What is it?
If you’re planning on taking a semester off and fly to Europe just to clear your head and get over “her” (or “him”), you’re going to need a backpack. That’s why Chrome made the Yalta, a backpack that looks like a cross between an Weimar-Era bondage truss and something the Good Soldier Švejk would carry through the trenches of World War I.

This is not to say that the Yalta is only for those who browse army surplus shops. This “duffel” style backpack has a large top opening and a rear pocket designed to allow for a laptop (no bigger than the Macbook Air) and/or a tablet. There is also a front pocket. To close it, you simply roll up the lip at the top and connect the chromed metal hook into one of the loops sewn to the back of the backpack. The hook, it should be noted, can double as a bottle opener.

Style-wise the Yalta is stark and utilitarian. I was able to fit quite a bit of kit into this thing, however, and it’s roomy enough for an weekend trip, along with all the electronics necessary for said trip. The laptop pocket is set low against the back should be protected in various situations it was quite secure even when I threw the bag around on the plane. The only complaint is how deep the thing is. Once you fill it up, getting to the bottom takes a while and you can feasibly lose things in its deepest recesses.

Who is this for?
Folks going on semester abroad. Businessmen with an edge going to Scranton for a three-day assignment. Karl Ruprecht Kroenen. Folks on a train who only have 24 hours to fall in and out of love.

Do I want it?
If you need a weekend bag, you could do worse. Many of the online reviews talked up the waterproof fabric and I think that’s the Yalta’s real draw – the sense that you can have a heck of an adventure with this thing without your laptop getting wet. While I think it’s a bit small for a longer trip, it’s more than sufficient for a bit of urban exploring and at $120 it’s a well-priced, roomy bag for folks who want a bit of rubber clad excitement.

Click to view slideshow.

We pay a lot of lip service to high-tech gadgetry and gizmos on TechCrunch, focusing on only the latest and greatest for your edification. But what abou the stuff that barely gets any notice? What about the straps, bags, and sacs that carry our devices hither and yon with nary a scratch. That’s why we’re holding our annual Bag Week this week and that’s why we’re going to be reviewing a cavalcade of bags, from photo bags to laptop bags to backpacks. Why, you ask? Because it’s Bag Week, people.

Bag Week will be the big run up to our annual Holiday Gift Guide series and, since Thanksgiving is a little over a week away, it’s high time we start thinking about gifts for the loved ones and not so loved ones. Until then, we’ll be running through two or three bags a day this week, so you can follow the entire thread here and watch for great giveaways as well.

If you’ve come for bags this week, you’ve come to the right place. I guess you can say… we’ve got it in the bag.

Making an animated movie is a tedious process because of all the intense computing power and rendering required.  ”An expert animator can do about 3 seconds of animation in a week,” Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg says, speaking onstage today at the Techonomy conference.  But a joint R&D effort with Intel, which he describes as the largest such effort in Hollywood today with a budget in the “many tens of millions of dollars” promises to change the way computer-generated animation is produced.  Katzenberg expects a 50X to 70X improvement in the productivity of his animators.

The research project is in its third year, but has never been revealed before.  It takes advantage of Intel’s Sandybridge multicore processor.  The issue with multi-core processors is that software is way behind in taking advantage of their paralel computing capabilities.  ”The problem is software does not let you optimize all this,” says Katzenberg, “it is almost like having a 1,000 horsepower engine in your car and driving 30 mph.”

Animators have to work with low resolution files, then send it to rendering overnight for 8 hours and see if it came out right. Then they do it again. ” The Holy Grail would be for us to have an artist actually see their work as they do it,” says Katzenberg.  And that is exactly what this research project aims to do for Dreamworks. The animation house had to rewrite all of its in-house animation software, but is already seeing the fruits of the collaboration, which runs through next year.

The fruits of the research is already showing up in Dreamworks movies.  ”This now allows us to operate at 50X to 70X of what we were doing,” he says.

The Gillmor Gang is recording live today at a special day and time. Monday 9am Pacific Time. Guests: Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, John Taschek, and Steve Gillmor.

Cloud storage service and device maker Pogoplug is unveiling its latest offering today: a new service for mobile users that offers 5 GB of free online storage. To use “Pogoplug Cloud,” you first sign up directly from your mobile phone or tablet (iOS or Android 2.2+), then download the app and begin the upload process.

And that’s where Pogoplug really begins to shine: it automatically uploads the photos and videos from your device to the cloud – no sync required.

In testing (on the iPhone), the process was pretty straightforward. You go to www.pogoplug.com from your mobile browser to sign up or login to the service and find the appropriate app for your device. You then launch the app, login and the upload just starts on its own. It really couldn’t be easier.

In the app’s Settings, you can also specify whether the uploads can run over 3G, Wi-Fi or both, and there’s a curious setting where you get to specify a “destination” – what other destination besides Pogoplug Cloud could there be? There aren’t other options at present, but it would be great if this app could one day serve as a funnel to other cloud services too. Fingers crossed!

