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IBM’s Ginni Rometty Reveals Watson’s Future | Sarah Buhr | 2,014 | 10 | 7 | IBM CEO Ginni Rometty took to the stage at the to showcase updated Watson technology. You may know Watson as the bot that beat humans on Jeopardy!. However, since that time, Big Blue has been improving the program in ways that could help the computer not just learn, but also reason, according to Rometty. Part of her reveal on stage was a new program called Watson Oncology that provides medical diagnostics to far reaches of the world where access to modern medical technology is limited. The idea behind the oncology program is to connect patients in Southeast Asia with medical diagnostics not previously available to this region of the world. Rometty mentioned that over 1 million patients would be able to have access to medical research for things such as breast cancer. Medicine is one high-value area for Watson. Might there be a role for venture capital there? There might be, in areas such as interfaces and certain specialized areas. But here’s what’s more interesting. That’s a high-value area; we are also now about to come out with Watson in what we consider as an advisor, and it will be in volume around research-oriented industries. Think of things like pharma; or as a client advisor in industries that have huge numbers of end retail clients. And so, think of financial services, think of a telco,” Rometty explained on stage. This program is in step with a larger vision for Watson. IBM has set aside over $1 billion for the Watson program so far. Eric Sall, VP of worldwide marketing for business analytics at IBM a few weeks ago, which pulls in big data, creates sophisticated visualizations, and analyzes the information for business purposes. “Watson is the beginning of a whole series [of robots] where they learn and they reason. They will redefine the experience between man and machine…This information is going to redefine our jobs, our professions, education,” said Rometty. She also had Watson run a test to determine whether alternative energy should replace fossil fuels. Using IBM research and Watson’s debate technology, Watson was able to scour the information and boil it down to key pros and cons in favor of or against the rising alternative energy industry. |
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Microsoft To Hold Cloud Event In SF On October 20 With CEO Satya Nadella | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 10 | 7 | Mark your calendars: Microsoft is coming to town. Again. On October 20, Microsoft’s cloud crew, and , will be in San Francisco to talk about the “cloud” and “Azure.” We don’t have much more than that at the moment, frustratingly. Microsoft is continuing its of coming to the Bay Area, and San Francisco specifically, to pitch its new products and wares. It recently , inviting an international cohort of journalists to view the introduction of a part of its next operating system. There is a certain irony at play in having cloud announcements in San Francisco: Seattle and the surrounding areas are quickly becoming — with Amazon’s AWS and Microsoft’s Azure are both headquartered in the vicinity, a large chunk of the world’s cloud computing power is run from the area. So why is Microsoft bringing its cloud to the Bay? To, I suspect, in an attempt to help it build market and mindshare among growing startups. Microsoft will do just fine selling cloud products into enterprise channels, as we have seen with the success of Office 365. However, Azure has lagged behind AWS with startups, both large and small. So, to San Francisco comes Microsoft. Notably, still-new CEO Satya Nadella will touch down for the event. He didn’t show up for the recent Windows 10 shindig. I presume that Microsoft rolls out Nadella when they wish to attract more mainstream attention — the mass media has given Nadella broad coverage since he took over the reins from the now-former CEO Steve Ballmer. If you add Nadella, you increase attention. Subtract and the opposite occurs. TechCrunch will be covering the event live. |
Social Curation Platform Storify Gets A Redesign With Support For Group Collaboration | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 10 | 7 | , a service that allows users to curate tweets, photos, and other social media posts to create a coherent story, is getting a new design. More than just giving the product a new look, the redesign supports an important new feature — the ability for multiple journalists or other Storify users to collaborate on stories together. Apparently, Storify hasn’t really supported this kind of collaboration before, as explained to me by co-founder Burt Herman. Sure, two or more people could log into the same account and start working on the same story, and later, , but that was about it. So this, Herman said, is the first time Storify has been designed for multiple people to work on a story together, simultaneously — and indeed, some early testers have already used it to cover the protests in Ferguson, Missouri and in Hong Kong. For example, Herman suggested that if you’re trying to create a story highlighting social media posts from an event, and you want to keep that story updated in real-time, one person might want to monitor Facebook while another could keep an eye on Twitter. With Storify’s real-time collaboration, they could both add content to the story as they go. To make that happen, Storify has created an interface that’s reminiscent of Google Docs, where multiple people can work on different parts of a document at the same time, and with different colored cursors showing you where your other teammates are working. “In some ways, it’s more complicated than Google Docs, because it’s not just text — there are all these kinds of multimedia social media formats to work with,” Herman said. The new collaboration feature is available in Storify Enterprise, which was previously known as Storify VIP. The initial users of Storify Enterprise include The Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail. By the way, it’s been just over a year since commenting platform . According to Herman, one of the big changes since then has been a clearer distinction between the free and paid products: “Now we very much are like, the free version is for consumers, enterprise is very clearly for professionals, so let’s give professionals the features that they want.” He added that over time, we can expect to see more integrations between Livefyre and Storify. You can . |
Tesla’s Newest Car Is AWD And Goes 0-60 In 3.2 Seconds | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 10 | 9 | Whoops! While people are still filing their way into the building where Elon Musk will “unveil the D”, it looks like word just trickled out a bit early by way of a broken news embargo. We’re at the event and will report back on the news as it breaks, but here’s what we know so far. |
A Conversation on Future Urbanism, Tech Hubs | Kim-Mai Cutler | 2,014 | 10 | 9 | It was a really interesting selection of panelists with San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, and Zappo’s CEO Tony Hsieh, who has been struggling to revive downtown Las Vegas, at yesterday in San Francisco. I just wish the conversation were more interesting. Vanity Fair architectural critic and moderator spent a lot of time talking about the revival of U.S. cities since the nadir of American urbanism in the early 1980s. Cities like San Francisco saw their or so, as middle-class families fled for the suburbs. This has reversed over the last three decades with wave after wave of gentrification. But Goldberger spent little time asking about . There is a pretty in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and New York, as tighter lending standards have cut people out of the homeownership market and as regions like the Valley have produced tens of thousands of jobs but not enough housing. He also didn’t even ask Hsieh . Anyway, here’s what they talked about (and I’ll just add some things that I think are interesting): Goldberger asked about federal policy and whether we should care that the U.S. government’s policies are so tilted in favor of suburban over urban development. (Gas taxes, for example, are lower here in the U.S. than they are in Europe, shifting the balance in favor of automobile use. U.S. federal transit funds also favored highway construction more than they supported mass transit development in the 20th century, encouraging sprawl over in-fill development.) “You will not see the federal government using the word ‘urban’,” Burden said. “We’re moving to cities because it’s a more sustainable way to live. The future of the world is in cities. Fifty percent of the world’s population is already living in cities and we’ll get to 70 percent. That is not recognized by the federal government, so the rest of the world is bypassing us.” Every major city in the U.S., including San Francisco, is dealing with substantially less federal funding for both public and affordable housing. In San Francisco, it to build one below-market rate unit, so the subsidies necessary to build even 1,000 permanently affordable units can get into the half-billion dollar range. Those subsidies used to come from federal or state sources, and now it’s hard to say where this money will materialize from. Entitlement spending on programs like Social Security and Medicare will basically crowd out other basic functions of U.S. government over the next generation as baby-boomers retire, so , argue urban theorists like Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution. Goldberger asked about how cities should grapple with gentrification and when it becomes too much too quickly. Mayor Ed Lee said, “It’s at the forefront of what I’m doing everyday. I’ve had a lot of discussion with community-based organizations whether they’re in the Mission or Chinatown. If we make decisions based on fear, we’re always going to end up paying twice. There’s fear of buses that take people to work. There’s fear of a sharing economy that isn’t producing the traditional taxi ride. There’s fear that companies will change the traditional ways that we do business. I’m trying to do is start conversations with the communities. If there’s a fear, there ought to also be a perspective where we can provide people with the link to success.” He went on, “It’s a more delicate conversation. How do you turn a feeling of ‘I don’t want that development project,’ into ‘How can I use that project to benefit and support stronger communities?’ That’s where the conversations become more interesting. As we’ve re-developed Market Street, we’ve created Community Benefit Agreements.” Lee was referring to these volunteership and donation commitments that have to make in exchange for a break on the payroll tax. Critics, who call this the “Twitter Tax Break,” have said that these agreements fall far short of resolving the stress that local non-profits and longtime residents are facing with rising rents. The tax break can be used for up to six years, but it’s worth adding that the payroll tax will be phased out for all San Francisco businesses over the next few years anyway. He also pointed out a where tech companies have to form partnerships with local public schools and provide resources, volunteering or mentorship with whatever administrators or teachers request. (Conceptually, I think it’s a good idea. But it’s just too early to tell whether it’s a sincere and effective program, or a politically motivated one.) “It’s my job to find those public-private sector links that will reduce that fear,” Lee said. As for New York, Burden added, “Gentrification is a pejorative word. Gentrification is about improving an environment that has disinvestment. Businesses start to see more customers. Neighborhoods become safer. Suddenly you get a neighborhood that people want to be in and invest in. Then there comes a point where that improvement results in rising rents, rising prices and often displacement.” She added, “So that’s the question for government. Everyone wants improvement and then they want it to just stop at that where it just seems to be balanced for everyone. There comes this question about where government should intervene. And should it intervene in rents? For stores? For apartments? There is a role for government to make sure that old neighborhoods have a sense of mixed uses and mixed incomes. But it hasn’t always worked. So is gentrification and displacement inevitable? Or what should government do to ensure density, diversity and affordability?” I should add that San Francisco operates under a totally different set of constraints than New York City does. In the 19th century, the U.S. legal system was more amenable to city annexations, and so in 1898, Brooklyn, the then 3rd most populous city in the U.S. along with most of Queens County, the Bronx and Staten Island into a single municipal entity. What that means today is that New York, a city of 8.4 million people, can make more coherent, unified regional transit and housing decisions. Under 12 years of the Bloomberg administration, Burden was able to re-zone New York City and its five boroughs to accommodate an additional million people ( ). A much younger region of the country, the Bay Area totally missed out on this. By the early 1900s, when San Francisco attempted to annex other cities in the wake of the 1906 earthquake, it was too late. . Then the advent of zoning in the early 20th century made suburbs and smaller municipalities because they could control the make-up of their own populations (often with grossly unjust racial and socioeconomic consequences). So today, the 7 million-person region of the Bay Area has each doing their own thing. That’s why there are so many transit systems and none of it seems to make any sense. San Francisco’s MUNI system is a bunch of that were turned into a public utility after the automobile made them financially unsustainable. BART is a that was state-of-the-art in the 1970s but now has a lot of maintenance needs. The Caltrain is an old Southern Pacific line from the mid-19th century that is at . (Hence, you can understand why Google buses exist.) The region is somehow supposed to add . There is a to do this. But it’s not clear how enforceable it is because there isn’t a political entity or leader that is as empowered regionally as the New York mayor. The region’s cities, especially the wealthier ones in the historic heart of Silicon Valley like Palo Alto and Menlo Park, do very little to house all the extra workers that companies like Facebook are supposed to add over the next 10 years. The problem ends up being shoved onto poorer cities like Redwood City and then onto San Francisco and Oakland. On top of that, San Francisco has a different culture around tenancy than New York does. San Francisco’s rent policies create a cultural expectation of lifelong tenancy. This is why the eviction struggles are really painful, because they tend to fall on older tenants. are rent-controlled. The city’s rent stabilization ordinance limits rent increases to a pace that’s usually slower than the rate of inflation, which means that 45 percent of the city’s units are actually seeing rents decline in real economic terms. That leaves about that are market-rate. Because the city and in roughly the same time period, the price differentials between the two pools of market-rate and rent-controlled units have exploded, creating enormous financial incentives for evictions. In contrast, of New York’s roughly 3.2 million housing units are rent-controlled from the immediate post-war period. You basically have to inherit them. But there is , and the than what . State and local law also intersect differently in New York and California. As part of an ambitious $41 billion effort, newly-elected New York City mayor Bill de Blasio is attempting to largely through . That means that developers will have to build a percentage of affordable units for all the market-rate ones they construct. It’s a way of financing affordable housing without eating into government revenues, because the cost of creating subsidized units gets passed onto market-rate buyers. San Francisco has inclusionary rules as well, but developers can get out of them by paying fees. This is partly because a real estate industry-friendly California state law passed in the mid-1990s called the Costa Hawkins Act . This is also why housing activists consider the city’s rent-controlled stock State law prevents cities from . Tenants rights activists also point out that California’s Ellis Act, which is supposed to let landlords go out of business, is abused to take units off the market and turn them into Airbnb rentals or tenancies-in-common. I think in summary, neither system is able to stop gentrification or displacement. But New York’s regional integration and better transit make for a more dynamically adjusting system where residents have to continuously (or constantly) re-evaluate their cost of living. In contrast, San Francisco’s orientation of growth control might help it a smaller-town feel. But market-rate rents can climb dramatically with even a modest amount of population growth, while elderly and longstanding tenants can end up in a pretty jarring and tragic situation if they face an owner move-in or Ellis Act eviction. If they are displaced, the San Francisco Bay Area has a weaker and less integrated transit system. That means displaced tenants can end up with a multi-hour commute, which is deeply disruptive to family and community life and on access to jobs. More than five to ten years ago, startups were largely centered in the suburban South Bay, where hoards of low-rise office parks built in the 1970s through 1990s dot the sprawling landscape. In the mid-20th century, the industrial park — — was considered an architectural reaction to the polluted and noisy factories of the industrial city. The suburban office park was supposed to be . It had lawns, flowers and trees, instead of smokestacks and soot. You have to recall that a century ago, U.S. cities probably felt more like dirty and polluted coastal China, because the country was economically much more dependent on manufacturing. These suburban leanings held strong for many decades and the locations of the tech industry’s biggest players reflect this. Google is based in Mountain View. Facebook is in Menlo Park. Apple is Cupertino. But today, the industry’s youngest companies like Twitter, are all in San Francisco in old buildings that . In this light, Facebook and Apple’s attempts to build Gehry or spaceship-like office buildings . Tech companies are getting even more aggressive with urban commercial real estate. in Mission Bay to build its own headquarters, while later this decade. for this already; people are marrying later and switching jobs more often. This creates a larger pool of single workers that favor the serendipitous interactions and unorthodox sense of community fostered by dense urban environments. “I don’t think there was any deliberate attempt to rob Silicon Valley of their talent,” said Lee. “We just wanted to make this city sustainably exciting.” Lee added that the city has 2,168 tech companies employing 56,000 people. (That is 6.7 percent of the city’s population. So if you are one of those people who complains that everyone in San Francisco is in tech, you are probably not working hard enough to diversify your social circle.) “So much of the excitement of the city is tied to innovation, and we here in Silicon Valley have been leading the way,” said Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman. “I think it comes down people connecting with one another. If you’re trying to create what’s next, there’s nothing more important than having a complete knowledge of what’s current.” Stoppelman added that he thinks clustering and face-to-face teamwork is important even if the Internet makes distributed companies increasingly possible. (There are tech companies like WordPress that are known for being very culturally supportive remote or nomadic work.) “There is nothing that can replace that in-person collaboration and communication. Part of it is non-verbal,” he said. “There’s just something about being able to sync up every day and advance your idea.” |
Apple’s Jony Ive Is Not Flattered By Xiaomi | Kyle Russell | 2,014 | 10 | 9 | At the Vanity Fair Summit, Jony Ive just gave his much-anticipated panel, “Genius by Design.” Ive spent a significant chunk of his time on stage talking about Apple’s design process in broad strokes, touching upon the evolution of ideas and the process by which the team makes decisions on when to make changes to their designs. Ive started his interview by noting that he feels lucky because he’s had well over 15 years with his team, which has both steadily grown from a small core group to its (still rather small) 16 or 17 members — with no one voluntarily leaving the team in that time. That time has given Apple’s design team the advantage of having a defined process that plays to the company’s values. In describing a typical work week, he says that it’s not that the team has infinite ideas for dealing with every design problem that arises. On Monday or Tuesday, the team could spend all day drawing up different ideas (with actual pencil and paper) without settling on anything. On Wednesday, an idea arises, and a conversation begins. Ive says that things really start to shift once they create physical mockups of their ideas out of different materials, including metal or a plastic. That’s when they get to “play” with their work in their design space, with device mockups resting on the exact same wooden tables used in the company’s stores. Most times, those mockups sport designs that the rest of us will never get to see. “Many years ago we made prototypes of phones with bigger screens. They were interesting features, having a bigger screen, but the end result was a lousy product, because they were big and clunky,” Ive noted when Vanity Fair Editor-in-chief Graydon Carter asked why it took so long for the iPhone to get bigger. But that same process of playing with physical models is also what leads to changes in the company’s products. Ive noted that the team thought “a large display seems the most natural, intuitively,” but only through iteration over the years (and advancement of technology) did Apple reach a point where they had found enough insights — like realizing that “to make a compelling product with a larger screen, it’s very important to make the edges comfortable, to feel less wide than it really is.” Ive also spent a section of his panel “geeking out” about design, noting that “for hundreds and hundreds of years, the objects we’ve designed or made, the form is the function.” But with devices powered by silicon chips, the function and form are disconnected — “these products could look like a banana.” When a member of the audience came up to ask a question about Xiaomi and their unofficial tagline of “the Apple of China,” Ive was very straightforward with his response: “I’ll stand a little bit harsh, I don’t see it as flattery. When you’re doing something for the first time, you don’t know it’s gonna work, you spend 7 or 8 years working on something, and then it’s copied. I think it is really straightforward. It is theft and it is lazy. I don’t think it is ok at all.” |
Microsoft CEO Opens Mouth, Inserts Foot On Gender Pay Gap [Updated] | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 10 | 9 | After opprobrium rained down from the sky following his comments regarding how women should approach asking for a raise, Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella quickly released a memo to Microsoft employees — it was released to the public as well — backtracking on his remarks. Here it is in full: All – Today I was interviewed on stage by Maria Klawe at the Grace Hopper Conference – I encourage you to watch the . It was great to spend time with so many women passionate about technology. I was honored to be a part of it and I left the conference energized and inspired. Toward the end of the interview, Maria asked me what advice I would offer women who are not comfortable asking for pay raises. I answered that question completely wrong. Without a doubt I wholeheartedly support programs at Microsoft and in the industry that bring more women into technology and close the pay gap. I believe men and women should get equal pay for equal work. And when it comes to career advice on getting a raise when you think it’s deserved, Maria’s advice was the right advice. If you think you deserve a raise, you should just ask. I said I was looking forward to the Grace Hopper Conference to learn, and I certainly learned a valuable lesson. I look forward to speaking with you at our monthly Q&A next week and am happy to answer any question you have. Satya It remains to be seen if his retraction will dampen criticism. — Today at the 2014 Grace Hopper Celebration, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella after Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd — an institution known for its prominence in STEM fields — asked him how young women should ask for a raise. Nadella replied that not asking for a raise can in fact be “one of the additional superpowers that, quite frankly, women who don’t ask for a raise have. Because that’s good karma. It’ll come back because somebody’s going to know that’s the kind of person that I want to trust. That’s the kind of person that I want to really give more responsibility to. And in the long-term efficiency, things catch up.” His remarks came across as disjointed, odd, out of place, and wrong: Why tell women to accept lower pay in the short-term for the promise of the system correcting itself later, when that same system has proven that it will act unfairly? Reaction to his comments on the raise matter were immediately negative: Lots of murmurs in the crowd as says that if you don't ask for a raise, you'll eventually get fair pay — Lauren Schaefer (@Lauren_Schaefer) The Microsoft leader later followed up with a clarifying tweet. Was inarticulate re how women should ask for raise. Our industry must close gender pay gap so a raise is not needed because of a bias — Satya Nadella (@satyanadella) Klawe preceded her question with a story about her recent attendance at the Most Powerful Women Summit, where between 25 and 33 percent of the audience, by her estimate, indicated that they had never asked for a raise. In the United States, , leading to lower starting salaries for many young women that can persist throughout their careers. Earlier in the discussion, Nadella listed a number of Microsoft leaders who are women — heads of its HR, business development, its CFO, etc. — and the CEO said that he “absolutely expects [one of the women] one of these days to be sitting in this chair,” the implication being that Microsoft will have a female CEO in the future. It’s fair to say that even if his comments were merely poorly constructed word-salad that failed to convey his actual feelings, Nadella still alienated some women. Needless to say, this is a pretty large unforced error for Nadella. And if his comments were indicative of his actual views on the matter, they reflect poorly on the company he runs and, possibly, its culture. Let’s hope he returns to Redmond with a redoubled drive to further the cause of women in technology. Here’s the exchange (Transcript via Microsoft): So one of the questions that somebody asked was: How do you — what do you advise to women who are interested in advancing their careers, but they’re not comfortable putting themselves up for promotions or advanced opportunities? And there was an interesting — I just came from the Most Powerful Women Summit in Laguna Niguel, probably some of the other people here also made that trip to Phoenix. And there was someone who was talking about the fact — it was Mary Barra, who was probably somebody you’ve talked with as well. And she was talking about the fact that she had never asked for a raise. And then, you know, her interviewer looked out at the audience, which was a lot fewer people than here, and asked, “How many people have never asked for a raise in their life?” And I would say probably a quarter to a third of the attendees put out their hand. Now, the most interesting one was Warren Buffett. (Laughter.) And don’t ask me why Warren Buffett is at the Most Powerful Women Summit. (Laughter.) Apparently, he’s been doing it for many years. So, you know, for women who aren’t comfortable with asking for a raise or sort of saying — who aren’t the younger you, let’s say, what’s your advice for them? You know, the thing that perhaps most influenced me in terms of how do you look at the journey or a career, there was this guy whose name was Mike Naples. He was the president of Microsoft when I joined. And he had this saying where he would say, “Look, all HR systems are long-term efficient, short-term inefficient.” And I thought that that phrase just captured it. Which is, it’s not really about asking for the raise, but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along. And that, I think, might be one of the additional superpowers that, quite frankly, women who don’t ask for a raise have. Because that’s good karma. It’ll come back because somebody’s going to know that’s the kind of person that I want to trust. That’s the kind of person that I want to really give more responsibility to. And in the long-term efficiency, things catch up. And I wonder — and I’m not saying that that’s the only approach, I wonder whether taking the long term helps solve for what might be perceived as this uncomfortable thing of, hey, am I getting paid right? Am I getting rewarded right? Because reality is your best work is not followed with your best rewards. Your best work then has impact, people recognize it, and then you get the rewards. And so you have to somehow think that through, I think. |
Battery East Group Wants To Help Early Shareholders Cash Out As Startups Put Off IPOs | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 10 | 9 | The is a small confab in San Francisco that specializes in secondary offerings, the sale of stock from inside shareholders, early employees and the like that want malleability for their equity before a traditional liquidity event. In human terms, it means that the Group helps people sell their startup stock either before their company goes public or is purchased by a larger company. Battery East is growing at a propitious time for its offering: Companies are delaying their public debuts, creating pressure for long-time shareholders for flexibility. Secondary sales are a tricky subject, given that they can indicate that current shareholders want out of the firm that they work for. But at the same time, it isn’t unreasonable for individuals who have worked hard for a half decade or more for more equity than cash to want to buy a house or pay down debt. The Group has an interesting formula: It works with both the buy and sell sides, only facilitating sales of inside shares when the company in question approves the transaction. It also helps find purchasing investors that have a longer-term investment perspective on the company — investors that might stick around longer than a group looking for a quick IPO turnaround. Battery East Group is only a four-person shop, recently picking up Duncan Niederauer, former CEO of the NYSE. I sat down with the Group’s Barrett Cohn and Howard Caro to chew over what they are up to and how they are doing it. |
Sound And Architectural Vision | Sam Stubblefield | 2,014 | 10 | 9 | In the race to build the newest, coolest and greenest tech offices, architects and their clients are sparing no expense on the best materials and features. Curved glass? . Rooftop parks? . But many of these buildings omit one of the most important architectural materials of all time: sound. As sound expert , architects are designing buildings with their eyes, but not with their ears. This is a missed opportunity because sound is amazingly powerful. say listening to music boosts the body’s immune system and reduces anxiety better than drugs. Oscar-winning sound editor – whose films included “The English Patient,” “The Godfather” and “The Talented Mr. Ripley” – says, “In the same way that looking at paintings makes you see the world in a different way, listening to interestingly arranged sounds makes you hear differently.” Just think of the possibilities. If sounds were better designed and implemented into the design of everything from offices to hospitals, could we increase happiness, health and productivity? Luckily, things are starting to change. Some designers, musicians and artists (including some at my firm, ) are using software like , , and to create sound installations that intentionally evoke specific emotions in new ways for people as they travel through buildings, parks and cityscapes. For instance, a public alleyway that funnels 6,000 people per day into a neighborhood in central Seattle suddenly seems a little brighter, even on a rainy October day. Or maybe walking into a hectic office happens to feel more rhythmic than chaotic. Imagine a hospital waiting area that could adapt to maintain a warm and nurturing feeling, regardless of whether a patient was sitting alone or was surrounded by other anxious patients. Here’s how it works: Additionally, sounds can be augmented or make dramatic shifts according to real-time inputs: for example, time of day, time of year, position of the moon, the number of people experiencing the installation, the ambient noise levels created by those people, unusual swings in outside temperature, a sunny day after several consecutive days of rain, Internet traffic trends, direct input from mobile devices, stock prices or mentions of certain key words from people standing near the installation. Each of these has a name: installations with real-time inputs are called “live atmospheres”; those that respond to occupants of a room are called “responsive atmospheres”; simple, prearranged installations are simply “atmospheres.” The playback algorithm then pairs these atmospheres with complimentary scales. A major will tend to give the compositions an ethereal, dreamy, futuristic feel, while a minor might give a lively, sophisticated feel. The algorithm can output compositions that are never arranged in the same way twice, giving limitless variety and a sense of discovery to a place. Finally, arrangements are played back using , which give a highly controlled, intimate feeling that dramatically shapes one’s journey through an installation on an individual basis. Emitters are often combined with traditional, full-range speakers or subwoofers for additional fidelity or range of sound. All of these things are considered new architectural materials, right alongside wood, glass, steel and concrete, and are new ways for designers to shape emotions in an environment. Sound is increasingly becoming a dynamic tool for creating meaningful, rich and connected experiences. After all, isn’t that what great architecture is all about? |
HubSpot Spikes 20% Over Its IPO Price In Strong Debut | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 10 | 9 | HubSpot is . After raising its IPO price range, the company pulled the trigger above that level, . That’s a far cry from the original low-end of its first proposed price range of $19. The markets welcomed the company’s offering, pushing its shares up more than 20 percent at the time of writing. Yahoo Finance ; the company raised $125 million in its flotation. The HubSpot IPO is an important one for the technology market, as it sets the tone for future offerings: The IPO window is open for companies that lose money but demonstrate quickly expanding revenue. This is not news, per se, but it does point to a continuation of past trends that are still in apparent effect. HubSpot had a . The fresh $125 million in capital will more than provide it with the short-term cash reserves that it needs. Employing its GAAP metrics, HubSpot has quarters and quarters of runway. Naturally, if the company flips to GAAP profitability in that period, such concerns evaporate. There is tension between GAAP profits and cash burn, of course, but let’s speak broadly. Given the success of its IPO, HubSpot will not have to resort to debt to fund its operations. The Boston component to the moment shouldn’t be overlooked. For Boston, it’s a massive day. A large number of millionaires were just minted, presumably, in the area that may plow some of their profits into the local startup scene. A win of this magnitude can have ripple-effects that last for years. HubSpot before its public offering, meaning that it picked up more cash today than it had to date. |
Nvidia Shield Tablet Review: A Great Android Tablet, With Big Bonuses For Gamers | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 10 | 9 | its bench in terms of gaming devices, and the new Shield Tablet is an impressive new addition to the roster. While you’ll note some trade-offs in terms of the size and weight of the device versus the trend towards ever-slimmer, lighter gadgets, it’s a powerful tablet, and a powerful value proposition, even if gaming isn’t your central concern. The new Nvidia Shield Tablet is a surprising device, in that it feels like one of the best hardware designs I’ve ever held in an Android tablet, and yet it wasn’t made by a company with a long track record of building these kinds of devices – Nvidia is still, first and foremost, a chip- and graphics card-maker, and while it has built a Tegra K1 reference tablet before, this is still early days for its hardware business. [gallery ids="1068103,1068099,1068101,1068102,1068105"] Despite that, this tablet is thoughtfully designed. It’s not the sleekest slate on the market, and at first its thickness and weight might lead you to believe it’s something from a couple of years ago, but the construction actually feels more solid than dated, and the weight betrays its high-end gaming pedigree. The internals Nvidia used here allow the Shield Tablet to pull off impressive graphical feats, like running games at full HD resolution on the tablet itself, and outputting 4K content to compatible external displays. Nvidia’s design choices also include a front face look reminiscent of what HTC has done with its One line of smartphones, but with full-length speaker grills spanning both top and bottom that allow for built-in stereo sound that’s a cut above what most mobile gadgets will provide. The Nvidia Shield Tablet is still mostly plastic (don’t let those chamfered edges fool you) but it’s plastic used properly, as with the matte, slightly rubberized back that lets you keep a grip even while in the most white-knuckle gaming sessions. Nvidia’s Shield Tablet cover accessory, which is an optional add-on, magnetically locks into place like the iPad’s Smart Cover, but does so with a lower rate of first-try success. It has actual physical recesses in the tablet for connectors on the cover hinge to insert into, but these missed on most initial attempts when I was connecting the accessory. It’s not a huge deal: resetting them properly will take you an additional four seconds. Once on, however, the folding cover design works to prop up the tablet for controller-based gaming sessions. [gallery ids="1068107,1068106"] The Nvidia Shield wireless controller is also well-crafted, with a control scheme that will feel familiar to any Shield Portable owner, and basically to anyone who’s ever used an Xbox game pad. Because it doesn’t mess around too much with the formula for gamepad layout, it’s easy to pick up and play without any kind of learning curve. The touch-sensitive start, back, home and Shield launch buttons would be better as actual mechanical switches in my opinion, but the touch-sensitive pad at the bottom is really useful when stuff isn’t perfectly controller-optimized on Android. The Shield Tablet has a long list of features, many of which have been made available to Shield Portable (the controller-based handheld that marks Nvidia’s first foray into Android-based game hardware) owners either via updates or as part of the original package. Among these, the most impressive for gamers are GameStream and Console Mode. GameStream lets you use a gaming PC with a GeForce GTX-series graphics card to stream your full PC titles directly to your Shield Tablet over your local wireless network with extremely low latency. The requirements for admission are high: GTX series graphics cards aren’t cheap, and the PC needs to have at least a Core i3-2100 processor clocked at 3.1GHz, or an AMD Athlon II X4 630 at 2.8GHz or above, with 4GB of RAM, Windows 7 or 8 and an 802.11n dual band rounder recommended for best performance. My own review rig for GameStream testing holds a new Nvidia Maxwell GTX 980 graphics card, and my network environment uses a current-generation Airport Extreme with 802.11ac for wireless communication. GameStream thrives under those conditions (so long as I’m connected to the less noisy 5GHz band, as the 2.8GHz frequency is jammed with wireless devices in my gadget den nightmare office). But the result is amazing, letting you essentially pull off full-scale gaming wherever you want around the house. Console Mode means that you can not only experience true gaming on a mobile device wherever you want, but you can also turn it into a big-screen experience. My gaming rig is currently plugged into my main TV, but sometimes I’d much rather game in the office, and the Shield Tablet is perfect for that. Using just a mini-HDMI-to-HDMI cable, I can be gaming in no time, and using the Shield Tablet as a full-fledged Android-powered media center, thanks to apps like Plex and Netflix. Native Twitch integration makes for super easy streaming of your Shield Tablet gameplay, which is going to be a big boon to the growing number of mobile players who are getting into that kind of broadcasting. Even though the LTE version I reviewed came with an AT&T sim for data, I was able to swap out my own Telus one for use here in Canada, and it worked instantly. Speeds over LTE were great, and using the remote GameStream feature in beta to play while away was impressive – but also data heavy. The LTE option is definitely a nice upgrade incentive for the $299 model, however, especially when you factor in that it also provides double the storage space. Shield’s gaming tablet is predictably powerful, given its mission and function. You’ll find it provides butter smooth performance on even the most demanding Android games, and is especially impressive on those that have been Tegra-optimized. It makes the entire Android experience better as a result of its processing muscle, too, and that’s something Nvidia makes even more apparent by keeping the whole Android edition pretty much stock, without the usual bloatware and skins included by many OEMs. Streaming performance is also very impressive, with almost no noticeable lag in most conditions, nor much in the way of graphical deterioration when your network conditions are optimal. The SHIELD controller helps things out with latency by connecting via Wi-Fi instead of Bluetooth, leaving no perceptible delay between input and response. I was able to play Shadow of Mordor, Skyrim, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and a number of other games over GameStream without issue, and without feeling like I was missing anything from the desktop version besides more visual space. In terms of performance, the only real issue I had was that without the Shield Wireless Controller, the tablet is essentially useless for most GameStream applications, which is a huge part of the platform. You can use Bluetooth controllers, and mice and keyboards to control software, too, but the Wireless Controller is really an essential part of the package, which means you need to factor in an additional $60 on top of the purchase price to arrive at the true final cost for the device, plus the cost for the cover at $40. The other thing that isn’t great, but isn’t terrible either is the DirectStylus 2. It comes with the Shield Tablet, and slots into a storage space on the back, but it displays noticeable lag when used even with Nvidia’s own built-in Dabbler drawing app, and its unique design isn’t the best I’ve seen in a touchscreen stylus. Still, it can do the job for handwritten notes, and my guess is that most people using this device will mostly just keep it tucked away in the storage slot anyway. Nvidia’s work on the Shield Tablet’s display are what help elevate this from just another Android tablet to a full-fledged mobile gaming console. The display’s generous 8-inches feel like a big screen TV when compared to the Shield Portable, and the resolution means you’ll sometimes forget you aren’t playing your PS4 at home when you’re using it on the go. The pixel density of the screen means text renders crisply, too, and it’s great for watching movies or videos. It’s not the best display in the mobile industry, however (the iPhone 6 Plus currently holds that crown in my opinion, with better color rendering than this device) it won’t disappoint any but those with the most exacting standards. Auto brightness is subject to the same inconsistencies that affect most Android devices in my experience, but when used in manual mode, higher brightnesses are suitable for most viewing conditions. Nvidia has also redesigned its Shield Hub software recently in such a way that complements this larger screen and landscape orientation, so you really will feel like you have a personal, portable TV and media center all-in-one when using this on the road. With great power comes great responsibility, and in the case of mobile devices, great battery draw. The battery life on the Shield Tablet lasts around a full day under normal mixed use, but when you’re streaming or running even demanding Android games, you’re going to burn through it a lot quicker. Even with dedicated, continuous gaming use, however, it’s at least on par with devices out there like the 3DS and the PlayStation Vita. Nvidia’s Shield Portable is a great device, albeit with limited appeal. The Shield Tablet broadens the appeal of a mobile gaming gadget, since it also operates as one of the better Android tablet options out there currently, at a price that’s very competitive given the features it includes. The core audience for this device is still going to be gamers, however, and that’s no bad thing. Console and PC purists might still find reason to compare this device negatively to their PS4s, Xbox Ones and Alienware desktops, but it’s light years ahead of the rest of the mobile market when it comes to dedicated gaming hardware. GameStream especially goes a long way to bridging the gap between the core games market and the tablet realm. If you’re looking for an Android tablet, even if you don’t really consider yourself a gamer (but you at least enjoy games), give Nvidia’s device a serious look; while Google has typically delivered solid experiences with Nexus hardware like the Nexus 7, Nvidia is keeping costs relatively low while also pushing the boundaries in terms of performance and use cases, which are benefits any class of user can appreciate. |
Amazon’s Fire HD 7 Is A Low-Priced Tablet For The Avid Reader | John Biggs | 2,014 | 10 | 9 | The Fire HD 7 is the latest in the long-running Fire line of LCD ereaders. Amazon has taken great pains to make this new model lighter, smaller, and more robust and, for my money, I’d say that this $139 reader is the best on the market, barring the e-ink line. Let’s look under the hood. Meet the new Fire, (almost) the same as the old Fire. Amazon has upped the screen size slightly on their entry-level tablet product and now offers some clever colors for the kids and those who are tired of plain old black. The pink, with which we were graced, looks like something straight out of the 1980s and the bright yellow case they included made it look like Crockett and Tubbs probably read on this thing. This is, to be clear, a standard tablet. It has a great screen, it has Amazon’s unique support and content apps, and it runs a number of Android apps including productivity tools. But it’s not quite on the cutting edge in terms of productivity. I love this as a reader, I love it less as a tablet. Does that preclude you from considering this as a first tablet for an entry-level or inexperienced user? Absolutely not. Amazon does a great job of creating a simple and very usable experience and there is a reason they’ve cornered the reader market: they know exactly how to do it without skimping on support or quality. None of the features are particularly notable – the Silk browser works fine, the camera is usable, the information management and email tools are just fine – but they all work well together well. It’s a tablet that “just works” and thanks to the specially skinned Android it “just works” really well. The new Fire runs Fire OS 4.0, code-named Sangria. What does this mean? It means slightly snappier performance, better app control, and some improved integration with X-Ray for viewing in-book content and Goodreads for sharing your reading habits. It’s a good upgrade and should appear on older Fires (where supported) in the next few weeks. [gallery ids="1067889,1067888,1067887,1067886,1067885,1067883"]
The new OS is based on Android KitKat and also includes improved streaming features and “Prediction,” a system that predicts which TV and movies you want to watch next. It also improves battery life although eight hours of constant use is pretty much the norm. While Amazon likes to talk up the productivity features, especially in the Fire HDX line, I doubt you will get much work done on this thing. As a media stream and reader, however, it is excellent, and the $139 price makes it a steal. Considering the Nexus 7 still costs $199 if you’re looking for a thin and light tablet with amazing support and just enough features to keep you busy, this is the one to get. If you’re looking for a pure Android experience, the Galaxy Tab might be a better fit. The dedicated e-reader is an endangered species. While I still feel the standard e-ink Kindle is the best tool for reading, users are asking for more and they are, in droves, turning to their phones to get it. Samsung’s Galaxy Note and Apple’s new iPhone 6 Plus are both devices aimed squarely at the smaller tablet market and, as a new phablet user, I am torn constantly between a bigger screen and the convenience of not carrying and charging an entirely separate device. That said, this is a great reading device. You can buy it for almost anyone – a kid, a grandma, a dad – and allow Amazon to support them remotely. It makes reading and viewing video very easy and it has a number of interesting music features. Be warned: you will be trapped squarely in Amazon’s walled garden and, while that might not bother most, it could be unnerving to some. The tablet is nearly unusable without an Amazon account and I don’t think you’d ever want to use it without one. This is a great Christmas gift for a reader who wants to move from paper to pixels. It’s not a great tablet, but it’s another great e-reader from Amazon. |
Pioneering App Mag, The Magazine, Is Shutting Down In December | John Biggs | 2,014 | 10 | 9 | , , is shutting down in December. The magazine, which carried tech stories from prominent authors, is now owned by writer who explained that the title, while profitable from day one, just wasn’t picking up subscribers fast enough to remain viable. Fleishman wrote: Arment, who designed and created the framework on which the magazine ran, said: “I thought making a high-quality app was the hard part that was keeping iPad magazines from being more successful, but the app turned out to be the easiest and least important part of the business.” The app now runs on . The Magazine was an interesting mix of the Economist, Wired, and McSweeney’s. I subscribed to it for a while when it launched and then bought individual issues. It’s important to note that the magazine was profitable – an amazing feat in this news market – and brought in some excellent writers. It just couldn’t maintain a subscriber rate, which also plagued titles like News Corps’ The Daily. It’s a shame. Fleishman is crowdfunding a and is looking to close shop on December 17 and pro-rate and refund all subscriptions. It will be interesting to see if news of its closing spurs more subscriptions. |
The Key To Raising Your Seed Extension Round | Jonathan Friedman | 2,014 | 10 | 9 | Given the growth in seed funding driven by the combined forces of the “ ” and increasing activity by angel investors (often via ), it’s become increasingly common to meet so called “ ” looking to raise seed extension rounds. These companies often have good teams that have achieved solid initial traction, but were asked by Round A VCs to “come back when you’ve achieved more traction,” which, in essence, is like giving a soft no. Some would advise these startups to “fake it till you make it,” which translates into exaggerating your traction via a , commonly seen on pitch days. This is okay, because although smart investors know the difference between real traction versus that don’t correlate into real signals of success, we also know this is part of the startup game, and don’t hold it against founders. However, the problem comes when founders who aren’t ready to raise money based on scalable traction yet allow themselves to get sucked in to a conversation drilling down into the metrics, which doesn’t help in building credibility or excitement. In order to avoid this, you as a Founder must be honest with yourself: do you have what will be seen as in the eyes of next stage investors (read: momentum), or are you still selling the dream? Regardless of the reason why you are not yet achieving scalable customer traction, don’t spend too much of your pitch rehashing history, but instead focus on the positives and the future. The investor doesn’t want to hear about how your initial assumptions were incorrect, or that you need more time, or that you had issues executing. Instead, focus on “selling the dream,” specifically laying out in concrete terms what is exciting about the opportunity to invest now, what milestone you can accomplish with this money (should either bring you to Round A or make you profitable), and demonstrating that you still have the same passion, resilience, and salesmanship that you started with. Importantly, if you already have an existing base of investors from earlier rounds of financing that have favorable reserves policies, your chances of successfully reselling the dream increases dramatically. This is why companies that raise from a combo of large multi-stage VCs and micro-VCs have the of successfully raising their Round A. They usually plan ahead for these scenarios, making it more likely they’ll support their portfolio companies through seed extension if necessary. And when you have a solid lead from existing investors, it’s that much easier to secure the full extension round that hopefully will get you to a significant milestone. So if you’re among those fortunate enough to choose which investors get into your initial seed round, be sure to that will allow you to glean their follow-on strategy upfront. |
Facebook Mobile’s New Collage Design Highlights Your Best Photos | Josh Constine | 2,014 | 10 | 9 | Not every photo is worth exactly 1,000 words. That sweet pic of you skydiving is a lot more interesting than your lunch. So today Facebook profiles on and apps are getting a new collage design for photos that enlarges your most-Liked pics, Facebook tells me. There’s also a new “Uploads” tab that shows all the photos you posted in one place so your friends don’t have to dig through pics scattered in different albums like before. And if they do want to explore your albums, they’ll see big cover photos for each rather than just a list of album names and tiny thumbnails. While messaging apps like the ephemeral Snapchat may see more photos shared each day, Facebook is still the top place for looking through endless permanent photos of friends. And according to its test, Facebook says these new designs will have people browsing and liking more photos than ever. The new features will be turned on over the next couple of hours for all iOS and Android users, and won’t require an app update. There’s no current plan to bring this to the web profile, but Facebook does dynamically show certain photos bigger when upload a few to the News Feed at the same time. Back in 2012, Facebook tested a way to let you on your profile by clicking a star button. But it’s likely that few users noticed the feature or took the time to manually select their best pics. Now Facebook is doing this automatically on mobile by looking at which of your photos have the most Likes. Photos it deems worthy show up 6X larger. There’s no way to un-highlight photos in the new college view, though, so you have to hope embarrassing shots of you don’t get too many Likes. Photo sharing split in two these last few years. After nearly a decade of manicured, permanent photo sharing spearheaded by Facebook’s profile and Instagram, Snapchat found lots of people want to share casual, off-the-cuff photos that disappear. Facebook’s two tries at ephemeral photo sharing, Poke and Slingshot, haven’t gained traction. But as long as it keeps improving with updates like today’s, there will still be plenty of people who want to browse through years worth of each other’s saved photos. How else would you know if you should have a crush on them? |
With Its iOS Update, StumbleUpon Becomes A Mobile Chat App | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 10 | 9 | , an older web brand still best known for its content discovery service that helps introduce web surfers to new and interesting websites (or maybe for getting , then again, by eBay), is now taking a big step to make its app more relevant for the mobile era. In an update to the out now, the company is introducing social chatting. The chatting aspect is one of several improvements to the newly overhauled app, but probably the one most worth taking note of. Now, when you find a webpage you want to share, you can tap on fellow StumbleUpon users’ names in order to start a conversation about the page in question right within the app. Each user you’re sharing with is represented by a rounded, profile photo icon above the comment field. You can add your text, then share – an experience which feels more like you’re starting a conversation than simply sending a link. And when others share webpages with you, they appear in a new “Activity Center” within the app which keeps track of all the new shares as well as follower notifications. The idea, presumably, is to make StumbleUpon feel more like a social app or communications utility of some sort, rather than just a content discovery service. That makes sense as some of the on users’ phones are social networking apps or those focused on media consumption, and this new feature is built in a way that could marry the two. Although StumbleUpon users could before share their discoveries via SMS, this change is focused on keeping users in the app – and returning to see their notifications, or replying to comments. However, link-sharing also inches into territory where Facebook and Twitter now dominate, while link recommendation is now in the hands of sites like Digg and Reddit. (For what it’s worth, StumbleUpon’s chat concept also reminds me a tiny bit of , the link-sharing service from Branch that was quickly snapped up by Facebook.) Also new in the updated app is support for custom lists, new navigation which puts likes, interests and followers just a tap away, an updated user interface and various speed improvements. Though social chatting is a worthy upgrade for this app, StumbleUpon needs to do more to re-establish its brand as something that’s capable making the mobile transition without losing steam. The iOS app is consistently a top 100 or top 200 ranked app in the “Entertainment” category, according to App Annie data, but is hasn’t ranked on the Top Overall charts since this spring. And to be fair, StumbleUpon’s change would make it more of a “social” app than “entertainment,” but social is a tougher category in which to compete. StumbleUpon is a free download . |
Box Acquires Y Combinator-Backed MedXT To Bolster Its Healthcare Push | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 10 | 9 | Box, an enterprise-focused cloud storage and productivity company, announced this morning that it has acquired Y Combinator-backed , a firm that provides a cloud-based file storage system for medical imaging. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition fits into Box’s to pursue a number of industry verticals, which it calls Box for Industries. Healthcare was mentioned specifically at its recent BoxWorks conference. According , the acquisition helps Box deal with “interoperability” between sources of healthcare information. Balkanization of that data, according to the executive, “has long hampered [the nation’s] ability to deliver efficient, high-quality care.” Box’s work to drill into specific industries may give it an edge within market niches — as the larger cloud storage market becomes commoditized, Box, Dropbox and other providers of storage are racing to build value-added services to their technology stacks in hopes of standing out. For Box, which announced new medical customers in recent months, healthcare could be a rich vein. For more on MedXT, TechCrunch . A surprising passage from that post: Scans, along with any notes a technician might have, are sent from an imaging device to a local server to MedXT’s over an encrypted connection. It will be interesting to see if MedXT’s technology is shifted to Box’s servers and off of Amazon’s popular storage platform. Box is currently enduring an interregnum period between the filing of its S-1 document and pulling the trigger on its initial public offering. The company, if it decides to, will release updated financials in the coming weeks. |
mParticle Raises $1.5M, Aims To Become The Platform For Mobile Data Integration | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 10 | 9 | Mobile data startup has raised $1.5 million in an additional round of seed funding. The company, which says it previously raised $4.5 million, is working to become the data integration platform for mobile developers. In other words, instead of installing a bunch of different s to collect data, app developers can just integrate with mParticle. The platform will then take care of gathering the data and passing it on to different services. That, in turn, means the developer can try out new services without worrying about hurting the performance of their app or going through the App Store approval process each time. For example, co-founder and CEO Michael Katz told me that mParticle developers often integrate with a crash reporting tool, plus at least one analytics product, plus another product for push notifications, and another for email, and yet another for ad attribution. Without a service like mParticle, he said the likely result is “app bloat from all these third party libraries.” You can see a list all of the various integrations on — they include AppNexus, Facebook, Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Urban Airship, and many others. Katz said that the platform integrates with new services in response to developer interest, with the process only taking a few days. (To be clear, if you’re using mParticle to send data to, say, Mixpanel, you still need to be paying customer of Mixpanel.) “There’s a shift away from the browser,” Katz said. “So whether you’re talking about mobile apps, wearable apps, and ultimately apps in your automobiles and smart TVs, you’re going to need data solutions that are built to deal with the complexities of browserless environments.” He added that he raised the additional funding to take advantage of the growth that mParticle has seen so far, with plans to raise a Series A next year. The round came from new and existing investors including Bowery Capital, Harbinger Capital, and Battery Ventures. |
null | Frederic Lardinois | 2,014 | 10 | 7 | null |
Children’s Clothing Marketplace Totspot Raises $1.8M | Kyle Russell | 2,014 | 10 | 9 | 500 Startups graduate is announcing today that it has raised $1.8 million in seed funding to expand its mobile marketplace for parents to buy and sell children’s clothing. The startup lets parents post pictures of goods they’d like to sell, a price, and simple description, and then takes a 20 percent commission when they match that item with a parent looking to update their child’s attire. Totspot CEO Vijay Ramani told TechCrunch that the startup’s primary focus is to improve the quality and utility of its matching algorithms. If a parent generally dresses their kids in preppy, “Country Club Jr.” look, searches for “shirts” made in a specific size should prioritize button-down shirts and high-quality polos. Like many startups, Totspot went with an iOS- and approach to releasing its app. That said, Ramani told me that the seed round will allow the startup to bring on more mobile developers to prep for an Android release later this year. led the round and managing partner Hans Tung will become a board observer at Totspot. Other investors include 500 Startups, AME Cloud Ventures’s Jerry Yang, and QueensBridge Venture Partners. |
Mobile Ad Startup AppLovin Acquires German Ad Network Moboqo | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 10 | 9 | is setting up its European expansion by acquiring German-based mobile ad network . Palo Alto-headquartered AppLovin helps mobile developers find new customers by targeting ads at people similar to the existing user base, then it continues engaging those customers with personalized, retargeted ads. Co-founder and CEO Adam Foroughi told me a few months ago that . When discussing the acquisition earlier this week, Foroughi also said that the company has customers around the world, but the business team has remained entirely US-based. So as Foroughi began to consider opening offices abroad, he was “looking for people who have a shared vision.” Apparently he found those people at Moboqo, which will spearhead AppLovin’s efforts in Europe. (The company also plans to open an office in London.) It sounds like this is very much a talent-focused acquisition. Foroughi said his team won’t be using Moboqo’s technology, which was largely “similar and smaller scale” compared to AppLovin’s. However, Moboqo co-founder Johannes Heinze will become AppLovin’s managing director for EMEA gaming, while the other co-founder, Thomas Heinze, becomes director of business development for EMEA (that’s Europe, the Middle East, and Africa). “We strongly believe in Applovin’s mission to leverage the power of data to personalize the mobile advertising experience,” Heinze said in an emailed statement. The financial terms of the deal are not being disclosed. AppLovin also says it’s too early to know how many other members of the 11-person Moboqo team will be joining the company. |
Internet.org Offers $1M Prize For Apps That Make People In India Want The Web | Josh Constine | 2,014 | 10 | 9 | “A recent survey that we did shows that 69% of people in India who are not connected, if you ask them why they’re not connected, what they say is that they don’t know why the Internet would useful for them”, today at the Internet.org summit in New Delhi. That’s why to build apps that convince Indian farmers, migrant workers, women, and students why the Internet is valuable by offering localized content. This will award $250,000 prizes to the best app, website, or service that makes the Internet relevant to each of the four populations above. The contest from Facebook-backed could help millions of people recognize the value of the Internet, pursue access, and gain knowledge and opportunities that can help them get better jobs and improve their lives. That could in turn help Internet.org’s flagship sponsor Facebook gain new users that it can connect to the world. During Zuckerberg’s keynote at the summit, he summarized the recent released by Facebook and McKinsey about the factors keeping 4.5 billion people offline. Zuckerberg touched on how Internet.org is using where it’s not currently available. “I think there should be 911 for the Internet” Zuckerberg said, noting how in the United States, cell phones can call 911 in the event of an emergency even if they don’t have a mobile calling plan. Just as this basic service of access to police, ambulances, and firefighters is free, he thinks Internet access to health, education, human rights, and services like Wikipedia should be free as well. The problem is the cost of data plans. Many people can’t afford the Internet, and if they can but haven’t grown up understanding its value, they might not be willing to spend their limited amount of money on a data plan. That’s why Internet.org is working with carriers to offer basic Internet services for free in countries like the Philippines, Tanzania, Paraguay, and Zambia. This project has already connected 3 million people to the Internet. For example, which offers free access to Wikipedia, Google Search (but not click-throughs to the results), local health and civic information, Facebook, and Facebook Messenger. Through a deal with local carrier Airtel, these services are free, but people are charged to use the rest of the web, which scores Airtel new customers. In the long-term, Internet.org could pay huge dividends for Facebook. While framed as a philanthropic initiative, if Facebook can be the first service people use when they get online, it will likely lock in new developing world users for its social network. Facebook will compete with Google, which also has its own that uses hot air balloons to deliver connectivity. Some might say business objectives taint the humanitarian goals of Internet accessibility initiatives. But if profit potential incentivizes tech giants and mobile carriers to empower people with the web for free, I’d call that a net win. |
Microsoft Promises Its Surface Project Is Here To Stay | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 10 | 9 | Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made that his company’s Surface project is here to stay, hoping to convince potential business customers that investing in the tablet-hybrids won’t leave them in the lurch. Out this morning from Microsoft’s chief is a quote calling the Surface Pro 3 an “enterprise-class device,” saying that the company is “putting its full and sustained support behind the ongoing Surface program.” As part of that announcement, the company promised that peripherals that shipped to support the Surface Pro 3 will work for the next Pro device. When Microsoft moved from the Surface Pro 2 tablet design, to the Surface Pro 3, old peripherals became too small, in many cases — the Surface Pro 3 has a much larger screen. So, Microsoft has made a public pact that the Surface project is here to stay, and that the Pro line has more or less gelled in its form factor. It’s a simple pitch to the enterprise: Your investment in the line of Surface products is a safe one, as is your investment in current hardware itself. That Surface is not being cancelled is roughly as surprising as being tired in the morning. As TechCrunch , Microsoft is more than willing to pour capital into a project if it can see future profitability, and the effort has strategic importance. What’s the point of being a rich incumbent, naturally, if you can’t weaponize your cash advantage? Microsoft went on to indicate that the Surface Pro 3 will be upgradable to Windows 10. That operating system is widely expected to be made free to Windows 8.1 users. For more on Windows 10, . Finally, Microsoft announced a number of Surface Pro 3 bundles today, which are in effect discounts of the Device’s Docking Station. The Pro 3, Type Cover, and Docking Station, can now be purchased as a group for between a $100 and $150 discount. As it would be very silly to buy a Pro 3 and not a Type Cover, the discount can therefore be mentally constrained to the Docking Station. Microsoft would not have had to make such pronouncements if it hadn’t received pushback from potential corporate customers, asking if Surface is sticking around. It is. How long is your call, but I think that there are a few more generations, at least, in the tank. None of the above is to say that Surface isn’t in flux. There might not be another ARM-based Surface device. That means that Surface standard will only be carried by the Intel-based Pro line of devices. Having only one SKU line means Microsoft has even less margin for error. |
Firechat Gets Verified Accounts As Usage Skyrockets During Hong Kong Protests | Frederic Lardinois | 2,014 | 10 | 9 | , ‘s mobile chat app that uses to let you chat with the people around you even when there is no Internet connection, has seen a wherever there is a government that wants to suppress free speech. In Hong Kong, for example, the company saw 460,000 downloads in the last week and the service hosted over 5.1 million chat sessions in the area. With that, Firechat usage in Hong Kong now only trails the U.S. in the company’s stats. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT1j8V-P1PQ One of the reasons the service is so popular during these events is that Firechat allows users to stay completely anonymous. Starting today, however, the company is also launching verified accounts for those users who do want to use their real names to make sure they aren’t impersonated. Open Garden tells me that there are only a few people in this program right now. “We are very careful with the selection process, and will grow the number of verified accounts only progressively,” a spokesperson told me. Among the first verified users is Patrick Boehler, a reporter at the South China Morning Post who also teaches journalism at the University of Hong Kong. “We think that verified names will be useful for journalists, educators and community leaders so they can address a very large audience at once but also have real time discussions,” the Firechat team noted. “You can’t do that on Twitter and Facebook today.” |
Hands On With Microsoft’s New Fitness Wearable, The Band | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 10 | 31 | Dropping out of left field like a foul fly ball from the Kansas City Royals this week, the Microsoft Band was a surprise. Part fitness band, part computer, part mobile Twitter and stock-checking smartgadget, the Band is a mix of things. And it pretty much works. It’s still a bit clunky, as you might expect from first-generation hardware, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the Band. Most importantly, it doesn’t do just one thing. If it were a fitness-only device, I wouldn’t use it. If it only had a few lightweight apps, I wouldn’t use it. If it were just a sleep tracker, or a heart-rate monitor, I wouldn’t use it. But with those features combined, it does enough to fit into my daily flow. That’s to say that wearing something on your wrist is annoying. Having something else to keep charge is annoying. And having one more damn screen in your life is annoying. So, any device that wants to take up that spot has to more than balance out the debits that it will make on your arms and psyche. Part of the new Microsoft Health platform, Band is a capable and fun device. For $200 it does quite a lot. Once more apps are available for the gadget, and the hardware reaches its second generation, the company could have a pretty popular little doodad on its wrists. |
Contextly Expands Its Content Recommendation Platform To Include Videos And For-Sale Products, Too | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 10 | 31 | With the latest expansion of its content recommendation tools, startup isn’t just pointing visitors to relevant articles, but videos and products, too. Co-founder and CEO Ryan Singel ( ) told me that this is “doubling down” on the company’s current strategy. , he’s taking a different approach from content recommendation services like Outbrain and Taboola, which take visitors to other sites. Contextly is all about keeping visitors on the same site; by convincing them to read additional articles, it hopefully turns them into repeat visitors and long-term fans. With that in mind, the new features seem like a natural move. If you’ve got different types of content on your site, why limit yourself to news articles? Video, after all, is becoming increasingly important to online publishers. And the commerce offering highlights the fact that content is becoming increasingly important to many online stores. You may, incidentally, be seeing a “related video” widget next to this very post (or below it, if you’re on a smartphone). But one thing that’s different about Contextly’s approach is that it treats all this content similarly, rather than creating separate widgets for articles and video. The company offered a few more details about the new features , saying it’s now using its existing “smart data analysis and recommendation system to provide a far more comprehensive set of recommendations for publishers that make videos and sell items.” To illustrate that, it points to about making a Fire Tie, where it makes sense to point readers to a product that’s mentioned in the article and to a demo video. In an email, Singel elaborated how this represents an increased commitment to Contextly’s core strategy: Our focus is on computational journalism, using our tools that identify relevant, trending, evergreen and personalized content to give readers an awesome experience. In an age of drive-by readers and social networks with ever-changing algorithms, the future will belong to publishers that forge real connections with their readers. Meanwhile nearly all of other companies that use some of the same real estate on publishers’ pages that we use are focussing on how to fill that space with ads. And all too often, these recommendations don’t disclose these are paid ads. We see lip service being given to “engagement” or “content discovery,” but these companies’ focus on traffic arbitrage. |
Changing The Rules Of E-Commerce | Tim Chang | 2,014 | 10 | 31 | In late summer, Mayfield and CRV co-hosted a dinner for entrepreneurs at e-commerce 2.0 companies, including Brit& Co, Dolls Kill, Dropship, Indiegogo, Kiwi Crate, LeTote, Massdrop, Pebble, Peek, Poshmark, The Hunt, Tophatter, Touch of Modern, Trendalytics, Udemy and Urban Remedy. These executives discussed the factors making e-commerce cool again for investors and founders, focusing on how evolving technology and business platforms (primarily through mobile devices, and social media) are changing the rules for the 6 C’s: content, curation, customization, community, crowdsourcing and crowdfunding. New conceptions of mobile and web-based commerce are pushing companies beyond the usual “treadmill of marketing spend versus inventory buildup versus thin margins” that has previously plagued startups engaged in the art of the consumer-facing sale. As mobile becomes more of a balm for e-commerce’s traditional woes, here are a few things that entrepreneurs should consider for their budding businesses. Android continues to expand its reach as a mobile app platform for entrepreneurs to prioritize thanks to the ease of discovery on the Google Play Store compared to the crowded iOS App Store; an increasing preference for Android phones by young users – especially women and girls – as their first smartphone of choice; and the larger screen real estate available on most Android phones versus iPhone (until the release of the 6s). Larger screen sizes mean an ability for startups to display up to four additional objects in their apps, and, in one case, at , a 22 percent higher conversion on Android. For startups specifically targeting young women for their next-gen commerce apps, this even raises the question of launching on Android first before iOS – a huge change in thinking compared to even a year ago. Most startups these days tend to adopt the mantra of “mobile-first,” even eschewing web versions of their service. But, the entrepreneurs who spoke at our event threw a spotlight on the need to have complementary web and mobile experiences. The web should serve as the primary means for discovery, sign-up and onboarding, credit card entry and deep browsing. And the mobile app can serve as the key piece for repeat engagement, social transactions, and snack-style, daily check-ins to see what new updates may have occurred in a chat or comment thread, discussion, bid, or active transaction. Many of today’s top e-commerce 2.0 apps are product and service marketplaces, which offer irresistible convenience and instant gratification for consumers with on-demand and impulse buying ability. However, the key to success for these kinds of businesses is realizing that the true initial customer is really on the supply side. Businesses should ensure that workers or sellers are delighted so that they are happy, successful and consequently giving consistently great service to the demand side. What this requires of the marketplace platform is a different mobile app experience catered to the supply or “worker/seller” side. Allow vendors to manage the workflow of their businesses entirely in-app (from marketing, content updates, community outreach, promotions/offers, inventory management, customer support and communications, billing and payment collection, to service/product sales fulfillment). While this functionality would normally be found primarily in the web interface, the nature of services and sales in this mobile era now means that many workers have to run their businesses on the fly and in real-time, with the mobile app as their primary interface to complete the real-time transaction. Given the visual and design-oriented nature of commerce 2.0 experiences, every next-gen commerce startup is effectively in the business of gorgeous imagery, whether they want to be or not. Photos, especially in sites catering to women’s fashion, can play a critical role in conversion. Entrepreneurs such as Bobby Farahi of found that having models wear clothes and accessories instead of simply displaying the item made a huge difference beyond just the quality of the photo itself. Brit Morin, founder of Brit & Co., pointed out that they even invested in a team of in-house professional photographers and stylists to showcase their items. The emphasis on a visually compelling app experience doesn’t necessarily mean that entrepreneurs should invest in video content, however. The costs associated with creating good video content often outweigh the potential benefits from a good video segment, entrepreneurs noted. Businesses are better off with a compelling photo (even if taken by an amateur), which is low-friction enough to capture attention out of the firehose of the feed, and propel the journey from viewing to purchase, execs said. The changes in the mobile marketplace, wrought by the proliferation of these e-commerce 2.0 startups is also creating a large market opportunity for companies looking to provide analytics, virtualized infrastructure and logistics, and other enabling platform the new generation of “micro-entrepreneurs.” Startups like , and mark the entrance of virtualized warehouse and “micro 3PL,” and companies like Trendalytics hope to provide data-based early warning signals of consumer sentiment, shifts in market taste, and potentially even real-time signals for commerce 2.0 entrepreneurs to identify personas and the likely long-term-value of incoming users. Beyond the mechanics of business and tools of the trade, there’s one thing that every entrepreneur emphasized at dinner, and that’s the centrality of storytelling to the commercial journey. Companies are telling their tall tale from pre-purchase, to buying decision, and especially to the post-purchase experience (where commerce companies have the most room to innovate). Entrepreneurs agreed that the most important element — which is in a vendor’s control — is that of laying out the narrative behind the items and creating social mechanics to rope customers into participating and sharing their own stories through the products. Examples include Maker videos explaining their Indiegogo campaign, as well as fan videos helping to spread the word and build the movement. Examples ranged from DollsKill’s “Be a Doll” campaign, which solicited submissions from actual teenage users to serve as the model for the merchandise they wear, and show off their own style and look; to ’s experience of women trying on items in the office so that co-workers could weigh in on their choices in real-time and in person. Massdrop also provided insight around the power of harnessing existing product enthusiasts who already geek out as community leaders in niche product forums and vertical social networks. By creating polls for the top products that enthusiasts already fetishize, Massdrop can pre-aggregate demand from influential customers in a very natural way and then negotiating favorable prices directly with manufacturers. All of the entrepreneurs in the group believed that there is still ample room for innovation around commerce business models, despite the historically thin margins, expected discount rates, and the need for growing inventory and paid marketing in e-commerce. Innovative twists include the notion of renting versus owning, as we shift into the era of the “sharing economy” and “collaborative consumption”, in which the value of “on-demand access” often outweighs “ownership” — exemplified by rental clothing startup . Walmart, Brit & Co and Kiwi Crate are also pushing the envelope in blending the offline versus online experience, demonstrating that successful online businesses often add an offline/retail dimension, and vice versa. Kiwi Crate began life as an online-only subscription commerce offering, but now its creativity kits are selling well in retailers like Target, with the resulting kid-created projects shared back online. Walmart Labs looks to bring aspects of its offline business online, while also using online and mobile experiences to drive further value into visiting their retail locations. With the rise of real-time on-demand local delivery networks like Google Shopping Express, there could be more reason than ever for big box retailers in your neighborhood to thrive alongside Amazon.com. Crowdsourcing can add leverage to the content production and curation aspects of a commerce business, and startups are leveraging game mechanics and exploring aspects of single versus multiplayer, real-time versus asynchronous, and competitive versus collaborative “play” in shopping. Finally, entrepreneurs talked about the value of “personalized fashion concierge in the cloud” for markets like men’s fashion, and we’re expecting to see more assisted commerce experiences driven by on-demand and “do it for me” convenience. Overall, the entrepreneurs all agreed that by leveraging multiple screens, new kinds of community/commerce experiences, beautiful photos, crowdsourced participation, and on-demand marketplace mechanics, today’s commerce 2.0 startups can tap into stories and heighten the emotional connection with users. The goal is to make the buying experience more delightful, accessible, aspirational, gratifying and meaningful. If startups achieve this, they can maintain pricing power and even charge a premium, instead of the usual marketing barrage of constant discounts, promotions, and margin-squeezing offers. |
11 TechCrunch Stories You Don’t Want To Miss This Week | Anna Escher | 2,014 | 10 | 31 | Between the portal to hell opening in our comments section, Elon Musk’s AI demons, and metallic 3D printed guns, it’s been a scary Halloween week here at TechCrunch. We give you our best stories of the week (10/25-10/31). 1. During an interview at an MIT symposium, . When asked about his views on artificial intelligence, Musk replied that AI is “our biggest existential threat” and that by building AI, we’re “summoning the demon.” But is he really that crazy for encouraging regulation of AI tech? 2. is the big retailers clunky attempt to kill Apple Pay and credit card fees. . Unauthorized third parties obtained email addresses of some of CurrentC pilot program participants and other individuals who had expressed interest in the app. Consequently, there are now a slew of 1 star App Store ratings for CurrentC came. 3. More than four years ago, Steve Jobs and heralded HTML5 as the way to go. It was just this week that the . Now, the W3C will immediately start fixing bugs, but most importantly, work on HTML 5.1. 4. due to an “in flight anomaly.” SpaceShipTwo was designed primarily for space tourism, meant to carry passengers high enough to experience near-weightlessness – however this flight only carried two pilots; one of them unfortunately died in the crash [Story still developing]. 5. Andrew Conrad, Google’s head of life sciences, took to the stage at the Wall Street Journal Digital conference to reveal a wearable device that couples with nanotechnology to detect disease within the body that the Google[x] lab has been working on. 6. Earnings came in for a number of companies, and for company investors. – and no amount of short-term growth will make up for slower long-term potential revenue growth. For the ninth consecutive quarter, . The most interesting part of Facebook’s earnings call was . Things are looking good for Apple as its stock prices hit a record high. . 7. Apple CEO Tim Cook contributed a thoughtful piece to Businessweek, stating that he is He explains that even though privacy is something he values in his personal life, he is happy to be publicly open about his own sexuality if it helps others struggling with their identity or discrimination based on sexual orientation. 8. A lot of news happened on the wearable tech front. for Android devices, which allows users to see all of their collected health and fitness data in one central location. We introduced you to the , and Microsoft leaked its own fitness band, the . 9. Solid Concepts, a company known for 3D printing with metal has , sparking the guns and 3D printing debate once again. The model has part of the Declaration of Independence written on the barrel, and seems more rugged and safer to fire. 10. We’ve known that Google was working on updating its bookmarking service, previously called Google Stars, for some time now. This week, on the Chrome Web store. Users can now use Google’s search tech to find bookmarks within their starred pages and folders, and share these bookmarks with friends. 11. Kyle Russell wrote about that detailed oversharing, adopting new platforms and the reality TV and social media star’s affinity for BlackBerry. And the portal to hell opened on our comment section – which Alexia responded to in her article In other news, a , we were able to visualize , and we took a look at a through an app. To wrap things up, check out the that can fly to the rescue. |
CrunchWeek: Google Hunts For Cancer, Microsoft’s Fitness Band, And Kim Kardashian Goes To A Tech Conference | Sarah Buhr | 2,014 | 10 | 31 | Alex Wilhelm, Kyle Russell and I discuss Google[x]’s new nanoparticle project to hunt down cancerous cells, Alex shows off his shiny new fitness tracker from Microsoft, and the scary comments we received after Kim Kardashian showed up at a tech conference. Also, Happy Halloween! We all put on cat ears just for you. |
One Lap: The Orange Chef Preps At Full Speed | Rob Coneybeer | 2,014 | 10 | 31 | Every industry is ripe for disruption, and food preparation is no exception. Traditional recipes are static and driven by standard portion sizes. With experience, a good chef knows how to properly modify recipes according to objectives of taste and healthiness. But this process today is driven by intuition based on years of experience cooking and learning what works and what doesn’t. What if you could create a more interactive way of cooking using an iPad-connected kitchen scale? Santiago and his team at had the insight that by combining three elements – a scale, an iPad and the Internet – they could build a new product that would allow ordinary people to rapidly understand how to cook and the health impacts of different ingredient choices. This product, known as the , delivers interactive recipes via a Bluetooth connection to an iPad (and by extension, to the Internet). Fitness trackers like the Fitbit are extremely popular today, but only measure one part of the health equation – exercise. With the Prep Pad, consumers can accurately measure their calories and nutritional choices during the day, which is arguably a more effective way to help people control their weight and improve their health. The Prep Pad can be used to measure serving sizes of fruits and packaged foods, as well as assist in the preparation of meals. Internet-connected sensor technology is coming to every corner of our lives, and the kitchen is no exception. During our interview, Santiago demonstrates his product with “the fastest unboxing ever,” talks about what it’s like to rapidly scale headcount, and explains why entrepreneurs love scissors. |
Lyft’s Former VP Of Ops Stephen Schnell Defects To Uber | Josh Constine | 2,014 | 10 | 31 | Uber’s putting that to good use poaching execs from its top competitor. After earlier this month, Uber has now scored Lyft’s former VP of Operations to work on international supply growth, according to Schnell’s LinkedIn. Bloomberg reporter tweeted about the move earlier. Schnell worked at Lyft since March 2013, after the company . Schnell was senior director of operations for a year at Cherry alongside co-founder VanderZander. Schnell had formerly worked as head of marketing at Yammer and as a co-founder of Ritte Bicycles. He left in August and now has come aboard Uber. Schnell was replaced at Lyft by Woody Hartman. Apparently the that CEO Travis Kalanick talked about at TechCrunch Disrupt is still a work in progress. Uber’s been widely criticized for its and degrade its service for customers so it’s easier for Uber to compete. Now it’s moving up the food chain to poaching corporate talent. Uber also recently stole the head of YouTube.com Nundu Janakiram (Disclosure: who I know personally) from Google to be the group product manager in charge of Uber’s driver and passenger apps. As we’ve seen time and time again, though, users don’t vote with their hearts. They vote with their heads and their wallets. With , more significantly when it has price cuts enabled (they recently expired for SF), and seemingly wider availability for quicker pickups, Uber appears to be out-competing Lyft. Most people I know in San Francisco check Uber first when they need a ride, and only check Lyft if there’s high surge pricing on Uber or there happen to be no nearby cars. Lyft has found some loyal users with its friendly in-car attitude, but when it comes to business, a more ruthless strategy across the board is winning the war for on-demand transportation. |
Trent Reznor’s Apple Special Project Is In “The World” Of Music Delivery | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 10 | 31 | Musical magic man Trent Reznor is working with Apple on something or other, after the Beats Chief Creative Officer came on board following the acquisition. He says that Apple was interested in working with Reznor directly in “designing some products” following the deal in an , and also say that the partnership would focus on the “world” of music delivery, though he won’t go into specific detail. Reznor did say that it’s a project he’s currently in the midst of, and one that he’s giving the bulk of his attention to at the moment. The musician, who has a background in computer engineering and has long focused on music with heavy electronic influences, said that this time around the focus isn’t on making music directly. He summed up his current feelings on the Apple collaboration as follows: It’s exciting to me, and I think it could have a big enough impact that it’s worth the effort. I’m fully in it right now, and it’s challenging, and it’s unfamiliar and it’s kind of everything I asked for — and the bad thing is it’s everything I asked for. In the past, Reznor has provided his music free for download in order to eschew the constraints of record labels, and in the Billboard interview he expresses support for the streaming model, saying that the “right streaming service could solve everyone’s problems.” He also noted that the concept of “ownership is waning,” because everyone is now “comfortable with the cloud.” TechCrunch has reported previously that Apple would , the streaming service it acquired along with the parent company back in May. Subsequent reports clarified that Apple would most likely sunset the Beats Music brand, while adding a functionally similar streaming service to iTunes at the same time. It’s possible Reznor’s role at Apple is related to these plans, although there’s also a suggestion that he’s working on something entirely new in the scant information Reznor did provide. Apple could use some rejuvenation in its traditional music delivery mechanisms, too. The iTunes desktop app remains one of its weakest links in terms of product design, and conceivably a musician with a technical background and a deep appreciation for Apple’s tech could help in that regard. |
This Week On The TC Gadgets Podcast: HP Sprout, New Fitbits, And Other Wrist-Worn Tech | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 10 | 31 | Fitbit announced a , including the Fitbit Charge and the Fitbit Surge, both of which we’re excited about. Plus, HP is doing all kinds of weird things, not least of which is the announcement of an odd new computer, projector type device called . Plus, we’re still fascinated with the so we’re talking about all things wrist this week. We discuss all this and more on this week’s episode of the featuring , , , and . Have a good Friday, everybody!
