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Mom commerce site ecomom has raised $4 million in a Series A financing round lead by Cue Ball Capital. The round was followed on by investors Dave McClure, Tony Hsieh, Chamath Palihapitiya, Rohan Oza, 500 Startups, Matias de Tezanos, Rhodium, Walter Kortschak, Troy Carter, Crosslink Capital, Summit Series, Nala Investments, Paige Craig, Ed Wilson, Tom McInerney, Zac Zeitlin, Venture 51 and Bruce Leak. Cue Ball’s John Hamel will be joining the board.

ecomom CEO Jody Sherman tells me that what sets ecomom apart from other mom-targeted commerce sites is its expert curation, with an editorial staff culling eco-friendly and healthy products.

“Everything that goes in, on, or around a growing family is available and every product has been deeply researched and evaluated against over 70 separate criteria — focusing first on ‘is it healthy and safe’ then ‘is it useful and cost effective,’ “he says. The site offers anything from diapers to nail polish to parents who want healthier product options for their their children.

“Domain rocks, product rocks, customer segment everything rock,” the infamous Dave McClure tells me, explaining why continues to invest in the service, “What mom doesn’t want to buy healthy stuff for their kids?”

Right?

Erick isn’t much of a gamer, which is why he’s particularly suited at assessing the new Xbox 360 UI, dubbed Metro by those in the know. Aside from the obvious changes in design, the UI actually makes it easier for guys like Erick to use the Xbox to watch movies, Youtube videos, UFC fight, and other media ephemera that thus far has been lacking in the Xbox experience.

Microsoft knows that the 360 is reaching the end of its life cycle and next gen stuff will probably be announced by the next E3. That said, this update allows the stragglers – folks who have been thinking about an Xbox but who may not play games – to purchase the device as a media center rather than a games machine.

We look at the UI and some of the apps in this episode of Fly or Die and, most important, assess just how good a sniper Erick is in MW3.

This week was packed with news on the mobile front, so it was easy to miss a few stories here and there. Here's some of the other stuff that happened in the wide world of wireless for the week of December 5, 2011:

• C Spire announced this week that it's launching the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play. The device is currently available for purchase for $50 with a two-year commitment and after a $50 mail-in rebate. [AndroidCentral]
• Images and specs of Philips' first Android device, the W920, surfaced this week, and its spec sheet doesn't look very good: Froyo, a 1GHz Qualcomm QSD8250 CPU, 512MB of RAM, a 4.3-inch WVGA display, a 5MP camera, 10.5mm thin frame and it has a 1,280mAh battery. The fun part is the rumored price tag: £400 ($627). [LandofDroid]
• Ting is a new Sprint MVNO that'll launch mid-2012. It'll be prepaid and use a bump-up and bump-down model for pricing -- in other words, going over your minutes will just bump you into the next higher plan, while using fewer minutes can bump you to a lower plan. [Cnet]
• Another prepaid provider in the news this week is PrepaYd Wireless, which launched this week. It offers a "Y Pay More" plan that will give you unlimited talk, text and 3G data for $40 per month. If you don't need data, you can get all-you-can-eat talk and text for $35. Much like Ting, PrepaYd Wireless utilizes the Sprint network. [MobileTechNews]
• If you use a BlackBerry OS 7 device on AT&T, the carrier is offering you two free months of BBM Music. Normally you need to pay $5 a month to store 50 songs. [Crackberry]
• While we're on the subject of BlackBerry phones, Twitter for BlackBerry just got updated to version 2.1 and now offers multi-account support. In addition to being able to view up to five accounts in the same feed, it also includes the ability to tweet one thing to more than one account simultaneously. [BlackBerry]
• Pandora and Windows Phone may never mix well, but at least the radio service can be enjoyed now through an unofficial Pandora app called MetroRadio. It's free, and is finally available in the Windows Phone Marketplace. [WPCentral]

Mobile Miscellany: week of December 5, 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Dec 2011 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket, Galaxy S II LTE is getting the white paint job, too. Unfortunately this doesn’t mean you can get it – as far as we know the LTE-enabled version of Sammy’s popular superphone is available only in South Korea. However, we do hope we won’t have to wait for too long to see this baby hitting the Western hemisphere as well.

That said, we would also like to see the white Galaxy Nexus released. Now that would be something though if you look at the Nexus track record, every version was available only in one color. So I guess Sammy will offer the upcoming Galaxy S III in multiple colors… or (again) so we hope.

In any case, it’s always better to have more options and we love when handset makers release their products in multiple colors. On the other hand, I don’t like the exclusivity that also comes as part of this marketing scheme — for instance, the Galaxy S II in white was released more than 6 months after the original black version started selling. Why that’s the case is beyond me…

[Via: Unwired View]

Samsung Galaxy S II LTE goes white, too originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2011-12-10T13:05:54Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j

I know many of you like Nokia’s one and only MeeGo smartphone – N9. I like it too but somehow I can’t justify the price – it’s just too expensive considering the hardware. If you go for an Android smartphone, 629.90 EUR buys you a bigger screen and dual-core processor. Sure it’s not all about tech specs, but still – it’s not like N9 offers much more than Android devices. For one thing, there are not that many apps available for MeeGo.

Anyway, I know diehard fans don’t mind the limited support N9 is getting from the developer community and even Nokia itself (Windows Phone is now their #1 priority). And I agree it’s an awesome device and… it’s now available in white. That’s in Finland only (as far as we know) with Verkkokauppa.com selling it for some 630 EUR. Check it out from here…

[Via: MyNokiaBlog]

White Nokia N9 available in Finland for 629.90 EUR originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2011-12-10T13:04:15Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j