As a company, Pogoplug has been experimenting with different ways to entice users to its online cloud storage service, a challenge in the era of Google Docs and Amazon’s Cloud Drive and the like, all of which offer their own freemium services attached to much more recognizable brand names. Pogoplug typically uses its competitors’ size and scope to its advantage, though, at least in terms of its marketing. Pogoplug is about doing it yourself, hosting your own cloud storage safely and securely outside the reach of the big co’s.

Today, there’s Pogoplug hardware, desktop applications, and now, this new mobile app, all of which attempt to funnel users into the Pogoplug Cloud instead.

Although the Pogoplug user interface isn’t quite as clean and pretty as those from Google, Amazon, Box.net, Dropbox, iCloud or others, it’s certainly handy to get 5 GB of storage for free. But where Pogoplug stumbles is the pricing, something it claims is more affordable than the rest. That’s only the case when you “host-your-own,” though – then it’s free. Otherwise, additional online storage is $9.95/mo for 50 GB and $19.95/mo for 100 GB.

Google, meanwhile, charges $5/year for 20 GB, $20/yr for 80 GB, $50/yr for 200 GB, $100/yr for 400 GB and $256/yr for 1 TB.

Amazon charges $20/yr for 20 GB, $50/yr for 50 GB, $100/yr for 100 GB, $200/yr for 200 GB, $500/yr for 500 GB and $1000/yr for 1000 GB.

And Apple’s iCloud is $20/yr for 10 GB, $40/yr for 20 GB and $100/yr for 50 GB. You see, it’s actually hard to compete with the big guys on the bottom line.

If anything, Pogoplug is more in line with Dropbox, which also offers 50 GB for $50/mo or 100 GB for $19.99/month.

That being said, if you’re looking for an additional backup destination for either iOS or Android (no single point of failure!), it doesn’t hurt to have another 5 GB to tap into somewhere. But when it comes time to switch over to the paid pricing tiers, Pogoplug may not make the cut.

Forget Festivus, today sees the return of the real fake holiday Grouponicus. The site from daily deal giant Groupon is back for the second time with a wide selection of curated deals Groupon users can buy for their friends as holiday gifts.

Last year, Grouponicus was available to 15 cities, but today’s launch sees Grouponicus in 41 cities across the U.S. and Canada, including big metro regions like New York, L.A. and Dallas.

The company has iterated on its previous Grouponicus offering, which included smaller deals like discounts on the new Rihanna album, for example. This year, Groupon is going big, with “Epic Deals” like a trip to the taping of The Ellen DeGeneres Show's Twelve Days of Giveaways episodes with an exclusive backstage tour, a cooking lesson with with chef Todd English in one of his New York City restaurant kitchens, followed by a private dinner party in the restaurant with Todd English and the recipient's friends, in addition to a signed copy of his new book, and a jet-set adventure across the United States, Europe and Asia with special activities personally curated by Groupon.

These “epic deals” pop up on the site unexpectedly and are usually available at a quantity of one, which should encourage users to obsessively keep checking Grouponicus at regular intervals.

The holiday shop will also feature local deals, offers from national brands, travel experiences from the Groupon Getaways vertical (in partnership with Expedia) and charitable donation options through Groupon’s G-Team for Social Good.

Another change from last year is that the deals/gifts purchased will now show the original value of the item or service, not the price paid. So now you’ll get credit for spending big, when actually, you saved big.

While I’m not sure that any fake holiday can ever top the story of Festivus, what with the pole, the airing of grievances and the feats of strength, Groupon at least gives good-natured goofiness a shot with its history of Grouponicus:

Groupo the Deal Bird leaves his kingdom of Winterland to fly to the homes of true believers, leaving stacks of Groupons in their ovens to reward them for adhering to the Eight Tenets of Grouponicus….

Groupo has been loved, worshipped, and feared throughout the ages, but all he asks of his followers is that they write a list of their regrets on a slip of paper and throw it into a backyard or municipal regret hole. Whether Groupo’s fighting the Peppermint Shark or feeding melted wax to his snake tail, his terrifying screech lets all of Winterland know he is to be feared and loved.

Or something like that.

And the bird tweets, too: @GroupoTheBird.

Grouponicus is available online and on mobile, via Groupon’s apps for iPhone and Android.

Sprint, always looking for a way to undercut their competitors, has just announced two new mobile broadband data plans that give you more bang for your buck. Mobile broadband customers can now play with 6GB of data per month for $49.99, while the truly adventurous can have 12GB of data per month for $79.99.

Hotspot and tablet-specific data plans have been reconfigured as well: tablet customers can score 1GB of data for $19.99 per month, while 3GB will cost users $34.99.

