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Managing Talent In A Networked Age, Part I
Reid Hoffman
2,014
11
9
Success in Silicon Valley is all about people — about how companies build lasting alliances with teams of entrepreneurial employees. Outsiders sometimes think that recruiting and keeping great people in the Valley requires offering Google-like perks or eye-popping compensation packages. In fact, it’s far more powerfu...
Uber Hits Out At India’s ‘Unnecessary And Burdensome’ New Payment Regulations
Jon Russell
2,014
11
30
at new regulations governing payments in India, after it called the mandating of two-factor authentication for all online transactions “an antiquated solution that is cumbersome for consumers and stifling for businesses.” a new wallet-based payment solution last month in response to . Today it fully switched over al...
Rules For Drones
Frederic Lardinois
2,014
11
30
People are idiots and when you put high-powered flying machines into their hands, things can get ugly fast. This Christmas, more people than ever will get quadcopters and that means will think it’s a good idea to fly them on a field right next to their local (or ) airport or over a stadium full of people. Thanks t...
Vox Media Raises $46.5M At A Reported $380M Valuation
Catherine Shu
2,014
11
30
, which owns sites like , , and , has raised $46.5 million from General Atlantic at a valuation of $380 million. The new funding, which is supposed to be announced on Monday, was that has been . We’re taking that as confirmation of the funding amount, but have reached out to Vox to see if the valuation is accurat...
Audience Entertainment Shows Off New Ways To Play Games With Everyone At The Movie Theater
Anthony Ha
2,014
11
30
Startup aims to get movie watchers twisting and turning as they play games together in the theater. I wrote about the company a few of months ago, when it was for outside developers to create content on the platform. The demos I saw then were pretty simple — for example a game where I jumped around to tap falling...
Five Sony Pictures Movie Screeners Leaked After Hacking
Catherine Shu
2,014
11
30
Five movie screeners from Sony Pictures have made their way onto torrent sites after the studio’s computer system was hacked earlier this week. These include unreleased titles “Annie,” “Mr. Turner,” “Still Alice,” and “To Write Love On Her Arms,” as well as World War II drama “Fury.” The latter has been in theaters for...
Lyft Sheds Some Of Its Quirks As It Seeks New Users
Ryan Lawler
2,014
11
30
The pink mustache. The fist bump. Riding up front and chatting with the driver. Those are all things that had come to define Lyft as a service over the earliest part of its journey, as it sought to win over users and position itself as an alternative to Uber and the existing taxi industry. As time has gone on, however,...
Facebook, Google, And Twitter’s War For App Install Ads
Josh Constine
2,014
11
30
of our love of apps is that now there’s just too damn many of them. The app stores are overcrowded, leaving developers desperate for a way to get their games and utilities discovered. That is why the app install ad has become the lifeblood of the mobile platform business. Big brands aren’t the only ones to suck up to ...
Banks As Commodity Utilities In A New Payment World
Christoffer O. Hernæs
2,014
11
30
With the recent launch of Apple Pay and of Facebook integrating payments with Facebook Messenger fintech companies, there is a lot of speculation regarding the future of banking. Backed up by the way-too-often quoted  ,  and a range of similar reports tech evangelists predict that Apple,  and   will become the banks...
The Star Wars Episode VII Trailer If It Were Made By George Lucas
Greg Kumparak
2,014
11
30
What would that glorious trailer look like if George Lucas went back and fiddled with it, as he so loves to do? Probably something like this… The number of references and jabs crammed in here is off the charts. I won’t spoil them all, but my favorite? The unnecessary rocks at 0:20. (If you don’t get that one, don’t w...
The Algorithm Economy Heads To Amazon
Danny Crichton
2,014
11
30
Holidays are a time for families to come together, catch up over great food and drinks, and determine all the technical problems that need solving throughout the house. Indeed, for children growing up in the digital age, the holidays ultimately boil down to free (or more accurately, meal-subsidized) technical support f...
Uber’s Next Billion-Dollar Financing Could Be A Convertible Debt Round
Ryan Lawler
2,014
11
8
On-demand transportation company could put more money under its already overstuffed mattress*, as the company is seeking to raise an addition $1 billion in funding. Instead of offering equity to investors that participate, however, the company might structure the offering as a convertible debt round. Uber’s efforts t...
It’s Time For An Open Standard For Cards
Nova Spivack
2,014
11
8
Cards are fast becoming the   for mobile apps, but their importance goes far beyond mobile. Cards are modular, bite-sized content containers designed for easy consumption and interaction on small screens, but they are also a new metaphor for user-interaction that is spreading across all manner of other apps and content...
