Finding Rover app launches in California

A new smartphone app is utilizing facial recognition technology to help pet owners locate their lost dogs. 

Finding Rover, which recently launched in the Bay Area of California, uses a software which scans photos taken of lost and found dogs and compares it to lost and found reports in the area. Understanding the importance of getting pets home safe, Finding Rover is applying services and processes similar to PetLynx's proven recovery system and DataSketch™ technology. 

The app also contains a bark button to get the dog's attention so owners can take a photo that will be compatible with the facial recognition software. Finding Rover is available for free and compatible with iPhone and Android. 

comScore Report Shows Canada Leads the World

The 2012 Canada Digital Future in Focus report from comScore was released last week and examines how the prevailing trends in general web usage and demographics, social media, online video, digital advertising, mobile and search are defining the current Canadian marketplace. This annual report provides insight into what these trends mean for the year ahead.

Key insights include:

• Canada continues to lead the world in online engagement, with visitors spending an average 45 hours per month online, representing a fertile ground for digital marketers and advertisers.
• While Facebook is nearing a point of visitor saturation in Canada, other social networks’ visitor bases are posting strong growth, including Twitter, LinkedIn and Tumblr. 
• Engagement on many social sites is trending upward, with Facebook driving the large majority of the increase in total minutes and page views for the overall category.
• Online video is becoming an increasingly popular channel, with total videos viewed up 58 percent. 
• YouTube continues to dominate the marketplace, representing nearly 1 in every 2 videos viewed in Canada.
• Display advertising is evolving to be more social, not only with the rise of “socially-published ads” (i.e. those published on social networking sites), but also the increase of “socially-enabled” ads running across the web that direct click-throughs to the brand’s Facebook fan page.
• Smartphone penetration has reached 45 percent in Canada, with daily mobile content usage growing more than 50 percent in several key content categories.

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comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital business analytics.

SMARTPHONE SHIPMENTS TO APPROACH ONE BILLION IN 2015

According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, the worldwide smartphone market is forecast to grow 55% year over year in 2011 as a growing number of users turn in their feature phones for more advanced devices. IDC predicts vendors will ship a total of 472 million smartphones in 2011 compared to roughly 305 million units shipped in 2010. That figure will nearly double to 982 million by the end of 2015.