To accompany their new broadband plans, Sprint has also pulled back the curtains on a new Huawei mobile hotspot. Dubbed the Express, this no-nonsense hotspot is priced to move at $29 so certain Sprint customers will just be swimming in savings.

Sprint’s new data plans certainly seem like a better value than comparable plans on AT&T and Verizon, but there’s a catch: Sprint’s 4G WiMax network has seen better days. While Sprint has more-or-less confirmed that they and network partner Clearwire would continue working together for at least a little while longer, the rollout of new WiMax markets was slowed down dramatically in recent months. Long story short: if you don’t have Sprint’s 4G WiMax service already, there’s a very real chance that you won’t get it at all.

Still, it’s not a shabby deal if you’ve been bathing in Sprint’s WiMax signal for a while now. The plans are available to all new and existing mobile broadband customers, so you data-hungry Sprint customers should get on the horn and renegotiate your plans.

Nick Halstead, who founded ‘big data’ startup DataSift, has decided to step down as chief executive officer as the company gears up for its official launch later this week.

Halstead will become DataSift’s CTO, and the role of CEO will go to Rob Bailey, a former Yahoo bizdev exec who most recently served as VP of Business Development at SimpleGeo, which was just acquired by Urban Airship.

Also read: SimpleGeo Co-Founder Joe Stump Leaves Post-Urban Airship Acquisition

Halstead explains his decision to step down as CEO and transition to the role of CTO thusly:

This will put me back in my sweet spot that I have spent most of my career. That is looking at the future and working out how we can build what is needed in a few years time. Rob and I have been working together for several months and I am confident that he can lead DataSift to follow the vision that I have laid out.

Why are we making this change? I want to do more of what I love—coding and building products.

It’s a fairly uncommon move to make, especially this close to a company’s official debut (DataSift will launch publicly next Wednesday), but in this case a perfectly understandable one. Read more.

Although not reflected in his LinkedIn profile, we gather that Bailey has headed up DataSift’s US operations for a few months now. They will be opening a San Francisco office soon.

(Photo courtesy of loiclemeur on Flickr)

Wrapp, a social gifting service, has raised $5.5 million in Series A funding led by Atomico, the venture capital firm formed by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström. Zennström also joined Wrapp’s board of directors. Creandum participated in the round as well.

Co-founded by Rebtel and SendIt founder Hjalmar Winbladh, Spotify founding CTO Andreas Ehn and others, Wrapp lets friends give, receive and redeem digital gift cards using mobile devices, and allows friends to contribute to gifts given by mutual friends.

With Wrapp, which offers iPhone, Android and web apps, you sign in via your Facebook account, and you can then tap the Celebration tab on the app, browse your friends or major events, and select the person you want to send a gift card to. All available gift card offers for that friend are automatically listed.

You can then select the retailer and the gift card offer you want, write your celebration greeting, select a delivery date, enter payment details (if you're contributing extra funds to a free gift card), and send the gift. Your friend will be notified and celebrated through Facebook and the Wrapp application.

Merchants can actually specify the amounts they’d like to offer via the service, and target specific demographics of users with gift card options.

For now, Wrapp only operates with retailers in Sweden but will use the new funding to soon expand to the U.S. and U.K. Current retail partners in Weden include the country's largest sporting goods retailer Stadium, designer underwear brand Björn Borg, street fashion brand WeSC, and home improvement chain Clas Ohlson among 15 others.

Gift cards are actually a $100 billion industry in the U.S. so Wrapp could be entering a lucrative market. Of course, partnering with mainstream retailers could help the company’s expansion in the U.S. According to AllThingsD, Wrapp is looking to partner with retailers like Best Buy and Target at launch.

Normally, one doesn’t learn about patent infringement litigation through press releases, and if it does happen it’s usually the company initiating the lawsuit(s) that intends to make some noise.

This morning, however, a company under attack by patent trolls decided to take its rant public.

Pro Softnet Corporation, the company behind online backup and cloud storage services such as iDrive and iBackup (we’ve covered their solutions a few times in the past) apparently finds itself facing its “largest patent attack” brought on by a non-practicing entity (or ‘NPE’, aka a patent troll).

In the press release, the company writes:

Since 2004, Pro Softnet has been targeted by several NPEs seeking licensing fees and/or royalty payments for dubious patents that are usually acquired through a series of purchases by patent-holding companies – “institutions” created for the pure purpose of obtaining patents in order to enforce them against other companies.

In these instances Pro Softnet has been forced to weigh the options of pursuing expensive litigation to fight what they believe are unwarranted claims or to settle, ultimately resulting in drains on operating capital.

And that’s always the big problem with small businesses like Pro Softnet getting hit with patent infringement lawsuits. Whether they decided to step up and fight, or choose to settle, there is no way for them not to waste resources, time and money dealing with these suits.