Little’s Law Is Big For Startups
Matt Oguz
2,014
11
8
  Traffic, traction, growth. We all know that these terms are prerequisites to success. As we launch our startups we hope for initial customer acceptance, which would lead to traffic, traction and growth (TTG). In some cases, we’re willing to pay for traffic. In most other cases, we work around the clock to ignite orga...
Using Big Data To Fight Pandemics
Nuria Oliver
2,014
11
8
  Last year, on how anonymous and aggregated mobile phone data can be used to understand and combat the spread of infectious diseases. I described a study that we carried out in my research team a few years ago, where we analyzed aggregated and anonymized mobile data from Mexico during the H1N1 flu outbreak in the sp...
Xbox One November Update Brings Custom Backgrounds And Twitter Integration
Greg Kumparak
2,014
11
8
Another month, another pack of shiny new features heading for the Xbox One. It’s not the most exciting update the One has received to date, and it sounds like this one will be the last big update for the year… both of those facts likely because Microsoft doesn’t want to risk introducing any big bugs right before the oh...
Everykey Wants To Put Your Passwords On Your Wrist
Natasha Lomas
2,014
11
8
The password as a digital authenticator is under more strain than ever. But is the answer to memorizing multiple complex secure passwords to rely on proximity and a physical wristband for logging in to devices and websites? The U.S.-based makers of a device called believe so. They’re currently , looking to ra...
The Rise And Fall Of The Full Stack Developer
Peter Yared
2,014
11
8
  It seems as though everyone in tech today is infatuated with the full-stack developer. Full stack may have been possible in the Web 2.0 era, but a new generation of startups is emerging, pushing the limits of virtually all areas of software. From machine intelligence to predictive push computing to data analytics to ...
The Larger Implications Of Electronic Payments Adoption
Alberto Jimenez
2,014
11
8
While global efforts to increase financial inclusion (expanding access to savings, credit and insurance products) can have profound implications for individuals given the emergence of the digital economy, the ability to send and receive money in electronic form is potentially more transformative. The societal benefits ...
Disrupting Democracy
Jon Evans
2,014
11
8
You have to grudgingly admire the black-hat political hackers who have the American electoral system. First, entrench a two-party dichotomy; second, gerrymander districts into tortuous shapes; third, cultivate an electorate that no matter how much voters dislike their incumbent, they hate the alternative worse; fou...
European Startups, Get Your Pitches Together
Andrew J Scott
2,014
11
8
  I’ve pitched at least 250 investors over the years, mentored hundreds of startups and have plenty of behind me. So I feel I know a thing or two about pitching, and European startups are so often really rather bad at it. Austria, and specifically Vienna, is famous for classical music and more than tech startups, b...
Steve Jobs Still Casts Long Shadow At Web Summit
Ron Miller
2,014
11
8
I spent this past week in Dublin at  , and I couldn’t help but notice, we are still fascinated, dare I say obsessed with the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs more than three years after his death. If you knew the man or even had a meeting with him back in the day, interviewers wanted to hear about it. Heck, even TechCr...
Salesforce’s Service Cloud 1 Is A Wearable Technology Trojan Horse
Justin Foster
2,014
11
1
  Imagine a scenario in which an oil rig worker suddenly hears an alarm sound from somewhere on the rig. The adrenaline rush begins and the worker knows he has to move fast. The sound of the siren is not a clear signal as to where the trouble is, but the smartwatch on his wrist indicates exactly where to go and what ne...
The Internet Archive Now Lets You Play 900+ Classic Arcade Games In Your Browser
Greg Kumparak
2,014
11
1
Looking for a nice little burst of nostalgia on this fine Saturday evening? Don’t feel like going through the process of installing MAME and lurking for ROMs, but still want to get your classic arcade on? Back in December of last year, the Internet Archive (in their effort to backup the entire digital world, one bit at...
Two Worlds Colliding: How LinkedIn Could Take On Salesforce
Vik Singh
2,014
11
1
  Today’s B2B sales and marketing folks struggle with the overwhelming number of channels for finding and reaching new leads. The customer “funnel” continues to expand as buyers do more of their own research before raising their hand to connect with a sales rep. But imagine if you could make the funnel wider by identif...
Talk Isn’t Cheap As Investors Pour Cash Into Collaboration And Intelligence Tools
Jonathan Shieber
2,014
11
1
Investors and innovators have been trying to develop better tools for groups to communicate, collaborate, and make decisions for decades. Since businesses have become increasingly global and engage more remote workers, the need for collaboration tools is even more pronounced. And while hundreds of millions have been sp...
The Future Of French Robotics
Laetitia Vitaud
2,014
11
1
The French still dream of humanoid robots and  . Swedish TV series  , broadcast on French-German TV channel Arte, seduced a surprisingly large audience in France. And flagship robotics projects are proudly  .   is one of those flagship robots, an autonomous programmable humanoid robot developed by French company  . T...
How To Reinvent A $38 Billion Company
Andrew Keen
2,014
11
1
With its illustrious 138-year history, its 114,000 global workforce and its $38 billion dollar market cap, you’d think that the Swedish tech giant Ericsson would be secure as the . But no. As Ericsson CEO confesses, every morning while brushing his teeth, he thinks to himself: “Today I need to make more changes in...
Gillmor Gang: Eating the World
Steve Gillmor
2,014
11
1
The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, Keith Teare, John Taschek, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Thursday, October 30, 2014. A good news week, disguised as mobile, Facebook, and notifications eating the world. Just beneath the surface, the power of micro-communities lurking. @stevegillmor, @scobleizer, @jta...
The Potential Of Beacon Technology
Navneet Loiwal
2,014
11
1
After indoor positioning with Wi-Fi, beacon technology is a massive step forward in ambient context identification, which is why this technology is all the buzz of late. Beacons allow for background positioning and detection, giving new power to a phone that can make it truly “smart.” Because they offer the potential t...
The Challenge Of Connecting The Unconnected
Hassan Baig
2,014
11
1
  Every time we return to or sign up for an Internet service (e.g. Facebook, Google, Gmail, YouTube, etc.), we rely on what UX experts call a “mental model” for navigating through the choices. A mental model is essentially a person’s intuition of how something works based on past knowledge, similar experiences and comm...
Why Is It Bad For Tech To Eat Jobs?
Jon Evans
2,014
11
1
Most jobs suck. Yours probably doesn’t–after all, you’re a member of the highly educated, cutting-edge TechCrunch demographic–but most jobs, almost by definition, are done by people coerced by the fear of not having enough money into doing work they mostly don’t want to do. We should be about the prospect of robots d...
San Francisco’s Short-Term Rental Solution
David Chiu
2,014
11
1
After two-and-a-half years of intense policy discussion and countless hours of public testimony, this week Mayor Ed Lee signed into law that will for the first time regulate short-term rentals in San Francisco. This legislative process was a test of whether or not we could find a reasonable solution to a policy issue...
Twitter Will Open Hong Kong Office To Target Advertisers
Catherine Shu
2,014
11
6
In Asia, Twitter is up against rivals like Sina Weibo and the ubiquity of messaging apps like Line, WhatsApp, and WeChat. But the region is still an important one for the microblogging platform, a point it underscored today by announcing plans to establish an office in Hong Kong. Twitter’s vice president for Asia Pacif...
Spotify Now Lets You Use A Phone Or Tablet As A Remote For Your Desktop Music
Jon Russell
2,014
11
6
, , were wondering when Spotify would use its Connect feature — which — to connect their phone and desktop devices. Well, I’m pleased to say that , and you can now use your phone or tablet as a remote control for the tunes playing on your desktop. The only stipulation is that you are a paying Spotify customer, but ...
SparkLabs To Launch Its Internet Of Things Accelerator In South Korean “Smart City” Songdo
Catherine Shu
2,014
11
6
, one of the leading incubators in Seoul’s rapidly growing startup ecosystems, announced today that it will launch its Internet of Things Accelerator in Songdo International Business District in early 2015. A $35 billion private real estate development that will contain 80,000 apartments, 50 million square feet of offi...
Home Depot Hackers Also Snagged 53 Million Customer Email Addresses
Greg Kumparak
2,014
11
6
Remember that Home Depot hack? The one ? Of course you do. Hell — if you’re anything like me, you’re probably still in the middle of updating your various accounts to point to the replacement credit card. Alas, things are a bit worse than previously believed. In addition to the 56 million credit/debit cards that were ...
Zuckerberg Answers Big Questions About Facebook, Forced Downloads Of Messenger, And Page Reach
Josh Constine
2,014
11
6
Today at his , Mark Zuckerberg boldly responded to some of the top gripes and questions about his company. Here’s a look at the top questions and a summary of the Facebook CEO’s answers. because Zuckerberg thinks it’s a “better experience” and to get you faster responses from friends. Before, messaging was buried in ...
Ex-Pixar And Twitter Exec Ali Rowghani Joins Y Combinator As A Part-Time Partner
Greg Kumparak
2,014
11
6
After parting ways , Ali Rowghani has found a new (part-time) home: Y Combinator. YC has just announced that Rowghani will join their ranks as a part-time partner, with his time mostly to be spent on helping later-stage YC alumni scale things up. Writes YC President Sam Altman announcing the addition: I’m delighted ...
Trends That Will Revolutionize The Retail Industry
Babs Ryan
2,014
11
6
In retail, innovation is the name of the game. Increasingly, retailers are staying ahead through unique in-store experiences that inspire shoppers through social lifestyles. Take a look at STORY, a Manhattan retailer that continually changes everything in store, from products to fittings to events based upon different ...
Let’s Call The Amazon Echo What It Is
Greg Kumparak
2,014
11
6
This morning, Amazon announced a . With a built-in, cloud connected, “always on” microphone, the Echo can listen for your voice “from across the room.” You can ask it about the weather. You can tell it to set an alarm. You can ask it for information about Abraham Lincoln. It’s a personal assistant in a tube! But let’s...
Motorola Starts Selling Moto 360s with Metal Bands For $50-$80 More
Greg Kumparak
2,014
11
6
If the only thing keeping you from picking up a Moto 360 was that your only choice for the watch-band material was leather (and not that Android Wear is still a bit wonky) — good news! After quite a few leaks suggesting as much, Motorola is now the Moto 360 with metal bands. One thing to note: the metal bands hike th...
Odysee Automatically Saves Your Mobile Photos And Videos To Your Home PC
Sarah Perez
2,014
11
6
A new application launching today called offers a different way for consumers to back up photos and videos from their smartphones. Instead of backing up to the cloud, which can be both and sometimes even , with Odysee, content is backed up to your home computer. For free! Well, it’s free until next year when the $...
Former Lyft Exec Denies Taking Confidential Data With Him To Uber
Ryan Lawler
2,014
11
6
Uber executive Travis VanderZanden says allegations that he stole confidential documents from former employer Lyft are “ridiculous.” In a series of , the ex-COO of Lyft denied taking any confidential data with him to rival Uber and claims to have deleted all files he was accused of having in his possession. Yesterday,...
Former Space X Employee Arrested For Alleged Silk Road 2.0 Involvement
John Biggs
2,014
11
6
The alleged operator of the Silk Road 2.0, Blake Benthall, has been arrested by the FBI in San Francisco after federal agents shut down the site on Wednesday. The site was a copy of the original Silk Road, a secure black market site allegedly run by . The FBI announced the arrest on its New York Twitter feed. Operator...
Why Are My Facebook Page’s Posts Getting Bundled Together?
Travis Bernard
2,014
11
6
It’s your fault. You’ve “liked” too many pages, and now Facebook has to do something about it. Sure you might be following 50+ pages on Facebook, but do you really interact with all of them? You don’t. And Facebook knows it. That’s why Facebook has rolled out a site-wide experiment that causes some users to see posts b...
CloudScreener Helps You Decide Which Cloud To Use, Raises 600,000 Euros
Frederic Lardinois
2,014
11
6
What cloud should you host your applications on? That question is getting harder and harder to answer as more players join the fray and as existing companies continually add new features and . wants to help you by asking you a couple of basic questions about your needs. It then combines that with the performance dat...
Vainglory Launches On iPhone And iPad Later This Month
Kyle Russell
2,014
11
6
, the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) shown off onstage at this year’s iPhone announcement, just got solid release dates in every region but China, Japan and Korea. Starting a week from today, Vainglory will arrive on the iPhone and iPad in Europe. The game will run on the iPad 2 or newer or the iPhone 5s, 6 or ...
Feet-On With Boosted Boards’ New Faster And Cheaper Electric Skateboards
Josh Constine
2,014
11
6
If you want to ride a magic carpet, the is the closest you’ll get until they make that hoverboard run on asphalt. And now there’s an even more powerful model for climbing epic hills or hitting 22mph, and a stripped down model for casual boarders on a budget. Y Combinator and StartX-backed Boosted Boards launched it...
Benchmark Backs Real-Time Data-Processing Startup Confluent
Ryan Lawler
2,014
11
6
Companies nowadays are creating huge amounts of data, but harnessing it and making it useful still remains a problem for many businesses. A startup called , which was founded by members of LinkedIn’s data infrastructure team, hopes to solve that problem by building commercial tools around some open-source software the...
