Students Team With GM to Develop Racing Handcycles for Wounded Vets

Gearheads at Michigan Tech and General Motors have developed three-wheelers specifically designed for wounded veterans who compete in marathons and other endurance events.

The three-wheeled handcycles were designed by students at the university’s medical engineering program and engineers from Chevrolet. They’ll be used by the Achilles Freedom Team of Wounded Veterans in races nationwide.

“This is the most rewarding assignment I’ve ever worked on,” Brett Jenkins, a Michigan Tech senior who led one of the five student teams tasked with building the bikes, said in a statement.

GM’s Military Discount Program has long supported the Freedom team, but not all were pleased with the machines on the market. Students at Michigan Tech felt they could do better and set out, with GM’s help, to design handcycles that are more durable and comfortable.

Five teams set to work on the project, designing bikes that riders propel with their arms. The teams combined their best ideas into two prototypes, the Tomahawk and Keweenaw Kruiser. They feature durable steel alloy frames for strength and restraints that enhance the safety and comfort of the rider. The handcycles also were designed for easier transporting — a pivoting attachment connects the frame to the fork, allowing the front wheel to fold into the seat, making it easier to move and less likely to be damaged in transit.

General Motors said it will build 10 handcycles for the Freedom team, which was founded in 2004 to help returning veterans train for and compete in races nationwide.

“I loved working with the students and seeing their energy and passion,” GM engineer Alexa Ellswood said Ellswood. “This isn’t their last class. It’s their first job.”

Read More..

TLC’s “Best Funeral Ever” runs Reality TV into the ground

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com – TLC, which brought the world “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” and “Sister Wives,” has hit new depths: The new one-hour special “Best Funeral Ever” will follow dead people’s journey to the grave.

The network announced Thursday that “Best Funeral Ever” will focus on the Golden Gate Funeral Home in Dallas, which prides itself on its unique theme funerals – or as Golden Gate calls them, “home-going celebrations.”

“A home-going is much different than a funeral, it’s a celebration,” Golden Gate CEO John Beckwith Jr. says of his company’s approach. “The Golden Gate experience is our version of the traditional African American home-going celebration. We do not produce generic funerals; everybody’s experience has to be different.”

In the case of “Best Funeral Ever,” that includes a Christmas-inspired funeral complete with elves, reindeer and snow and a barbecue-themed sendoff for a doo-wop singer who was well-known for a rib sauce jingle. A State Fair-themed funeral will allow a man whose disabilities prevented him from riding roller coasters to finally, um, experience the thrill rides, games and attractions he missed out on in life. (Sounds like a great sequel to “Weekend at Bernie’s.”)

“Best Funeral Ever,” which is produced by Park Slope Productions, will premiere December 26 at 8 p.m. – just in case you’re experiencing any residual Christmas cheer and need a reminder of your mortality.

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Life Expectancy Rises Around World, Study Finds

A sharp decline in deaths from malnutrition and infectious diseases like measles and tuberculosis has caused a shift in global mortality patterns over the past 20 years, according to a report published on Thursday, with far more of the world’s population now living into old age and dying from diseases mostly associated with rich countries, like cancer and heart disease.

Tony Karumba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Children in Nairobi, Kenya. Sub-Saharan Africa lagged in mortality gains, compared with Latin America, Asia and North Africa.

The shift reflects improvements in sanitation, medical services and access to food throughout the developing world, as well as the success of broad public health efforts like vaccine programs. The results are striking: infant mortality declined by more than half from 1990 to 2010, and malnutrition, the No. 1 risk factor for death and years of life lost in 1990, has fallen to No. 8.

At the same time, chronic diseases like cancer now account for about two out of every three deaths worldwide, up from just over half in 1990. Eight million people died of cancer in 2010, 38 percent more than in 1990. Diabetes claimed 1.3 million lives in 2010, double the number in 1990.