This also serves as a reminder to Fark.com’s recent settlement with a patent troll (for $0). Fark founder Drew Curtis wrote a great blog post on the whole ordeal, entitled: “Patent-infringement lawsuit against Fark settled for zero dollars. Also, patent trolls suck hairy donkey balls.”

Using subtler terms, Pro Softnet calls it a ‘tax on innovation’:

The practice of “patent trolling” seriously burdens those companies without the financial and legal resources of large, well-established organizations. The financial burden on small businesses can be significant – the least fortunate risk closing their doors – as the result of fighting these expensive and lengthy suits, which often end up with nuisance value settlements for profit-seeking NPEs.

Although Pro Softnet’s day-to-day operations are continuing as normal, this “tax” on progress and innovation is unavoidable.

For the record, Pro Softnet was originally founded in 1995 and has never raised a dime of venture capital. They claim to be “profitable, debt-free and hiring” today. And they apparently get sued by these patent trolls all the time.

Pro Softnet doesn’t really mention which NPE is now waging war against them, but refers to an NPR article that talks about Nathan Myrhvold’s Intellectual Ventures, a well-known patent troll.

I’ve asked Pro Softnet founder and CEO Raghu Kulkarni for further comment and will update as soon as I hear back. For your further reading pleasure:

Why We Need To Abolish Software Patents

Patents and Unions: When Good Intentions Go Horribly Wrong

The Terrible Cost Of Patents

The news, I'm afraid, is dire. The Internet is about to be destroyed by big media. It is about be killed by two Congressional bills – The ProtectIP and The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) – that all-powerful big media lobbyists are now pushing through Congress. These bills will censor the Internet, turn it into China, censor it, destroy its innovation and value.

"Big media is going nuclear against the DMCA," thus writes the author and serial entrepreneur Ashkan Karbasfrooshan, arguing that ProtectIP and COPA will "spell the end of the Internet as we know it." Techcrunch's Devin Coldeway, describing SOPA as "possibly unconstitutional" and as a "kill switch", says it is a "desperate power grab by a diminishing elite". CNET columnist Molly Wood chimes in that SOPA is "brazen" and "nightmarish" and warns that it will result in a "copyright police state".  The Obama administration is "busy in bed with Hollywood," she warns, "cheerfully ceding your rights to the MPAA and RIAA."

Even the VCs are worried. Union Square Ventures' Fred Wilson, argues that "these bills were written by the content industry without any input from the technology industry". The problem, Wilson explains, is that "the content industry is not creating new jobs right now" and thus, by establishing a destructive legal environment for start-ups, SOPA and ProtectIP will supposedly "kill the golden goose to protect industries in decline."

But there's a problem with all this bad news. It's wrong. Almost entirely wrong.

No, the Internet isn't about to be destroyed by either ProtectIP or SOPA. The technology industry has had input into the political process. Neither ProtectIP nor SOPA are "unconstitutional" or "nuclear" options designed to kill the DMCA. The administration isn't in bed, either literally or metaphorically, with big media and the US government isn't the "villain" in this story. The technology industry – notably Google, who were invited to the Congressional hearings on the legislation – has had significant input into the political process. Most importantly, this legislation – by fighting the corrosive impact of counterfeiting and piracy on the American marketplace – is designed to make our domestic economy stronger, protect jobs both on and offline and encourage innovation in our digital knowledge economy.

So what, exactly, are ProtectIP and SOPA? Rather than being seen as a replacement for the U.S. Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), the genesis of these pieces of legislation – ProtectIP being authored by the Senate and SOPA by the House – is the need for legal tools to fight primarily online criminals who operate outside of the U.S. jurisdiction and U.S. companies who, often unwittingly, sustain them.  Rogue sites legislation exists in parallel to the DMCA and is intended to stop criminal enterprises from accessing US markets online in ways that they would never be able to do offline.

Whatever one might think of some of the details of these bills (no, they aren't perfect, especially the sometimes sloppily written and occasionally misguided SOPA), they are designed to address a serious problem of the online economy – foreign criminals and companies which use the Internet to sell or distribute illegal or counterfeit goods to American consumers. These companies extend from those that sell advertising off the back of pirated movies to those selling fake drugs online.

It is undeniable that rogue websites – organizations which sell counterfeit goods or peddle stolen intellectual property – are a significant drain on the US economy. Borrowing numbers from various government and private sector experts, it is estimated by one House committee that intellectual property theft alone costs the US economy over $100 billion per year. And as The Guardian reported in September, in its investigation of the impact of fake drugs sales on the UK marketplace, there are almost 13,000 fake pharmacy websites – "most… facilitated by Chinese or Russian criminal organizations", according to the UK's Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA).

