Travel Search Company Skyscanner Acquires Budapest-Based Mobile App Developer Distinction

Skyscanner, the travel search company headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland (and a veteran of the space), is consolidating its mobile strategy today with the acquisition of Budapest-based app developer Distinction.

The deal — terms of which remain undisclosed — sees the Scottish company pick up Distinction’s 30-strong team of mobile designers and developers who will form the basis of Skyscanner new Budapest, Hungary-based mobile ‘hub’, effectively bringing its mobile app development in-house.

The two companies had already been working together, most recently to develop Skyscanner’s hotel app which launched in August this year on iOS and Android. However, I understand the relationship harks back to 2011, including Distinction helping to build the travel search company’s Windows Mobile 8 flight search app a couple of years ago.

Along with its new Budapest mobile development hub via today’s acquisition, Skyscanner says it plans to create additional roles to drive mobile growth, which has already seen a multitude of travel apps hit the various app stores. “We have expanded our range of apps over the past 12 months, adding car hire and, most recently, hotels and have had over 30m downloads across our product range,” a company spokesperson tell me.

To that end, Gareth Williams, Skyscanner co-founder and CEO, says in a statement: “The future of online travel booking is undoubtedly mobile. More and more of travellers’ plans are made on the move and that is accelerating fast.

“The team at Distinction, led by Bálint Orosz and Akos Kapui, are some of the best app developers that I’ve ever come across. In working closely with them on the design of our hotel app, we saw how focused they were on the user experience. They have built a fantastic company with a great culture and, as part of our combined team, will focus on creating the mobile travel assistant that future travellers will need.”

How To Hide Text In Microsoft Word 2007, Reveal It & Protect It

Sometimes what we hide is more important than what we reveal. Especially, documents with sensitive information, some things are supposed to be ‘for some eyes only’. Such scenarios are quite common, even for the more un-secretive among us. You want to show someone a letter composed in MS Word, but want to keep some of the content private; or it’s an official letter with some part of it having critical data. As important as these two are, the most common use could involve a normal printing job. Many a time we have to print different versions of a document, one copy for one set of eyes and others for other sets. Rather than creating multiple copies and therefore multiple printing jobs, what if we could just do it from the same document? That too, without the hassle of repeated cut and paste. We can, with a simple feature in MS Word – it’s just called Hidden and let me show you how to use it to hide text in Microsoft Word 2007. It’s a simple single click process. Open the docum...

Boom, the startup that wants to build supersonic planes, just signed a massive deal with Virgin

Have you heard about Boom? Boom is a relatively new startup that’s aiming to build something pretty crazy. They’re not building an app… or a social network… or even some new gadget for the Kickstarter crowd. Boom wants to build planes. Really, really, really fast planes. Specifically, they’re trying to design and build a supersonic passenger plane that goes 2.2x the speed of sound. If all goes to plan, they’ll be able to shuttle people from New York to London in 3.5 hours, and SF to Tokyo in 4.5. Sound crazy? I wouldn’t disagree. It’s worth noting that the company is in the very early days for something as intensive, massive, and hugely expensive as designing and producing a passenger aircraft. They’re still working on their first prototype, and hope to fly it by late next year. But it’s also worth noting that the team behind the plane has some serious talent in its blood: the company’s 11 employees have collectively contributed to over 30 aircrafts — having worked on thin...

Fun Tools to Translate Your Name into Japanese Calligraphy

Japanese calligraphy is an artistic writing style of the Japanese language. Its Chinese origins can be traced back to the twenty-eighth century BCE. Calligraphy found its way into Japanese culture in 600 CE and is known as the karayo tradition. For Westerners, calligraphy is forever fascinating. However, it takes years to learn how to properly draw the signs. Two basic principles must be known to understand Japanese writing: there are different writing styles and different alphabets. Kaisho for example, is a writing style most commonly used in print media. Tensho on the other hand is used in signatures. Other writing styles are Reisho, Gyosho and Sousho. The alphabets include Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana. Katakana is used for writing foreign words. It can also serve to highlight words, in analogy to capital letters as we know them from the Roman / Latin alphabet (Romaji in Japanese). Each Kanji character has a meaning of its own, while Hiragana or Katakana characters merely repres...

Kiran Upadhyay

Search This Blog