Droid Turbo Review: Motorola’s Amped-Up Moto X Excels Where It Counts
Darrell Etherington
2,014
11
6
the 2014 Moto X sink in before announcing essentially a beefed-up version of the same. The Verizon-exclusive Droid Turbo is a Moto X with a better battery and a better camera, but in a package that’s hard to describe as an “improvement” on the original. Where the Verizon phone excels, however, it really excels, which ...
Just In Time For The Car-Less Generation, Bus And Train Ticket Aggregator Wanderu Raises $5.6M Series A
Sarah Perez
2,014
11
6
Boston-based travel startup  , which aims to become something of a Kayak.com for booking bus and train tickets — a market that doesn’t yet have a leading aggregation site — has now raised $5.6 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Metamorphic Ventures, and was said to be over-subscribed. Also participating ...
Nest And Asian Insurance Giant AIA Launch Startup Accelerator In Hong Kong
Catherine Shu
2,014
11
24
Hong Kong’s close proximity to manufacturing hubs like Shenzhen, China, and its small but growing startup ecosystem will make it a fertile growing ground for wearable tech startups. At least that’s what Nest, an early-stage venture capital firm, and AIA, one of Asia’s largest insurance providers, are hedging their bets...
SF Engineer Dan Ha Has Been Missing Since Halloween Night
Jordan Crook
2,014
11
6
Dan Ha, an iOS developer at a San Francisco startup called , has been . According to the CEO of the company, Dan Preston, who reached out to TechCrunch to help find his employee, Ha went home sick on Thursday afternoon and no one has seen or heard from him since Friday night, October 31, at 8pm. Ha reportedly left wo...
Universal Studios Buys Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs Movie From Sony For A Reported $30M
Jon Russell
2,014
11
24
Aaron Sorkin’s much-anticipated Steve Jobs movie is now a Universal Pictures project, after the studio stepped in take over from Sony Pictures which ended its two-year development of the title this month. of the change from a Universal spokesperson on Monday. The publication reports that Universal paid more than $30 m...
Affordable Hearing Aid Maker iHear Raises $5M Series C
Catherine Shu
2,014
11
24
, which makes affordable hearing aids that users can customize at home, has raised $5 million in a Series C round led by Lighthouse Capital, a Shanghai-based venture capital firm that focuses on medical devices. Japanese electronics maker Brother Industries and Ameritas Holding Company also participated. This brings th...
Why Virtual Reality Is Happening Now
Kyle Russell
2,014
11
24
Since the Oculus Rift first made waves with its successful Kickstarter, there’s been a consistent line of criticism based in the notion, “why would it work this time?” It’s a fair question — you can go back decades and see to build virtual reality gear for the masses. “Many very smart people have attempted to do this...
CloudFlare Will Offer A Local Version Of Its Web Security Service In China In 2015
Jon Russell
2,014
11
24
is tackling a long-standing goal and bringing its internet security and performance service to Mainland China next year. The U.S. company will open 12 data centers on Chinese soil over the next six months in a move that gives overseas websites and services improved performance on the ground, not to mention will increa...
Regin Spying Software Has Been Attacking Governments And Corporations Since 2008
John Biggs
2,014
11
24
Symantec has found an unusual new threat called Regin aka Backdoor.Regin. The software, which is essentially a very powerful Trojan Horse, appears to have been circulating in the wild since 2008 and has been hitting governmental, industrial, and individual systems with impunity, using sophisticated encryption and targe...
Built In Brooklyn: FlyCleaners Saves You A Trip To The Laundromat
Anthony Ha
2,014
11
24
For this episode of , producer Steve Long and I visited the Bushwick garage of , an on-demand laundry service — and Steve even went for a ride in one of those blue FlyCleaners vans (they’ve become a common sight in Williamsburg, my neighborhood of Brooklyn). With FlyCleaners, instead of having to bring your laundry...
TechCrunch Radio On Sirius XM 102 Indie Is Back
Jordan Crook
2,014
11
24
is back in full force and that means we need YOU! What is TechCrunch Radio, you ask? Well, it’s an hour of weekly bliss brought to you by myself, John Biggs, and the kind folks at Sirius XM each Tuesday at 6pm ET/3pm PT. We discuss this week’s news, chat with interesting guests, and then get into our weekly startup pi...