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Mad Genius Radio Feels Like A Smarter Version Of Old-School Radio | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 10 | 31 | is taking a somewhat old-school approach to streaming music. In a world where most radio services use correlation algorithms to figure out what you want to hear, based on beats per minute and cadence and genre, without really thinking about the right rotation of new and old music. Thus, the stations you end up listening to the most become a bit stale. But Mad Genius is different. The newly launched platform offers users up to five presets, just like you’d find on a car radio, each of which can be tailored to the listener’s tastes. The presets offer an infinite playlist, where they can add up to seven different genres. Then, upon listening, users can give more of their rotation to certain genres, as well as rank specific songs and artists, upping the frequency with which that type of music will be played. But most importantly, the genres are being constantly updated with the best and most interesting music, so that each users presets are constantly changing based on the songs in each genre’s rotation. The user still maintains control of the overall tone of the preset, dictating the value of each genre, artist and song, but the content itself is being updated by the Mad Genius algorithm. However, users who listen to Time Machine stations for decade-based playlists (Best of the 80’s) will get the same songs in that station every time, with the ability to add in other genres that update. Another big differentiator for Mad Genius Radio is that users can always “undo” any of their settings. In most streaming services, like iTunes Radio, Songza, etc., when you delete a song or mark it to not play, you lose it forever. But sometimes you just want to mute some of your favorite songs so you don’t over-listen to them, which Mad Genius Radio allows for. The company has $2 million in funding from undisclosed investors, and charges $5/month or $48/year. However, an extended free trial is currently underway with a paywall going up next year. The service launched this week and is available now across . |
Net Neutrality’s Future Remains A Glorious Muddle | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 10 | 31 | The FCC is expected to vote on new neutrality rules in December. What those rules will entail remains a high-stakes parlor game. Out this week from the Wall Street Journal’s was indicating that, similar to some plans proposed by extra-governmental individuals and groups, the FCC is considering a ‘hybrid’ approach to net neutrality. Others, , by way of one example, have recently proposed net neutrality plans that would fuse varying legal foundations to support the protection of an open Internet. The full lines of the proposal aren’t clear, but some broad points emerge in Nagesh’s post. The key paragraph: The plan now under consideration would separate broadband into two distinct services: a retail one, in which consumers would pay broadband providers for Internet access; and a back-end one, in which broadband providers serve as the conduit for websites to distribute content. The FCC would then classify the back-end service as a common carrier, giving the agency the ability to police any deals between content companies and broadband providers. Nagesh goes on to note that a “flat ban on paid prioritization” is something that the FCC is “skeptical” of — the implication there being that what the FCC does finally concoct and vote on likely won’t go as far as net neutrality advocates want in terms of disallowing monied players in the media and ISP markets from using their corporate heft to either pay, or extract fees for improved content delivery to consumers. At the same time, the hybrid approach as noted above would almost certainly come under legal challenge from ISPs who will chafe under even partial classification as a common carrier. In short, the plan likely won’t make many people happy, while making most people the opposite. The FCC appears hesitant to impose a complete ban on paid prioritization, or other commercial deals between ISPs and content companies due to what I can only surmise is a fear of accidentally suffocating a potentially innovative market niche by being overzealous in its protection of the Internet’s level playing field. What might be down the road that would benefit from some wiggle room that we can’t see now, as it hasn’t been built? Keep in mind that this is the last day of October. We’re now less than two months away from a vote. |
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo Has Crashed | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 10 | 31 | This morning, Virgin Galactic tweeted that their SpaceShipTwo spaceplane had experienced an “in-flight anomaly” We have now confirmed that SpaceShipTwo has crashed during a test flight due to currently unknown causes. A press conference is planned with more details at 2 pm pacific. SpaceShipTwo was designed primarily for space tourism, meant to carry passengers high enough to experience near-weightlessness for roughly $200,000 per ticket. This was a test flight, however, so no passengers are believed to have been onboard. WhiteKnightTwo, the jet-powered craft that carries SpaceShipTwo to altitude before detaching, landed safely. At an altitude of roughly 50,000 feet, WhiteKniteTwo releases SpaceShipTwo to fly on its own by rocket power. WK2 had released SpaceShipTwo for free flight roughly 6 minutes before the crash. There were at least two pilots on board SpaceShipTwo before the crash; their status is unknown. We will update as soon as we hear more. has been released by WhiteKnightTwo, and is now flying freely for the 35th time. — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) Ignition! is flying under rocket power again. Stay tuned for updates. — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) has experienced an in-flight anomaly. Additional info and statement forthcoming. — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) During the test, the vehicle suffered a serious anomaly resulting in the loss of SpaceShipTwo. WK2 landed safely. (2 of 4) — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) Our first concern is the status of the pilots, which is unknown at this time. (3 of 4) — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) We will work closely with relevant authorities to determine the cause of this accident and provide updates ASAP. (4 of 4) — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) |
Evernote Rolls Out Its New “Work Chat” Feature | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 10 | 31 | Evernote has rolled out a new “Work Chat” feature to its web and mobile applications which allows users of its online note-taking and collaboration software to discuss ideas and projects directly in the Evernote interface itself, instead of having to shift those conversations over to email. Additionally, when you email a note to someone, it will now show up in Work Chat automatically, allowing you to keep a permanent history of your communications. This feature was announced at the beginning of the month by the company, which said it would be “coming soon” to all major desktop, web, mobile and tablet versions of Evernote. From the looks of things, however, the update has not yet made it to the desktop software at this point. We’re currently seeing it on web, iOS and Android. We’re not yet seeing it on the Mac App Store, but it , it seems. (And the Mac App Store could just be a staged rollout – we’ve reached out to Evernote for details.) Work Chat is a feature that’s designed to increase the collaboration possibilities within the Evernote software, by allowing users to quickly share notes or entire notebooks with colleagues in order to get their feedback. You can chat with either just one person, or a group, and you can optionally sync the app with your Google Contacts, too. When you start a chat with another user, they’re notified both in the app and via an email message that informs them of the chat and offers a button which, when clicked, launches Evernote. Evernote will also begin to display the faces of your teammates involved with chats related to a particular file or notebook as small, rounded profile icons in your note and your notebooks lists. The feature, which Evernote CEO Phil Libin said was one of the most requested to date, is mainly a way to reduce emails within an organization. But it’s not designed to allow multiple users to collaborate on documents in real-time. The feature is live now on web and mobile, and should arrive on the desktop soon – the company had previously promised Chat would arrive in “late 2014.” Chat was one of many new features for the Evernote software announced in October, including a smart that surfaces related links to what you’re writing, and an . [gallery ids="1077582,1077583,1077584"] |
Super-Agent Andrew Wylie Calls Amazon An “ISIS-Like Distribution Channel” | John Biggs | 2,014 | 10 | 31 | Andrew Wylie is a major book agent who many in the milquetoast publishing industry call the “jackal.” His fiery pronouncements are much-read in certain circles and his latest one, in a speech given at Toronto’s International Festival of Authors, is a doozy. Wylie, who sees Amazon as a threat to all that is good and holy in the book industry, and equated it with a terrorist organization. “I believe with the restored health of the publishing industry and having some sense of where this sort of Isis-like distribution channel, Amazon, is going to be buried and in which plot of sand they will be stuck, [publishers] will be able to raise the author’s digital royalty to 40% or 50%,” he said. “Writers will begin to make enough money to live.” Wylie, who was specifically backing in the ongoing battle of the bookselling stars, told writers in March that “If you have a choice between the plague and Amazon, pick the plague!” The problem here is that authors are already making enough money to survive. Authors who make an effort to survive on their ebooks – be they serial producers like the or lucky ducks like – the generally accepted notion that mainstream publishers help writer survive is continuing to crumble. In fact, the primary reason most publishers exist – the ability to pay an advance before the writing of a difficult book – is being threatened. As Folks like Wylie are important cheerleaders for their industries. The book industry in particular enjoys its firebrands, elevating people who will say goofy stuff to positions of power in order to maintain the confirmation bias necessary to survive in a beleaguered industry. But if Wylie thinks that Amazon is so bad I do encourage him and his cohorts to pull their books. The following will happen: sales will drop, good editors will be laid off, those editors will go entrepreneurial, and a new generation of pro-Amazon writers and readers will fill in the ranks of the fallen. Still, Wylie is willing to go to war. “The publishing industry, up until now, has cowered and whined and moaned and groaned and given Amazon pretty much everything they want. Now I think that’s going to stop,” he said. To quote Marco from Tropojë, “Good luck.” |
Your Next Passport Could Be On The Blockchain | John Biggs | 2,014 | 10 | 31 | A blockchain tinkerer named Chris Ellis has created a system to build an actual digital passport that, through use of the blockchain and some encryption, will allow you to identify yourself online and off. Called World Citizenship, the project and shows some definite promise. “The goal of this project is to learn and layout a simple process for anyone in the world to create their own Private Passport Service that can be used to validate and prove the existence of other persons using nothing but available tools,” wrote Ellis. To build a passport you basically take a photo of yourself and then build a private and public key. This cryptographically signs the document, proving it is legitimate. A number of other aspects, including the state of the bitcoin ledger called the blockchain, further confirm the issuance. Still confused? Read on: This is because Bitcoin nodes collect IP data in the debug.log file. Additionally since the venue is commercial they have an interest in maintaining their reputation and advertising their location. (Note: GPS data on phones can easily be spoofed). Basically you are confirming that the document couldn’t have been created by any other person at any other time, an assumption that goes into the production of government passports (the need to go into a post office to confirm your existence for a passport is a low-tech version of this process). Obviously you’re not going to be breezing through security with your new digital passport quite yet but it’s an interesting step in a very interesting direction. Ellis is essentially creating trust where there was none initially. By doing this – and supplanting the old passport systems with this trust – he is looking toward a fascinating new future. If you have a full hour feel free to watch his video below. [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iAg6BITPdc&feature=youtu.be] |
App Annie Fills The Void Left By Facebook’s Onavo Acquisition With Its New Company Smart Sense | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 10 | 31 | When last year, it was only a matter of time before someone rebuilt its service. And that seems to be just what the now-leading mobile app analytics firm has done. The company, which used some portion of its $39 million in funding to its competitor Distimo earlier this year, has quietly released a new app called from a company called “Smart Sense.” The app, much like , allows for encrypted and secure access to a user’s favorite sites and apps even when they’re blocked in your part of the world. But more importantly, it serves as a window into app usage and trends. The app is published by a company called Smart Sense, which explains (in small print, at the bottom of the homepage) is “ .” That’s the only clue that Smart Sense comes from App Annie, as the apparently Hong Kong-based company otherwise quietly launched its app into the Apple App Store this month, with no formal announcement from its corporate parent. When reached for comment about Smart Sense, App Annie CEO Bertrand Schmitt replied that it is a sub-brand for App Annie’s consumer apps. “We have been working on this project for a long time,” he says. “We know there’s a strong unmet demand for high quality usage insights and we think we’re in a great position to meet that demand in a safe, privacy-protective way. Specifics will be announced at a later date.” Though App Annie had been keeping Smart Sense under wraps, it’s poised to open up a very big business for the app analytics company. With the data VPN Defender, and soon, other apps, collect, App Annie could become the go-to resource for mobile app data that has been otherwise impossible to collect via a third party following Onavo’s exit, which left a gaping hole in the market. If you recall, when Onavo first got started, it offered consumers mobile data tracking apps that helped lower your bills by . It later launched a VPN app for safe browsing. And on the backs of these consumer-facing applications, Onavo was able to establish a footprint on smartphones around the world, allowing it to create a mobile data and ad that could see the traffic taking place across hundreds of thousands of app on millions of devices. For anyone looking into mobile startups from the outside, Onavo served as one of the few sources that offered visibility into an app’s true performance. It provided details as to which mobile apps actually have active users and whether those users were gained through organic means – insights that were hard to access otherwise, as the app stores’ top charts today are focused on downloads and velocity, not retention. Facebook was a customer of Onavo’s before they found it valuable enough to scoop up for themselves. And now Facebook seems fairly obsessed with cloning what it sees as the next up-and-coming social experiences on mobile – but perhaps Facebook is obsessed because Smart Sense appears to be following down the same path Onavo laid out in front of them, except that its VPN app is offering access to blocked sites and apps, while Onavo’s is more focused on secure browsing. Schmitt says that the app’s bigger differentiation is that it will offer a high-quality VPN experience with no bandwidth limitation for free to end users. That’s another clear sign that App Annie isn’t interested in making money from the VPN app itself, but rather the data it ingests. Schmitt declined to go into detail as to how this data compares with Onavo’s but noted that it has yet to be incorporated into App Annie’s publicly available services, free or paid. VPN Defender will be the first of several free consumer apps from the company, it appears. The website says that Smart Sense is “working on next generation intelligent apps for your mobile device,” and the CEO adds that Smart Sense will be “evaluating the consumer app market for other opportunities to improve consumers’ lives.” |
null | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 10 | 9 | null |
This Ambulance Drone Can Fly Into Trouble With First Aid | John Biggs | 2,014 | 10 | 31 | [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-rEI4bezWc] A Dutch engineer has created a flying defibrillator for emergency situations. The drone, called the Ambulance Drone, would be stationed at various points in the city. In an emergency, people on the scene can call it in and it arrives a few seconds later. The built-in defibrillator unit can be used by anyone and it allows doctors to monitor the situation after the shocks are administered. The drone includes a webcam and loudspeaker and allows remote doctors to walk people on the scene through the process of attaching the electrodes and preparing the defibrillator. The creator, Alec Momont of TU Delft’s Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, said that 20% of people can operate a defibrillator without instruction and the number rises when they have prompts from trained personnel. The system is still in prototype stage but there is a good chance it could be launched in five years for about $20,000 each. Drones are still not allowed to fly autonomously so they can’t wing their way around downtown Delft with their helpful payload… yet. It will be interesting to see these robots flying around one day, dropping first aid when needed. |
“VideoSelfie” Scores $1.2 Million For Its App Offering Real-Time Filters, GIFs And More | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 10 | 31 | But I thought we were recording our video selfies on Instagram and Snapchat now? A soon-to-launch mobile application called VideoSelfie, whose founders participated in the 500 Startups accelerator last year, has raised $1.2 million for its forthcoming mobile application that lets you edit your videos (of yourself, duh) in real-time. You can add filters, decorations and GIFs, hit record, then share, all at once. The new app is a pivot from the company’s previous product called , which offered similar technology but was focused more on video messaging. “Video messaging became a super saturated space and we knew we had to differentiate ourselves, so we started investing a lot of time developing our own technologies for motion tracking and face tracking to enable users fast ‘decoration’ of their video messages,” explains co-founder and CEO Oscar Noriega. “Now we want to focus on recording, decorating, editing and sharing, although we keep some basic messaging and community functions,” he says. The company is also killing off its and will focus on VideoSelfie on iOS for now. (The app is still in Apple’s review queue at present.) The main technology the company has built involves face tracking and motion tracking, which makes graphics added to videos interactive by detecting the movement of the camera and the movement of your head. Users tap the GIF button, pick a graphic then configure basic settings like enabling face tracking, making the graphic full size, or changing the animation speed. Then you pick a video filter and start recording, optionally adding music. The app ships with its own standard transparent GIFs, but it supports transparent PNGs if you want to add your own. The end result are silly, short video clips where you can apply things like kitten whiskers and ears to your head, cover your face with an animated emoji, have some dancing cat GIFs hanging out next to you, and a lot more. You can then share these clips however you choose, including with the built-in community on the app. It’s definitely not serious stuff, but it is kind of fun. As for why users would try out a dedicated video selfie app instead of just using popular apps for video they already have installed on their phones, Noriega explains: “Instagram and many other apps were never intended to be deeper video editing tools or real-time composition tools.” The company says its value is in its real-time editing and mixing tools, face-tracking tech and real-time filters. It plans to generate revenue by way of selling additional filters and effects as in-app purchases, but one could imagine that it could also license its technology to bigger companies as another avenue for monetization. |
Why Online Retailers Continue To Open Brick-And-Mortar Stores | Mike Kercheval | 2,014 | 10 | 31 | In an age when new technology and the growth of pure online-only retailers have industry analysts questioning the future of brick-and-mortar stores, what are online retailers doing to grow their businesses and gain market share? Why, opening up physical storefronts of course. The benefits that physical spaces provide make up three of the top reasons why online retailers are setting up shop, including: multisensory consumer experiences, better logistics and consumer service offerings and strong, lasting brand relationships. The rise of omni-channel retail strategies in which mobile, online and in-store experiences complement, rather than compete with, one another has ushered in a new era for online retailers. Birchbox and Frank & Oak are just a couple of examples of e-tailers that have planted roots to remain competitive and provide a seamless customer experience across all shopping channels. And it’s no wonder they’re buying up real estate; the economics speak for themselves. According to our latest consumer survey, 78 percent of consumers prefer to shop in-store and they spend six times more in-store than online. This is reflected in the fact that the majority of all retail sales still occur in the physical store. In 2013, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 94 percent of retail sales were conducted in brick-and-mortar stores, while just 6 percent occurred online. Physical stores are simply good business. Nothing beats holding a product in your hand, feeling the fabric and seeing the minute details – something that can’t be done online. We found that 73 percent of consumers want to try on or touch merchandise before they make a purchase. Physical shopping centers allow consumers to do just this — interact with a range of products to make informed decisions about what they’re buying. Furthermore, physical stores have been busy retrofitting their spaces with technological advancements that make the in-store customer experience more efficient, which effectively eliminates the guessing games encountered online. Is the size or fabric not quite right? Or maybe it fits perfectly, but you want to try on every color option available? These are solvable problems when you are shopping in a physical store. After several experiments with pop-up shops in New York City, online costume jewelry e-tailer BaubleBar has opened up a permanent location, with more on the way. BaubleBar, like other online retailers who have invested in brick and mortar, has found that the in-store experience, which encompasses direct contact with products and a unique brand experience, translates into not only more sales and fewer returns, but an increase in repeat customers. Today, retailers that started out only online are using physical storefronts not merely as showrooms, but also as storage and shipping centers to support their online businesses. Instead of one single warehouse to fulfill online orders, storefronts across the country help these once pure e-tailers reduce shipping times and costs – a benefit to both consumers and bottom lines. Just this month, Amazon.com announced it is opening a physical storefront in the middle of New York City, the first of its kind in the company’s 20-year history as an online retailing giant. The store will be located in Herald Square, near the famous Macy’s department store and the Empire State Building, an area that receives some of the most significant foot traffic in the city. This announcement speaks to the importance of an omni-channel strategy, and certainly could have significant positive effects on the real estate side of the retailing business. Retailers are also trying to better meet hectic consumer schedules and changing needs. I recently returned a pair of hiking boots which I had ordered online from REI at the physical store because it was more convenient than standing in line at the post office. While I was there, I browsed the aisles and bought a few extra items for my upcoming hiking trip – something that never would have happened had I returned the purchase remotely. A Shop Visible study found that flexible pick-up and return options at physical stores drive incremental sales. For online sales with direct delivery and only remote exchanges, retailers can expect a net sale of 77 percent, whereas online sales with in-store returns result in an expected net sale of 95 percent because of an 18 percent increase in additional sales. As we move from an age of transaction-based retailing to one of relationship-based retailing, American shoppers are looking for more than just products to buy. They’re looking to connect and establish a rapport with companies they give their business to. But it is not an easy task for online retailers to provide unique brand experiences to consumers when their main interaction is conducted through a computer screen or smartphone. This is why online retailers are looking to the physical store as an avenue to meaningfully engage customers and build strong, trusted and lasting relationships. Warby Parker, an online eye glasses retailer, is one e-tailer that has successfully integrated storefronts into its online business to better connect with its customers. On a recent Saturday in New York, I wandered into the company’s shop in SoHo which was packed with New Yorkers trying on new eyewear. Through beautiful, modern stores opening up across the country where customers can try on glasses, receive an eye exam and take pictures of themselves in a photo booth to compare styles, Warby Parker is giving consumers a space to experience the company and simultaneously growing strong, trusting and lasting relationships with their customers. So what does the future hold for retail? We have seen that the omni-channel customer shops more frequently and spends 3.5 times more than other shopper types – and that, I believe, is the path that we will see retail continue to head down. Online and mobile channels are now being recognized as an enhancement to brick-and-mortar stores, and not a detractor. Today’s consumer wants to shop when, where and how want, and physical stores will no doubt continue to evolve and enhance the consumer experience and continue to fortify themselves as the preeminent retail channel. |
Former Grooveshark Execs Raise $950K For E-Commerce Customer Intelligence Startup Tandem | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 10 | 31 | A team of early employees who left the company a couple of years ago to pursue their own startup ambitions have raised a little under a million for , a service that helps e-commerce companies better understand their customers shopping behavior and interests by combining analytics data, surveys and sales information. Explains co-founder and CEO , previously Chief Revenue Officer at Grooveshark, Tandem was started because they realized companies had a hard time making sense of all the different siloed information and it compiled together in order to better understand who their customers really were. The idea came about after experiencing similar struggles while at their former company. “Being at company like Grooveshark where we had a large engineering team, we were always working together on understanding who is the user and what drives people to pay for our service,” says Moredock. “We’d run a survey, and that would be disconnected from the actual behavior of the user.” It was also difficult to then match that behavior up with what those customers were actually buying, he says. “We couldn’t get past the first dimension of data on a customer easily.” The team has been iterating on the concept since they left in 2012, and first launched the service into private beta testing with a small number of customers this summer. Most of the testers are e-commerce companies who sell one or two products directly, while others are those who operate more of an online storefront. The best fit for Tandem, the company believes, are the medium-sized companies with around 100,000 customers. To get started, e-commerce companies link their online account at Shopify, Bigcommerce, Magenta or something similar, and Tandem’s service will sync all their historical sales information, including user contact information, to its service. This data is displayed in an online dashboard. Tandem will then begin sending the company’s customers its “persona” surveys to begin bucketing customers in various groups – like budget shoppers, those who shop “green,” etc. These surveys are sent out via email and include some sort of promotional offer – like a discount on a future purchase, for example – in order to encourage responses. As Tandem learns more about the individual shoppers, it integrates those learnings into its dashboard, showing retailers metrics including its customer lifetime value model which lets you drill down into various segments, like high-value customers. Here, retailers can see detailed metrics like when customers were added, when the group bought, how many products were sold, what percentage of the group fell into which persona grouping, and more. “What’s really unique is that all of this information has an email address attached to it,” notes Moredock. “You can actually target those people that you’re looking at right there with a survey.” So, for example, if you’re wondering you may have gotten a spike from a certain group of shoppers, you can quickly send out a survey and just ask. “When you have a question that these charts can’t answer, there’s a way to answer it,” Moredock says. In the future, the longer-term goal is to dig into more types of behavioral metrics, run different types of surveys, and simplify the overall analysis for the e-commerce companies. On that latter front, this would include the addition of more actionable insights that can explain exactly how to react to the data presented to the companies about their customers, including by persona grouping. Tandem, which competes with other analytics engines, survey companies like SurveyMonkey, and to some extent even large consulting research firms like Nielsen, is still too young to offer up an extensive amount of data related to its own customer successes, but it has a few case studies that seem promising. In one, for instance, the retailer was able to decrease its marketing spend by half, and, using Tandem’s product, increase revenue by 20%-30% month-over-month. At launch, the pricing for Tandem starts at $200/month for businesses with under 20,000 customers, then increases to $595/month for up to 100,000 customers. Beyond that, custom pricing is available. . Based in Orlando, Tandem is a team of nine with $950K in funding from The Institute for Commercialization of Public Research ($300K), and other angel investors including Launa Stayer (Johnsonville Sausage). |
Samsung Announces The Galaxy A5 And Galaxy A3, Its “Slimmest Smartphones To Date” | Jon Russell | 2,014 | 10 | 30 | to introduce more desirable phones when it revealed its disappointing Q3 2014 earnings yesterday, and it has wasted no time doing so after the Galaxy A5 and the Galaxy A3 — two metallic devices that it calls its “slimmest smartphones to date.” The Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A3 both dispense with the Korean company’s tradition of using plastic bodies. They are 6.7mm and 6.9mm thin, respectively, and both come with a five-megapixel front-facing camera. The Galaxy A5 is the higher spec’ed phone, with a five-inch screen, 2GB RAM, 1.2 GHz quad-core processor, and 15-megapixel camera on the back, The Galaxy A3 sports a smaller 4.5-inch screen, with the same processor, 1GB of RAM and an 8-megapixel camera. Both run Android KitKat (4.4) and include support for 4G networks and a slot for Micro-SD memory cards. Samsung’s revenue has stalled as Apple’s iPhones squeezes it at the top-end of the smartphone market — the iPhone 6 launches in Korea, following a huge number of pre-orders in Samsung’s home market — but these new Galaxy phones appear to be focused on China and the mid-tier market more generally. The Korean firm says the Galaxy A3 and Galaxy A5 will launch in “select markets including China” in November. That Samsung is specifically mentioning China is interesting, since Xiaomi’s phones — which retail at $300 and $150, and have propelled it to — are impacting Samsung’s (and other phone makers’) business in the country. to effectively clone Xiaomi with a new China-only business launching next year, but Samsung looks to be aiming to provide a premium-like experience on a more affordable budget with these new products — although the pricing for the Galaxy A3 and Galaxy A5 is yet to be revealed. We contacted Samsung to ask which other markets the phones will launch in, and how much they will cost. We’ll update this post with any new information that we receive. |
Novelty T-Shirt Maker Print Syndicate Raises $4.25M Series A | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 10 | 30 | Print Syndicate, an e-commerce store that sells printed T-shirts and other fashion and home decor goods, has raised $4.25 million in Series A funding led by Data Point Capital. Other investors include Groupon founders Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell’s Lightbank Capital, and Tech Fund, which was launched by Zappos founder Tony Hsieh, as well as CNF Investments and TechColumbus. The company, which runs retail sites , , and , will use the capital to increase its production capacity and make additional senior management hires. Based in Columbus, Ohio, Print Syndicate claims it will grow 300 percent year-over-year in 2014. While it competes with other online retailers like and , Print Syndicate wants to stand out with what it calls its “Just In Time model.” In other words, its employees keep an eye on social media to spot memes, catchphrases and other things that can be turned into T-shirt designs and home goods, hopefully before they go viral. In a statement, Scott Savitz, the founder of Data Point Capital, said “Our firm invests in game changers who leverage and scale on the Internet. Print Syndicate built a pioneering e-commerce business over the last two years that we believe will transform how products are created, marketed and sold in our social media culture. It’s a perfect example of how businesses can offer a better, more relevant buying experience through innovation.” |
Meet Samantha, Ethan App’s Sister | Sarah Buhr | 2,014 | 10 | 30 | Samantha is a girl living in New York City. She’s old enough to drink and experienced enough to give love advice. But other than that she prefers to keep it anonymous, like Gossip Girl. Our first convo went like this: Burrito in bed with a dog. Seemed human enough. Samantha builds on the , a simple messaging app that basically lets you message this one kid in New York named Ethan. Now there’s , an app for Ethan’s sister. It’s the same idea — now you can message the girl version of Ethan. Samantha is a real person messaging you back, but the app isn’t necessarily a girl named Sam. She says she’s Ethan’s sister on the App Store. However, when I pressed her about it in a text within the app she admitted that, “as far as my relationship with Ethan – we know each other in real life, just as a brother and sister.” And according to Ethan Gliechtenstein, originator of the Ethan app, Samantha forked Ethan and hence inherits most of her features from the original Ethan app. But think about this for a minute. Wouldn’t that actually make Samantha Ethan’s daughter? Weird family secrets aside, Samantha is just like the simple Ethan messaging app and then adds posts about herself. For example, Samantha will let you know when it’s her birthday or when she’s sleeping. But don’t be offended if you don’t hear back right away. Samantha told me she was handling about 100 texts at any given moment. For those hoping to create a virtual girlfriend scenario, Samantha is not meant to be a “Her” situation. Rule No. 1 of Samantha is “don’t fall in love with Samantha.” Other rules for Samantha:
