A British teenager has struck it rich -- by inventing a cell phone application at his home and selling it to the U.S.-based Internet portal Yahoo.
Seventeen-year-old Nick D'Aloisio has been working on applications for mobile phones since he was 12. Now, he has sold Summly, his app that makes it easier to read news on small screens, to Yahoo for a reported $30 million.
D'Aloisio has a year and a half left to finish high school. But he says he hopes to test out of his classes so he and two of his team members can go to work at Yahoo's London office.
Yahoo said that most articles and Web pages were designed for browsing with computer mouse clicks, something that cannot be done with hand-held devices. But D'Aloisio helped develop an algorithm that automatically generates short summaries that can be more easily viewed on cell phones.
Several well-known people invested in D'Aloisio's work developing the app, including businesswoman Wendi Murdoch, actor Ashton Kutcher and Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing.
Seventeen-year-old Nick D'Aloisio has been working on applications for mobile phones since he was 12. Now, he has sold Summly, his app that makes it easier to read news on small screens, to Yahoo for a reported $30 million.
D'Aloisio has a year and a half left to finish high school. But he says he hopes to test out of his classes so he and two of his team members can go to work at Yahoo's London office.
Yahoo said that most articles and Web pages were designed for browsing with computer mouse clicks, something that cannot be done with hand-held devices. But D'Aloisio helped develop an algorithm that automatically generates short summaries that can be more easily viewed on cell phones.
Several well-known people invested in D'Aloisio's work developing the app, including businesswoman Wendi Murdoch, actor Ashton Kutcher and Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing.