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In Memory Of Journalist James Wright Foley | John Biggs | 2,014 | 8 | 19 | James Wright Foley, a 40-year-old freelance journalist, is dead, killed far from home and alone. It is a tragedy and a horror. None of us have ever had to be as brave as James Wright Foley in our efforts as journalists and none of us here can understand the cost of his sacrifice. Foley was kept captive in Syria since 2012 and his image only now resurfaced in a terrible video taken by the Islamic State Group in which he is allegedly beheaded. I beseech you not to watch it and instead remember him as a bold, fearless defender of freedom and practitioner of true journalism. We’ve lost another great journalist. The world is poorer for it. https://twitter.com/Max_Fisher/statuses/501833318565179394 We are devastated by the news of James Wright Foley's death. Our hearts go out to his family and friends. — Justin Kenny (@JustinPKenny) Cannot breathe, so horrified by news about friend and journo and good man James Foley- there are no words just horror — Clarissa Ward (@clarissaward) The beheading of James Foley is criminal & reprehensible. Thoughts & prayers with his family, & thanks for his dedication. — Scott Simon (@nprscottsimon) [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge52hGWudec] |
Sam Altman On His Inaugural Batch Of Companies As Y Combinator’s New Head | Kim-Mai Cutler | 2,014 | 8 | 19 | “A lot of people ask what’s different this time,” said Sam Altman, who took over Y Combinator from Paul Graham at the beginning of the year. “But the main thing I’m trying to do is keep things running the same way. YC is on this unbelievable trajectory.” Today’s Demo Day marks the first batch of companies that Altman has shepherded through the entire program, from selection through launch. (There was a previous batch that he oversaw earlier in the year, but he took over Y Combinator after the companies had already been chosen.) Everything seems mostly the same. There’s the same mix of venture capitalists and angels crowding the Mountain View Computer History Museum auditorium, listening to dozens of pitches before connecting during the fundraising frenzy that follows demo day. There are the same dozens and dozens of T-shirted founders pitching on-stage with presentations crafted after hours of practice. But there are a few noticeable differences. For one, this is the first time that Y Combinator has supported biotech companies. There are also a few energy and quantum computing plays. . “YC has never been in the software business. YC is in the business of funding huge companies,” Altman said. “We’ll continue to fund the best startups in the world even though the specific areas and markets may change as technology evolves. Many years ago, we started funding hardware companies and people people thought it was as crazy at that time. Actually, we were looking at the cost and cycle time it took to build a hardware company. We think the same situation is happening with biotech as costs come down.” He’s also started doing outbound recruiting for Y Combinator instead of more passively letting companies come to the program and apply. Altman personally recruited , which quickly engineers organisms, out of Boston through eight separate meetings. “In a new area, it may not be obvious that YC can add a lot of value. But now we’ll have biotech companies tell future biotech companies that they should join,” he said. “Then again, the companies that I think seem to be generating most interest among investors are still traditional software companies.” Altman also initiated a series of Startup School events globally where experienced entrepreneurs can share lessons with prospective founders. It’s a hugely popular event every fall in Silicon Valley; they’ve added a few stops in New York and London. While the interviewing and selection process remains mostly the same, Altman grouped companies with different Y Combinator partners so that founders work with the same advisers throughout the whole process. There are a little over 10 partners now, compared to the half-dozen or so that have worked with Graham over the past several years. They’ve also built a lot of internal software to track and assist companies, including some Demo Day software that will help investors and startups connect after today. Altman also refined some of the rules are around personal investments from YC partners. He stopped making personal investments from his vehicle when he joined full time, although he says he will still do things in “very exceptional” cases. The other partners are prohibited from making personal investments until after Demo Day. He’s also sticking to Graham’s opinion that Y Combinator shouldn’t do a follow-on fund. “When you have accelerators that are basically feeders for Series A funds, it can be awful. Every founder that doesn’t raise an A round from the fund basically has no chance of moving on. It’s a huge negative signal,” he said. “Perhaps YC could do very late-stage investing some day because there’s no signal risk there.” And as for Graham? “He’s still advising startups,” Altman said. “He came in last night, but not today. He gets mobbed.” |