“The growth of these rich-country diseases, like heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes, is in a strange way good news,” said Ezekiel Emanuel, chairman of the department of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania. “It shows that many parts of the globe have largely overcome infectious and communicable diseases as a pervasive threat, and that people on average are living longer.”

In 2010, 43 percent of deaths in the world occurred at age 70 and older, compared with 33 percent of deaths in 1990, the report said. And fewer child deaths have brought up the mean age of death, which in Brazil and Paraguay jumped to 63 in 2010, up from 30 in 1970, the report said. The measure, an average of all deaths in a given year, is different from life expectancy, and is lower when large numbers of children die.

But while developing countries made big strides the United States stagnated. American women registered the smallest gains in life expectancy of all high-income countries’ female populations between 1990 and 2010. American women gained just under two years of life, compared with women in Cyprus, who lived 2.3 years longer and Canadian women who gained 2.4 years. The slow increase caused American women to fall to 36th place in the report’s global ranking of life expectancy, down from 22nd in 1990. Life expectancy for American women was 80.5 in 2010, up from 78.6 in 1990.

“It’s alarming just how little progress there has been for women in the United States,” said Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a health research organization financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation at the University of Washington that coordinated the report. Rising rates of obesity among American women and the legacy of smoking, a habit women formed later than men, are among the factors contributing to the stagnation, he said. American men gained in life expectancy, to 75.9 years from 71.7 in 1990.

Health experts from more than 300 institutions contributed to the report, which provided estimates of disease and mortality for populations in more than 180 countries. It was published in The Lancet, a British medical journal.

The World Health Organization issued a statement on Thursday saying that some of the estimates in the report differed substantially from those done by United Nations agencies, though others were similar. All comprehensive estimates of global mortality rely heavily on statistical modeling because only 34 countries — representing about 15 percent of the world’s population — produce quality cause-of-death data.

Sub-Saharan Africa was an exception to the trend. Infectious diseases, childhood illnesses and maternity-related causes of death still account for about 70 percent of the region’s disease burden, a measure of years of life lost due to premature death and to time lived in less than full health. In contrast, they account for just one-third in South Asia, and less than a fifth in all other regions. Sub-Saharan Africa also lagged in mortality gains, with the average age of death rising by fewer than 10 years from 1970 to 2010, compared with a more than 25-year increase in Latin America, Asia and North Africa.

Globally, AIDS was an exception to the shift of deaths from infectious to noncommunicable diseases. The epidemic is believed to have peaked, but still results in 1.5 million deaths each year.

Over all, the change means people are living longer, but it also raises troubling questions. Behavior affects people’s risks of developing cancer, heart disease and diabetes, and public health experts say it is far harder to get people to change their ways than to administer a vaccine that protects children from an infectious disease like measles.

“Adult mortality is a much harder task for the public health systems in the world,” said Colin Mathers, a senior scientist at the World Health Organization.

Tobacco use is a rising threat, especially in developing countries, and is responsible for almost six million deaths a year globally. Illnesses like diabetes are also spreading fast.

Donald G. McNeil Jr. contributed reporting.

Read More..

Fed to tie interest rate to job gains

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve said it will continue aggressive measures to stimulate the economy and made a major policy shift to focus more directly on boosting the job market.

Fed policymakers said they would keep interest rates at historically low levels until unemployment drops below 6.5%.

It's likely to keep the Fed's short-term interest rates at historically low levels well into 2015.

The move marked the first time that Fed policymakers have tied themselves to an explicit unemployment goal. It appeared to end the long-running debate within the central bank over how aggressively to target the nation's lagging job market.

The jobless figure was 7.7% in November, and the Fed's new forecast doesn't see that dropping below 6.5% for about three years.

The decision was made easier by the slow pace of inflation, which remains below 2% on an annual basis. Critics of the Fed's policies have argued that efforts to stimulate the economy would lead to inflation, but so far, that has not happened, and Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has argued that the risk is much smaller than the dangers posed by high unemployment.

