Federal Communications Commission for approval of its planned T-Mobile USA takeover before commissioners had the opportunity to vote on a proposal to send the merger to a hearing for approval.

Jawbone Debuts UP, Which Tracks, Well, You (Video)

It’s UP to you to get in better shape.
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