YC Demo Day Session 4: Product Hunt, Aptible, One Codex, Traction, Shout, And Others! | Ryan Lawler | 2,014 | 8 | 19 | Are you excited? This year’s Y Combinator Summer Demo Day is finally coming to an end, which brings us to the best part of the day — that is, the part that includes beer and networking. And, for some of the startups here, getting checks from investors (or at least ). But before we go, here’s the last group of companies to be unveiled as part of the program, in what will be the final session of the day: Product Hunt, a daily list of up-and-coming tech products, garnered the attention of the Silicon Valley investor community as a way to find new startups to back. It has received 1.8 million visits to products featured on the site in the last 30 days and attracted 53,000 e-mail subscribers. “What makes ProductHunt so special even though it looks like a list of links is that there is a community of investors, founders and creators behind it,” said CEO Ryan Hoover. “And they’re geeking out about products. Founders are answering questions and directly interacting with our community.” He said that readers have created Chrome extensions and mobile apps around ProductHunt. But the vision is much bigger than just tech. Hoover wants to expand ProductHunt to books, films and beyond. “ProductHunt will be a place where creators can directly interact with their audiences.” This company helps companies building cloud products for health care comply with HIPAA regulations on privacy and security. Aptible’s cloud platform can host entire products, providing servers, security, encryption, and backup while “compliance engines” generate documentation and audit logs that demonstrate policies, risk analysis, incident response, APP security, and training are sufficient under HIPAA. Since launching on August 5, Aptible has booked $300,000 in contracted revenue, and in the long term the company plans to broaden its deployment and compliance platforms to other broadly-regulated industries. One Codex built a genomic platform for search and is reportedly indexing 10x’s more data than any others. It is making inroads into biotech, human health and food safety. Co-founder Nik Krumm says it will be the search platform for pathogen identification, particularly in food safety. This means detecting things like e-coli in restaurants. Beta users include the FDA, CDC, the NIH and a plethora of others. One Codex is currently in open beta and can search over 30,000 bacteria, viruses and fungi and identify data sets in minutes what takes days for other searches. It plans to take this technology to the clinical infectious disease market. Traction is an on-demand marketplace for digital marketers. The company already has a $3.1 million run rate and is growing 80 percent every month servicing a number of large Fortune 100 brands, including names like Disney and Unilever. The company uses software to cut out agency middlemen and replace them with software and automation. It sees a potential addressable market of existing clients of $15 billion, and that goes up to $57 billion if it goes after the small and medium-sized business market. Purporting to “handle the entire lifecycle of an exchange between two people,” Shout has built a real-time classified service that lets individuals exchange anything with other people. Essentially a type of modernized Craigslist meets TaskRabbit with an added real-time twist, Shout has an app for iOS and Android that lets people offer up something for sale, or make a request for a task such as a delivery. Each Shout is linked to a location, a price, and a short description — and has the option to be either free or for a specific price. At the moment, Shout is only available in New York City. . Zenamins is sort of like the online equivalent of GNC. But it goes beyond just a place to order supplements. It provides a platform that plans to let professionals brand their own health and beauty vitamins and products. Kim Kardashian could have her own vitamin brand or Tim Ferris could have the Four Hour Body subscription supplements delivery, for instance. The startup comes with a guidebook and recommended daily doses. It also takes data about you, blood, genetics and other things to suggest how to improve your health. If Github is a platform that allows anyone to share code, BlockSpring lets anyone run code. Instead of a web developer having to put up a server and build an API before running code, users can now go to BlockSpring, take code and build an interface without having to interact with it. Nightingale provides a mobile app for tracking electronic medical records for behavioral therapy in the cloud. The app helps behavioral therapists to track and report data related to sessions with their clients. There are currently about 1.5 million patients receiving behavioral therapy for autism in the US, which is a $2.4 billion market that Nightingale hopes to tap into. The company launched 8 weeks ago and says it is seeing a 40% week-over-week growth so far, with the primary driver of growth being word-of-mouth between therapists. Customers can create calendars, manage how data is collected, and monitor behavior in real time. It can also be used for speech and occupational therapy. Women are responsible for the bulk of activity on many of the most popular social sites on the Internet, from Facebook to Pinterest. But according to Women.com co-founder Susan Johnson, most women are still holding back when it comes to sharing the bulk of their ideas and opinions online — perhaps, she says, because they feel less comfortable in the co-ed environment. So she created Women.com, a Reddit-like online discussion hub for women only (men are filtered out from using the service) in hopes of welcoming women to feel free to share all the things that they are not yet sharing on the existing social platforms — from relationship advice, to diet and health tips, to political beliefs, and more. At the moment , and in the future plans to use Facebook Connect to ensure that its community is women only. |