"The conditions now prevailing in the job market represent an enormous waste of human and economic potential," Bernanke said Wednesday during a news conference after the central bank's last policy meeting of the year.

Under its new policy, the Fed would let its inflation outlook rise to 2.5% before taking action to curtail it — giving the nation's employers more time to create jobs.

The move to link interest rate policies directly to the jobless rate is meant to give the public and businesses greater confidence about how long interest rates will remain exceptionally low, and that by itself could act as a kind of stimulus to the economy.

The new push got a warm welcome from both economists and Wall Street.

Economist Bernard Baumohl at the Economic Outlook Group said the previous time frame for action was "self-defeating because it provided no incentive for employers to start spending any time soon to avoid higher interest rates. It just didn't create any sense of urgency to accelerate investments or increase the rate of hiring."

The Fed has kept its federal funds rate, which influences rates for credit cards, mortgages and business and other loans, near zero since December 2008. Unemployment has been near 8% or above since early 2009.

Bernanke and his colleagues also decided Wednesday to continue the controversial large-scale bond-buying programs in the new year. Specifically, the Fed will buy $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities and $45 billion of long-term Treasury bonds a month.

The purchases are intended to drive down long-term interest rates to spur spending, investment and lending, boosting economic activity as well as hiring.

The central bank launched the purchase of mortgage-backed securities in September to give a lift especially to the housing market, which Fed policymakers said Wednesday "has shown further signs of improvement." They said they would continue to buy bonds until the job market "improved substantially."

The Fed, which has a dual mandate to maximize employment and keep inflation in check, also forecast a somewhat stronger growth for next year.

Its policy statement Wednesday noted a slowing in U.S. business investment and "significant downside risks" in the global economy, but made no mention of the so-called fiscal cliff, the automatic federal budget cuts and tax hikes scheduled to take effect beginning Jan. 1.

In a 75-minute news conference, however, Bernanke said it was clearly evident that concerns about the fiscal impasse already had hurt the economy, weakening business investments and consumer confidence.

He said that whatever the Fed did, it was not enough to offset the full effects of a U.S. economy failing to resolve fiscal issues. But he was cautiously optimistic: "I actually believe that Congress will come up with a solution, and I certainly hope they will."

For years, the Fed didn't give any indication of its future interest-rate path and only in recent years signaled what it might do by using somewhat vague language. In June 2011, the Fed said that it would keep rates exceptionally low for an "extended period." In August 2011, policymakers said no change was likely until at least mid-2013. And that date has since been extended twice, to late 2014 and then mid-2015.

Read More..

Gorgeous People People Transparent Speaker Launches on Kickstarter

When you think of speakers, if you think of them at all, you probably think of something black, boxy and not terribly big on style. There are exceptions, of course, and People People’s cool transparent speaker, launching on Kickstarter today, is one of them.

The speaker’s mostly transparent enclosure is tempered glass and aluminum, making it a cool audio addition to your home. It blends seamlessly and unobtrusively with your decor, a very slick effect indeed, and perfect for someone who wants to add some boom to their room without clunky cubes dissing their design aesthetic.

“We’re trying to make a timeless design in a way,” designer and founder Per Brickstad said. “We’re simplifying it so much, taking away anything unnecessary. We’re emphasizing what we think is really important, which is people’s music.”

The speakers feature dual 3-inch full-range drivers and a 6.5-inch woofer, and they can handle 80 to 100 watts — enough to fill Wired’s spacious lunchroom with surprisingly robust sound even at low levels. The speakers also provide bass, treble and volume controls so you can tweak the sound to suit your taste.

In back, it’s got a “toaster slot” where you can slide in an Airport Express (not included) to control the speaker via WiFi with Apple’s AirPlay. Brickstad said he wanted to develop a product that will last a long time, so most of its components are recyclable and modular, which means you can replace any parts that break or become obsolete.