Not only, therefore, are SOPA and ProtectIP addressing a set of genuinely costly economic issues, but they've also – in the best Madisonian tradition of representative democracy – assembled a broad coalition of supporters for these bills. No, neither SOPA nor ProtectIP reflect the Administration being "in bed with Hollywood." I talked earlier this week to Steven Tepp, the US Chamber of Commerce's online piracy and anti-counterfeiting chief, who reminded me that the bipartisan Senate bill had just won its 40^th co-sponsor and that 350 organizations – including pharmaceutical giants like Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson as well as Nike, Caterpillar and Major League Baseball – signed a September 22 letter to Congress in support of legislation against rogue sites.

But this isn't just a legislative initiative supported by corporations. 43 State Attorney Generals, the US Conference of Mayors, the AFL-CIO and The National Consumer League are also in favor. And so is US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who early this month, in defense of legislation that seeks to make it impossible for American Internet users to access criminal foreign websites, wrote that there "is no contradiction between intellectual property rights protection and enforcement and ensuring freedom of expression on the Internet."

So why is there such a large coalition of firms, organizations and unions in favor of legislation against rogue sites? Fred Wilson says that this legislation was written by a content industry "in decline" that isn't creating any new jobs. But he's wrong. Wrong because this is legislation supported, in principle, by many high growth technology providers including small start-ups like ViaTech Technologies, registrars such as Go Daddy and Verisign, software groups such as the Business Software Alliance whose members include Microsoft, Adobe & Symantec, ISPs such as Verizon and AT&T, and even payment processors like Visa who might not love the legislation but recognize that something has to be done online to cut off foreign criminals from the American domestic market.

Not only is Wilson wrong to argue that “these bills were written by the content industry” (is he suggesting that politicians Like Lamar Smith (R-TX), John Conyers (D-MI) or Bob Goodlate (R-VA) are in the pockets of the RIAA or MPAA?), but is also mistaken in saying that “they are trying to fast track them through congress and into law without any negotiation with the technology industry.” The truth is that SOPA and ProtectIP are themselves descendants of other proposed legislation against rogue sites like COICA which have been winding their way through Congress for years.

Wilson is also wrong to write off the content industry as being a thing of the past. Yes, it – especially the music business – has been severely wounded by mass online larceny in the post Napster world, but to write off the entire American entertainment industry as "in decline" reflects Wilson's tech-centric vision of the world. He fails to mention, for example, that sales in the music industry, for the first time for more than a decade, have increased in the last year. Nor does his acknowledge the size of the traditional content industry or the hundreds of thousands of jobs that it has and continues to create.

Let me be more specific. A report published earlier this month by The International Intellectual Property Alliance, “Copyright Industries in the U.S. Economy: The 2011 Report”, underlines the size and significance of the US copyright industry. The report found that it added over $930 billion in value to the U.S. economy, represented almost 6.4% of the total GDP, employed nearly 5.1 million U.S. workers (nearly 5% of the total private employment sector), with jobs paying an average of 27% more than the rest of the workforce; and accounts for $134 billion in foreign sales and exports, significantly more than sectors such as aircraft, autos, and
agriculture.

This is where Wilson, who deploys no employment numbers to support his argument, is at his most glib. ” The content indusrtry is not creating new jobs right now. The tech industry, led by startups, have created all the net new jobs in the past five years,” he asserts.  Companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, and startups like Dropbox, Kickstarter, and Twilio are the leading exporters and job creators of this time. They are the golden goose of the economy and we cannot kill the golden goose to protect industries in decline.”

Facebook, Twilio and Dropbox as the golden goose when it comes to producing jobs? No. Wrong. Dangerously wrong. As MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson told me, “Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook collectively employ only 113,000 people.” Or as Thomas Friedman (hardly a tool of the content or copyright industries) noted in July, “Facebook is now valued near $100 billion, Twitter at $8 billion, Groupon at $30 billion, Zynga at $20 billion and LinkedIn at $8 billion. These are the fastest-growing Internet/social networking companies in the world, and here's what's scary: You could easily fit all their employees together into the 20,000 seats in Madison Square Garden, and still have room for grandma.”

Grandma, meanwhile, continues to be employed by the content industry, in movie theaters, bookstores and, dare I say it, CD pressing plants (yes, the sale of physical albums still faring well in the music industry)

Besides, by juxtaposing technology and entertainment industries and incorrectly arguing that the tech companies "have created all the net new jobs in the past five years", he is establishing a false dichotomy between these two critical sectors of the economy. The truth is that technology and content are symbiotic; and thus the most valuable tech companies – from Apple and Google/YouTube to Netflix, Spotify and Union Square investments like Turntable and Soundcloud – are also distribution and discovery companies in an increasingly digital-centric entertainment and information economy.

I'm not against Fred Wilson being against SOPA. That's obviously his right and some of his criticisms of the legislation have an element of validity – particularly the need to tighten up the language of SOPA so that it can’t be used as an easy excuse by avaricious lawyers to shut down promising start-ups. But what I'm against is this tired Manichaean version of the world which presents all proposed legislation as an either/or, and that whenever there's an attempt to legislate the Internet, online libertarians erupt into that tired chorus of "Big Media Is Killing The Internet".