Pathgather Raises Looks To Bring Social Networking To Learning Management
Jonathan Shieber
2,014
11
24
Companies feeling they aren’t getting enough out of their learning management systems now have a new tool that may help with the recent financing and launch of . In the learning management space roughly 61% of companies that use services are looking to change them, according to Eric Duffy, Pathgather’s chief executive...
Fluc Raises $2.3 Million To Improve The Logistics Of Food Delivery In More Markets
Ryan Lawler
2,014
11
24
When it comes to food delivery, people want things fast and fresh and most of all, and increasingly they want to know when that food will get to them. Thanks to the Uber-ification of everything, being able to place an order and see when it will arrive (and even see a delivery in process) is becoming table stakes in the...
Black Friday Starts Early This Year, With Pre-Thanksgiving Sales Up 19% Over 2013
Sarah Perez
2,014
11
24
Holiday shopping got an earlier start this year with a number of retailers including , , , , , and several others launching “pre-Black Friday” deals, or kicking off a week of Black Friday-like sales where select items are deeply discounted. The overall effect has been an early lift in online sales ahead of Thank...
Let’s Pivot Again — Handmake Me Is An Ethical Marketplace For Handmade Gifts
Steve O'Hear
2,014
11
24
Call it a pivot. Or failing and starting over. But, either way, . After all, the entrepreneurial road can be a long and winding one. The latest example to cross my in-box is , an “ethical marketplace” born out of multiple pivots by the team behind Hobzy. Specifically, the U.K. startup has re-launched to offer a gift-...
Vainglory Review: A Solid MOBA On Your iPhone
Kyle Russell
2,014
11
24
Last week, came out for the iPhone and iPad. We’ve (on the iPad Air at the developer’s office) and found that it’s a great MOBA for tablets. For those unaware, Vainglory is the multiplayer online battle arena Apple showed off on-stage at the iPhone announcement in September to demonstrate the real-world power of ...
Comcast, Stop Scamming Me So I Can Stop Scamming You
Matt Burns
2,014
11
24
Have you ever heard anyone excited to get Comcast service? Of course not. That’s like being excited for a hernia operation. Here’s my hernia operation: every year or so I have to do a dance with Comcast. You know, feigning the intention to quit their service. The so-called trial period on my TV and Internet package end...
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Mike Butcher
2,014
11
6
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Chrome Will Start Blocking All Remaining NPAPI Plugins In January
Frederic Lardinois
2,014
11
24
, Google’s Chrome browser will block all old-school (NPAPI) plugins. This doesn’t come as a huge surprise, given that Google started its efforts to remove NPAPI plugins . Over the last year, Google went from recommending that developers move away from this old architecture to actively blocking almost all NPAPI plugi...
Tesla Has Discussed Sharing Electric Car Tech With BMW
Darrell Etherington
2,014
11
24
A future where the electric car is ubiquitous cannot be built by one company alone, regardless of the hype around Tesla and its progress in consumer automotive space. That’s why it’s exciting to hear from Elon Musk himself about talks between BMW and Tesla, even if they’re only informal, around potential collaboration ...
In Recession’s Wake RelianceCM Rebuilds A Tech Brand
Fara Warner
2,014
11
24
Corvallis, Oregon seems an unlikely high-tech town. Once a center for logging, small produce farms that now grow mint and fescue grass surround the university town of about 55,000 people. But in the 1970s, Hewlett-Packard built a massive plant on the outskirts of Corvallis, bringing with it a wave of technology talen...
Homescreen Is Betaworks’ Latest Experiment-Turned-Product
Jordan Crook
2,014
11
24
When someone picks up their phone to take a peek, I can’t help but take a peek, too. Whether it’s a perfect stranger on the train or the girl I’ve had a crush on for months, I can’t help but look. With the latest product out of , you can take that curiosity to a whole new level. It’s a simple app called Homescreen tha...
The ‘Brief History Of Graphics’ Video Series Is Your Monday Morning Pong Pick-Me-Up
John Biggs
2,014
11
24
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzN2pgL0zeg&list=PLOQZmjD6P2HlOoEVKOPaCFvLnjP865X1f] A video series by of XboxAhoy has created one of the nicest mini-documentaries I’ve watched in a while. The that looks at computer graphics from to to and beyond. The whole series – complete with Brown’s soothing bro...
Goldbely Debuts An App That Lets You Order Gourmet, Regional Cuisine From Anywhere In The U.S.
Sarah Perez
2,014
11
24
, the that lets you order gourmet foods from around the U.S. is now on mobile. The company just launched its first app with , which also includes a newly added next-day shipping feature for getting its tasty treats more quickly than before – whether that’s a real Philly cheesesteak, deep dish pizza from Chicago, Mar...