All this comes at a price though: An early-bird kit version of the speaker, which you’ll have to assemble yourself, starts at $360, while the full, assembled version starts at $460.

You can support People People on Kickstarter or pre-order yourself a speaker here.

Read More..

Media mogul and banker Allbritton dies at 87

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Joe Lewis Allbritton, a media mogul and owner of the scandal-plagued Riggs National Bank, died on Wednesday at a hospital in Houston. He was 87.

Allbritton died of heart ailments, said Jerald Fritz, a senior vice president of Allbritton Communications.

Allbritton’s media empire included newspapers throughout the U.S. Northeast and ABC network affiliates. Allbritton’s son, Robert, recently founded the influential political publication Politico.

But Joe Allbritton, a Mississippi native, was famously known for owning and running Riggs, the Washington-based bank that had been a dominant force in diplomatic banking in the nation’s capital.

Allbritton’s banking career was tarnished when it was revealed that Riggs bank failed to report suspicious activity in the accounts held by former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and Equatorial Guinea officials.

Riggs bank pleaded guilty in 2005 to violating anti-money laundering laws and was fined a total of $ 41 million.

Allbritton did not seek re-election to Riggs’ board of directors and the storied bank was eventually acquired by PNC Financial Services.

Allbritton is survived by his wife, son and two grandchildren.

(Reporting By Rachelle Younglai; Editing by Eric Beech)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

World’s Population Living Longer, New Report Suggests

A sharp decline in deaths from malnutrition and diseases like measles and tuberculosis has caused a shift in global mortality patterns over the past 20 years, according to a new report, with far more of the world’s population now living into old age and dying from diseases more associated with rich countries, like cancer and heart disease.

The shift reflects improvements in sanitation, medical services and access to food throughout the developing world, as well as the success of broad public health efforts like vaccine programs. The results are dramatic: infant mortality has declined by more than half between 1990 and 2010, and malnutrition, the No. 1 risk factor for death and years of life lost in 1990, has fallen to No. 8.

At the same time, chronic diseases like cancer now account for about two out of every three deaths worldwide, up from just over half in 1990. Eight million people died of cancer in 2010, 38 percent more than in 1990. Diabetes claimed 1.3 million lives in 2010, double the number in 1990.

But while developing countries made big strides – the average age of death in Brazil and Paraguay, for example, jumped to 63 in 2010, up from 28 in 1970 – the United States stagnated. American women registered the smallest gains in life expectancy of all high-income countries between 1990 and 2010. The two years of life they gained was less than Cyprus, where women gained 2.3 years of life and Canada, where women gained 2.4 years. The slow increase caused American women to fall to 36th place in the report’s global ranking of life expectancy, down from 22nd in 1990.

“It’s alarming just how little progress there has been for women in the United States,” said Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a health research organizationfinanced by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation at the University of Washington that coordinated the report. Rising rates of obesity among American women and the legacy of smoking, a habit women in this country formed later than men, are among the factors contributing to the stagnation, he said.

The World Health Organization issued a statement Thursday saying that some of the estimates in the report differ substantially from those done by United Nations agencies, though others are similar. All comprehensive estimates of global mortality rely heavily on statistical modeling because only 34 countries – representing about 15 percent of the world’s population – produce quality cause-of-death data.

Health experts from more than 300 institutions contributed to the report, which measured disease and mortality for populations in more than 180 countries. It was published Thursday in the Lancet, a British health publication.

The one exception to the trend was sub-Saharan Africa, where infectious diseases, childhood illnesses and maternal causes of death still account for about 70 percent of all illness. In contrast, they account for just one-third in South Asia, and less than a fifth in all other regions. Sub-Saharan Africa also lagged in mortality gains, with the average age of death there rising by fewer than 10 years from 1970 to 2010, compared to a more than 25-year increase in Latin America, Asia and North Africa.

The change means that people are living longer, an outcome that public health experts praised. But it also raises troubling questions. Behavior affects people’s risks of developing noncommunicable diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes, and public health experts say it is far harder to get people to change their ways than to administer a vaccine that protects children from an infectious disease like measles.

