airship

Generally, I'm not a fan of apps shooting push notifications out to my phone.

No, "Words with Friends," I don't care that I'm about to forfeit my game. There's a reason I stopped playing it. I don't need an alert any time I get a new friend on Facebook.

But apparently, notifications do make a difference when it comes to engagement, and sometimes they're what keeps an app from getting deleted off the phone or being one of the myriad of unused "zombie" apps left ignored on a smartphone. With … Read more

OAKLAND -- Last week marked the 75th anniversary of the Hindenburg disaster, and the end of the golden era of zeppelin passenger travel.

But anyone who lives in or around the San Francisco Bay Area is no doubt aware that these days, zeppelin travel is alive and well. That's thanks to Airship Ventures, a company run out of the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., which operates one of the world's three airships, all of which were build by Zeppelin NT, a company located in Friedrichshafen, Germany.

Today, during an event hosted by the cloud storage … Read more

In Tom Clancy's sensationalist novel "Debt of Honor," a disgruntled pilot decides to avenge his lost honor by crashing a fuel-laden 747 directly into the U.S. Capitol, causing the giant building to explode and collapse. The scope of that fictional disaster was hard to fathom prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

But even before 9/11, anyone who had been in Lakehurst, N.J., on May 6, 1937, would have had a pretty good sense of just how big an explosion Clancy had in mind. Because that day, the Hindenburg, a German zeppelin … Read more

Mobile notifications provider Urban Airship has raised $15 million in a Series C round led by strategic investors Verizon and Salesforce.com.

The company, which provides companies with push notifications for mobile apps, said it recently served up its 7 billionth notification and is averaging 1 billion notifications a month.

The Portland, Ore.-based company recently acquired geolocation startup SimpleGeo in an all-stock deal rumored to be worth about $3.5 million.

"With 20,000 customers on our platform, close to 30,000 apps across iOS, Android and BlackBerry we've seen a 1,000% increase in traffic to … Read more

Mobile notifications provider Urban Airship has agreed to acquire geolocation startup SimpleGeo, the companies confirmed today.

The all-stock deal is estimated to be worth $3.5 million, according to Uncrunched, which first reported the acquisition.

"Companies should not have to rely on a fragmented and unwieldy mix of tools that only deliver part of what is needed to understand how people are interacting with their brand on mobile," Urban Airship CEO Scott Kveton said in a statement. "We've been working with SimpleGeo for months now and knew that putting the two companies together would create a … Read more

If you're going to fight an Islamic insurgency, you'd think there would be more practical tools than an airship.

But that's just what Thailand has been using to track militants in its restive southern provinces. Its manned Aeros 40D Sky Dragon, manufactured by California-based Aeros, has again run into technical trouble, making an emergency landing in the south's Pattani Province recently.

The Sky Dragon developed propeller problems and began losing altitude. It sustained some damage in an emergency landing, but no one was hurt, the Bangkok Post reported.

The 350 million baht ($11.7 million) U.S.-built craft has been seen as a boondoggle in Thailand due to problems with equipment and delays in delivery. It was returned to Aeros last year following major leaks, according to the paper.

Because the warranty has expired, the Royal Thai Army will have to pay for repairs.

The airship has a rigid structure and is thus not a blimp, and it measures 11.6 yards wide by 51 yards long. It's supposed to fly up to an altitude of 10,000 feet with a top speed of 54.6 mph. Its operational range is 348 miles.

The military has been using the dirigible for surveillance in the insurgency, which has claimed thousands of lives. It's been equipped with high-def night cameras and communications systems. … Read more

FRIEDRICHSHAFEN, Germany--The thunder and lightning outside are fierce, so there are no flights today. That's disappointing for anyone who had been scheduled to fly, but for me it's a blessing: I get to see Europe's only Zeppelin NT in its home hangar.

As part of Road Trip 2011 I'd come to this Germany city on Lake Constance to visit the Zeppelin Museum, but as a bonus, I was now headed out for a meeting with Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik (ZLT), the only company in the world that makes the internal-structure airships. And with buckets of water coming down … Read more

If you like big and green, NASA's Ames Research Center will soon have something for you: the world's largest and greenest airship.

The space agency announced today that the Mountain View, Calif., research center's Moffett Field will soon play host to a mammoth 265-foot-long and 65-foot-diameter airship from Kellyton, Ala.'s E-Green Technologies. The Bullet Class 580 will be developed and tested at Ames in 24,000 square feet of Ames' famous Hangar 2.

The new airship, which has a planned first flight date of early 2011, is expected to run on algae-based biofuel, and fly at … Read more

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif.--NASA celebrated the 75th anniversary of this iconic airfield and research center on Friday by dedicating a brand-new zeppelin from a private company called Airship Ventures.

The zeppelin NT ("new technology"), which is one of just three currently functioning zeppelins that exist in the world, and the biggest, at 246 feet, was named "Eureka," a name that relates to the fact that the ship is based in California, as well as the fact that it is "rooted in scientific principles," said Brian Bell, a co-founder of Airship Ventures, the ship's … Read more