Ambient Industries shuts down Flook local discovery app

Startup Ambient Industries will discontinue its Flook local search and discovery application sometime within the next 30 days, citing financial pressures as the culprit.

The free Flook application for Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS enables consumers to discover and share local information via full-screen "cards"--users create cards by snapping photos and adding text, sharing recommendations on bars, restaurants and merchants via email, Facebook and Twitter. Ambient notified Flook users of the imminent shutdown over the weekend, and will offer a solution to export their cards, comments and data.

"As you can imagine it costs quite a bit of money to run all the machines and robots that make up Flook, and unfortunately we have just run out," Ambient writes. "We built Flook as a great experiment, and loved every bit of it. Over 100,000 of you used Flook over the years, we got some great press and it gave us so much pride to see the many ingenious ways you all contributed to Flook... We just didn't manage to get Flook to where we wanted it to go, but we are so very thankful for your support on our journey."

Ambient Industries launched in late 2008, and in early 2010 raised close to $1 million in venture financing. TechCrunch reports it is presently unclear whether the firm will close its doors or shift its focus to other projects.

For more:
- read this TechCrunch article

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