“Adult mortality is a much harder task for the public health systems in the world,” said Colin Mathers, a senior scientist at the World Health Organization in Geneva. “It’s not something that medical services can address as easily.”

Read More..

E.U. Leaders Hail Accord on Banking Supervision

BRUSSELS — European Union leaders on Thursday hailed an agreement to place banks in the euro area under a single supervisor, calling it a concrete measure to maintain the viability of the currency as well as a step toward a broader economic union.

The deal’s importance “cannot be appreciated highly enough,” Chancellor Angela Merkel told the Bundestag, the lower house of the German Parliament.

“Europe and the euro area are providing proof that they are able to meet the challenges they face,” François Hollande, the French president, said in a statement.

In another sign of renewed efforts to shore up the euro, finance ministers and international officials approved the release of further aid to Greece, including long-delayed payments and other aid totaling nearly €50 billion, or $65 billion, that is crucial for the government to avoid defaulting on its debts.

“The sacrifices of the Greek people have not been in vain,” Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said, referring to stringent austerity measures Greece had adopted in order to obtain the aid.

“Today is not only a new day for Greece, it is indeed a new day for Europe,” Mr. Samaras said in Brussels ahead of a two-day summit meeting of European leaders.

The agreement on new banking supervision would put between 100 and 200 major banks under the direct oversight of the European Central Bank, leaving thousands of smaller institutions to be overseen primarily by national regulators.

But E.U. finance ministers, who reached a deal after meeting for 14 hours late Wednesday and early Thursday, insisted that the E.C.B. would be able to take over supervision of any bank in the euro area at any time.

Mario Draghi, the president of the central bank, said the agreement “marks an important step towards a stable economic and monetary union, and toward further European integration.”

Mr. Draghi added that governments and the European Commission still had to work on the details of the supervision mechanism, which is to be fully operational by March 2014.

The system must also be approved by the European Parliament and national legislatures before it goes into effect.

The new system is intended to strengthen oversight of a sector that, under the supervision of national regulators, failed to prevent banks from accumulating so much debt that they put at risk the finances of euro zone states including Ireland and Spain, in turn threatening the future of the currency.

The agreement on banking supervision was expected to act as a springboard for European leaders to discuss later on Thursday steps leading to a broader banking union. Such measures would include a unified system, and perhaps shared resources, to ensure failing banks are closed in an orderly fashion. This would be followed, in time, by measures intended to reinforce economic and monetary union, including, possibly, the creation of a fund that could be used to shore up the economies of vulnerable members of the euro zone.

To win France’s agreement on the new banking supervisor, finance ministers agreed that only banks holding more than €30 billion in assets, or assets greater than 20 percent of their country’s gross domestic product, would be directly regulated by the E.C.B. Previously, France and the European Commission had asked that all 6,000 banks in the euro area should be closely regulated by the central bank.

Germany, facing pressure from a powerful domestic banking lobby trying to shield many small savings banks from closer scrutiny, had sought a reduced remit for the E.C.B. In the end, Germany agreed to allow the central bank to step in and take over supervision of any bank in the euro area at its discretion.

The Germans also had concerns that the central bank could be tempted to alter its decisions on monetary policy to make its supervisory job easier. As a compromise, Germany agreed that member states would be given greater scope than originally foreseen to challenge central bank decisions.

“We succeeded in securing Germany’s key demands,” Ms. Merkel said in Berlin. There would be a “clear separation” between the central bank’s responsibility for monetary policy and for oversight, she added.

Britain, which is not a member of the euro zone, had sought assurances that the new banking supervisor would not have influence over British banks operating abroad or banks operating in the City of London.

Britain agreed to a formula that should free it and other E.U. members outside the euro zone from most, but probably not all, rule-making by the E.C.B. These countries will also be able to challenge E.C.B. decisions on cross-border banking.

