Furniture Sofa

Facebook has acquired Sofa, a software company based in Amsterdam, which created Mac apps like Kaleidoscope and Versions. In an announcement on Sofa’s blog, the company says:

We expected to keep working at Sofa forever. But after Facebook first made contact, we were quickly convinced to join forces.

Facebook is full of talent and has a great culture. We feel challenged and at home at the same time, and can really get things done there. But equally important, we believe that at Facebook, we will be making a real difference to a lot of people’s lives.

The Sofa team will be moving from Amsterdam to Palo Alto in the coming weeks – and we’ll make sure to infuse some of our particular flavor of Dutch culture at Facebook.

Kaleiodscope and Versions aren’t part of the acquisition, but they’ll both remain available, as the firm says it’s working on “securing a great future for the outside Sofa.” They also say they’re working with a joint venture partner to provide a smooth transition and “best possible future” for its other products Checkout and Enstore.

A Facebook spokesperson said, as quoted by The Next Web, “We noticed their products and then found and met them at SXSW and realized our team values and cultures were really similar. Then we invited them to FB. Rest is history!”

In a statement, the company also said, “The team will contribute to a wide selection of the products that the design team works on. Typically, each Facebook product has a designer who is a core part of the team.”

It will be very interesting to see what Facebook features come of this acquisition. The financial terms have not been disclosed.

DENVER – On their way to Michigan International Speedway for this weekend’s Sprint Cup race, Regan Smith and the Furniture Row Racing team took a detour to southeastern Virginia to test their road-racing cars at Virginia International Raceway (VIR) in preparation for next week’s road-course race in Sonoma, Calif.

“Because our team is based in Denver, Colorado that doesn’t mean we can’t do the same things as the teams based in North Carolina,” Smith said. “The ownership and management at Furniture Row are deeply committed to putting the best product on the track week in and week out. Testing at VIR is only one small example of that commitment and the team guys are equally dedicated. As a driver, it’s a great feeling to know that you have this kind of support.”

Smith knows that when he gets strapped into his No. 78 Furniture Row Chevrolet for Sunday’s Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400 that the potential is there to compete up front.

After the first 14 races of the season, he has claimed one win (Darlington), one top-five and three top 10s. He has qualified in the top-five in 50 percent of the races and ranks second in starting average with a 9.571. Carl Edwards leads with a starting average of 9.357.

“Our recent 15th-place finish in Pocono was decent, but as I have said in the past, we’re just okay with top 15s, we want to have results in the top-10 and top-five,” Smith said. “Though we’re making steady progress, we need to get stronger if we want to get in the top-20 in points and have a possible wild card spot in the Chase.”

With his one victory this season, Smith could land a wild card Chase berth based on NASCAR’s new criteria for making the post-season lineup. But in order for Smith to take advantage of the victory he needs to be positioned in the top-20 in points.

“We gained some ground last week by picking off two positions,” Smith said, who is currently 27th in points, 47 shy of the coveted top-20 ranking. “We know it’s doable, but we can’t afford the big mistakes or the big crashes.”

The two-mile Michigan track is a facility where Smith and the Furniture Row team feel they can make up ground, barring any unexpected issues.

“Michigan is a track where I truly feel we can produce a strong performance,” Smith said. “It’s wide and you can pass there. Last year we had solid performances at MIS but didn’t get the finishes (21st and 23rd) that our Furniture Row Chevrolet deserved. It’s time to change that and come away with a strong finish and a bunch of Sprint Cup driver points.”

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COOKEVILLE — Fire roared through the old Norwalk Furniture factory building on South Willow Avenue Tuesday afternoon, sending black clouds of smoke high into the air and causing an estimated $50,000 damage to the unoccupied building.

Cookeville Fire Department and Putnam County Fire Department firefighters spent several hours extinguishing the blazes, and investigators are working today to determine the cause of the fire.

It was around 3:20 p.m. when passersby began calling 911 and reporting the fire, said Cookeville Fire Department Capt. Matt White.

“When we arrived, we found that the fire was in a metal warehouse section of the old factory and a stack of wood pallets in there was burning and the roof was on fire,” he said.

The old factory building has not been occupied for many years, but has been used for storage and has deteriorated in some areas over the years, as vandals and thieves have targeted it.

Currently, the building is owned by a bank in another state, according to White.

The 16 city firefighters on duty at the time of the fire were quickly joined by 17 off-duty firefighters who were called in and 12 of the county’s volunteer firefighters, he said.

“We laid large hoses and put a large amount of water to the fire using our big ‘deluge guns,’ hoses with large nozzles for a high volume of water.”

Using aerial attack trucks, the firefighters attacked the fire from the top and after a time succeeded in containing the fire to that one warehouse area, White said.

No one was in the building when the firefighters arrived, and no one was injured during the six hours of work at the scene, he said.

“We were there till 9:30 p.m. mostly watching one trouble spot on that roof.”

White gave a rough estimate of the damage as $50,000.

He said the Putnam Ambulance Service and the Putnam Rescue Squad stood by to treat firefighters if they became overheated and said the Cookeville Police Department provided traffic control in the area.

The cause of the fire is not known, but with no electric power to the building and no obvious indication of any other fire source, the case was turned over to police for investigation.

The building once housed a thriving furniture building business, but has not been used for anything other than storage for many years.