Palm, Inc. was an American company that specialized in manufacturing personal digital assistants (PDAs) and various other electronics. They were the designer of the PalmPilot, the first PDA successfully marketed worldwide, as well as the Treo 600, one of the first smartphones. Palm developed several versions of Palm OS for PDAs and smartphones. The company was also responsible for the first versions of webOS, the first multitasking operating system for smartphones, and enyo.js, a framework for HTML5 apps.
Quark Software Inc. is a privately owned software company which specializes in enterprise publishing software for automating the production of customer communications. The company's original goal was to "create software that would be the platform for publishing", just as quarks are the basis for all matter. The company is best known for its desktop page layout and design software, QuarkXPress, although this has now become secondary to its other products and services.
InFocus Corporation is an American privately owned company based in the state of Oregon. Founded in 1986, the company develops, manufactures, and distributes DLP and LCD projectors and accessories as well as large-format touch displays, software, LED televisions, tablets and smartphones. InFocus also offers video calling services. Formerly a NASDAQ listed public company, InFocus was purchased by Image Holdings Corp., owned by John Hui, in 2009 and is now a wholly owned subsidiary headquartered in Tigard, Oregon.
Rakuten, Inc. is a Japanese electronic commerce and online retailing company based in Tokyo, founded in 1997 by Japanese businessman Hiroshi Mikitani. Its B2B2C E-Commerce platform Rakuten Ichiba is the largest e-commerce site in Japan and among the world's largest by sales. The company operates Japan's biggest Internet bank and number one credit card company by transaction value. It also offers e-commerce, fintech, digital content and communications services to over one billion members around the world, and operates in 29 countries and regions. It is often referred to as "the Amazon of Japan".
Handmark is a developer and distributor of mobile content, based in Kansas City, Missouri. The company was created in 2000 by the merger of Mobile Generation Software with Palmspring Software.
ComicBase is a computer program for tracking comic book collections. It was created in 1992 by Peter Bickford as an Apple Macintosh program. A Windows version was introduced in 1996. As of February 2015, it is on its nineteenth version and is available for computers running Microsoft Windows Windows 7, and later. Its database includes pricing and notes on over 800,000 individual comic book issues, and allows users to sell their comics online at a website marketplace called Atomic Avenue.
An e-reader, also called an e-book reader or e-book device, is a mobile electronic device that is designed primarily for the purpose of reading digital e-books and periodicals.
Rakuten OverDrive, Inc. is an American digital distributor of eBooks, audiobooks, music, and video titles. The company provides secure management, digital rights management and download fulfillment services for publishers, libraries, schools, and retailers. OverDrive's catalog includes more than 2 million digital titles from more than 5,000 publishers. The company's global network includes more than 45,000 public libraries, K-12 schools, colleges and universities, and corporations in 75 countries worldwide.
TalkTalk TV Store was a UK-based transactional video-on-demand (VoD) service available on Macintosh and Microsoft Windows computers, games consoles, tablet computers and Smart TVs. Content is generally streamed, with downloading currently possible on Windows PC/laptops. The blinkbox brand had been extended to companion services offering digital music and books.
webOS, also known as LG webOS and previously known as Open webOS,HP webOS and Palm webOS, is a Linux kernel-based multitasking operating system for smart devices such as smart TVs that has also been used as a mobile operating system. Initially developed by Palm, Inc., HP made the platform open source, at which point it became Open webOS. The operating system was later sold to LG Electronics. In January 2014, Qualcomm announced that it had acquired technology patents from HP, which included all the webOS and Palm patents.
The Kobo eReader is an e-reader produced by Toronto-based Kobo Inc. The company's name is an anagram of "book". The original version was released in May 2010 and was marketed as a minimalist alternative to the more expensive e-book readers available at the time. Like most e-readers, the Kobo uses an electronic ink screen. The Arc tablet series, released between 2011 and 2013, was based on LCD technology instead.
Rakuten Kobo Inc., or simply Kobo, is a Canadian company which sells e-books, audiobooks, e-readers and tablet computers. It is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario and is a subsidiary of the Japanese e-commerce conglomerate Rakuten. The name Kobo is an anagram of book.
Graphicly was a platform for publishers which offered work flow integration, self-publishing, digital distribution, conversion, and promotion for digital content. Launched by Kevin Mann and Micah Baldwin, the website was initially a platform for digital comic books, but later added support for children's books, art books, and magazines. Graphicly accumulated more than 3,500 publishers and more than 10,000 independent creators. The website hosted an active social community, allowing creators and fans to interact directly. Graphicly shut down in May 2014, and some of its key staff moved on to fellow digital publisher Blurb.
An app store is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called Applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the computer itself. Complex software designed for use on a personal computer, for example, may have a related app designed for use on a mobile device. Today apps are normally designed to run on a specific operating system—such as the contemporary iOS, macOS, Windows or Android—but in the past mobile carriers had their own portals for apps and related media content.
Michael Serbinis is an entrepreneur, engineer and angel investor based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Rakuten Viber is a cross-platform voice over IP (VoIP) and instant messaging (IM) software application operated by Japanese multinational company Rakuten, provided as freeware for the Android, iOS, Microsoft Windows, macOS and Linux platforms. Users are registered and identified through a cellular telephone number, although the service is accessible on desktop platforms without needing mobile connectivity. In addition to instant messaging it allows users to exchange media such as images and video records, and also provides a paid international landline and mobile calling service called Viber Out. As of 2018, there are over a billion registered users on the network.
mag+ is a digital publishing platform to create content for tablets and smartphones.
Tango was an augmented reality computing platform, developed and authored by the Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP), a skunkworks division of Google. It used computer vision to enable mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, to detect their position relative to the world around them without using GPS or other external signals. This allowed application developers to create user experiences that include indoor navigation, 3D mapping, physical space measurement, environmental recognition, augmented reality, and windows into a virtual world.
Ave!Comics Production is a privately owned French company editing comics on smartphones, tablets and computers. It was founded in 2008 and it is a subsidiary of Aquafadas, a software development company in digital publishing owned by Kobo Inc.. AveComics is a comic book store for digital comic books that can be used on computers, tablets, and smartphones.(iOS, Android) Readers can buy and read comic books, manga and graphic novels in French, English and Spanish. AveComics uses a technology created by Aquafadas for comics transformation, distribution and reading, based around its AVE format.
ComicBlitz is an unlimited, streaming, digital comics distribution platform. Its initial application launched October 6, 2015 for iOS later expanding to include a mobile-responsive, web-based app for Android and Windows Mobile users on smartphones, tablet computers, and personal computers.