“The safeguards we have secured protect Britain’s interests and the integrity of the European single market,” said the chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne. “It shows that when Britain takes a tough stance but based on strong principle, Britain can win the argument and protect our interests.”

For countries including Spain and Ireland, the supervisor is a prerequisite for a new European bailout fund to provide aid directly to their troubled banks. That would allow those governments to avoid weighing down their national balance sheets with yet more debt..

But any direct recapitalization of banks is only likely to go ahead during 2014, once the supervisor is fully operating, and well after a German general election in October 2013. Still to be clarified is whether the aid could go to banks that have already run into trouble, or whether it would be used only to help lenders that falter in the future.

Providing direct support to banks is a sensitive matter for German taxpayers, who have grown weary of footing most of the bill for the euro zone’s bailouts.

Melissa Eddy contributed reporting from Berlin and Niki Kitsantonis from Athens.

Read More..

Ravi Shankar, sitar master, dies at 92

Ravi Shankar was already revered as a master of the sitar in 1966 when he met George Harrison, the Beatle who became his most famous disciple and gave the Indian musician-composer unexpected pop-culture cachet.

Suddenly the classically trained Shankar was a darling of the hippie movement, gaining widespread attention through memorable performances at the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock and the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh.

Harrison called him "the godfather of world music," and the great violinist Yehudi Menuhin once compared the sitarist's genius to Mozart's. Shankar continued to give virtuoso performances into his 90s, including one in 2011 at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

PHOTOS: Ravi Shankar | 1920 - 2010

Shankar, 92, who introduced Indian music to much of the Western world, died Tuesday at a hospital near his home in Encinitas. Stuart Wolferman, a publicist for his record label Unfinished Side Productions, said Shankar had undergone heart valve replacement surgery last week.

Well-established in the classical music of his native India since the 1940s, he remained a vital figure on the global music stage for six decades. Shankar is the father of pop music star Norah Jones and Anoushka Shankar, his protege and a sitar star in her own right.

Before the 1950s, Indian classical music — with its improvised melodic excursions and complex percussion rhythms — was virtually unknown in America. If Shankar had done nothing more than compose the movie scores for Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray's "Apu" trilogy in the 1950s, he "would be remembered and revered," Times music critic Mark Swed wrote last fall.

PHOTOS: Notable deaths of 2012

Shankar was on a path to international stardom during the 1950s, playing the sitar in the Soviet Union and debuting as a soloist in Western Europe and the United States. Two early albums also had considerable impact, "Three Classical Ragas" and "India's Master Musician."

During his musical emergence in the West, his first important association was with violinist Menuhin, whose passion for Indian music was ignited by Shankar in 1952. Their creative partnership peaked with their "West Meets East" release, which earned a Grammy Award in 1967. The recording also showed Shankar's versatility — and the capacity of Indian music to inspire artists from different creative disciplines.

He presented a new form of classical music to Western audiences that was based on improvisation instead of written compositions. Shankar typically played in the Hindustani classical style, in which he was accompanied by a player of two tablas, or small hand drums. Concerts in India that often lasted through the night were generally shortened to a few hours for American venues as Shankar played the sitar, a long-necked lute-like stringed instrument.

At first, he especially appealed to fans of jazz music drawn to improvisation. He recorded "Improvisations" (1962) with saxophonist Bud Shank and "Portrait of a Genius" (1964) with flutist Paul Horn, gave lessons to saxophonist John Coltrane (who named his saxophone-playing son Ravi), and wrote a percussion piece for drummer Buddy Rich and Alla Rakha.

On the Beatles' 1965 recording "Norwegian Wood," Harrison had played the sitar and met Shankar the next year in London.

Shankar was "the first person to impress me," among the impressive people the Beatles met, "because he didn't try to impress me," Harrison later said. The pair became close and their friendship lasted until Harrison's death in 2001.