0. Samantha is a girl. Be nice.
1. Don’t fall in love with Samantha
2. Don’t just say hi
3. Keep your mind out of the gutter, we’re all friends here (no dick pics please)
4. Sam’s too shy for selfies
5. Don’t ask Samantha to do your work
6. Don’t ask emergency questions
7. Don’t ask Samantha if she’s real
8. Don’t ask Samantha if she’s hooked up with Ethan (they’re siblings) Gliechtenstein believes Samantha shows us all just how easy it is to get on this with our own, personal app. “Both Ethan app and Samantha app are pilot projects for the upcoming Ethan platform, which will be a website where people can come and build these Ethan/Samantha type apps in minutes,” says Gliechtenstein. |
In The Best Conditions, iOS-Exclusive Vainglory Is A Top-Notch MOBA | Kyle Russell | 2,014 | 10 | 30 | A few weeks back I drove down to the San Mateo headquarters of , the developer behind , one of the prominent multiplayer online battle arenas built specifically for tablets (and, as we discovered at September’s iPhone event, the iPhone 6). There, I met with the studio’s founders as well as several other developers and quality assurance testers. After we got through introductions, the team, a writer from another publication, and myself sat down in front of 6 iPads Air and Mini from last year’s line-up for an hour-and-a-half of playtime. The conditions were optimal for a session of multiplayer gaming: everyone had their own screen, the latest (at the time) hardware, and good Wi-Fi setup. We also had every character available to play as, whereas at launch players will have to choose from a rotating group of characters if they want to play for free. The layout of the game is simplified from its bigger relatives on the PC. Instead of three lanes to take to attack the enemy’s base, there is one straight avenue and a wilderness area where you can sneak around in bushes and kill AI characters for experience, health, gold, or to win over a giant monster to fight for your side. Rather than play through a tutorial, one of the developers looked over my shoulder and gave advice as we went. With the assistance I got, I quickly got to know the particular combinations of abilities that worked with the two characters I tried during the demo. That said, I reckon that even those who don’t have friends with intimate knowledge of the game’s characters will be able to pick up the game in a group setting. Each character has only three abilities, so if you start on the cautious side you can learn what works and what doesn’t without ruining things for your team. The item system for upgrading attack speed, accuracy, defense, and the like was easy enough to pickup for someone coming from Dota 2 but may not be entirely obvious for users fresh to the genre. Compared to other MOBAs and action-RPGs I’ve played on tablets, a few things stood out in Vainglory’s favor. Performance was excellent, with no stuttering or major graphical issues in the time that we played (again, in great conditions). Vainglory is also incredibly responsive to touch input, which encourages you to tap more often, bringing your “actions per minute” to a rather twitch-y level. This in turn seems to make the really key moments — timing attacks just right to kill multiple enemy players or just barely getting out of a fight — actually get your heart rate going. Combined with the friendly-ish trash talk and the face-to-face reactions to the ups-and-downs of the game, the session felt like a mix of what you get out of LoL or Dota 2 and what you get playing Super Smash Bros. on the couch with friends. Vainglory is only out in a few countries in Southeast Asia, New Zealand, and Australia at the moment. Super Evil Megacorp is using the limited release to further balance characters (I didn’t notice anything too overpowered) and work out its in-app purchase model to optimize for player satisfaction and, you know, making money. It also means that I didn’t get to play under real conditions — I’ll have to wait until launch to see what it’s like to play when thousands of people are on the same infrastructure or what performance is like on older iPads. I also didn’t get to see the iPhone 6 version of the game during my visit. The impression I got from talking to the team was that the A8 powering the new iPhones is up to snuff, but making the game feel fair with such a smaller view of the action is trickier than it seems at first glance. Having played Vainglory, I’m curious to see if its developer’s “if we build it, they will come” assumption is true. I don’t know that most people could get enough people together with the latest iPads and an interest in MOBAs to replicate the experience I had, so the details I didn’t get to see will be key to how it performs after its broader release. What I saw was definitely compelling enough to bring me back to see how that goes. |
Andy Rubin Is Leaving Google To Start A Hardware Incubator | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 10 | 30 | Andy Rubin, best known for his work on Android at Google, is leaving the company. According to , Rubin will build an incubator for what it describes as companies working with “technology-hardware” products. Google confirmed the departure to us with a prepared statement from Google CEO Larry Page: “I want to wish Andy all the best with what’s next. With Android he created something truly remarkable—with a billion plus happy users. Thank you.” It’s not clear whether Google will be involved in any way with this new incubator, either financially or operationally, or what it is called. The company declined to comment on this. James Kuffner, who worked under Rubin in the robotics division, will be stepping up to take over Rubin’s role running it. Rubin’s fortunes at Google rose with the rapid growth of Android, Google’s mobile operating system, which is now the most widely used smartphone platform in the world. But while Android has only gone from big to bigger, Rubin seemed to fall out of favor as the person to run it. In 2013, Android fell under the purview of Sundar Picahi, who had formerly managed the company’s work with Google’s Chrome web browser and operating system. Less than a week ago, Pichai , solidifying his position within Google leadership. After Rubin left his work on Android, he retreated into Google’s more experimental arm, helping run the company’s robotics efforts — a focus that lines up with his new direction with hardware startups. Rubin’s background originally was in hardware. Before Google, Rubin worked at Apple, and then co-founded the device maker Danger, but he left a half decade before it was acquired by Microsoft. He then went on to co-found Android with Rich Miner in 2003. Google acquired Android in 2005. Rubin is not the first high-profile departure from one of Google’s more cutting-edge projects. Sebastian Thrun as a VP and Fellow heading up moonshot projects at Google X earlier this year in order to focus more on his education startup Udacity. |
Equity Crowdfunding Service Seedrs Acquires Junction Investments, Plots US Expansion | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 10 | 30 | , a company based in London that deals with equity crowdfunding, has an eye on the U.S. market. Today, it announced that it has acquired , which is based in California, and operates in a similar market space. As a company, Seedrs is most interesting for its ability, with certain caveats, to accept small dollar amounts from regular folks that can be converted via a sale process into equity in private companies. The United States, for now, has stricter rules about what class of individual can make similar investments. Seedrs, however, wants in the U.S., as its purchase of Junction makes plain. I asked Seedrs CEO how the purchase will negotiate the differing regulatory climate between his company’s current home market and the rules in the U.S. that could make his current operations difficult. He said his firm’s plan for the U.S. market is to accept accredited investors. Lynn went on to indicate that the JOBS Act could change how it works in the U.S. market, however. Provided that the regulatory structure of the capital markets in the United States is reformed to allow for more flexible dollar investments into startup firms by the average person, Seedrs could more directly apply its model here. Yes, there is real risk for the user, but there are also safeguards you can create to help protect regular people, while also exposing them to the potential upside of investment into private corporations. That’s not to say that Seedrs won’t mess up, but instead that they have a fighting chance at not messing up. I’m biased to a degree as I’ve spoken to Lynn a few times, and recently . He seems like a decent Yank living abroad. Seedrs itself has allowed companies of various import to raise capital — consider it something approaching a micro to macro version of AngelList . On the competitive side, , “the folks at Alphaworks, the equity crowd-funding platform branched out of betaworks, are announcing leadership changes, with Erin Glenn taking the lead as CEO.” Seedrs won’t have the market to itself. I wonder if appetite for what Seedrs vends will decline if we see the currently accelerated markets for growing companies cool. But at the same time, perhaps Seedrs’ ability to accrete capital from a broader investor base will be some sort of future proofing. For now, its intentions are clear. Let’s see how it executes. |
Myths And Misconceptions Of Our Wearable Future | Hamid Farzaneh | 2,014 | 10 | 30 | Wearables as a second brain. The Internet of Self and Things. One trillion sensors…. There’s no doubt that a sensor-laden world is the buzz of the town. The next Big Thing. In fact, there is buzz that many consumers probably dismiss it as hype. Yet, in spite of all this hype, as a 30-year veteran of Silicon Valley’s semiconductor and sensor industry, this is about as exciting a space I’ve ever been in. The reality is of course more nuanced. Yes it’s true that the market is growing extremely fast and there will be many winners — but there will be even more losers in the space. Sensors are getting amazingly accurate, but wearable products continue to be clunky and provide a poor user experience. In fact, studies have found that 40 percent of consumers who buy and try a wearable fitness tracker leave it sitting on their bedside after a month or two. There’s clearly a lot of work to be done. Unfortunately, PR hype and science-fiction-fueled ideas, have pushed consumer expectations to an all-time high, and have raised the bar for just about any company (look at Apple, for example). Meanwhile, vaporware that takes advantage of this enthusiasm, mixed with crowdfunding campaigns, are a real danger and risk affecting the industry’s credibility if companies do not deliver. At this point, it is critical to separate over-promised functionality from a reality that is still, by any measure, incredibly exciting. In this article, we’ll review myths and misconceptions that are prevalent around hardware and that may mislead consumers. There’s a rule in hardware: The smaller it is, the more energy efficient. Batteries, however, are an exception to the rule: Their capacity is directly related to their volume. In addition, buyers of wearables are looking for newer, more accurate sensors that tend to require a lot more power. This causes a dilemma (and often quite a bit of friction) between product marketing folks, industrial designers and electronics engineers. Practically, the current state of battery technology means that any wearable with more than an accelerometer will need a decent-sized battery that requires recharging every few days. Such a battery is also going to take up a good portion of the available space in a wearable device. Once you introduce a display and more sensors, like the Apple Watch, which also sports a gyroscope and a custom set of heart rate sensors (LEDs and photodiodes), daily charging becomes the norm. Apple, being very conscious of the inconvenience associated with yet another device that requires daily wired charging, has integrated wireless charging to avoid the Watch from being left on the bedside table. Of course, the $400+ cost and the status symbol of the Watch would also make it less likely that users leave it behind. You may have also read about those wonderful printed, paper-thin batteries. Unfortunately, since battery capacity is directly proportional to physical volume, printed batteries will not be able to provide enough power for second generation wearables anytime soon – at least not until there is a significant breakthrough that is brought to market at scale (and is not just sitting in MIT’s labs). With that said, expect daily charging of health-tracking wearables that go beyond the pedometer (for now). Many wearable gurus have stated that one of the keys to success for wearable products is for them to be unnoticeable – or practically invisible. This has fed into announcements about tattoo, printed, stamp-sized or flexible sensors and devices that you can stick onto your skin in order to collect motion or bio-information. Even the New York Times about the potential for such skin-like sensors that could have daily applications in the not-so-distant future. The reality is that sensors are not complete systems. Sure, sensors can be minuscule, but they simply capture raw data. Devices still needs to process that data and then wirelessly transmit it. And processing requires power, as does wireless transmission, unless it’s super close proximity (think millimeters). In addition, often some amount of memory is needed to store the data until it can be transmitted. Adding any minimal processor, memory and wireless radio would add real estate and volume and immediately negate the notion of invisibility – you’ll only forget about it as much as you forget about a smartwatch. The kind of super-thin devices being talked about just cannot house the necessary batteries to power sensors that provide the accurate biofeedback that consumers are looking for. Flexible screens and printed sensors are real and cool but are not ready to be part of an invisible wearable arsenal just yet. One workaround to the battery size and recharging obstacles for wearables is the idea of generating power through different means. Solar panels, kinetic movement and thermoelectric generators have all been suggested as possible solutions. Even capturing the to charge devices has been brought up as a possibility. For each of these solutions there are issues at the limits of current technology. For solar panels, there are well-known obstacles around size, efficiency and placement (how much sun will your wrist get)? Kinetic recharging using your body’s movement ( , swinging your arms, or your leg movement) is backed by more mature Piezzo technology but it’s just insufficient in terms of efficiency. Lastly, thermoelectric generators rely on temperature differentials and require at least 10 degree Celsius difference between the inside of the wearable and ambient temperature. Unfortunately, these are circumstances that rarely occur unless you’re streaming a video to your tiny smartwatch in a snowstorm. There are some interesting things being done in this space but don’t expect it to have a big effect on your recharging needs for the next few years. Another misconception we’ve seen is around small, specialized consumer health devices that can measure your blood pressure without a pressuring cuff, or measure your blood sugar without utilizing a needle pinprick. This might come as a surprise, but mHealth products are some of the bestselling consumer sensor products. Those pinprick glucose meters? That’s an annual market of over $10 billion. And the market’s Holy Grail is finding a way to use optical sensors in order to avoid needing to puncture the skin. Such systems rely on shining a light through the skin to read tiny variations in the blood stream and determine blood sugar content or pressure. Sounds incredible but unfortunately, in spite of all the R&D and progress within labs, there isn’t yet such a device that is accurate enough to pass FDA muster. While devices for measuring blood oxygen content and skin conductivity exist, other functionality such as optical blood pressure measurement is still in the lab. Even relatively mature optical devices for heart rate measurement are proving difficult to introduce in the real world, partly because they are very susceptible to motion and “noise,” which requires complex and processing-intensive filtering in order to extract valid signals from the sea of noise. Add to that different wrist sizes & bone structures that change vein location on the wrist and a device will get significant reading variations. We’re hoping for progress in this vertical soon, but even when a breakthrough is made you can bet that medical device incumbents will fight tooth and nail to retain control of the market. And finally, you’ve probably heard about all the fashion designers that are getting into the wearable and tech-infused clothing game. Smart rings, necklaces, muscle-strain sensing shirts, and dresses with digital screens: Innovation is rampant and exciting in this vertical. However, there are significant usability problems with clothing and jewelry that go beyond tech and into the culture of fashion. Most importantly, the whole practical idea behind fashion is that you don’t wear the same thing – either jewelry or clothing – two days in a row. Do you really want to wear that giant ring every day? Are the smart sensors in your clothing stitched in or can they be removed? If they can be removed, will you remember every day to switch them onto your new outfit? Much of the way we dress runs counter to using wearables and sensors as part of your everyday clothing, and fashion-focused companies need to be away of that. Another problem is the need for clothing to be washed, especially in the case of workout clothes. Washing machines are extremely harsh on electrodes embedded into fabric so you will be doing lots of hand washing in cold water to maximize the lifespan of these clothes. Workout clothes will not be for the lazy. These are just a number of things we would like for consumers to keep in mind as we build more capable and powerful wearables that can help us measure our lives and be more productive. There are some incredible companies and products just around the corner, but like any industry, it takes years to bring the most advanced hardware R&D to market. For now, let’s keep dreaming but also make sure to keep our expectations in check. |
Trialfire Begins Selling Code-Free Analytics Service For Apps And Websites | Jonathan Shieber | 2,014 | 10 | 30 | Toronto-based startup is launching a service so companies can track customers as they interact with applications and websites without the need for data analysts and technical support. The company’s new software allows companies to collect every user click, navigation and entered field, without the need for fancy coding. “This way you don’t have to add any custom code to track specific actions,” says co-founder Michael Lieberman. To use Trialfire’s software to communicate directly with Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Intercom or other services, users launch their sites in what the company calls “pin mode”: Customers just click on the function they want to track. The software places a pin to indicate an action is being tracked — like a GPS with points of interest. Regular visitors are never aware of Trialfire, but whenever they perform a tracked action, an event is sent to the connected services. So far, the company has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from investors who had backed Lieberman’s previous effort, Datastay, which Autodesk acquired in 2011. “When we were a startup it was my co-founder Mike that would always ask, ‘can you integrate something into the website for me’. When we were part of a larger enterprise there were seven product managers and five marketing guys asking the same questions,” said Trialfire’s fellow co-founder, Max Kremer. Lieberman and Kremer spent two years at Autodesk after the acquisition, and during that time the problems that marketing and sales departments experienced became even more apparent. “The rub between marketing/product and development is real: business people rely on developers to get their stuff working, but development’s focus is on core product stuff (aka the fun/important stuff),” wrote Lieberman in an email. Other companies are also tackling similar problems. Segment.io lets developers code integrations and send the data they collect to third-party services, but doesn’t offer the code-free approach that Trialfire uses. Meanwhile Heap Analytics and Hublo are providing code-free approaches to gathering and visualizing analytics. “We actually had several ideas when were considering leaving Autodesk — this was the one that made us horniest,” Lieberman wrote in an e-mail. “The leadership at Autodesk actually offered us the opportunity to stick around and basically work for ourselves on our own ideas without reporting to anyone but the big boss. Pretty sweet offer, but we wanted to work on Trialfire, which wasn’t really an Autodesk type project.” |
null | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 10 | 31 | null |
GoPro Shares Spike As It Handily Beats Street Estimates | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 10 | 30 | GoPro’s earnings for the third quarter were pretty as a picture for the company’s investors, with earnings coming in above analysts’ expectations For the quarter, GoPro racked up sales of $280 million, up 45.7 percent from the $192.1 million reported in the third quarter of 2013. Adjusting for generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), profits were $14.6 million, or 10 cents per share, compared to a $1.1 million, or 1 cent per-share, loss in the third quarter of 2013. revenue of $265.6 million and earnings of 8 cents per share. On a non-GAAP basis, GoPro earned $0.12 per share, putting its normally accounted for profit, and its adjusted profit in reasonable harmony. Companies like Twitter that have higher share-based compensation costs have larger negative deltas between their GAAP and non-GAAP profit margins. The company, which has seen its stock price tumble from the peaks it reached in the first months after its public offering, was buoyed by a strong showing for its , which the company called the most successful launch in its history. Shares were up over $5 or more than 7 percent in after-hours trading on the Nasdaq, as investors responded favorably to all the good news. : “The global scale and execution of our HERO4 launch made this the most successful roll out in GoPro’s history,” said GoPro founder and chief executive, Nicholas Woodman., who also touted advancements in the company’s desktop and mobile content management applications aimed at making it easier for GoPro owners to create and share content. With the earnings, GoPro is sitting fairly pretty as it heads into the holiday season. As part of the bigger muscles the strong public offering afforded the company, Best Buy customers around the country can expect to see more of an in-store presence from the camera maker. GoPro went public for $24 per share. It closed regular trading at $68.25, and is up past $72 in after-hours trading. Nascent media business or not, investors are happy with what they see. The company is worth around $9 billion. |
Ask Mark Zuckerberg Anything During His First Public “Community Q&A” On Facebook Nov 6 | Josh Constine | 2,014 | 10 | 30 | Most people have a burning question to ask about Facebook, whether they’re one of its 1.35 billion users or not. So taking a cue from Reddit’s Ask Me Anything sessions, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg is upping the transparency and will play customer support himself on November 6th when he does Facebook’s first . The hour-long livestreamed session will answer the public’s questions submitted to the . Zuck says the Q&A is themed after a Facebook tradition where “every Friday we have a Q&A and all employees can come and ask me questions about anything they want.” People can submit their queries in the , or Like ones to vote for the questions they want answered. Some top ones so far include: As you can see, they range from serious questions about Facebook’s investments to Zuckerberg’s personal opinions, but also include common gripes about Facebook’s product and silly jokes. We’ll have to wait until 2pm PST on November 6th to see just how freewheeling the Q&A gets. The Q&A illuminates an interesting question of how responsible to the public are CEOs of companies with massive user/customer bases. The SEC makes public companies face questions from investors. But if , does he owe everyone an opportunity to raise questions and concerns? . A year ago Facebook’s CFO mentioned on its earnings call that Facebook had seen . Facebook’s share price immediately took a huge hit. Since then, Facebook has to discuss teen engagement. Meanwhile, have said US teens are rapidly abandoning Facebook. So, my question is “Has there been a reduction in young US teen engagement with Facebook over the last year? What’s your response to that say there has been?” so we can get an answer. |
Our New Show “Built In Brooklyn” Takes You Inside Brooklyn Startups | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 10 | 30 | We’re announcing a new show called Built in Brooklyn, and its main goal is simple — to showcase a bunch of cool Brooklyn startups. This has been in the works for months, but I’m glad we’re announcing it today — exactly one year after I moved from San Francisco to New York City. I ended up in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, and boy, it really feels like everyone has an opinion about where I’m living. I’ve heard that Williamsburg is over, Bushwick is the new Williamsburg, Brooklyn is the new Manhattan, , ad infinitum. Those arguments aren’t just about rising rents and fancy restaurants. There’s also been a lot of talk about how the startup scene is exploding in New York, and, naturally, some . This show isn’t going to settle any of those arguments. It did, however, give me a chance to move beyond generalities. We got startup founders to come on camera and discuss not just their companies, but also their personal stories, why they started their companies where they did, and the dramatic changes that Brooklyn has seen in the past few years. We’ll start the show off in earnest on Monday, with an episode looking at . Keep coming back every Monday and you’ll find episodes looking at FlyCleaners, HowAboutWe, Gotham Greens, Wool & Prince, Atavist, and others. Oh, and if you’re wondering why we neglected the rest of New York, hey, we like those startups too. We just didn’t want this to get too broad — and Built In New York doesn’t have the same ring to it. |
LinkedIn Q3 Beats The Street, Sales Of $568M, EPS $0.52 | Ingrid Lunden | 2,014 | 10 | 30 | In a quarter that has seen a mixed set of results for social networks and , today reported its quarterly results, handily beating analyst estimates on sales of $568 million, up 45% compared to a year ago and sales of $393 million and non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.52. But it also posted a wider net loss of $4.3 million, versus to net loss of $3.4 in Q3 2013. Non-GAAP net income was $66 million, versus $47 million a year ago. The company today has been trading a than its opening price of $198.46/share in anticipation of strong earnings. Analysts were expecting revenue of $557.5 million and non-GAAP EPS of $0.47 per share for the social network based around people’s jobs. In Q2, LinkedIn Revenue for the second quarter was $534 million and its EPS (non-GAAP diluted) was $0.51. With a mandate to continue growing its user base among white-collar workers and also maximise the revenue it makes from that base around recruitment and advertising products, LinkedIn has been on a tear in the last couple of years with updates to its main web service, several updates to its mobile apps, and acquisitions. The aim has been twofold: to build out both its premium business services and also be more than just a place for people to come when they are looking for a new job, or to hire someone for a job, to improve overall engagement on the platform. The latter has seen the company launch several features that play up its role as a home for users to read and share professional content — from news to features about productivity and so on. This last quarter, however, has been on these fronts. A launch of LinkedIn’s and the quiet to map the connections of your personal LinkedIn network speak to how the company is sharpening up its focus on building more products out of its paid services, and potentially using its analytics in a more strategic way to bolster that. (Its acquisition of marketing platform Bizo happened just on the cusp of the two reporting quarters.) Indeed, the idea of building on the investments made earlier in the year, rather than launching more, seemed to be the mantra for CEO Jeff Weiner as well. “LinkedIn made significant progress against several long-term strategic investments we began this year,” he said in a statement. “During the third quarter, we took meaningful steps in increasing the scale and relevance of job listings, growing the professional publishing platform, and expanding our member network in new geographies and demographics.” The company today didn’t provide updated user numbers, quoting the “over 300 million” figure announced in June of this year. Some other highlights from its different business divisions: The U.S. is 60 percent of all revenues, at $343 million, and while LinkedIn is pushing harder into markets like China, it’s pulling in $225 million at the moment. More to come after the call in about an hour. |
Groupon Q3 Beats The Street On Sales Of $757.1M, EPS Of $0.03 | Ingrid Lunden | 2,014 | 10 | 30 | Still pushing hard on its strategy to be more than just a site for daily deals, e-commerce powerhouse Groupon today, reporting revenues of $757.1 million on non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.03, but a negative EPS of $0.03 on a GAAP basis. Analysts were a non-GAAP EPS of $0.01 on revenues of $748.76 million. Groupon managed to best expectations, but not by a margin that investors found too compelling. The company is up a mere 1 percent in after-hours trading: “We had another record quarter, with worldwide billings increasing 39 percent and reaching their highest level ever,” said Eric Lefkofsky, CEO of Groupon, in a statement. “We also made significant progress in our strategy to become the leading mobile commerce destination, with double-digit growth in our North American Local business, double-digit gross margins in North American Goods and positive Adjusted EBITDA in every segment for the first time in over a year.” As a point of comparison, Groupon last quarter (Q2) disappointed Wall Street with sales of $751 million, missing their expectations by about $10 million while matching their EPS of $0.01. Its Q3 was up 27 percent on sales a year ago. The company’s stock was up about 4 percent in trading to just over $6/share today before the results were announced. Groupon, which has had a lot of ups and downs in its life as a public company. Most recently, its head of product, Parker Barrile, citing personal reasons. Despite this, Groupon in the last quarter has been continuing its efforts to build out its product portfolio and continue developing its services in a bid to boost its traffic and offset any declines that it may see in daily deals. That has included the launch of to rival those of Yelp, a shopping loyalty and couponing app called , and a more flexible model for how it lets businesses list deals based on to improve footfall. It’s slowly making some progress on these fronts. The company says that 100 million people have now downloaded its mobile apps globally. |
Autodesk Invests $100 Million Toward The First 3D Printing Fund | Sarah Buhr | 2,014 | 10 | 30 | is opening a $100 million 3D printing fund, called , to give money to startups and designers in the 3D printing space. The company is now encouraging those interested in developing hardware, software, materials, marketplaces and maker spaces to apply to participate in the Spark Investment Fund’s investment portfolio. Autodesk announced its Ember open source 3D printer and the back in May. The platform is not on the market just yet, but it can work with many different types of 3D printers and materials to create specially designed objects. The design software firm is hoping those in the 3D printing community can help collaborate and improve the platform and its associated Ember 3D printer and materials. Autodesk is looking for some of the best up-and-coming 3D printing companies to invest in. Those who receive investment from the Spark fund will become part of Autodesk’s Spark partner program and will have access to marketing and other developer services available to Spark partners. Current partners include 3D Hubs, Authentise, Dremel, Local Motors and MatterFab. “Numerous industries recognize the value of tapping into entrepreneurs or startups with better ideas and approaches, and 3D printing is no exception,” says Samir Hanna, Autodesk’s VP of consumer products and 3D printing. |
Immediately Is An Email App For Sales Reps That Tracks When Messages Are Read | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 10 | 30 | SquareOne, an email startup that earlier this year, has now pivoted to become , an email app designed with the needs of sales reps in mind. The new app, which is currently live on the web and on iPhone, is an email client application offering features like reminders, templates, scheduling and Salesforce sync, as well as the ability to track email opens — allowing you to jump when customers and leads are in their inboxes reading your message. On mobile, you can configure the app to send you push notifications when email opens occur by designating which emails you want to track with a push of a button in its “Compose” interface. This is not the first app to track email opens. In March, that offered similar functionality. However, in its case, the MailTracker app allows you track opens and engagement time for emails sent using Apple’s built-in Mail App. It’s not meant to be a standalone client. In addition, Immediately offers a number of features that make it more competitive with something like , as the new app also lets you quickly share your calendar availability without having to change to a different application. Other buttons appear below your Compose screen, letting you quickly do things like change your signature, respond with a template or create a reminder. Contact details are available at glance, too, allowing you to quickly get background information on those you’re communicating with by pulling data from LinkedIn — a feature that’s useful for those even outside the “sales rep” space Immediately is targeting. The company says it trialled its app across a number of companies before today’s launch, including Plethora.io, TalentBin and Visually. Now live in the App Store and on the web, Immediately’s long-term plan is to leverage data to make intelligent suggestions to salespeople — like whether their pitch is wrong, or being sent at the wrong time — that will help them become more productive. For what it’s worth, even email apps that let you stalk your recipients can tell you everything. Email clients that offer push notifications with message previews, or interfaces like Gmail that show headlines and part of the message, are often how those with busier inboxes “read” their messages – that is, they scan their inbox to know who’s emailing them and why, and react accordingly. And no app – Immediately, MailTracker or otherwise – can track that sort of thing. is free for individuals and will offer a paid tier for enterprises. |
University Beyond Raises $300K Seed To Hook Up Brands And College Kids | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 10 | 30 | Plenty of companies are looking to give brands and recruiters a way to connect with the ultra-valuable, soon-to-be-working, super influential college demographic, and has just raised $300,000 in seed funding to do just that. The round was led by , with participation from two unnamed angel investors. The idea behind University Beyond is to first connect brands with students who are interested in being in brand ambassador programs, and then facilitate that relationship through an online dashboard. The first step is accomplished with a simple nationwide job board, but the back-end dashboard allows brands to assign and monitor student tasks, live chat through an inbox or videoconference, and handle payments through the system. On the other side, obviously, students also have access to jobs as brand ambassadors and an easy online portal to see assignments and get paid. In fact, students can even download an auto-generated resume and certificate of completion for their college work as a brand ambassador. “University Beyond is changing the landscape of ambassador programs through an educational focus,” said cofounder Doug Messer. “We are working to provide students not only internship opportunities for completing their ambassador program, but actual credit toward graduation.” The project comes by way of cofounders , who first sharpened their entrepreneurial chops with a watch company called DBFLY. The watches sold well, and it led the guys to start an entertainment and events brand around DBFLY. As the company grew, Messer and Weinstein looked to infiltrate college campuses, but struggled finding good brand ambassadors and communicating with them. And so, University Beyond was born. The platform is free to use for students and brands until 2014, at which point brands will owe a flat monthly fee. The team has not disclosed how much that will be, but it is a different business model from other similar services who charge per posting, per university, etc. The service is launching at a time when the space is hot, as competitive services like are also starting to make a push. To learn more about University Beyond, check out the website . |
Sunset Overdrive Review: A Genuinely Fun Game, Once You Get Past First Impressions | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 10 | 30 | Microsoft’s console exclusives are arguably what it needs to make up ground on PlayStation, despite its continued hold on the beloved Halo series. Its brand new Xbox One game, , looks in part to be an answer to Sony’s fan favorite Infamous series, since both offer a lot of grinding, wall-climbing and parkour-ish behavior. And despite a quirky face that takes some getting used to, and definitely could polarize some of the consumer response to the game, this Xbox exclusive largely manages to charm with its play mechanics and general irreverence. Sunset Overdrive is developed by Insomniac Games, a studio that previously worked on Resistance, as well as Spyro the Dragon and Ratchet and Clank. It fuses elements of all its past success, with a light-hearted, yet also dark storyline, bright and colorful visuals and cartoonish physics, but also a dabble of ultra violence, third-person shooter weapons and techniques, and ample vulgarity to try to net some easy laughs and shock response. Sometimes, the posturing can reach cringeworthy levels. Sunset Overdrive’s desperation to paint itself as ‘hip’ and ‘cool’ is palpable, and can occasionally dampen my enthusiasm as a player. On the other hand, the degree to which the game’s story doesn’t take itself seriously is one of its biggest strengths, and should allow most players to overlook things like its overwhelming self-referentiality. The story also doesn’t manage to dampen the fun of its gameplay, which is rewarding and addictive despite the ridiculous set dressing (key word being despite, and note not ‘because of’). The bounce and grind mechanics that make up your best ability to navigate and negotiate your surroundings while also fending off hordes of enemies are simple enough to grasp, and the no-risk approach to character death means that you can learn the subtleties of the system (or not) at your own pace. Overall, the pace and insanity level of Sunset Overdrive, combined with its open world map and non-linear collection of side missions, challenges and collectible-hunting are perfect for the modern video game attention span, in that it can still provide an engrossing distraction for those with longer attention spans, or work on a pop-in, pop-out basis for the crop of younger gamers who are more used to mobile-style experiences that reward short bursts of gameplay. Sunset Overdrive’s character customization is also fairly engaging, despite similar try-hard failings when it comes to the options available. And while multiplayer is available, my favourite part of the game may be that you’ll suffer no great loss playing the whole thing by yourself, which is an increasingly rare treat in a world where multiplayer options are not only valued, but often become the central conceit of the game. My feelings on Sunset Overdrive can be summed up as follows: It’s kind of like a Hummer in that it’s completely impractical, embarrassing to be seen driving, and probably designed by a 13-year old with an authority problem. But for all its failings, it’s still a lot of fun once you get behind the wheel. |
Instagram Video Ads Go Live Because Everything Good Must Come To An End | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 10 | 30 | Instagram has at long last after rigorous testing and hands-on work with brands. And because they are advertisements, none of that rigorous work really matters because we simply hate advertisements. With video ads, the potential for high levels of suckage is high, as brands have a total of 15 seconds to capture you, as opposed to the half-second glance they get with a photo. The same is true for regular users, which is why . But, as it often goes with incumbents, Facebook-owned Instagram seemed to become more reactive, after Twitter-owned Vine made waves in the space. Today, Instagram continues to work on the video side of its product, with the launch of a standalone app called , that speeds up and stabilizes your mobile video. Whether or not you agree with me about video on Instagram, it’s hard to disagree with me when I say that social networks are often marred by advertisements. It’s not necessarily the ads themselves that are the problem. In fact, Facebook worked them in so well that for a long time I never noticed the change. Obviously, advertisements pay for the services we enjoy (for now) and are tolerable enough for users of platforms like Twitter and Facebook and Instagram (and now Snapchat) to bear. But ads are a simple reminder that the social connections and interactions you’re having are actually the main source of income for a global corporation. For some reason, it just feels a bit less special. And Instagram was special to me. And so I mourn the launch of Instagram video advertisements, because it feels like the end of an era. But… all good things come to an end. If you want to check out Instagram’s first video ads, I’ve included them below or you can read .