Snapchat’s Newest Money Maker Is A Sponsored Our Story For Samsung And The AMAs
Josh Constine
2,014
11
23
Snapchat took its first shot at monetizing its Our Stories collaborative livestream feature tonight with a Samsung-branded look at The American Music Awards. We were to the AMA Our Story, and confirms to me that it was paid by Samsung for the promotion. The AMA Our Story intersplices “Sponsored”-tagged Samsung phot...
Crowdfunding Ain’t The Bank
Tadhg Kelly
2,014
11
23
There should be a name for the cognitive disconnect that everyone experiences with the Internet that says “I support the worldwide disruption of everything to get to a more democratic or egalitarian way of doing things except as it affects me.” From wine to window cleaning it’s the same everywhere: We expect everyone e...
Jumpy Is An Open-Platform Smartwatch Just For Kids
Catherine Shu
2,014
11
23
Smartwatches for children hold a lot of allure and at least they will help drive the smartwatch market to 373 million devices shipped in 2020, up from 15 million this year. Kids get a shiny new gadget, while anxious parents get location trackers and activity monitors to keep tabs on their offspring. Children’s smartw...
Digital Privacy Is “The New Frontier Of Human Rights”
Natasha Lomas
2,014
11
23
The impact of mass, digitally-enabled state surveillance upon individuals’ privacy has been described as “the new frontier of human rights” by Member of the European Parliament, Claude Moraes, who was giving an annual lecture on behalf of the at the London School of Economics on Friday. Moraes is chair of the Europea...
Whitney Wolfe, Other Former Tinder Employees To Launch Direct Competitor Called Bumble
Jordan Crook
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11
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Whitney Wolfe, an , has joined up with two other early Tinder employees, and his parnter (cofounders of YayNext), to launch a direct competitor to Tinder called Bumble, sources tell TechCrunch. According to the app’s , Bumble is a social discovery app that “promotes a safe and respectful community” where “you’ll ...
Dislike That Computer Engineer Barbie Book? This Tool Lets You Rewrite It
Greg Kumparak
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Unless you unplugged your Internet and shut off your phone this week, you’ve probably heard the tale of Computer Engineer Barbie. I won’t spend much time recapping it, but we cover it . The short version: Mattel publishes a “ ” Barbie book. Seemingly intended to encourage young girls to pursue a career in computer s...
Requiem For A Unicorn
Micah Rosenbloom
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  Marc Andreessen has said that there are that generate 90% of the returns for VCs. Startups jockey for position in the “ .” In the world of startups we don’t have the S&P 500, we have the “ .” Fab was once a member of this unicorn club. Founders Jason Goldberg and Bradford Shellhammer appeared on . The company was ...
eBooks Could Finally Inch Past Print In 2018
John Biggs
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PricewaterhouseCoopers analysts are predicting (again) that ebooks could soon edge out print as publishers’ most lucrative products. What does this mean? Essentially that a ebook popularity and pricing stabilizes, users will spend more on bits than they will on pulp. The resulting switch could be the final nail in the ...
Fitmob Gets More Funding As It Partners With Gyms And Looks To New Markets
Ryan Lawler
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Fitness marketplace is growing fast and looking to grow even faster, and to do so it’s raised new strategic funding from . The funding will be used as Fitmob adds more options to its fitness marketplace through partnerships with gyms, and as it seeks to expand into new markets. Fitmob has refined its business model ...
Uber Über Alles
Jon Evans
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Oh, Uber. Such a great service…run by such short-sighted, thin-skinned executives. Clue: when people criticize you and/or your company, suck it up, take the criticism on board and apologize/adjust if warranted, then . Do not muse aloud, even at a quasi-off-the-record party, about forming million-dollar funds to attack...
Crowdsourced War
Jillian Kay Melchior
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  At least 4,000 people have died in Eastern Ukraine, according to United Nations estimates, spilling roughly 5,000 gallons of blood on the nation’s soil. As with much of the needless waste of war, this bloodbath was avoidable and this death toll could have been much lower. In 90% of potentially survivable battlefield ...
UK Government Pushes IP-Matching In Latest Digital Counter-Terror Measure
Natasha Lomas
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11
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ISPs and mobile operators will be forced to retain information linking IP addresses to individuals for 12 months under U.K. government counter-terrorism plans expected to be detailed next week. The IP-matching measure will be included in the government’s forthcoming Anti-Terrorism and Security Bill. This follows anothe...