Harrison was instrumental in getting Shankar booked at the now legendary Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. They partnered in organizing the Concert for Bangladesh and were among the producers who won a Grammy in 1972 for the subsequent album. They toured together in 1974, and Harrison produced Shankar's career-spanning mid-1990s boxed set, "In Celebration."

But Shankar came away from his festival appearances with mixed feelings about his rock generation followers. He expressed hope that his performances might help young people better understand Indian music and philosophy but later said "they weren't ready for it."

"All the young people got interested … but it was so mixed up with superficiality and the fad and the drugs," Shankar told The Times in 1996. "I had to go through several years to make them understand that this is a disciplined music, needing a fresh mind."

When Shankar was criticized in India as a sellout for spreading his music in the West, he responded in the early 1970s by lowering his profile and reaffirming his classical roots. He followed his first concerto for sitar and orchestra in 1971 with another a decade later.

"Our music has gone through so much development," Shankar told The Times in 1997. "But its roots — which have something to do with its feelings, the depth from where you bring out the music when you perform — touch the listeners even without their knowing it."

In the 1980s and '90s, Shankar maintained a busy performing schedule despite heart problems. He recorded "Tana Mana," an unusual synthesis of Indian music, electronics and jazz; oversaw the American premiere of his ballet, "Ghyanshyam: The Broken Branch"; and collaborated with composer Philip Glass on the album "Passages."

Read More..

Viddy Brings 'Instagram for Video' to Android

Viddy, the popular social video app that wants to be “Instagram for video,” is finally available on Android. Its arrival this morning in the Google Play storefront comes about a year and a half after it hit iOS, and it couldn’t come at a better time.

Although the iOS version claimed the “most downloaded” spot at the App Store earlier this year and the company brought in $30 million in investments from the likes of Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, singer Shakira and Roc Nation, Viddy has seen its daily unique visitors decline. Still, the number of registered users has grown from 10 million in April to 40 million registered users as of this month, suggesting there is a whole lot of growth potential.

“We don’t look at it like the stock market,” co-founder and CEO Brett O’Brien said of Viddy’s user base. “We don’t look at the macro trends. We look at the fact that almost every smartphone nowadays has an HD camera on it. And people are getting more and more used to sharing video, socially. We’re just heads down, continuing to innovate and iterate with the product, expand across more platforms and expand internationally. I look at the category and it’s still one of the fastest-growing categories on the internet.”

O’Brien said he believes that, over the next few months, Android could deliver double the 40 million registered iOS users the company currently has. But making Viddy the next Instagram or even the next Twitter can’t be done on iOS alone. After all, about 480 million Android devices have been activated over the last five years. Another 1.3 million are activated each day.

“Being on Android is hugely important for us,” O’Brien told Wired. “It’s a major opportunity for us — it’s the other half of the smartphone world, really. And, if you look at our competition, there’s really nothing like this on Android. There are a bunch of video apps and social apps on iOS, but nothing like Viddy on Android.”

Indeed, a look through Google Play shows that no social video apps quite match the polish that Viddy’s Android iteration delivers. Viddy on Android is just as good as it is on iOS. It looks and works great. Helping Viddy’s case, is the fact its biggest rival, AutoDesk’s Socialcam, last updated its Android app Aug. 15.

While Socialcam allows for unlimited video uploads and the ability to share videos of any length, Viddy’s app is stocked full of filters that add a vintage and filmic look to videos that are confined to 15-second clips. Now, Viddy will find out whether or not Android users will show up and take to Viddy.

“We’ve spent the last six months building our Android app and we’re really proud of it,” O’Brien said. “We wanted to do it right, and doing it right required a lot of time to pull off the same special effects, to maintain our UI, our user experience.”

Part of the reason it took Viddy so long to land on Android was a push to make it work with consistency across across 735 different Android smartphones and tablets, he said, adding that “Android has a lot of technical challenges because of all the different form factors and hardware variation, but it we think we’ve done right.”

Read More..