Wilson, for example, implicitely conflates the destruction of DMCA “safe harbor” legislation with the passing of the new legislation – thereby presenting a doomsday scenario in which all promising start-ups from Twitter to YouTube to Netflix will be destroyed by these rogue site bills. But nobody has ever suggested that SOPA/ProtectIP and DMCA should be seen as competing rather than parallel legislation. And its certainly not the goal of any of the bill’s sponsors to make the DMCA redundant.

In the movie The Social Network, the fictional Sean Parker famously says, "First we lived on farms, then we lived in cities, and now we’re going to live on the internet!" He was right. And one of the responsibilities that goes with living on the Internet is crafting accountable laws that protect American industry and consumers against foreign criminals. That's why I'm in favor of passing legislation against rogue sites. And that's why the stories you've read recently about the death of the Internet are, to put it mildly, slightly exaggerated.

Photo credit: Flickr/James Vaughan

Yellow Media, Canada’s largest Internet company, this morning announced that it has divested its online classifieds business LesPAC.com.

Its assets were acquired by e-commerce solutions company Mediagrif for $72.5 million in cash.

Yellow Media, which owns and operates publications like YellowPages.ca and Canada411.ca, argues that the move allows the company to fully concentrate on serving Canadian businesses rather than supporting consumer-to-consumer platforms. LesPAC.com was originally launched in 1996.

Mediative, Yellow Media’s digital marketing division, will continue to market and sell display advertisements on LesPAC.com on an exclusive basis.

Proceeds from the divestiture of LesPAC.com will be used to reduce debt and to reinvest in Yellow Media’s core business, the company adds.

Related: Yellow Media Sells Vertical Media Publishing Subsidiary For $745 Million In Cash

The reviews are in: The Kindle Fire is a dog. Mostly. But don’t tell those that jumped on the bandwagon early because Amazon is shipping the Fire a day earlier than expected. The device was supposed to ship tomorrow, but the retailer just announced that it’s hitting shipping channels today. The Kindle Touch is also shipping earlier than previously announced. The new touchscreen Kindles will leave Amazon fullfillment centers tomorrow, six days early.

Amazon announced the Fire in late September and instantly won the Android tablet race. Even with the poor initial reviews, the Fire will still be a winner thanks to a smart content ecosystem that puts substance before specs. Even prior to its release, the Fire managed to become Amazon’s top selling item. But that title might not last long. The first round of reviews hit today, stating that the Fire’s custom Android build isn’t polished, unoriginal and sluggish in operation.

"We're thrilled to be able to ship Kindle Fire to our customers earlier than we expected. Kindle Fire quickly became the bestselling item across all of Amazon.com, and based on customer response we're building millions more than we'd planned," said Dave Limp, Vice President, Amazon Kindle in a released statement today. "Customers are excited about Kindle Fire because it is a premium product at the non-premium price of only $199."

Some analysts pegged the Fire to even outsell the iPad this holiday season. It still might even with negative reviews from such heavyweights as David Pogue as Amazon knows marketing and product distribution. Besides Amazon, the Fire is available from Best Buy, Staples, Office Max, Target, and Radio Shack; that’s more retailers than sold the original iPad. Combine the available retailers with the Kindle brand and Amazon will likely sell more than few Fires.

Formspring is launching its first user Directory later today in an effort to better highlight the more popular and famous users of its online social Q&A service. The directory will organize users into categories like Music, Comedy, Sports & Fitness, Fashion & Beauty, Movies & TV, Tech & Start-ups and more.

Current Formspring users will be able to locate the new feature through the “find more friends” section on Formspring when it goes live today, but you can see some of the celebrity users’ pages now, assuming you know their Formspring username. For example, there’s actor Taylor Lautner, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, the bands Incubus, We The Kings, and SOH!3, Marvel Creative Director Tom Brevoort, and pop star Camryn.

At launch, the directory will feature over 100 popular users and more will be added in the weeks ahead. It will also be accessible directly via the URL formspring.me/favorites.

The new feature is meant to compliment the previously launched “Formspring Interests” initiative, which allows users to add up to six interests to their profiles like Music, Sports, Fashion & Beauty, etc. Those “interests” are now mirrored by the categories found within the new Formspring Favorites directory.

The bigger picture here is that Formspring isn’t just launching a directory, it’s taking yet another step on its way to becoming a full-fledged social network. You can see the way the company is carefully and thoughtfully building out links between its users, not only between these new interests and categories, but also through the profile page features “who made you smile” and “who you responded to.”

