FarmLogs, YC startup, develops software for farms

By Vasudev Ram


New York Times article about FarmLogs.

Excerpts from the article:

[
In one view, a farmer can see rectangular representations of what is planted on each field. A click leads to a log of what was done when on each field: tilling on this date, fertilizing on that date, spraying on another.
...
With the data stored in one place, it can be combined with information from other sources and used by the farmers. If they need, they can also share it easily with consulting agronomists, crop insurance agents, the Agriculture Department and others.
...
Nathan Engelhard, an early customer who farms 1,000 acres in Unionville, Mich., says FarmLogs gives him the ability to take his iPad out into the field and make entries himself. “FarmLogs is a money saver,” he says, “because I don’t have to write things down on a scrap of paper and pay someone to sit in an office and enter them into the computer.”
]

They are using the SaaS model.

The article also mentions a related company called Solum, which I had blogged about a while back.

As a person who has a background in farming (long back), and also because the idea seems good, I found the article interesting.

- Vasudev Ram - Dancing Bison Enterprises

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Drop out and move to SF? Hell yeah :)

http://mixergy.com/david-rusenko-weebly-interview

Good one.
Also check the part about Holmgren of YCombinator :)

Most interesting thing about YCombinator right now ...

... is its business model:

http://m.techcrunch.com/2012/04/02/yc-y-combinator-scaling/

Mailgun looks interesting - programmatically manage email and mailboxes

By Vasudev Ram - www.dancingbison.com

Saw this on Hacker News (HN). Mailgun is a Y Combinator (YC) startup.

[ UPDATE: Here is a link to a Hacker News comment thread about Mailgun. The thread is interesting since many people make points for and against Mailgun, and discuss it in general, including one of the Mailgun founders. ]

Article about Mailgun on TechCrunch (TC) - they got $1.1 million in funding:

http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/13/mailgun-raises-1-1-million-for-its-twilio-for-email/

Mailgun - YC Winter 2010/2011, depending on who's saying it - HN or TC :), is a startup that provides an API and service to let you programmatically create and manage mailboxes and email. They have both a free plan and paid plans. Some YC companies are using it, also other companies. I signed up for the free plan and may post more after using it some.

BTW, Google's Blogger was down for a while, so if you see a recent post from me that seems to have shown up a day or two later than it's post date, that is why. The Blogger outage is also somewhat big news on the net right now, with people talking about hybrid approaches (cloud + local) being better. I tend to agree with that assessment - always have. If your apps and data are critical, it simply makes sense to always have _more than one level_ of backup - not even just cloud + local. Work out what is good for you ...

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- Vasudev Ram - Dancing Bison Enterprises

Hello, Watch - now, a cellphone on your wrist (almost)

By Vasudev Ram

Seen via this TechCrunch post: InPulse Adds A Smartphone-Like Experience To Your Wrist Watch.

Th idea seems rather cool and useful.

InPulse is a Y Combinator-backed startup. It's been reviewed by the New York Times, Engadget, GigaOm and WIRED, according to their front page.

It can be used in a hands-free way to check your email messages, SMS and calls, and that is just a few of the many possibilities.

Excerpts from the InPulse site and/or the TechCrunch article:

[ The device connects via Bluetooth to your phone and will deliver email alerts, SMS messages and calls directly to the watch. The watch can connect wirelessly to all kinds of host devices: computers, laptops, and smartphones and works best with Android, Blackberry, Mac, Windows and Linux (adding iPhone support is in the works, but Apple requires special chips to be built into the watch.) It’s a two way connection, so inPulse can send packets back to the host based on user interaction. ]

[ InPulse has opened up it platform to developers and so far over 30 apps have been created for the watch. These range from making your watch into an iTunes music controller to becoming a PowerPoint presentation remote control (Migicovsky used his InPulse watch to present and pitch during Y Combinator’s demo day a few weeks ago). You can also check-in to Facebook Places from the watch. The beauty of the device is that you can program it to display anything via apps. Another popular use case is to programmers is display real time server stats for programmers on the go. There’s even a site devoted to featuring the watch’s apps. ]

About InPulse

And for why I titled this post "Hello, Watch ...", see here.

Make sure to scroll down a bit on that page ...

Update:

1. The name of the company behind the InPulse product is Allerta, from Waterloo, Canada.

2. Some people may remember that IBM had put Linux on a watch some years ago, after they started getting into Linux in a big way. Here are some links about that:

http://www.research.ibm.com/WearableComputing/linuxwatch/linuxwatch.html

http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/An-interview-with-IBMs-Linux-Wrist-Watch-project-leader/

CNET News - IBM clocks in with new Linux watch:
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1040-254658.html

Papers published about the IBM Linux Watch:
http://www.research.ibm.com/WearableComputing/linuxwatch/papers/papers.html


- Vasudev Ram - Dancing Bison Enterprises

Twitter: @vasudevram

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