Bob Moul to lead Old City’s AppRenaissance: “I want to build a major, permanent software company in Philadelphia”

The artistic headquarters of AppRenaissance, at 309 Cherry Street in Old City Philadelphia, which new CEO Bob Moul describes as representative of mobile.

Bob Moul says his 50s are going to be his best decade yet.

Today, Moul, who led Berwyn-based Boomi to a Dell exit, announces he has become chairman and CEO of AppRenaissance, a year-old Old City mobile development shop. The 48-year-old, who left Boomi after transitioning the acquisition and diving into the local entrepreneurship scene on way to volunteering to lead Philly Startup Leaders, has major plans for what is now a five-person startup.

“The goal is to IPO or otherwise make a really big technology story here,” Moul told Technically Philly on Super Bowl Sunday. “I want to build a major, permanent software company in Philadelphia.”

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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.

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Drakontas: Drexel University spinoff to launch collaborative, public safety DragonForce update

If you were a software engineer with Drakontas, the tactical, collaborative communications shop with offices in Glenside and Camden, you would be a licensed firearm owner. It’s part of the job — and they’re looking to hire someone else now.

When building tools for high-pressure units like SWAT teams, it’s of particular use for developers to know how the customer will be using each product, says Drakontas co-founder and COO James Sim.

“The software engineering team embeds with tactical teams for trials. We put on our pants and goggles and go out into the field,” he said. “Our people have been partnered with a sniper in the mud and freezing cold, getting shot at in simulations with flash bangs and tear gas. It’s a different kind of software engineering experience.”

Following military space research from Drexel University professors Moshe Kam and William Regli and other researchers, Drakontas was founded in 2004 by Sim and Regli’s brother and company CEO Brian.

With nine full time employees, the company is working to roll out in Q3 2012 the latest full version of its DragonForce team collaboration software, built for small tactical groups like SWAT or hazardous waste response or others in security, law enforcement or disaster management, said CTO Alan Kaplan.

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T-Mobile unveils 11 remodeled retail stores in Philadelphia region [VIDEO]

Pitching it as a pre-holiday house cleaning, nearly a dozen T-Mobile retail stores were completely remodeled, aiming to streamline sales and reduce customer wait times. Altogether, 20 stores are sporting a new look in the region, and some 400 nationwide.

Video above is of a Seattle-area store remodel.

SEPTA developer showcase puts realtime schedule apps on display for transit agency officials [VIDEO]

Developer Reed Lauber presents NEXTSepta, his application using the SEPTA real time API. A dozen other projects were displayed at the showcase inside SEPTA headquarters to a roomful of transit agency officials.

Those in the open gov movement call it ‘evangelizing.’

By not letting technology be the end but the beginning and taking projects to decision makers to improve alternatives, the civic-minded technologist can make development easier for the next guy (or gal). Philadelphia has seen much more of that in the last year. Friday marked another installment.

More than a dozen local transit application developers held captive an audience of more than 40 SEPTA officials with a clear message: keep providing stable, real-time APIs and related data sources, and we’ll keep building cool, useful tools that the public will use.

The SEPTA developer showcase, organized by the transit agency emerging technologies lead Mike Zaleski, was a follow up to the October Apps for SEPTA hackathon, which Zaleski and SEPTA endorsed and was organized by Voxeo Labs hacker Mark Headd and the Devnuts crew. [Full Disclosure: Technically Philly was a sponsor of the hackathon.]

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Google’s Motorola Mobility acquisition includes Horsham manufacturing plant

As the Inquirer’s Joe DiStefano reported this morning, Google’s newly announced acquisition of Motorola Mobility, an attempt to gain more control over Android device manufacturing (a move that a long-running rumor), includes a Horsham-based Moto plant that manufactures set-top boxes. That’s a play for Google TV, too, in addition to the acquisition of thousands of patents held by Motorola Mobility.

DiStefano says:

Search-engine giant Google is entering the hardware business with its biggest-ever acquisition, joining 20,000 workers at Motorola’s factories, to its current workforce of nearly 30,000. The Horsham business, Motorola Home, accounts for about a third of the company’s annual sales.

APCO public safety conference: Motorola, others show off law enforcement technologies [VIDEO]

The 77th annual conference of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International will close at the Pennsylvania Convention Center tomorrow after four days sharing and selling the latest and greatest in law enforcement technologies.

Technically Philly caught up with Motorola representatives, who have been pitching the Philadelphia Police on an array of upgrades to its existing contract partnership, including the 4G broadband network for video surveillance the Motorola team demoed this spring. Philly cops are still evaluating those build outs with the city’s Division of Technology, confirmed Motorola spokesman Matthew Messinger.

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T-Mobile regionalizes to Philly with new Vice President GM, Martin Pisciotti

In March, one of the larger news stories in the wireless telecommunications industry was the announcement that AT&T would acquire T-Mobile for $39 billion.

What maybe went unnoticed behind the headlines was T-Mobile’s decision in January to begin regionalizing its business, moving management staff from Bellevue, Washington, where the company is headquartered, to specific regional management teams, much like how other wireless telecommunications companies operate, at least locally, where wireless competition is fierce.

AT&T and Verizon both have regional managers that oversee operations here in the Philadelphia region, as we’ve covered in Q&As of the past, like AT&T GM Dan Lafond and Verizon Wireless GM Mario Turco.

The new Greater-Philadelphia Tri-State Vice President and General Manager Martin Pisciotti will oversee upstate New York, Delaware, Southern New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania. What it means for Philadelphia is that T-Mobile operations in the region, which include 850 employees and 700 retail partners, will see better oversight to help the organization run more efficient on a local level.

We spoke to Pisciotti, who swung by our offices last month, about the new position and what else it means for Philly.

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Where do Philadelphians call and text the most? [INTERACTIVE MAP]

With this nifty map from MIT researchers, using anonymous AT&T data, a user can trace where most outgoing calls from mobile phone in a given county go.

In Philadelphia’s case, depicted above, or available by searching for it on the site, it’s very regional, with New England, Florida and Southern California showing up.

Also check out this regionally based map using cell phone data, showing a big divide between Philly and Pittsburgh.

H/T Patrick Kerkstra

Mobile Monday looks to Wednesday for all-day conference on mobile infrastructure

Mobile Monday is looking at other days of the week for its popular mobile networking and seminar events.

No, it’s not changing its name, or the philosophy — helping to connect the Mid-Atlantic region’s mobile community, here, in Philadelphia. Often, on Monday evenings. But the group is looking at broader partnerships to strengthen its foothold in Philadelphia and expand the region’s reach across the national mobile industry.

“There are a number of events where we’re tying into someone else’s event schedule. We’re leveraging the power of our team, the power of our network, and our mindshare, to help other events,” says Mobile Monday President and Chair Chuck Sacco.

On Wednesday, the group will embark on one of the first events formulated by this approach, and the last event of the season for the group, with wireless industry publication RCR Wireless and the Pennsylvania Wireless Association.

As opposed to Mobile Monday’s usual, “functionally-focused, specific vertical,” programming, the event, RCR Mobile Broadband Philadelphia: Applications & Infrastructure Conference, will focus on infrastructure and carriers.

“This is the hardware side of things, the guys that put up the towers, the bandwidth. It’s a critical part of the process,” Sacco says.

The all-day conference, being held at the Sheraton University City, will be broadcast live, free of cost, and is otherwise available for an affordable $25 admission fee. Folks in the operator/service provider business, or working with a “large enterprise or vertical market institution,” can apply to attend for free.

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