Formspring’s potential for disruption is that it’s not trying to build another Facebook (cough, Google+, cough), it’s trying to build a network around users’ interests. Of course, do to so, it still has to go up against Facebook’s own interest graph, based on the cumulation of millions of “likes. However, it has one slight advantage: when a Facebook brand page inserts its messaging into your social news feed, it can feel intrusive and annoying. Yet when you venture out to a destination site meant to connect you to brands, celebs, and media personalities, you both expect and desire the same sorts of interactions that may have felt “icky” or bothersome on Facebook. That could be a potential win for Formspring.

Formspring now has 27 million users and sees more than 30 million unique visitors per month. With this new direct access to celeb accounts, it wouldn’t be surprising to see that traffic increase quite a bit in the near future.

BigCommerce, a company that provides e-commerce software to online retailers and merchants, is announcing a major milestone today. The SaaS powers over 20,000 online stores for retailers who have processed over $350 million in total sales.

Launched in 2009, BigCommerce provides a comprehensive SaaS for retailers and merchants to manage e-commerce online. BigCommerce helps small businesses power anything and everything related to an online storefront from search to inventory to online payments to marketing and SEO. And the price for the software is affordable for small businesses, with basic plans starting at $25 per month.

Features include multi-channel retailing, automated email marketing, inventory control, an online storefront, and more. The company, which is profitable and just raised $15 million in new funding, also launched an application for merchants to list inventory on Facebook.

Online stores powered by BigCommerce have sold over 30 million total items to over 230 million unique visitors, with the average number of items per transaction at 7.6 products. The company has also recently launched its new API and is working with developers to build integrations on top of the platform.

The iPhone 4S launched in South Korea this past Friday to the delight of the country’s Apple fans, but according to The Chosunilbo, Samsung very nearly threw a wrench into it. Samsung and Apple have been locked in a ongoing patent war in jurisdictions the world over, but Samsung has reversed their previous decision to block iPhone 4S sales in South Korea.

Company brass apparently debated filing an injunction against iPhone 4S sales until the eleventh hour before ultimately deciding to back down.

“We concluded that we should engage in legal battles with Apple only in the global market, but not in order to gain more market share in Korea,” an unnamed Samsung executive said.

It’s certainly good news for Apple, considering that Samsung was previously considering an aggressive defense of their patent portfolio back in September. At the time, a Samsung representative said that just as soon as the new iPhone arrives in South Korea, “Samsung plans to take Apple to court here for its violation of Samsung's wireless technology related patents.”

So why the sudden about-face? Apparently, their hard-line stance against the iPhone 4S could make for a few PR issues. Even with all of Samsung’s clout in South Korea’s consumer electronics market, Apple fans wouldn’t take kindly to being deprived of their new iPhones. Samsung would be seen as throwing their considerable weight around to subdue competition, which is an image Samsung certainly wants to avoid at this point.

While the South Korean front seems to have grown a bit calmer, Apple and Samsung’s patent conflicts continue to escalate abroad. Samsung sought an injunction against Apple’s 3G products in Germany on Friday, while Apple was recently compelled to reveal the details of their Australian carrier agreements.

Rovio’s hit game Angry Birds has made a business out of offering plush toys, and it was only a matter of time before social gaming giant Zynga would get into the market as well. Today, Zynga is announcing a partnership with electronics retailer Best Buy to sell limited-edition toys from the company’s popular game FarmVille at Best Buy locations (and on its retail site) in the U.S. You can order the toys here.

Best Buy will offer eight exclusive FarmVille collectible plush toys, including a pig, goat, cow, sheep, chicken, duck, horse and rabbit, all dressed in seasonal winter garb, to customers. Pre-orders for the toys begin today with availability in-store beginning November 25.

Each FarmVille plush toy will be available for $9.99, and come with ten free Farm Cash tokens and a digital code that can be used in FarmVille to collect a limited-edition, in-game version of the plush toy. The toys also will be available as part of a game card bundle; you can purchase a $25 Zynga game card and receive one plush toy for for $0.99 cents. Players who collect all eight animals will receive an in-game Super Orchard in FarmVille.

Zynga business development director says that players have been demanding real toys for FarmVille animals for some time now. These are season items of course, so it should be interesting to see if Zynga actually makes this a broader business post-holidays. Rovio is selling 1 million t-shirts and plush toys a month, so this could be a big business for Zynga.

If you want a FarmVille plus toy, you better pre-order one soon. Zynga only made 250,000 toys in all.

Universal remotes are by and large misnomers. They’re not truly universal. Even that remote from that dumb Adam Sandler movie couldn’t control a HTPC. Universal remotes are often just for traditional AV devices. But not the Bridge from New York-based start-up, Convergence Technologies. This remote concept is a true universal remote with the ability to control everything a HDTV from a cable box to a game system to a digital streamer. But they need your help.

Convergence Technologies is looking for $50k in funding through Kickstarter. The funds will allow the company to develop the necessary software along with building and distributing the remote. As with most Kickstarter project, there’s a bit of risk involved. The device sounds and looks great on paper — if the company can actually build the thing.