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Google’s New Bookmarking Service, Previously Called Stars, Has Gone Live | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 10 | 30 | Google Stars, the bookmarking service from Google, has , but with little fanfare. That Google was working to update its bookmarking service has been known for some time. , a developer who had been digging into the service leaked a copy of the “Google Stars” extension, as it was called at the time, while it was still being tested. And now, it seems Google has quietly launched the Stars interface for the “Chrome Bookmark Manager” extension . was among the first to spot the release yesterday, noting that the new extension will completely replace Chrome’s old bookmarks interface. After installation, Chrome users are able to save bookmarks with a click, organize them and use Google’s search technology to find bookmarks that got buried deeply in their collections. The extension also eliminates the need for manual organization, if you choose, as it’s smart enough to organize bookmarks into automatically generated categories based on what you’ve saved. The new extension includes social features, too, allowing users to share folders of favorite bookmarks with friends, for example, which is an option that recalls the social bookmarking services from Web 2.0’s heyday, like Delicious or Diigo, for example. And finally, of course, bookmarks will sync across all your devices, as usual. However, for end users, the most noticeable aspect to Google’s Bookmark Manager is the updated interface. No Longer a boring list of links, accessing the “Bookmarks Manager” from Chrome’s “Bookmark” menu bring up square thumbnails of your saved links, which include pictures and descriptions when possible, says Google. There doesn’t appear to be a way to turn this back into an ordered list, so those with larger, unorganized collections may find themselves doing a lot of scrolling. But these users could also take advantage of the “Edit” feature which lets you check off a series of bookmarks in order to quickly move them into another folder or delete them. Some reviewers and other users have reported trouble with the new extension, which may require a more recent version of Google Chrome. It may be possible that this Bookmark Manager is meant to be a public beta given that Google has yet to make an official announcement about its arrival. We reached out to Google for clarification but have not heard back. |
NaturalCycles Expands Its Contraception App Subscription Service In Europe | Natasha Lomas | 2,014 | 10 | 30 | Swiss founded startup , which has been testing its contraception app in the Nordics since last December has now opened it up to the U.K. market, making its first move to scale the subscription service which aims to offer women an alternative to hormone based contraception methods such as the pill. The app (on and ) works in conjunction with a basal body thermometer to give the user an indication of safe days to have sex if they’re not trying to get pregnant. It’s amassed around 10,000 active users since launching the service in Sweden last December. NaturalCycles was founded in June last year by former CERN researcher Elina Berglund — who was involved with the search and discovery of the Higgs Boson particle — and her husband Raoul Scherwitzl, who also has a PhD in physics, attracting $500,000 in angel funding to get the business off the ground. The startup told TechCrunch it’s now in the process of raising a $1.2 million VC funding round which it plans to use to fund development of a wireless thermometer to get around the current requirement for the user to manually enter their body temperature into the app every morning. There are a number of startups offering fertility monitoring services for couples seeking to get pregnant, such as , which also involves using a thermometer to monitor the woman’s body temperature, or the Max Levchin backed app, or big data capture plays like and . But NaturalCycles is putting the emphasis on the other side of the coin: addressing women (and couples) who want to have sex getting pregnant, and are looking for an alternative to tradition barrier contraception or hormone-based methods. When used properly NaturalCycles claims it’s highly effective at pinpointing a woman’s fertile window. The app uses a color code system with red meaning there’s a risk of pregnancy if the user has sex on that day, or green for when it’s algorithm is 99.9% sure there’s no risk of pregnancy. It claims its accuracy is superior to apps that rely on period tracking (of which there are many in the app stores) to estimate fertility, since aspects of women’s monthly cycles, such as the length of the luteal phase, vary from person to person — making counting days a less certain fertility predictor. NaturalCycle says in 202,544 days of its service being used there have been zero unwanted pregnancies. The app can map the user’s cycle with up to five months foresight. As the user enters more data, allowing the algorithm to better identify her ovulation day, the number of green days will increase. NaturalCycle’s business model is a subscription service, with users paying a monthly fee — of between $7 or $10, depending on how long they sign up for. It also offers a one year package, costing $59.90, which includes the cost of the thermometer. |
10 Men Making Waves For Women In Tech | Ruthe Farmer | 2,014 | 10 | 8 | On September 20, announced the campaign, an effort to invite men and boys to join in advocating for gender equality. Actress and UN Women Ambassador Emma Watson of Harry Potter fame gave a to launch the campaign, which has been met with both and from the media. When it comes to the hotly debated issue of women in technology, are particularly important. Female role models are often cited as one of the major issues to address for women in tech – the “you can’t be what you can’t see mantra” – but expecting the minority group to do all the outreach and mentoring to increase their own participation is a losing proposition. Men make up 74 percent of the tech workforce while only 24 percent of CIO positions at Fortune 100 companies were held by women [ ] in 2012. The fact is, we all make and inhabit the culture of our industry, and we all need to participate in fixing it. Men are an essential part of the solution. According to from the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), “Men are often the leaders, power holders, and gatekeepers in the computing workplace. Enlisting men’s participation is vital for change efforts to be truly effective.” Fortunately, men who invest their time and energy in women in tech are not in short supply. Known figures like venture capitalist , author and futurist , entrepreneur , Indiana University Dean of Informatics , and Congressman have spoken out as advocates for women in tech. Even the new is speaking out on this issue. The point is, male advocates for technical women are out there — far more than I can name in this article — but here are 10 men working to get and keep more women in tech. Seth Reichelson teaches computer science at Lake Brantley High School outside Orlando and in four short years has built the program into one of the largest in the nation while achieving 40 percent participation of girls in his classes. He actively recruits students into computing and infiltrates female-dominated classes like interior and graphic design to make sure girls are included. In 2013 he was recognized as a White House for Tech Inclusion where he humorously asserted, “Anyone can learn computer science. I’ll teach everyone in this room. Dare me.” Here he is in at the 2012 NCWIT Summit. In 2009, behavioral scientist Matt Wallaert was Head of Product at the personal finance website . He was comparing the savings rate of men and women and discovered that women were saving a significantly higher percentage of their paycheck each month, yet they were falling far behind men in actual dollars saved because of the gender wage gap. Impassioned, Wallaert led a group of engineers to create , a free service that helps women figure out if they are underpaid and what to do about it. “It is easy to say, as a man, that you are for equality for women,” says Wallaert, “because you are often speaking from a position of privilege. But we need to do more than just talk about equity: we need to use that position of privilege to actively create opportunities for all. The greatest use of power is the empowerment of others.” A University of Arkansas defensive back turned management information systems professional, Bradford leads the at the Walton College of Business. He organizes the Institute’s annual Women in Technology Conference, now in its 11th year, and with his football player build is clearly visible as one of the only men in the room at that event. It doesn’t faze him one bit. He also organizes annual statewide events to educate girls about technology careers, pulling in high-profile speakers like Walmart CIO Karenann Terrell to inspire the students; hosts the for high school girls; and is the University of Arkansas representative to NCWIT. Complete with an aging Volvo wagon and a signature beard, McDowell is the picture of a UC Santa Cruz professor. He’s also a tireless advocate for women in tech at UCSC, across California and nationwide – usually quietly behind the scenes. Source: NCWIT Locally he organizes the annual Bay Area , which recognizes 50 technical high school girls with a gala event at the San Jose Tech museum. He has established a $16,000 scholarship for women in computer science at UCSC and facilitated many other California schools following suit. Nationally he co-chairs the of NCWIT, an alliance of more than 350 universities, and serves on multiple project teams working to advance the participation of women in undergraduate computer science programs. A former software engineer, Schanzer left the tech industry to become a public school teacher. He identified lack of success in algebra as one of the key factors holding students back from STEM fields, and inhibiting schools from bringing computer science to their students. In 2006, Emmanuel created , a curriculum and software platform that enables students to build their own video games using pure algebraic and geometric concepts and a functional programming language. Bootstrap has incorporated many known for engaging young women in computer science, building teamwork, relationship-building and real-word application into every aspect of the curriculum. “This approach means all the girls and underrepresented students get the chance to feel successful with computer programming, not just the students who sign up for the programming electives” says Schanzer, “it’s about equity.” It is more efficient to list the efforts Joe is not involved in, than those he is. An educator and advocate for computer science for all, Joe is engaged in nearly every computing education initiative in Wisconsin and many nationwide. Despite ‘retiring’ in 2004, Joe continues to serve as the Co-chair of the Advisory Board for Washington HS of IT and the Computational Thinking Task Force for the Computer Science Teachers Association. He founded the and has grown the program from five to 24 awardees since 2012. Joe is a fixture at every major technology education event and provides much needed cross-organizational knowledge transfer in the community. In the fall of 2013, Jeffrey joined Apple as Director of Worldwide Inclusion & Diversity. On his work at Apple, Jeffrey says, “Everyone has a role in making diversity matter. At Apple we know that inclusion inspires innovation, and all of us — both men and women — can and should find ways to inspire women and girls to pursue and stick with studies and careers in technology. The innovation that their perspectives bring make us stronger and our products better. I’m proud to be one of many leaders at Apple who are actively working to make a difference for women in tech or who are just beginning to think about their career goals.” Source: NCWIT Whether it’s personally connecting with students — like current Apple intern , a 2013 UNC-Charlotte IT grad student who is also a DJ and radio personality — helping to launch internal efforts like Women@Apple-Tech, showcasing the work of amazing educators like as part of an ongoing internal discussion about inclusion and diversity, or simply being visibly engaged and intentional as an advocate for inclusion in the workplace, Jeffrey walks the walk to demonstrate that “we all do better not in spite of our differences, but because of them.” As an African American adopted by a white family from Maine, Dr. Solomon knows what it means to feel like a fish out of water. He has dedicated his career to combatting inequities in urban education systems and helping at-risk minorities and young women arrive at college with the math, literacy and cultural competency skills to compete. Both a social scientist and an educator, he strives to create holistic academic support environments for at-risk students and help school districts improve college and career readiness for all their students. “This is especially important in STEM fields,” claims Solomon. “If a low income student enters college needing remedial math courses, that puts them off the 4 year graduation schedule covered by financial aid and tracks them out of STEM majors. This is a cost to innovation we simply can’t afford.” Just a short drive from Silicon Valley, but worlds apart in terms of industries, Jacob Martinez has spent 11 years building the next generation of Latinas in tech through the project. Source: NCWIT He has been successful in inspiring Latinas from this farming community to move into post secondary education and careers in the tech, with many of his students receiving awards and scholarships. He is the author of on engaging Latinas in technology careers. His latest project, , will be a hip work/makerspace where young people can come together to learn skills, innovate, and create their futures. “All these kids were motivated to get into tech, but they didn’t have access,” Martinez said. “I always thought to myself, ‘What would the outcome be like if they had the access?'” Seven years ago, while doing research for a book on computer science, Smith was awakened to the intrinsic relationship between diverse perspectives and quality software. An engineering director at Microsoft, he began a journey to help the company build well-balanced teams, including co-authoring a paper on and participating in a on women in STEM fields. Since then he has served on the Women of Skype Steering Committee and the Office Diversity leadership team, and recently became part of the Organizational Change Initiatives working council. “We have a tremendous opportunity to build technology that expands our human potential.” says Smith, “and building a climate of trust within talented and diverse teams helps improve the quality of our software as well as the quality of life.” |
Vivian Schiller Steps Down As Twitter’s Head Of News | Kyle Russell | 2,014 | 10 | 8 | Just , Vivian Schiller is stepping down as the company’s head of news. Schiller just announced the move in a series of tweets, where she also announced that Twitter VP of Global Media will take up her responsibilities as part of an internal reorganization. 1/3 Stepping down from Twitter so new global media lead can reorganize as she sees fit. Wish everyone at twitter nothing but best. — Vivian Schiller (@vivian) 2/3 Many thanks to and for convincing me to come work at Twitter. It was a fascinating experience. — Vivian Schiller (@vivian) 3/3 And mostly, thanks to all the great journalists and newsrooms I collaborated with. Your innovation & creativity is an inspiration. — Vivian Schiller (@vivian) |
The Manual For Verizon’s Next Flagship Droid Phone Just Leaked | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 10 | 8 | Word around the ol’ phonegeek rumor mill was that Verizon and Motorola were prepping to release a new high-end Android phone to freshen up the Droid lineup — and whatdya know? The entire manual for just such a phone has leaked. So far, at least, it looks like the rumor mill nailed this one: Just as whispers predicted, the handset is called the “Droid Turbo,” and it’s essentially a fancied-up version of the . 5.2″ “Ultra high-definition” display? Check. Bigger battery? Check. 21-megapixel rear camera (versus the Moto X’s 13 megapixel shooter)? Yep. You can find the purportedly official . Before you get too excited, remember it’s October. It’s been nearly a year since Google announced the Nexus 5, and the Nexus 6 (or whatever Google ends up calling the next Nexus) is seemingly . If Google is planning on continuing its tradition of launching an unlocked, high-end handset that gets all of the new Android updates first, now seems like an unwise time to buy a carrier-locked, on-contract device. While there’s no guarantee that the next Nexus will work on Verizon (the Nexus 5 doesn’t, after all), it’d be worthwhile for most Android fans to wait and see how the next month or so plays out. It may seem like there’s going to be a better phone next month, but it’s particularly worth considering right now. |
Office’s Place In The New Microsoft | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 10 | 8 | In a that you should certainly read, a comment from former CEO Bill Gates is worth considering: “[T]he original idea of having great software people and broad software products and Office being the primary tool that people look to across all these devices, that’s as true today and as strong as ever.” What’s fun about the Gates quote is how correct, and historically fraught, it is; Microsoft built Office for Mac for years, but when it came time to and tablets, those efforts didn’t reach fruition in the first case, or appear to race to market in the second, until new CEO Satya Nadella took the reins. Perhaps even more interesting is how Gates puts Office squarely in the middle of the company, perhaps even more so than Windows. That might seem like a semantic point, but it slides right into Nadella’s “platforms and productivity mantra.” Now that we’ve entered the , it’s worth keeping in mind the following two things: The cost of Windows on a per-PC basis is declining, and Office has shown to monetize on a recurring basis in the cloud and mobile era. As such, Microsoft has to win on both fronts, but the financial success of Office will likely float Windows’ transition to a service-supporting product. Caveat to the above is that what Gates said does not diminish the importance of Windows to Microsoft. A healthy Windows is one way Microsoft retains the enterprise market share that partially drives Office incomes. Unsurprisingly, at a platform company, things are intermingled. |
Go To TechCrunch Disrupt Europe: London For Free #TCDisrupt | Anna Escher | 2,014 | 10 | 8 | Haven’t gotten your tickets to TechCrunch Disrupt Europe yet? The hottest tech conference of the year is coming to London this October, and to celebrate we’re giving away another free pair of tickets to the main event. All you have to do is enter to win. We’ll randomly select the winning entry, and the winner will be notified by email. Good luck! |
Chromecast Now Lets You Use Your Own Photos As Its Wallpaper | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 10 | 8 | Remember back in April when in the Chromecast implied that things like custom wallpapers and weather forecasts were coming soon? Sure enough, Google has just pushed an update to its iOS and Android Chromecast apps, and these things (and more!) are now live. While there’s nothing too earth-shattering going on here, this update lets you add a bit of flavor to your Chromecast’s idle screen — the one that shows on your TV if nothing is currently being streamed to the device. Previously limited to displaying the current time and a randomly selected photo from Google’s relatively small collection, : The iOS version is . The Android version is being rolled out to users in waves — though there are always ways to if you’re feeling tinkery. |
Please Stop, HTC. Please. | Matt Burns | 2,014 | 10 | 8 | Have a new phone? Better use fashion models to show them off. Because real people wear outfits that look like monochrome jellyfish and never smile and they want… no, … your products. That’s just what HTC did today in an industry that is plagued with gender inequality and “booth babe” marketing. They had models of both sexes strut around with phones designed to make it easier to take pictures of models.
The occasion for this ham-handed event was the launch of the , a phone that features front and back 13MP cameras — you know, for the selfies. Instead of celebrating a fairly amazing achievement, they turned it into a fashion event. And when mobile companies try to put on fashion events, everyone loses. Technology companies generally struggle to make press events like these interesting. It takes something special to get people to look up from their laptops and phones. Several years ago, Samsung put on a Broadway “show” worthy of a local community theater. But that backfired. It was hilarious rather than interesting. It was roundly . [gallery ids="1067647,1067645,1067644,1067646,1067648"] At CES 2013 Qualcomm rolled out the psychedelic elephants and floating deadheads for an event that was clearly designed by . And now HTC joins this crowd with a fashion show featuring future Sith Lords. Well done, HTC. At least you didn’t die quietly. Please, mobile companies, stop. There is nothing “fashion” about your product unless you count the number of celebrities who carry your phone for a week because you gave it to them. Phones are objects of desire, to be sure, but that desire is not manufactured or forced – it’s earned, and this was just a mess. |
HTC Just Launched RE, A Flip Camera For Your Smartphone | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 10 | 8 | HTC is indeed launching a camera, as the rumors suggested. The new RE (just RE) resembles a tiny periscope, and it’s not quite a GoPro, but it’s not quite a , either (but it really seems like one). Instead, it’s designed to be a solution not unlike a mobile smartphone camera, albeit without the screen attached. HTC CEO said that today marks a “new milestone in the evolution of HTC,” and it’s likely he was talking mostly about this expansion of the company’s product focus. The company tried to position this camera as a GoPro “for the rest of us,” and also claimed it would help users better “stay in the moment.” [gallery ids="1067679,1067678,1067680,1067681,1067682,1067683,1067685"] The RE is like any camera, except it’s shaped like a little tube and it doesn’t have a screen on the back. So it’s like a camera from the nineties, but it also has no off switch and only a large silver button to control both still camera and video capture. A quick press snaps a 16 megapixel photo with a 1/2.3-inch Sony CMOS sensor, and a long press starts and stops video. There’s one more button on the front that captures slow motion video, too. The lens is a 146-degree wide-angle lens, and it has software stabilization for video shooting. It’s waterproof, allowing for “underwater selfies” according to HTC. And while it’s aimed at the “rest of us,” it still has been designed to work in action camera scenarios, and with existing straps and mounts. It’s controlled by an app, like the GoPro, and the app works on both Android and iPhone. Just downloading the app will provide access to all the videos and photos you’ve captured with RE, and you can use your phone as a remote viewfinder and shutter trigger. There’s an SDK for third-party app developers, and HTC is planning to introduce a live streaming feature coming soon, which will allow you to broadcast from it directly over the web. The hardware comes in white, teal, orange and navy blue, and it’s going to be distributed directly through , as well as through HTC, Amazon, Best Buy and U.S. carriers, with a projected launch time frame of this holiday season. It costs $199, and is up for pre-order now at HTC’s dedicated website. HTC is putting high hopes on this gadget as a way for it to expand its potential product portfolio, but this honestly seems like a tough sell based on what was revealed on stage. GoPro has recently begun efforts to expand beyond the professional market, especially with the it just announced, and smartphone cameras are still taking over, so HTC has its work cut out for it in igniting consumer interest in this $199 standalone camera.
