InterDigital stocks tumble after soaring after acquisition talk [Links]

• A look at Cipher Prime’s ‘Splice’ [Inquirer] — Geekadelphia’s Eric Smith pens a column
• New Jersey man turns campaign stint into software success [Inquier] — “Together they spent 20-hour days devising a social-media tool – a “game-changer,” the nonpartisan New Organizing Institute has called it – that maximized efforts by the campaign’s field offices and led to the prodigious get-out-the-vote initiative that proved key to Obama’s success.” On NationalField from Aharon Wasserman.
• Open Question to our Readers [Hive76]

Thanks to our weekly sponsors

Technically Philly is made possible by advertisers and sponsors that are important to Philadelphia’s technology community. This week we’d like to thank:

Quonix Networks — Quonix Networks is a leading regional datacenter and managed hosting services provider offering web and email services, virtualization and VPS, dedicated managed servers, datacenter colocation, and data backup services. Quonix operates a state-of-the-art N+1 redundant datacenter facility in the Philadelphia area.

Caffeine Fish — Caffeine Fish develops iOS apps including Trainboard and PhillySubway and offers consulting in the Philadelphia area.

Knight Foundation — 55 finalists were named Jan. 10 in the 2012 Knight Arts Challenge Philadelphia, the three-year, $9 million community-wide contest that seeks the most innovative ideas in the arts to engage and enrich Philadelphia’s communities.

Springboard Media — Springboard Media is a certified Apple Specialist and retailer with two locations in Center City, including its newest in Midtown Village. They’ve got a ton of accessories and a great trade-in program that can score you up to $1,500

Your Local Security — Providing affordable home security systems in Philadelphia. Top of the line equipment and monitoring services from ADT keep your home and family safe.

Reed Technology — Reed Technology’s Web Archiving Service is a litigation protection, web compliance and e-discovery solution for all your online assets.

Interested in joining these organizations and individuals in supporting Technically Philly? Check out our ad packages and contact our Ad Sales Manager. Can’t find something that fits? We’ll customize a package for you.

Kurbi, Sizeseeker and Near-Miss Management demo at Philly Tech Meetup

Sizeseeker co-founder Mona Safabakhsh demonstrates her company's measuring process using an XBox Kinect.

Sizeseeker co-founder Mona Safabakhsh stood in front of a hundred people in her pajamas and began flailing her arms around.

It wasn’t a bad dream, it was the night’s only live demo. Safabakhsh, along with co-founder Ian Campell, were demonstrating  Sizeseeker, the fledgling Wharton-born company that helps users find their clothing size using an Xbox Kinect.

The first Philly Tech Meetup of the new year kept the now-familiar format of last year: startups meet at the University City Science Center’s Quorum space and each get 20 minutes to present and launch their new startup to a room packed with the city’s technology community. Each demo is followed by a brief question and answer session and the night is capped off by a happy hour at nearby Mid-Atlantic.

After the jump, we offer recaps of each company: Kurbi, Sizeseaker and Near-Miss Management.

Hive 76 and Hactory hackathon for interactive displays at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts exhibit

Tim Bieniosek, of the Hacktory, explaining his plans for LED matrices, at Saturday's art hackathon.

Arduino boards, Kinects and LED matrices littered the tabletops. UV laser pointers and photochromatic powders were being mixed like magic potions inside Hive76′s Spring Garden studio space this weekend.

The Hacktory and Hive76, two Philadelphia-based DIY groups, joined together for a hackathon on Saturday to discuss their upcoming installation at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts for its After Dark: Turned On exhibit.

Turned On focuses on Henry Ossawa Tanner, a Pittsburgh-born black artist who studied at PAFA in the 1880s. Hive76 and the Hacktory will be creating the interactive exhibits that will be on display.

“We’re exploring themes of transcendence, light as a metaphor for mystery and making the invisible, visible,” said Stephanie Alarcon of the Hacktory.

The resulting projects will allow visitors to draw with light-sensitive ink and lasers and also play with an interactive projection. Their goal is to provide a fun, safe and educational piece that teaches visitors the importance of technology in art and society.

“We want to take a more modern look at the historical context of Tanner’s work,” said Alarcon.

Comcast sales reps to sell in Verizon stores, Bloomberg takes swing at NBC merger [Roundup]

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an email subscription for our weekly Comcast roundup or other news updates.

• If Comcast can’t make it in the wireless biz, who can? [Gigaom]
• New in Your Wireless Store: The Cable Guy [Media Decoder: New York Times] — “A pending $3.6 billion transfer of spectrum between cable companies and Verizon Wireless will give Comcast, the nation’s largest cable company, a presence in select Verizon retail locations. Comcast salesmen will offer Verizon customers special offers on cellphones and other deals if they sign up for Comcast’s Xfinity service.”
• Bloomberg jabs at Comcast on anniversary of NBC deal approval [LA Times: Company Town]
• Verizon, Comcast Send Marketing Deals to FCC in Airwaves Review [Bloomberg]
• VIDEO: Comcast Xfinity Commercials Interrupt Giants Vs. 49ers Game (UPDATED) [Half Smokes] — in D.C. market

Open call for events and sponsors for Philly Tech Week 2012 presented by AT&T

It’s that time again, Philadelphia.