What is the Bridge? from Harsh Mody on Vimeo.

The start-up would need to collect (or license) the necessary IR codes for every AV device. The company claims that the Bridge would also be able to control RF devices like the Boxee Box so those codes would need to be found as well. What’s more, the creators state on that they’ll be able to bring this savior of mankind to the market for well less than $100. Still, the dream is big and certainly within reach — as long as they get the necessary funds. That’s where you come in.

Convergence Technologies turned to Kickstarter for help. The site’s crowd funding model allows anyone to throw a few dollars towards the project in return for a bit of swag and a warm fuzzy feeling. The creators are looking for $50,000 and as of this post’s writing, has 47 days to reach that goal. Pledge $10 and it will get you a pin. $20 earns you a t-shirt while $65 gets you one of the first units.

VeriFone is on a bit of an acquisition spree. After purchasing payments software developer Global Bay, the payments company is acquiring European e-payments giant Point for $820 million. The acquisition is expected to close at the end of 2011. VeriFone will also assume $230 million worth of debt from Point, making the the total transaction volume over $1 billion.

Point, which was sold by private equity group Nordic Capital, is Northern Europe’s largest provider of payment and gateway services for retailers and merchants. Point installations handle 10 million transactions per day, and customers include some of the largest retail companies in Europe, as well as small independent stores and online merchants.

The company’s technology includes point-of-sale technology and support, gateway services, card encryption services, and multi-channel e-commerce processing. Point has more than 800 employees and a local presence in Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden and the UK. Currently, Point has 475,000 merchant contracts.

VeriFone plans to expand the Point platform throughout the region and beyond, with the aim of creating the world’s largest infrastructure for rapid deployment of alternative payments.

Douglas G. Bergeron, VeriFone CEO said of the acquisition “Our vision is to offer retailers everywhere a managed service to easily accept all existing payment types, including the evolving alternative and mobile payment methods being offered by Google, PayPal, Groupon, Isis, Visa, MasterCard, and American Express. At the same time, we can increasingly offer the new payment entrants easy and accelerated access to our worldwide installation of more than 20 million merchant lanes.”

Beyond expanding point of sale technologies in Europe, Point is also a money-maker for VeriFone, and expected to bring in $260 million in sales in the next 12 months. VeriFone expects total services revenue to exceed 30 percent of sales in fiscal year 2012, and 50 percent of revenue by fiscal year 2015.

As AllThingsD reported in August, VeriFone is planning to spend $1 billion a year to acquire new technologies to help lead the payments space. While it looks like VeriFone could have reached that number this year, next year’s slew of acquisitions should be interesting.

You may have already been acquainted with the Samsung Captivate Glide, but it hasn’t quite gotten as much attention as it deserves. Today, that changes. I got the opportunity to get up close and personal with the new Android slider and found it to be a solid little handset for anyone who simply can’t stand touchscreen keyboards.

To refresh, the Samsung Captivate Glide will run on AT&T’s 4G HSPA+ network, and run Android 2.3 Gingerbread. It sports a 4-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen, with a dual-core 1GHz processor under the hood. You’ll find an 8-megapixel flash-enabled shooter on the rear capable of video capture in 1080p, along with a 1.3-megapixel front-facing cam for video chat. It packs 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal memory with support for a microSD card up to 32GB. Naturally, the Captivate Glide has support for HDMI out, and of course sports a sliding four-row QWERTY keyboard.

Upon first inspection, the Captivate Glide doesn’t necessarily stand out. It’s much like any other Android slider handset you’ve seen before, but with specs that can compete with the likes of the Droid RAZR and HTC Rezound in terms of performance. In fact, if you’re looking at it head-on, the Captivate Glide reminds me a lot of the Samsung Galaxy S II with rounded corners and a very (sorry to say it, Samsung) iPhone-like shape.

Then you pick up the phone and realize its quite a bit thicker (to make room for that QWERTY keyboard, of course) and sports a nice textured finish across the back. It’ll probably pick up more crumbs than your standard plastic back panel, but it’s also more comfortable, offers a better grip, and feels a bit more expensive. The keyboard felt solid, and slid back and forth quite smoothly. The 480×800 display was fine, but it didn’t blow me away like the Super AMOLED Plus display on the SGS II.

The Captivate Glide is actually lighter than it looks, but I still wouldn’t necessarily call it light. And while it shares a few specs with some of the big guns out there, you’re definitely trading in a thin little waist line for that QWERTY sliding keyboard. That is the case with most sliders, and textaholics (who prefer physical keyboards) tend to already know that’s part of the equation, but it’s still worth noting.

All in all the Samsung Captivate Glide is a smart little slider that should offer a solid, strongly spec’d alternative to the keyboard-less candy bars currently dominating the market. Pricing and availability are as yet unannounced.