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HTC Debuts The “Auto Selfie,” And Duplicates Frontback With New Eye Photo Software | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 10 | 8 | HTC is debuting its new “Eye experience” camera software suite. The new camera software has an auto selfie feature, which automatically takes the photo once the phone has been held steady for a couple seconds, and voice commands including “Say Cheese” and “Action” will snap a photo or start recording video automatically. You can also use the new double camera feature to shoot both front and back images at the same time, and compose them into a single image by placing them side-by-side. You can also intelligently crop out the image from the front-facing self camera, taking only the picture of you, and overlay it on the image from the back. New face-tracking tech also keeps the camera while you’re video chatting, and can track up to four faces at once. What’s ironic is that while this was being announced, HTC was actually live-streaming its event with what seemed like handheld DSLR cameras, which resulted in a generally pretty nauseating effect. The software is rolling out to existing HTC devices, as well as new hardware announced today. |
HTC’s Desire Eye Puts Selfie And Back Cameras On Equal Footing | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 10 | 8 | HTC’s new Desire Eye is a brand new camera that includes two 13 megapixel cameras, with the same capabilities front and back. Each has a dual color LED flash, similar to that found on the iPhone, and they come in two-color plastic unibody designs. It has IPX67 waterproofing, (which is the same as that found in the Samsung Galaxy S5) and is good for quick submersion in shallow water, and splash protection. It drops the Duo camera, which is probably a good thing, as frankly this was one of HTC’s big weaknesses on recent devices, despite claims they made that the larger pixels on the sensor actually made for better photographs. The two-tone look is actually pretty attractive at a distance at least. [gallery ids="1067669,1067673,1067672,1067671,1067674,1067675"] HTC made the unfortunate choice of debuting these with a fashion show, which was long and painful to watch. Each model was holding one of the phones, but otherwise the connection seemed tenuous at best. The new smartphone ships with HTC’s new , which includes the formidable auto-selfie feature, and HTC’s own take on a Frontback-style app. Other than that the phone looks pretty enticing, though its Desire line classification likely means it won’t be a flagship killer. We’ll add full specs and availability to this post once they become available. |
Belkin Explains Why Its Routers Stopped Working | Matt Burns | 2,014 | 10 | 8 | Yesterday morning, Belkin routers the Internet. In a statement provided to TechCrunch Belkin identified and outlined steps it will take to prevent it from happening again: “One of our cloud services associated with maintaining router operations was negatively impacted by a change made in our data center that caused a false denial of service. Normal operations were restored by 3PM PST, however, some users might still be required to reset their router and/or cable modem to regain connectivity. Moving forward, we will continue to monitor, improve and validate the system to ensure our routers continue to work properly in the event connectivity to our cloud environment is not available.” It took Belkin some 15 hours to fix the issue, which caused wide-eyed speculation and conspiracy theories. Even with this explanation, it’s a scary thought that a local networking device can be disabled or even controlled from a remote server. Apparently, per the official statement, the outage was not caused by Belkin uploading buggy firmware, but rather one of Belkin’s remote operations. |
Slack Changes Sign-In Process On Desktop To Remove Team Names [Updated] | Ryan Lawler | 2,014 | 10 | 8 | is one of the hottest startups out there right now, after having won over a wide range of tech companies with its enterprise collaboration tool. Usually that would be a good thing, except that different projects those companies are working on thanks to a “feature” that makes team names visible to unauthenticated users. Earlier, the feature in question allowed anyone to sign up using any random email address at a specific domain, and then prompts them to select teams that are available at their company. That’s great for creating a fast onboarding workflow for users, but not so great when any random person can spoof an email address at a company’s domain and have unauthenticated access to a list of teams. Slack says the visibility of those team names was not entirely its fault. In a statement, the company points out that team discoverability via email domain is a setting team owners and administrators can control. It can also be set so that users can join by invitation only, which Slack says will not make team names visible to all. That might be the case, but it’s silly to blame users for a setting that probably should have been turned off by default. While it might have resulted in fewer employees immediately signing up for teams if they needed to be invited, the unintended consequence of exposing top-secret projects is probably a much bigger issue for its customers. That’s not to say the company doesn’t realize there’s a problem with its sign-on process. In the statement, Slack acknowledged that as companies have added more and more teams, the sign-in process has become more cumbersome anyway. As a result, it’s looking to refine that process to streamline onboarding, as well as adding features like single sign-on to address other issues. Slack has since , and says a change is also in the works for its mobile apps, which it hopes to have live over the coming weeks. The company said that the change will make team names no longer visible when a user signs in, while it overhauls the entire sign-in process. In the meantime the company says it will be reaching out to clients to clarify settings and how they affect whether or not team names are visible to unauthenticated users. That is, if those team admins aren’t already aware of the issue . Here is Slack’s statement in its entirety on the subject: We understand that there is concern that people attempting to sign in to a Slack team were able to see all the teams associated with a particular email domain, even when the user was unauthenticated. There has been a good deal of confusion about this and we’d like to clarify. The ability to view team names that relate to a particular team’s email domain or individual’s email address is a feature designed to make it easy for our users to find and access teams. Many people who use Slack have team discovery via email domain enabled. This is a setting that the team owner and administrators control. It allows anyone using a particular email domain to see all the teams that have enabled the self-signup process for that domain. The majority of Slack users see these screens when they sign in. To break this down a bit more: when a team is created, team owners have the option to allow anyone using a particular email domain (for example: anyone@MyCompanyNameHere.com) to view and sign up to join that team. Alternately, team owners can set the preference more narrowly so that people can join by invitation only, which does not make the team name visible to everyone at that domain. These settings can be changed at any time by team owners. As companies have added more and more Slack teams, we’ve realized that this sign in process, designed to make team communication faster and easier, has itself become cumbersome for many. We have been working on updating our sign in process to address this, as well as adding support for single sign-on (SSO) and other improvements to streamline the sign in process. We are working hard to push those changes out quickly, which will address this issue in a holistic way. In the meantime, we are clarifying our language about this setting so it’s very clear to team owners and administrators that team names are discoverable in this manner and are communicating to our users how they can change this setting or any of their team names. At Slack we pride ourselves on listening to our users and and being as quick to respond as we can. We also want to take the time to make sure we understand a concern so we can address it properly and thoroughly. We take security seriously and encourage all security researchers to use our responsible disclosure policy, which is outlined at . |
Watch HTC’s ‘Double Exposure’ Phone (And Camera?) Event Live Right Here | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 10 | 8 | [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQzqjPx-50Y?feature=player_embedded&w=640&h=360] HTC has an event today, kicking off at 4 PM ET, and it’s called “Double Exposure,” which has led everyone to logically conclude that it’s camera-related. The rumor mill has been actively trying to anticipate what’s coming, and it seems highly probable we’ll witness the introduction of new selfie-specific smartphones based on the HTC One M8, and the lower-cost Desire range. The so-called One M8 Eye and Desire Eye, one or both of which might be announced later today, are supposed to pack a really powerful front shooter, with as many as 13 MP, with an equally beefy camera on the back. HTC has been eschewing big megapixel sensors in its smartphone cameras over the last couple of years, preferring instead to champion its ‘UltraPixel’ tech, which uses larger pixels instead. The new Eye cameras might signal a new generation of this tech, or a move back to higher resolution sensors. HTC is also said to be planning a new GoPro-style action camera reveal for this event, which could also help explain the ‘Double’ in ‘Double Exposure.’ This gadget has been leaked a bunch, and could resemble a little periscope. A journalist on Twitter published photos he claims are the new camera earlier today, and they resemble those found in a still frame in HTC’s own promo. I’m very curious to see why HTC thinks it can do a better job than GoPro in this market with what looks like a spiritual successor to the Flip Video camera, so I’ll be watching the above right along with you at 4 PM. Is this the HTC RE Camera to be unveiled in about 5 hours? — Flavio (@flapic) |
Could A Nobel Prize-Winning Innovation Have Almost Been Overlooked By Silicon Valley? | Vinod Khosla | 2,014 | 10 | 8 | I want to congratulate Shuji Nakamura (pictured above), the founder of Khosla Ventures portfolio company , and his fellow collaborators who were awarded the yesterday. They join an esteemed group of Nobel laureates that includes Albert Einstein, Marie Curie and Niels Bohr, all of whom have changed the course of human history. In 2001, after reading a technical article written by Shuji about GaN on GaN LEDs, we began a series of conversations spanning the course of seven years about the potential magnitude of the technology’s application to lighting. These conversations eventually led to Shuji starting Soraa in 2008. Yesterday, the Nobel Prize committee finally this groundbreaking work. “The LED lamp holds great promise for increasing the quality of life for over 1.5 billion people around the world who lack access to electricity grids: due to low power requirements it can be powered by cheap local solar power.” Most of Silicon Valley has turned its back on the groundbreaking research required to ultimately transform how people live. Rather than focusing on lighting the world, investors are too often myopic about understanding or investing in this kind of high-risk, deep scientific innovation. True innovation is hard; even the Nobel Prize committee has recognized that Shuji and his partners, “succeeded where everyone else had failed.” Physics-based technology development and startups are extraordinarily difficult as many valuable things are. Today, Soraa is the only GaN on GaN LED in the world, and it’s on a trajectory to be the most efficient LED lighting technology by far. In the Silicon Valley tradition, Soraa defied conventional wisdom that its technology was too expensive and impractical. Many pundits advised against its approach, but today, GaN on GaN requires 80 percent less capital expenditure and 80 percent less material to produce the same amount of light as a conventional LED. Further, Soraa’s LEDs last far longer and produce better-quality light than any other lighting technology today. Soraa is now on its third generation of LED products, and its future is promising, but success was not always obvious. On multiple occasions, the technology was at risk of never seeing the light of day. The company nearly failed multiple times for lack of funding and required many bridge financing rounds, short-term payroll patches and even personal loans of substantial magnitude for this impactful technology to survive. Because of our persistence, we are now fortunate to be large financial stakeholders but only because it was hard to find co-investors. Many times, we weren’t sure we’d be able to sustain such an ambitious undertaking. It took real perseverance through difficult periods by the founders and management team to get to where Soraa is today. At one point, a KV operating partner even served as the interim CEO. Although Soraa may not be considered a complete success just yet and lots of hard work still remains, it is doubtful that this technology will disappear today, as was the risk just as recently as a year ago. Notwithstanding the rapid growth in revenue and success over the last year, there were still challenges in the past, including securing additional financing, which was especially difficult because the company was categorized as a cleantech investment. In fact, other notable entrepreneurs working on world-changing sustainable energy efforts, like Elon Musk, went through similar turbulence to secure funding. Tesla had more than its share of near-death experiences, and Musk personally provided financial support, red-lining his ability to fund the company when no outside investors would. In Silicon Valley, the appetite for risk and having courage of one’s convictions sometimes waivers around unfamiliar technologies, hard stuff and new areas, especially if it is out of fashion. LEDs will undoubtedly light the future: “As about one fourth of world electricity consumption is used for lighting purposes, the LEDs contribute to saving the Earth’s resources. Materials consumption is also diminished as LEDs last up to 25,000 or more hours, compared to 1,000 for incandescent bulbs and 10,000 hours for fluorescent lights.” Now, envision one-fifth the energy consumption with Soraa’s technology. In the , lighting will be cheaper and more efficient since LEDs will eliminate dangerous high voltage wiring and will not require conduits or electricians. As a result, lighting also will become more mobile and flexible. For example, as one moves a desk or dining table, it will also be easier to move the accompanying lights. As lamps produce less heat, air-conditioning bills will go down, too. Combined with networking and home sensors, new-generation lighting could enable highly creative and higher efficiency applications. Consider networked buildings, new controls from your smartphone, enhanced personalization and distributed sensing, all of which Soraa is developing. Because of superior lighting sources and lower heat emission, imagine flat lights that look like a sheet of wallpaper, lighted fabrics, 3D-printed lights and the possibilities if each light has its own IP address. The innovations will enable complete design freedom. Lighting innovation is still in its infancy. When Albert Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1921 for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect, there were still so many advancements that would stem from his work, from the control of atomic energy to space exploration and even applications of light. Today, much of the world still lives in darkness. The resource-rich lifestyle 700 million people enjoy — and we take for granted with the flip of a light switch — is one for which 7 billion people are still striving. Entrepreneurship is likely the only necessary if not sufficient response to meet the global population’s desires for a better life and that is the promise of Silicon Valley. If we are to avoid the potentially catastrophic consequences of climate change, we need to back many more Shuji Nakamuras in even more areas of technology innovation. We must not be afraid to fail in attempting these invaluable but risky innovations. The biggest risk we can take is to not take any risk at all. |
Airbnb and Uber Face Some Harsh Realities | Ron Miller | 2,014 | 10 | 8 | and are maturing startups both facing some hard realities as they grow. While they have found a loyal and happy user base, they are facing tough resistance from not just the taxi and hotel industries they are disrupting, but also political and social resistance from quarters they probably never imagined when they started their businesses. In Europe and the US we are beginning to see a backlash against the sharing economy idea. For Uber, this means fighting the existing taxi industry and its government backers. The prevailing argument is that Uber drivers aren’t regulated like taxis and it creates an unfair advantage. Meanwhile Airbnb has been accused of undermining laws related to hotels and rental agreements. It has reached the point where the two companies can’t simply pretend they are casual startups trying to launch a new kind of business. There’s far too much at stake now with their huge valuations and billions in venture capital –and these political and social elements could be beginning to catch up with them. Just last week for instance, San Francisco floated some changes and a group of housing activists who are tired of seeing apartments converted into long-term Airbnb rentals aren’t happy about it. In fact, last night the board of supervisors with some regulations designed primarily to prevent people from using their apartments and houses as permanent rentals –along with other controls such as Airbnb hosts registering with the city for a $50 fee. Airbnb was created as a way to rent out an extra room or even your house or apartment during times you weren’t there, but over time it has morphed into more than that, and now some people see bigger profits using their properties for short-term rentals using the Airbnb platform. In a tight housing market like San Francisco’s this is making people understandably cranky. Meanwhile, Uber, which offers a creative alternative to traditional taxi service by eliminating the dispatcher and allowing Uber users to find drivers close by using their smartphones, has run into a labor problem it might not have considered. Last week, reports surfaced that is being planned for New York, San Francisco and London. Apparently some drivers aren’t happy about temporary 20 percent UberX price cuts being made permanent and they are flexing their collective labor muscles. This is aside from the fact the , France has adopted legislation to make it difficult for services like Uber before picking people up, it and traditional taxi services go ballistic every time the company tries to make a foothold in a new city. Airbnb has also faced legal hurdles as altogether as illegal hotels and others have at least looked at them dubiously as they try to take hold. These services both came in and provided a way to take advantage of social, mobile and the cloud and blow up existing industries. They gave the people what they wanted, and they have thrived, but as they grow, they run into more and more obstacles and they can’t live in a start-up bubble anymore. TIME TO FACE THE MUSIC AND DANCE Both of these companies have to face the harsh political and social realities of disruptive change. They are stepping on toes and in cases like Airbnb’s permanent rental situation, they are experiencing first-hand the law of unintended consequences. Surely providing a platform for people to rent out unused space is one thing, but when people begin to take advantage of it as a permanent business model, it changes the dynamic completely, and when you mix this with a volatile housing situation you begin to see that it’s not just about the basic idea anymore. At some point, you have to deal with these other issue too. I was in San Francisco recently and I made use of traditional taxis and Uber. The taxi drivers were feeling squeezed by Uber’s pricing while their prices were fixed and they couldn’t compete head on. Uber drivers on the other hand seemed to be doing it for the most part for extra money, driving for 4 or 5 hours after finishing a full time job. One guy I met was a former taxi driver and he said the Uber model of passengers finding him beat scanning the sidewalks for his next fare. In other words, Uber drivers seemed satisfied, but every company faces labor issues sooner or later, but I’m sure Uber just never expected it to happen so quickly. They are trying promotions to help the business grow, but as they make decisions like price cuts, they are learning that they are no longer making them in a vacuum. They have drivers who want a say and it’s probably fair to say management hadn’t considered that when they made the decision to make the price cuts permanent. But Uber hasn’t done itself any favors either as recent news reports have suggested that where the company hired contractors armed with burner phones and credit cards to call Lyft and then recruit its drivers. What’s more, Lyft accused Uber of requesting and canceling rides. For a company facing serious political problems, acting like a bully is not the smartest business approach. HERE’S WHY THESE COMPANIES MATTER The two businesses have obviously hit a nerve though and that’s likely because they’re starting to be more than an irritant to established businesses in each of their industries. Uber has received $1.5B in funding so far on an otherworldly valuation of $17B. Whether that number is right or not is subject to debate, but if you believe . That means that Uber is already at 17 percent of that number in terms of its projected valuation. These are all sake-of-argument numbers, mind you, but you can see when you combine Uber with a few other similar services with much smaller market shares, you could be getting to the point where you are making the traditional taxi and limo industry extremely nervous. Then consider the fact some than the existing one because disruptive business models by their nature tend to grow the market by bringing in more people through simplification and lower cost. That means the overall market potential could be even greater and services like Uber are in a good position to grab chunks of it, traditional taxis, not so much. Airbnb meanwhile has raised in the neighborhood of $795M and reportedly has a valuation of around $10B, not quite as hot as Uber, but consider that according to a , the company “boasts 550,000 listings in 192 countries, and will soon surpass the and as the world’s largest .” Again, you can see how that might get the hotel owners’ attention. It’s also worth noting that Uber is most popular in San Francisco where there is a large population with disposable income who can afford to use car services like this. What happens to Uber if the bubble bursts as many have been predicting lately? Will that have an impact on Uber’s bottom line? If there is a general worldwide recession due to macro factors, what impact will that have on Uber? Airbnb is more insulated from these types of economic fluctuations because as one Silicon Valley insider told me recently, the model works in a good economy or a bad one. And this person believed that Airbnb might have a brighter future because of this. HANDLE THEM WITH CARE Regardless, the fact is I’ve used both these services and they are undeniably convenient and my feeling is they should be given space to grow if for no other reason than they are so popular with users who love these services. But over time as we observe how these types of services work, there will have to be guidelines. They don’t have to be punitive like Germany or France, but they will need guard rails eventually and governments will have to strike the right balance between protecting the public and letting these companies grow. One thing is clear, they should not be regulated strictly for the purpose of protecting an established industry, which seems to be the case in Europe. Instead, they should be regulated in reasonable ways to provide consumer protection with the understanding that you don’t want to stifle what’s good about them. are a good starting point as a model for other cities to follow. Both of these start-up companies are operating in increasingly hostile environments and they have to come to grips with that. They are learning that it’s one thing to come up with a great idea and it’s wonderful when funders and users reinforce how great that idea is, but as they experience great success, it’s not a simple matter of just running your business anymore. There are so many more external issues to take into consideration and these companies are facing these harsh realities right now. How they deal with them could help determine their long-term success because companies and people are not measured by the good times, they are measured by how they react to hostility and challenges and these companies are being tested in a big way right now. |
null | Ingrid Lunden | 2,014 | 10 | 30 | null |
Jimmy Buffett Asked Spotify’s CEO For A Raise | Kyle Russell | 2,014 | 10 | 8 | At today’s Vanity Fair Summit in San Francisco, musical artist Jimmy Buffett made a quick appearance to ask a question from the audience to Daniel Ek, CEO and founder of Spotify: “When can we get a raise?” Buffett opened his question by noting that he’s been in the music business for a while, and that payouts that trickle to artists from music streaming services are lower as a proportion of total amount spent by consumers than under previous music media paradigms. Ek responded by noting that Spotify has a site for artists that allows for “transparency” in the process and, after prompting from the panel moderator, pointed out that Spotify paid out $1 billion to “the music industry” last year. Neither Buffett nor the audience seemed particularly satisfied by the response. |
Mobile Dossier Startup Refresh Finds A Revenue Model With Its Salesforce App | Ryan Lawler | 2,014 | 10 | 8 | , the mobile tool for , is now positioning itself to help sales teams be smarter about their clients and potential clients. To do that, the company has created a new product for Salesforce’s AppExchange that will allow users to access detailed information about the people in their professional network. Ever since it launched in April, Refresh has been one of my favorite tools for learning more about people I am scheduled to meet with. Especially when I am having coffee with someone for the first time, the app enables me to quickly get up to speed on their background without them having to tell me. It does that by surfacing publicly available information from a wide range of sources, including social networks like Twitter and professional networks like LinkedIn, as well as a user’s contacts and email, to provide actionable insights about people booked on my calendar. Frequently that also results in learning about common professional connections or things we have in common — like where we both grew up, for example — that helps result in more interesting conversations. And, well, having a record of our interactions by email or previous meetings is just plain invaluable. So I can imagine how useful the app would be in a relationship-driven business like sales, where keeping tabs on a potential customer, being able to see your previous communication with them, and finding common connections to get referrals would be a huge advantage. It’s no surprise then that Refresh is taking all of those insights and making them available where many salespeople do their work — that is, within Salesforce. With a new product available on the Salesforce AppExchange, customers will be able to integrate Refresh’s data on top of their Salesforce dashboard. The Salesforce app is available in part thanks to the Refresh rolled out recently, but it has a few advantages. For one thing, users on Salesforce will be able to save Refresh data back into their Salesforce records as notes, share information with their colleagues via Salesforce Chatter, or email insights to any contacts outside Salesforce. The service also works with the Salesforce mobile app. For now, a bio with Refresh information appears as a widget in the Salesforce dashboard when customers add it from the AppExchange, and more detailed info can be accessed as a sort of pop-out that appears above the dashboard when clicked. In the future, however, Refresh will work to bring more of that information directly into Salesforce. Automatically adding a record of previous emails, for instance, could be helpful in moving future conversations forward. For Refresh, the availability of the Salesforce app also provides the company with a revenue stream. While its mobile dossier app will remain free, Salesforce customers will pay $20 per user per month to access its data in their dashboard. Refresh has raised from investors that include Redpoint Ventures, Charles River Ventures and Foundation Capital. |
A Brief History Of Tesla | Matt Burns | 2,014 | 10 | 8 | public in 2010, it became the first American car company to do so since Ford Motor Company in 1956. Since then, Tesla’s stock has soared as the company keeps rolling out new features and models while simultaneously capturing the imagination of a curious public. What follows is a brief history of Tesla starting at its founding not by Elon Musk, but Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in July 2003. |
FCC Slams AT&T With $105M Settlement For Bogus Customer Charges | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 10 | 8 | The FCC slapped AT&T with the largest “enforcement action” in its history, the agency announced today. The total bill, $105 million, will include $80 million in payments to scammed AT&T customers, $20 million to “state governments participating in the settlement,” with the last $5 million going to the FCC itself, it said today in a statement. The charges relate to cramming, a practice that sees unwanted recurring charges for ringtones, wallpapers and the like end up on consumers’ cell phone bills, often unbeknownst to them. They end up there, placed by nasty people out to harm folks. People are often tricked into signing up for something that they did not understand would entail a regular payment. A normal cost for one of these “crammed” services is $9.99 per month. According to the FCC, AT&T would sometimes only refund part of the crammed charges after consumer complaint. AT&T presumably kept its cut of the withheld funds. The cut that the phone company takes is said to be . The $105 million settlement, of which on a portion is a true fine is not enough. AT&T only paying $25 million in punitive damages is a farce. For a large corporation to allow for the vulnerable to be taken advantage of by what FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler called “unscrupulous” folks for its personal enrichment is not merely sad, it’s abusive. The FCC announced that, as part of the agreement, it has “secured strong consumer protections” that will “include requirements that AT&T Mobility no longer offer commercial third-party ‘premium SMS’ charges, adopt processes to obtain express informed consent from customers prior to allowing third-party charges on their phone bills.” That that was not the law before now is somewhat dispiriting. It’s a good day for the consumer, given that at least one mobile bad practice has been successfully fined. Is cramming over? No. But it is a step in the right direction. |
Google Launches New $50/Year Chromebooks For Work Subscription Option | Frederic Lardinois | 2,014 | 10 | 8 | Google today is a new subscription service for businesses that use Chromebooks. For $50 per year and device, businesses can now subscribe to get access to Google’s advanced Chrome OS management features and support. With this, Google now gives businesses the option to either pay a one-time fee of $150 for access to the management console and support, or to subscribe to this new $50/year/device plan. Most businesses probably plan for a three-year replacement cycle, so there isn’t a huge price difference there, but Google allows for license transfers to new devices with the annual subscription plan while the perpetual license can only be transferred to a device of the same model. It’s worth noting that the new annual licenses are only available for Chrome for Work customers — not for educational institutions and nonprofits. In addition to the new pricing option, Google is launching a couple of new features today that are now part of the advanced subscription/one-time payment service. The most important new feature for many of the businesses that want to adopt Chromebooks is likely support for single sign-on. With this, enterprises can use their existing sign-on service like CA SiteMinder, Microsoft AD FS, Okta, Ping Identity, SecureAuth, and SimpleSAMLphp (basically, services that use the ) to allow their employees to log in to their Chromebooks now. That’s a big deal for many companies that don’t want to fully go with Google’s services and aren’t using Google Apps, for example. With this update, businesses can now also easily provision their devices with client certificates for accessing 802.1X EAP-TLS wireless networks and mutual TLS-protected web resources. Admins can use Google’s management console to manage these certificates and distribute them to their users. Aruba Networks, Cloudpath Networks and Aerohive Networks have already implemented these features. |
This Is CG | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 10 | 1 | This is your semi-regular reminder that CGI is at or beyond the point of absurdity, that everything on the Internet is fake, that there is no spoon, etc. Because seriously. Look at that. I think this is the first time I’ve watched a video like this and wandered right on past the , only to plummet backwards into it when I realized — about halfway through, mind you — that it was rendered. This render was made by , who previously spent 8 years creating the wonderful one-man short film, . [Via ] |