Technically Philly has officially launched the open calendar of events for Philly Tech Week 2012 at PhillyTechWeek.com.

Events will take place Monday, April 23 through Saturday, April 28, 2012 with a kick-off weekend taking place April 20 through 22. We’re excited to launch the calendar with dozens of collaborative partners already onboard, and we’re eagerly anticipating the events that will come from Philly’s great tech community.

Philly Tech Week 2012 is presented by AT&T, the debut title sponsor, and is organized by Technically Philly. The annual week of events is intended to grow the impact of this innovative region through programming focused on technology, collaboration and improving Philadelphia. This year’s theme: “Making a better Philadelphia through technology.”

“AT&T is proud to be the first title sponsor of Philly Tech Week. We’re always looking ahead and we know our customers are too. They want to be amazed by ‘what’s next.’ It’s our job to support events and organizations that promote innovation and creativity in technology,” said Tiffany Baehman, vice president and general manager, AT&T, greater Philadelphia. “We recognize all that the Philly tech community has to offer and we are excited to see what the week brings.”

Technically Philly turned to Jarvus Innovations to develop PhillyTechWeek.com after the web development firm created the inaugural Philly Tech Week website and mobile application in 2011. The firm works with organizations like Consumer Reports, Philadelphia Eagles, The Roots and TEDxPhilly.

We’re launching with 23 events on the calendar, and several anchor events are confirmed thus far for Philly Tech Week 2012, including:

• A daily lunchtime speaker series at WHYY will take place again this year
• The week will be kicked-off by Startup Weekend, the entrepreneur bootcamp, followed by a block party hosted by globally-known coworking community Independents Hall
• Philly Tech Week’s Signature Event, a gala cocktail party, will gather hundreds of leaders in Philadelphia’s technology community
• The second annual Philly Robotics Expo will be held at Drexel University
• OpenAccessPhilly will provide lightning presentations on public-private partnerships
• Five Philly startups will compete for a prize pack at demo event Switch Philly
• The fourth annual BarCamp News Innovation, an annual, one-day unconference on journalism innovation, and the Open Gov Hackathon will be held at Temple University

To learn how to get involved with Philly Tech Week, read more after the jump.

Startup Weekend v3.0 announces dates during PTW; January is move-in month [Startup Roundup]

Technically Philly’s Startup Roundup parses out the small pieces that make our greater Startup ecosystem thrive. We want to keep you in touch with the innovations that we can’t quite get to covering, but that deserve highlight. Follow along with a weekly email newsletter by clicking here and selecting the Startup Roundup button or follow Startup Roundup’s RSS feed. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch.

MUST READS

Philly Startup Weekend confirmed that its next hackathon, which has seen the launch of several startups in the region, will take place during the kick-off weekend of Philly Tech Week, April 20-22. Tickets are on-sale here.

The Business Journal’s Peter Key reports that the clever CAPTA startup Solve Media that shows advertisements that are to be typed rather than words, raised a $3 million to $6 million Series B round of funding.

One of Poptent‘s user-generated commercials created for yogurt-maker Dannon will air during the Super Bowl, the Inky’s Joe DiStefano reports. Interactive Firm Red Tettemer was tapped to create a Super Bowl ad for Century 21 real estate. Supposedly, it’s the first time a Philly ad firm, no, two, have made the big show.

Seed Philly: Center City nonprofit startup accelerator collecting business data, hosting first event

Chatter about the need for a post-incubation home for technology startups outside of the life sciences realm in Philadelphia has been a topic of conversation among investors and entrepreneurs since at least the late 1990s.

In the past year, the seriousness of those conversations has grown, with a handful of new initiatives launching in recent months focused on the concept of offering support to build largely fledgling consumer-facing efforts seeking investment.

The long-rumored startup accelerator Seed Philly is aiming to differentiate itself by placing mission over profit and featuring a heavy reliance on data, Technically Philly has learned.

Curbed.com: new Philly outpost of real estate blog network from NYC to be led by Liz Spikol

The competitive real estate and built environment news community of Philadelphia has a new player.

Curbed.com, the New York City based blog network, which also has regional versions in nine other markets, today launches Philly.Curbed.com. The local site will be edited by Liz Spikol, the former Philadelphia Weekly columnist and editor of the now defunct Hispanic tech magazine Tek Lado.

“Curbed marries an obsession with real estate and neighborhoods with wit and entertainment,” said Spikol. “It’s fun.”

MyHeartMap Challenge launches contest and mobile app to crowdsource map of Philly defibrillators

Automated external defibrillators are life-saving devices located in buildings and public spaces like fire extinguishers across the country. But no one really knows where they are in any broader way.

With the MyHeartMap Challenge, launching this week, a team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania is hoping to crowdsource the location of every AED in Philadelphia and raise awareness about the tools, as Technically Philly previously reported.

Here’s how the challenge will work: interested participants should register at the MyHeartMap site and download the contest app to a smartphone. If you find an AED, take a picture of it. The app will geotag the photo for the Penn researchers who plan to use the information to create a database and comprehensive map of all the AED’s stashed throughout Philadelphia county.