Open Source – Startups

A group of developers from Davao and Pampanga will soon be heading to Silicon Valley after besting more than 250 other Philippine hackers in a 24-hour coding competition organized by wireless operator Smart Communications and business incubator IdeaSpace Foundation, in partnership with US-based AngelHack.

AngelHack Manila is the first local staging of AngelHack, which is said to be the largest start-up competition in the world.

Team PageSnapp – composed of Rolly Rulete, Marvin Consuegra, Mio Miguel Galang, Raymund Delfin, and Jay Albano – was named winner of the Manila leg of the AngelHack Spring…

As Twitter marks its 7th birthday this year, mobile operator Smart Communications has started offering free access to Twitter to its more than 50 million subscribers last June 1. The promo ends on July 31, 2013.

With Smart’s Free To Tweet promo, all Smart prepaid and postpaid subscribers who use a smartphone or even a basic but Internet-capable handset can enjoy access to Twitter at no connectivity cost.

Smart subscribers have to type http://m.twitter.com on their mobile browser URL and start enjoying the full Twitter experience, from tweeting updates, uploading photos, checking their feeds, following other Twitter users,…

Local operator Smart Communications and tech incubator IdeaSpace Foundation are encouraging developers to hack their way into Silicon Valley by joining the Philippine leg of the AngelHack Spring Global Challenge, which is said to be the world’s largest coding marathon to date.

Winners of the local June 8 to 9 hackathon to be held at the Pasig City headquarters of Smart subsidiary Voyager Innovations will get a chance to win hundreds of thousands of dollars in prizes, will receive local mentorship for 11 weeks, and will be flown to Silicon Valley where US-based AngelHack will help turn their big idea…

Pouch, an all-in-one rewards app that eliminates the need for hard-to complete loyalty cards, was launched in the country recently to allow users to carry their cards in their phones instead.

Pouch, which was founded in Indonesia before coming to Philippine shores, currently has 16 local partners.

User have to download the app on their iPhones, Android phones, or Blackberries, and then scan a QR code at participating establishments. Each scan counts as a digital “stamp”, and users earn rewards as they accumulate more stamps.

Rewards are available in restaurants and bars such as Big Bad Wolf, and other lifestyle…

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has launched a website and mobile application to help inform voters for the coming May national and local elections.

Both dubbed e-Leksyon 2013, the free website and mobile application were developed jointly by Comelec and Bitoopi, a group of young programmers from Smart Communications.

The team voluntarily developed and donated the service for Comelec’s use. The initiative is supported by the Smart Developer Network, Smart’s developer community program.

The highlight of the features of the mobile app is the simulation of filling out of a sample ballot as this will help voters know and practice the…

Ten local technology startups won up to P5 million in funding in a national search conducted by IdeaSpace Foundation, a business incubator backed by companies from the PLDT group.

The winners are:

Armtech (Angeles City) – Affordable water purification machine for households

DateCola (Davao City/ General Santos City) – Natural date-enriched beverages, a healthy alternative to softdrinks

Mirand (Metro Manila) – Low-cost and high-quality total joint implants for the Asian market

PGRS (Metro Manila) – Produces electricity via rumble strips installed on high traffic roads

PinoyTravel (Metro Manila) – Provincial bus seat reservation system using mobile technologies

PortfolioMNL (Metro Manila) – Online marketplace for creative professionals

Prodigo…

Tech giant Google has unveiled an offline translation via downloadable language packs for its Google Translate app for Android, allowing users of Google Translate take advantage of the tool even when they don’t have an Internet connection or have poor reception.

The offline language packs are specifically useful for mobile phone subscribers who sometimes have poor or no Internet connections in their locations.

Google noted that while the smaller size of the offline models has more limitations than their online equivalents, users now have the ability to carry the world’s languages…

Canadian tech firm BlackBerry said developers are throwing their support behind BlackBerry 10, bringing more than 30,000 new applications to the platform over the past seven weeks.

The company’s local office launched early this month the BlackBerry Z10 (all touch), its first smartphone powered by BlackBerry 10.

BlackBerry announced that BlackBerry 10 customers now have access to more than 100,000 applications for the BlackBerry Z10 smartphone on the BlackBerry World storefront.

BlackBerry 10 customers already have access…

IdeaSpace Foundation, the incubator of the First Pacific group of companies, said that its first national competition for the country’s top tech business ideas attracted close to 700 entries from different regions of the country.

By April, IdeaSpace will award the top ten aspiring startups behind these ideas with six months of incubation and funding of up to P5 million each.

This translates to an acceptance ratio at IdeaSpace at close to 1.5 percent, comparable to global incubation and accelerator programs.

“We were happily surprised. Our original…

By Jonathan de Santos

In 2013, Yahoo Philippines will go beyond presence and focus on engagement with Filipinos who have made the Internet giant “part of their daily lives,” according to Arlene Amarante, Yahoo Philippines country ambassador and sales director.

“Did you know that the term ‘YM’ is a Filipino invention?” she asked reporters at a recent media lunch in Makati City. “We had to get that copyrighted,” she added.

Beyond the ubiquitous Yahoo Messenger, the Internet firm has been at “the center of people’s online lives” she said, with users logging on to the…