SF Has An S&M Problem
Danny Crichton
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11
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It’s a Friday night, and I am on the prowl. I’m with my friend Edgar, and we are looking for evidence of the increasing S&M problem among the denizens of America’s startup capital. We all know the story the past few months: it’s really bad right now, but don’t worry, everything will get better in time. But it is not ge...
Jolla’s ‘Open Source’ iPad Alternative Raises More Than $1M In Two Days’ Crowdfunding
Natasha Lomas
2,014
11
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Late last week Finnish mobile startup running its open source Sailfish OS*, smashing past its initial funding goal of $380,000 in a couple of hours. It has since pushed past the $1 million mark, with around $1.18M now pledged from more than 7,370 backers of the campaign. Speaking in with TechCrunch prior to the c...
3 Reasons You Can’t Just Ask Customers What They Want
David Mierke
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Do you like apples or bananas? Coffee or tea? Pepperoni or cheese pizza? Simple questions result in simple answers which, when researching and developing a product is every product owner’s dream. “Just tell me what you want, and I’ll make it.” Quick. Easy. Simple. But herein lies the problem; product development isn’t ...
Managing Talent In A Networked Age, Part 2
Jeff Markowitz
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  In  , my colleague Reid Hoffman said that recognizing that top may someday want to leave can lead to more honest conversations at work that can even help with long-term retention. In this article I will discuss how to foster the relationships between your employees and other people in the industry. When top perform...
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Jordan Crook
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Kevin Rose Plots A Luxury Ecommerce Empire Starting With New App Watchville
Josh Constine
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“I did not like watches my entire life,” Digg co-founder Kevin Rose tells me. That’s an odd admission for a man who just launched , an that aggregates news from top wristwatch blogs, and offers an atomic clock tool to help you set your timepiece and its moon phases. But Rose explains, “My father passed away and left...
Our South Park, Ourselves
Sarah Buhr
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Last week’s episode of South Park was…very confusing. I’m still not sure if we were all inceptionized the entire time we’ve been watching the going on 18 seasons of the show, or if the ending was part of some weird dream or…really I have no idea what happened there. Spoiler alert – Stan ends up realizing he’s been stuc...
The T Machine Swipes All The Tinders
John Biggs
2,014
11
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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bboXc5oiVw] Human interaction is hard. Humans are weird animals, covered in hair and full of blood and stuff and getting to know one or two for the purposes of procreation or whatever is really hard. But not if you have ! It’s a dating app that lets you pick people based on ap...
Universities Are Schooling Tech Companies In Video
Eric Burns
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  It’s no secret that the ivory towers of academia don’t get much respect from the tech industry. It’s become conventional wisdom that computer science degrees are out of date before graduates enter the workforce, and that MBA programs forgo developing practical leadership and entrepreneurship skills in favor of theory...
The Samsung Gear S Is A Smartphone On Your Wrist
Kyle Russell
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11
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Announced , the Samsung Gear S is the South Korean electronics company’s sixth attempt at making a smartwatch. It’s got the specs of a mid-range phone from a few years back and runs Tizen, Samsung’s own operating system. The intended appeal of the Gear S is that it can be used independently from the rest of your dev...
Adding The Easy Button To Conference Calls
Isabella Chiu
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We’ve all experienced the painful execution of conference calls with the uncomfortable dialing of codes, never-ending instructions and announcements when you join. There are two approaches to modern conference calling: online conference calls or “modern” offline calls. Inside high-tech companies, internal calls are u...
Gillmor Gang: Silent Noise
Steve Gillmor
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The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Keith Teare, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Friday, November 14, 2014. Topics include: Pono, Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes, Twitter Investor Day, @scobleizer’s Top Two Tips to Improve Facebook, Notification News, Amazon Echo. Time passes slowly up here in the mountains w...
Can This Connected Toy Inspire The Next Generation Of Makers?
Natasha Lomas
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11
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Don’t doubt the commitment of MIT graduate and  co-founder Krissa Watry. She used to work for the U.S. Airforce as a chief engineer designing and building aerospace hardware and helping launch satellites. But working on kit destined for space was a just stepping stone on the road to her real dream of becoming an entre...
Where I Went Wrong, Again
Jon Evans
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Dear readers: can you believe I’ve been writing this weekly column for four years now? Me neither. But I have, and it’s time for my annual self-flagellation piece, in which I iterate over my opinions and predictions of the previous year, trumpet my triumphs, and confess all the things I got completely wrong. This year,...