Tesla Will Announce Something Called “The D” On October 9th | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 10 | 1 | Elon Musk has just tweeted about his plans to announce two things next week: one thing called “the D”, and “something else” that is left shrouded in mystery for now. He did this by saying that it was “time to unveil the D”, later claiming to have no idea that the phrase “unveil the D” would make just about anyone who has spent any time on the Internet ever laugh and look nervously around the room and wonder if it’s okay to say out loud and/or write blog posts about. About time to unveil the D and something else — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) I love the Internet. Comments had me literally ROFL. No, it wasn't intentional. Glad I didn't mention the other letter! — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) This, from a dude the “Model E” so he could have the Model S, Model E, and Model X. So what is the Tesla D? Tis a mystery, for now — though we are, of course, digging for more details. The teaser image shows a tiny glimpse of a front end with Tesla’s signature headlights. Did they decide to rename the Model 3? Probably not — Tesla . Is this something else entirely? A smaller SUV than their Model X, perhaps? Stay tuned. |
Why Your Geography Does Not Control Your Destiny | Contributor | 2,014 | 10 | 1 | Now more than ever, geography no longer controls your in the tech world. While fashion centers around cities like Paris and New York, oil and gas around Calgary and Houston, and cars in Detroit and Tokyo, good software and hardware companies are sprouting up everywhere. The trend is so rampant that “how I built my startup outside Silicon Valley” is no longer the most relevant story. At Shopify, we made the news last year for raising $100M in Series C funding. We did it from Canada, yet our story would’ve been similar had we been located in the UK, Israel or Brazil. When I look at how we built our business, the three essential building blocks – funding, talent, and users – are all more geographically agnostic than ever before. The Internet has changed the venture funding landscape. Ten years ago, it was much harder to capture an investor’s attention outside of Silicon Valley. If you were looking for backers, you needed to make the rounds on Sand Hill Road and had to know the right people. Today, a startup can list themselves on AngelList and receive 25 introduction requests the next day. Now we talk less and less about “cross-border investment.” They are all just investments. Silicon Valley’s top VCs travel all over the world for the next big ideas. Just look at China’s Alibaba, the largest tech IPO ever. At Shopify, our investors have never questioned why we want to be based in Ottawa. What does this mean for a startup looking for funding? Stop agonizing over whether you need to move to Silicon Valley. You will still need to connect with the right people and make regular visits to California, but money will flow to the best ideas with the best execution. Never underestimate the power of a good product and happy users; investors care far more about those two things than where you’re based. Startups around San Francisco pioneered an unprecedented fun and creative office ethos. Perks like office yoga classes, bringing your dog to work, beer on tap, and foosball tables have become de facto standards at Silicon Valley startups – but this same culture can be recreated anywhere. We installed a two-story slide in Shopify’s head office in Ottawa. While a permit for an indoor slide may be a relatively common request in Palo Alto, it was the first time our local city council had heard of such a thing. The globalization of the tech world demands that you get creative and look beyond your local borders to set the benchmark for the kind of company you want to be. Startups today compete on a global stage not just for customers, but for top talent as well. You might not count Uber, Facebook or Google as your physical neighbors, but you’re still competing with them to attract the brightest developers, designers, and marketers that the world has to offer. At Shopify, 20% of our employees come from outside Ottawa and many of those are recruited internationally. The rapid consumerization of tech has democratized the selling process. The old adage, “No one ever got fired for buying IBM” does not hold true today. Whether it’s a B2B or B2C tool, users are now evaluating solutions based on simplicity, performance, cost and elegance. Software sales are done much less face-to-face and much more online. A vendor’s location and people on the ground has become largely irrelevant. In a sense, startups located outside of a major tech hub have an advantage when selling to a global market. There is little risk that a company or founder will become too insular or fail to engage with a diverse customer base. When you’re located in a small market, you naturally look beyond your local borders from day one. Don’t get me wrong – we spend a lot of time connecting with our customers in person whenever we can, but we go where they are. From LA to Australia to Spain to India, we’re getting creative with conferences, competitions, retail tours and pop-up events to allow us to deeply understand what they need. While it’s easier to sell from afar, startups should never let technology replace face-to-face time altogether. As every startup is unique, I would never claim to have the right answer for every entrepreneur struggling with the decision of where to set up his or her business. However, it has never been easier to launch a product, build a customer base, and grow a business from anywhere. The tech landscape has become a geographic melting pot where the best ideas and startups survive. Every city has its own set of advantages and disadvantages, and the key is understanding the nuances of your own location. There is no direct flight between Ottawa and San Francisco, so we have become regulars at O’Hare Airport in Chicago. While inconvenient, this is hardly an insurmountable problem. On the plus side, Ottawa temperatures drop to arctic freezing levels between November and March, making work a welcome (and warm) distraction. While geography is no longer , there is one important lesson to learn from Silicon Valley, and that is ambition. Spend less time worrying about being in the right place, and instead focus on building the right company. |
YesVideo’s Legacy Republic Is Building A Freelance Workforce To Digitize Family Photos and Videos | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 10 | 1 | announced a new initiative today that aims to recruit an army of “Legacy Makers” to help digitize family photos and videos. For those of you who aren’t familiar with YesVideo, the company was founded back in 1999 and focuses on converting videos (in formats like VHS and 8 millimeter film) to digital, then making the content available online and on DVD. With , the company is expanding that mission to include photos. In a bigger shift, it’s also building a salesforce of independent contractors who handle the work of digitizing the videos and photos. Brian Knapp, who is YesVideo’s chief revenue officer and heads the Legacy Republic team, described these contractors as “micro entrepreneurs,” similar to an Uber driver or an Airbnb host. Legacy Republic trains them and provides them with iPad apps, then they split the proceeds from their sales with the company. Knapp said this approach will allow YesVideo to dramatically expand its efforts to tackle what he called “a fundamental problem for many households in the country.” The company estimates that there are 2 billion “non-digital” videos and photo albums stored by US families, but it says that the physical media is deteriorating quickly, and it needs to digitized if it’s going to last. So Knapp said he’s hoping these Legacy Makers won’t just be interested in making some extra cash, but also attracted by the “mission-driven opportunity.” Apparently the company has been beta testing the program with about 20 initial Legacy Makers for the past nine months. YesVideo is also announcing that it’s funding the initiative with $6 million. Since Legacy Republic is owned and operated by YesVideo, it’s not really an equity investment like most of the deals we cover on TechCrunch, but more of a financial commitment. |
With A New “Experience Studio”, Echo Aims To Bring Its Social Media Curation To A Broader Audience | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 10 | 1 | is a startup that’s been helping big companies and their agencies create widgets that highlight social media conversations. Now, with the launch of a new product called the Echo Experience Studio, co-founder and Chief Product Officer Chris Saad said the company has expanded its technology and made it accessible to a much broader group of customers, including small businesses, conferences, and journalists. The idea of creating widgets and pages showcasing social media content is hardly new, but Saad told me that his goal here was to create something that was “dead simple.” To show me what the Experience Studio can do, Saad quickly created a page that highlighted comments and media about our TechCrunch Disrupt conference, with content that’s updated in real-time. To build it, Saad basically just uploaded a header image, typed in different tags/search terms, then dragged-and-dropped different elements around the page — . If you’re not quite as excited about Disrupt as I am, you can see some other sample pages on — yes, there’s , but also to highlight the news in real-time. These pages can also include prompt users to participate in the conversation, say by reminding them to tweet with a certain hashtag. Behind the scenes, Saad said Echo has built a number of automated curation tools that can, among other filter out content includes certain words or comes from certain users: “We do as much as we can to automate everything while giving you really fine-tuned control.” And yes, these pages work on mobile, too. Beyond the improvements to the product itself, Saad also said that pricing has changed significantly. There’s a version that’s completely free, as long as you’re willing to run it on the Echo domain, with Echo branding. If you want to embed these pages on your site, you have to pay for a pro account, with pricing starting at $99 a month. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih_UG03j4z4&w=560&h=315] |
Box Said To Further Delay Its IPO | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 10 | 1 | Box, an enterprise-facing cloud storage and productivity company, is its initial public offering (IPO). The delay could last until its fiscal fourth quarter, which ends after the first month of the new year. This is viscerally unsurprising given that the company has consistently said that it will go public when it makes sense, and that it closed that left if with more than $200 million in the bank. Box filed to go public with intention to do so. Despite some notes that investors are , Box’s losses were larger than the market expected, and its fiscal first quarter numbers that brought were not in line with select expectations. The company has shown a shrinking negative GAAP operating margin over time. That figure is now under 100%. Box continues to spend heavily on sales and marketing, the impact of which has skyrocketed its revenue more than 100% in the last year. Its losses, however, have also increased, though at a slower rate. When those two graphs bump into one another may be when Box pulls the trigger. In our current climate of loss rates being less in vogue than cash, Box managed to end up boxed into a difficult corner: The revenue growth-focused market that it expected to launch into managed to turn around roughly 8 minutes before it decided to hit go. Box didn’t answer the phone. |
Night At The Roculus Makes Bobbing Your Head To “What Is Love” Funny Again For A Minute | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 10 | 1 | The 90s may be over… the pogs stuffed in a box in the garage, the bowl cuts shaved, the grungy hemp necklaces thrown away… But we have virtual reality. We can rebuild it. And, apparently, we’re starting by rebuilding the back seat of the car from . As predicted, one of the most popular early uses of virtual reality is to recreate scenes and environments from pop culture, transmuting them from something you into something you . Want to roam around a glitchy, ? Sure! Want to ? Okay! And now… [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx4BGwc0LVY&w=640&h=390] For extra laughs, check out , with guest appearances from just about every awful 90s web design cliche in the book. |
An Immigrant Experience | Contributor | 2,014 | 10 | 1 | Four times in my life I have been an immigrant: in Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Singapore, and currently in San Francisco. Each time I have enjoyed a certain level of comfort (with many of my expenses covered by a company). But, every time, I have still had to grapple daily with language difficulties, cultural gaps, and constant minor, day-to-day life issues. Being an immigrant gives you an external, objective view on the country welcoming you, and also, after few months, on the country you left behind. Arriving in San Francisco I was intrigued by with Paul Graham. Paul noted that non-Americans are less likely to build a successful company because of their accents. I agree that not speaking fluent English is an additional challenge for any professional in the high-tech sector. In a world ̶where communication has become both art and science, where media and conferences are key to spreading ideas, where videos and TV dominate the world of news, where evangelization and elevator pitches are critical skills ̶ the art of public speaking is a key success factor. It is wrong, however, to focus only on the issue of having foreign accent. As a serial entrepreneur, I know that creating a successful company goes beyond the ability to pitch it. Execution, team management, vision, and passion are also crucial elements for success. Delving into this subject, and determined to search beyond the usual explanations, I found that three powerful elements demonstrate that immigration is actually a source of wealth and innovation in Silicon Valley. An outstanding written by Gregor Aish, Robert Gebeloff and Kevin Quealy charted how Americans and non-Americans have moved from one state to another. As quoted in the article “Migration can reveal the dynamism of a state’s economy or a cultural renaissance”. California is an interesting case study. From 1940 to 1975 the massive immigration to California came from other US States. By 2012, these migrants from other US states represented only 15% of the Californian influx vs 28% from outside the US. The non US immigration moved from 16% in 1980 to 28% (+75%) in 2012. In both the other biggest GDP contributor states, Texas and New York you also see a significant growth of non US immigration. In 1980, 14% of New Yorkers were born outside US, 24% in 2012. For Texas this growth in foreign-born immigrants went from 7% to 17%. The first basic conclusion can be that when an economy grows, it needs a larger, skilled workforce and therefore opens doors to migrants from abroad. The answer is probably more complex, and if the first statement is right, one top down and one bottom up element leads to stronger conclusion. Global conducted by Duke University and the University of California, Berkeley published in October 2012 shows that on average, in the USA, 24% of companies in engineering or technology have one or more immigrants as a founder. This criteria reaches even 44% in Silicon Valley. It means almost half of high-tech companies have an immigrant non-US citizen as a key founder. So immigrants are creating values and jobs for the US economy and American workforces vs. just supplying labor for new work opportunities. High-tech companies founded or co-founded by immigrants generated half a million jobs and $63 billion in sales in 2012. This is powerful evidence that even with a foreign accent you can be successful in the US. But the most interesting fact is the number of foreigners who founded highly successful U.S. companies. Here are some notable examples: This phenomenon is called the “American Dream” – coming from anywhere in the world and from any part of society – rich or poor, educated or uneducated, and achieving your dreams of wealth and success. As I saw these data points, I wondered why there are so many non-US born Americans in so many amazingly successful companies? The answer is probably very complex. Nevertheless two major personal motivation factors are interesting tracks to explore as a common factor: resilience and Darwinian intelligence Recently, I had the great pleasure to share a one-to-one dinner with a very successful Chinese businessman, a board member of a multi-billion dollar market cap company who has been living and working abroad for years. He told me the story of his childhood and how he was starving when he was a kid. He was part of a large family with many sisters and brothers. Despite the family’s lack of food, his mother shared their food with neighbors who were even poorer. When he asked his mother why she was giving food to the neighbors, his mother said “It is good for you to starve.” Beyond the famous Nietzsche statement “That which does not kill us makes us stronger”, it is one of the many good examples of the psychological resilience of the young. The ability of a child to adapt to a difficult environment lead him to over perform later on. Immigrant children usually went through a tough time in their initial country, or had many challenges to face when they arrived in the new country. These experiences gave them the will to move forward, channeling their hard times into a source of energy. In addition to offering them the origin of the resilience effect, it gave them the opportunity to train and develop their “Darwinian intelligence”. Charles Darwin stipulated that “Intelligence is based on how efficient a species became at doing the things it needs to survive.” Nowadays, in such a fast changing environment, the main intelligence for survival may have little to do with the skills learned at school. On the run, the most crucial intelligence is the one defined by Charles Darwin: When I asked my 12-year-old daughter what her biggest challenge as a newcomer to America is, she spontaneously answered “I cannot fully be myself. I have to adapt to be accepted.” As Aristotle stated “Man is by nature a social animal”. Being an immigrant forces you to evolve quickly, to modify yourself to the new environment. For an immigrant, almost overnight, everything that was acquired as absolute truth becomes irrelevant in the new country. The differences begin with the way you say good morning, your sense of humor, the way you dress, and what you like to eat for lunch. It is a complete loss of reference that has to be rebuilt as fast as possible for your survival. For the newcomer, from now to the coming years it is a daily practice of his “Darwin Intelligence”. There is no doubt that immigrants are facing many challenges on their road to success, and language is one of them. Those fences are small compared to the energy provided by an immigrant’s background. Resilience and the ability to adapt to a changing world are the most important fundamental qualities to become successful. For the last 300 years immigrants have contributed to the success of US, and continue to do so. It is the responsibility of US political leaders to guarantee that this three-centuries old behavior continues, for it is what has boosted US to the number one nation in the world. |
Incubated: How StartX Helps Stanford-Affiliated Founders Get Their Companies Off The Ground | Ryan Lawler | 2,014 | 10 | 1 | Over the past few years, has emerged to help founders from Stanford build their companies. The accelerator seeks to take advantage of all the resources at the university, as well as the wide range of tech companies nearby, to improve the ecosystem of Stanford-affiliated startups. StartX provides support and resources to founders that get accepted to the program, which include workspace and $100,000 in credits toward services to help them get their companies off the ground. And unlike other accelerators, StartX gives these perks without asking for equity in return. The most important part of the program, though, might just be the network of mentors and entrepreneurs available to founders who take part. The community of tech founders associated with Stanford includes 40,000 companies, and many of their founders are happy to pay it forward to work with teams which are part of StartX. To participate, a startup has to have at least one Stanford-affiliate founder on its team. Those companies submit an online application, and then go through rounds of interviews before they’re chosen to participate. Interviews include both a technical screening and a cultural screening to make sure they will be strong members of the StartX community. With all that in mind, StartX is focused not just on helping individual companies to thrive, but growing the community as a whole. By organizing knowledge and mentorship within that community more efficiently, the accelerator believes its startups can become stars not just in Silicon Valley but around the world. |
Microsoft Woos Enterprise With Start Button In Windows 10 | Ron Miller | 2,014 | 10 | 1 | Microsoft . Putting aside the fact they skipped version 9, and all of the jokes that could evoke, the announcement appeared to be one long apology to the enterprise. We’re sorry we dissed you in version 8 and we want to beg you to take us back. And we brought your favorite Start button. Remember, the one you’ve lived with and loved since 1995? It’s back and we hope against hope that we can pick up where we left off and keep the relationship going. What’s old is new (and familiar). Cue : Seems in Version 8, Microsoft got all cozy with consumers and the enterprise users weren’t too happy about it. So the Start button is back with a little Version 8 twist mind you just to let you know they haven’t forgotten all about tiles. When you click Start, you get the familiar looking menu, but you also get a set of customizable live tiles for your viewing pleasure (assuming you want anything to do with them). As Alex Wilhelm and Frederic Lardinois put it the other day in covering the Windows 10 launch, it wasn’t just the Start button though. Oh no, there were a lot more goodies awaiting the enterprise in Windows 10. “Microsoft is currently riffing on the following: Enterprise value, device management, the ability to customize the store to the device you are on, and a way to protect data. Or, to put it more precisely, there will be the ability of the enterprise to manage their devices, and “customize” their application store, and so forth.” So while they keep the old and familiar, they offer a few nods to more modern enterprise administrative requirements to go with it. They stress they haven’t given up on the touch interface, but maybe that’s a little fancy-schmancy for the general Windows crowd for whom a keyboard and mouse is just fine, thank you very much. Unfortunately, sometimes you try to change things up in a relationship and your partner just isn’t ready for it. They like the old ways of doing stuff. They like the same restaurants and they don’t want anything fancy. Windows users, it’s seems are like that. As , “From the early looks of Windows 10, it’s a long-overdue concession to the fact that Windows users prefer the way things used to be.” As Moynihan pointed out, almost 24 percent of worldwide Windows users are still on XP. These people have serious upgrade phobia, or maybe they just like what they know and see no reason to change. Microsoft clearly recognized they have a curmudgeonly user base and figured why fight it? These people like things the old way. Let’s just give it to them. But it makes me wonder if Microsoft is checking Seinfeld’s availability for ads, or maybe they can get the Rolling Stones to do a techno remix of Start Me Up. It worked so well in 1995. Might as well try again, right? Or perhaps even that level of change could upset their core Windows audience. Either way, Microsoft wants you to know they are really, really sorry and they will never change your OS again. Honest. |
Just Say No To This Sexual Consent App | Natasha Lomas | 2,014 | 10 | 1 | It’s an oft-trotted-out tech truism that there’s an app for everything. But when a pitch for a smartphone application for sexual consent lands in the inbox, well yes, it can certainly feel like there is indeed an app for everything. The thing is, some portions of life function far better offline than on. Or, to put it another way, an app is not always the answer. Indeed, an app might actually just be expanding the problem. The app in question — which is euphemistically entitled — pitches itself as “a simple sexual consent app for iOS and Android phones”. So simple it doesn’t even use the word “sex” once. You really can’t make that up. The notion of a “simple sexual consent app” should immediately set off alarm bells, given its oxymoronic feel. If sexual consent boils down to a question with a simple yes/no answer then why on earth do you need an app for that? And if it’s not so clear cut, well then turning an intimate dialogue between two people into a digital threesome is surely only going to complicate matters further — especially given that usage of a sexual consent app might itself apply subtle pressure for consent when someone isn’t ready or willing to do so. Or indeed if the person changes their mind after previously confirming they were “Good2Go”, as the app euphemistically rebrands sex. Reminder: No still means no, even if you previously said yes — but now there’s an app that can record and store a prior yes. And where does that leave someone who wants to revoke consent? In a more pressurized place, that’s where — regardless of the app presenting a pop-up warning screen telling users that consent can be withdrawn at any time (which does really rather undermine its entire project of communicating sexual consent via an app). Illuminating the knots* this app is tying itself in to provide some kind of ‘sexual consent workflow’ is — which does a great job of demonstrating exactly how contra-simple the process of using this “simple sexual consent app” is, with multiple choice options, confirmation screens and emails, and a unique code to be inputed by the consenting party. To affirm sexual consent both parties have to have their phones to hand and be registered users of the service. Saying no does not require signing up to the service — but those denying consent are offered the chance to sign up anyway (sex might be off the table but why waste a user acquisition opportunity, eh?). More importantly the video underlines how problematic the app’s framing is. This is most obvious in the way it reframes the core consent question — which in plain English would read: ‘do you want to have sex with me?’ — as a positive (and non-specific) collective suggestion: “Are We Good2Go?”. I mean WTF does that ? You would expect far better use of language from an app that’s purportedly aiming to fix miscommunication. After this bafflingly vague opener, the “three choices” the app offers the partner who is being asked to consent to sex are also highly dubious — given that they boil down to: no, yes, or yes. So that’s a ratio of two yeses to one no. Why not have the third choice phrased as a neutral “we need to talk” — for people who might well want to do more talking before making a yes/no decision either way — rather than the current phrasing which sets up an expectation that indecision means ‘yes with conditions’ (the app’s exact phrasing here is: “Yes, but… we need to talk”). This ‘yes majority’ ratio on the core consent question is pushing the partner who is being asked to consent in the direction of sex because the app is skewed in the direction of consent. Neutral? Not so much… If a partner does give consent the app then opens a massive can of worms by embroiling itself in the thorny dichotomy of consent vs intoxication. After a user has confirmed they are “Good2Go” (i.e. digitally agreed they will have sex) it then asks the consenting partner to assess their own sobriety level — including offering an option whereby they confirm consent even if they consider themselves “intoxicated”. So the app is basically telling a drunk person that they are still sober enough to have sex. And apparently normalizing giving (and getting) consent from an intoxicated person. Again the majority of the options at this point in the app (three out of four) skew towards consent — with only “pretty wasted” being judged by the app makers as too drunk to consent to having sex. (So if the user selects “Pretty wasted” it disables their ability to consent, saying they are too wasted to do so.) Asking a drunk person to assess how drunk they are is both a fool’s errand and hugely irresponsible. Because the thing about intoxication is, y’know, it temporarily removes a person’s ability to make sound judgements about things like their sobriety level. But hey, the app says I’m sober enough to have sex so it must be true! Given the app makers’ positioning and marketing of Good2Go as an anti-sexual assault aid — they are (and colleges are of course places filled with plenty of sexually active intoxicated people) — it’s mind-numbingly irresponsible to muddle intoxication and consent in this way. The app maker’s own also contains the below headscratcher of a paragraph — which appears to suggest that a drunk person who is too drunk to consent to sex is not too drunk to fashion a ‘lie’ about their own sobriety level. Again, terrible choice of language by an app that’s supposed to be facilitating clearer communications… Really, as one of my TC colleagues said on seeing the Good2Go app, this has to be a joke. Except, apparently, it isn’t. The app is live on the App Store and Google Play. The developers behind Good2Go claim to have positive intentions — at least their video talks about wanting to “prevent or reduce sexual assault, miscommunication and regretted activities”. Which is of course a laudable aim. But it’s not that aim that’s the issue here — it’s how they’re going about it. If — for instance — they’d made an app called ‘Let’s talk about sex’ — which generated funny conversation starters to help you casually kick off a discussion with your S.O. about doing the do and stuff that turns you on or off, then a claim about working to improve sexual communication might look more credible, because the app would actually be getting the two people involved talking generally about sex (not just focusing narrowly on the issue of consent). But that’s not what Good2Go does. It has a different agenda which explains why it’s skewing towards encouraging consent. Digging deeper into their it becomes evident why the app skews this way: it’s explicitly aiming to act as a safeguard for men who initiate sex in a situation where they might fear being accused of assault. Such as when treading Good2Go’s blurred line of intoxication, presumably: “The app is designed with two main goals in mind. One is to protect the Partner from doing something she would be uncomfortable with, and the other is .” So, just in case you were in any doubt about it, this is an app for dudes who are asking women — and in all likelihood intoxicated women — to consent to sex. Dudes who, in addition, might be worried that their sexual behavior leaves them open to accusations of sexual assault or rape. Which does rather explain the app’s problematic framing. An app offering a workflow for sexual consent is already a problematic idea — given how an ill-thought-through structure can easily pile pressure on sensitive discussions. But throw in positive bias towards guys wanting a helping hand to more easily procure consequence-free sex with somewhat drunk women and, well, it’s practically toxic. Yes, unfortunately, there is now an app for . So Good2Go? No, just no. (*A third knot to consider here is that users of this app are providing a detailed log of exactly who they have and have not had sex with to a third party entity — for free. Truly .) [ by ] |
Science Inc.’s Refame Connects Influencers With Advertisers On Vine And Instagram | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 10 | 1 | Startup studio is announcing its latest project — , a marketing platform for social apps Vine and Instagram. Science’s approach to startups is pretty diverse — it launches new companies, , and also . In this case, it’s launching Refame as part of , the organization’s division for customer acquisition and marketing, with a particular focus on reaching millennials. Refame is building up a network of users who are influential on Vine and Instagram, and it says it has developed an algorithm which determines which users will help a specific advertiser increase brand awareness and grow their audience among their target demographic. It then connects both sides so they can create custom social video campaigns, and it offers analytics to track the success of those campaigns. This isn’t the first time Science has gotten involved in marketing on social media. Last year, it took its existing Pinterest analytics engine and called . And by the way, Science isn’t the only company that sees big potential in Vine and Instagram marketing, either — another startup, , seems to be . This is one of those “launches” that comes after the company has been running live campaigns with clients and now feels confident enough to make a bigger splash. It wasn’t, however, willing to share sample campaigns, because it said its client list is currently confidential. Refame did say that its Vine content has been viewed 100 million times in the past four weeks, and that the campaigns reached 80 million people total. (The company gave me with the numbers a couple of weeks ago, so they might be a little out of date.) |
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