YC Demo Day Session 3: UPower, Edyn, Craft Coffee, Immunity Project, And More | Colleen Taylor | 2,014 | 8 | 19 | The crowd of founders, investors, and press has finished eating lunch here at Summer 2014 Demo Day (quinoa, salad, some kind of beef stew thing, soda, and beer, FYI) and we’re back in the saddle for the third of four sessions of startup pitches. We’re halfway through a historically big day as far as YC Demo Days go: There are 75 startups pitching onstage today in total, 66 of whom are presenting “on the record” (this YC class has a record 85 startups, meaning that 10 companies deferred their launch and opted out of taking the stage today at all.) The day is broken up into four sessions, with breaks in between. If you want summaries of every YC startup that’s taking the stage with an on-the-record presentation, you’ve come to the right place. You can see our post on the first session of the day , and the post for the second session . Without further ado, here are the startups from the third session of the day: : Building a small-scale nuclear fission reactor that can operate using uranium, thorium, or recycled nuclear fuel. While the company acknowledges that the regulatory process is an issue, the company avoids many risks in the process by working with regulators to “license by testing.” That is, they’ve simulated much of the nuclear process based on decades worth of data collected on nuclear reactions in plants already in operation — regulators just need to see that their process for removing heat works reliably to get to the next phase. Powers first reactor design will produce 2MW of electricity, enough to power a town with 2,000 homes, mining operations, and military bases.The company predicts that its first reactors will hit the market in 5 years’ time and that customers will be able to go 12 years without refueling. Read our prior coverage . : Onename is positioning itself as the Facebook Connect of Bitcoin. Instead of typing in an extremely long public address to sends someone Bitcoin, you can just look for someone handle on OneName in the same way you’d look for someone on Twitter or Instagram. The company says it’s now serving 16 percent of Bitcoin wallets with payments sent in a single click. “We’re building fundamental infrastructure. Today we are the Facebook Connect for Bitcoin and tomorrow we’ll be the decentralized identity layer for the web,” said the two Princeton graduates Muneeb Ali and Ryan Shea, who are behind the company. Read our previous coverage of Onename . : Roost is a company doing push notifications for websites. The technology is being added to nearly all the major browsers, which offers up a huge opportunity for publishers who wish to use notifications in the same way mobile apps do. The company has seen 10 percent sustained growth over the last several months, and it’s just the beginning since all those publishers and notifications today work just on Safari. In the future, however, Firefox and Chrome will add the same functionality, which will reach 14x the number of consumers who have access to notifications now. Check out our previous coverage of Roost . : Rather than wait in line or deal with a bunch of bureaucracy, PicnicHealth provides a platform for secure online access to your own health records. The YC-backed startup chose to begin with medical records for what they say is a market with more than 50 million cancer patients. Co-founder Noga Leviner took to the stage to share her story about how her mom had to battle both breast cancer and a giant stack of medical records. This gave her the idea for the patient-focused company that aims to get people the help they need with medical record management. You tell PicnicHealth your problems and then it keeps your doctor informed. They try to send a physical copy. The cost is $500/year to help users avoid waiting in line in a medical office for their records. Read our earlier coverage . : Positioning itself as “the new standard in identity verification,” BlockScore provides fraud protection and individual I.D. verification in a software as a service model for companies that perform online financial transactions. According to BlockScore, the currently dominant methods of I.D. verification don’t move quickly enough for the modern world, where more companies than ever are dealing in online financial transactions in which they must quickly verify that any given identity is for a real living person that’s safe to do business with. “We give companies one API that gives them global coverage that they can implement in minutes, not months,” BlockScore’s co-founder said in his pitch. During the YC program, BlockScore has grown its revenue by 22X, and it counts startups, companies, and banks as its customers. Read our earlier coverage of BlockScore . : PersistIQ says it increases sales for companies by making sure that sales teams don’t let leads fall to the wayside. It’s basically a task management system, keeping sales representatives from forgetting to keep in touch with potential leads, tracking each interaction by syncing with email and reminding users about relationships that haven’t been maintained. The company claims that early data shows a 10x increase in productivity among users, measured in the number of emails sent to leads in a given day. Our earlier coverage of PersistIQ is . : Vatler is trying to be the Uber of Parking. They are a valet service for the 200,000 or so workers that commute into San Francisco every day. They have built an app where you can request a valet at your office in one tap. They’ll take care of the rest by parking your car. After being in beta for four weeks, they’ve been growing at 40 percent week-over-week through word of mouth and are working with companies including Instacart, Tidepool and AdRoll. They say the market alone could be worth $65 million in San Francisco. If they were able to tap into the country’s top 15 cities including New York, Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles, they’d be able to tap a $1 billion opportunity. Read more on Vatler . : The launch and growing popularity of Bitcoin has created an arms race among those who are trying to brute-force hashes because they are incentivized to do so. That’s led to the power behind the cryptocurrency surpassing that of the fastest supercomputer in the world currently. Filecoin created a way to incentivize people to store files on its network. The company enables them to rent out storage, earn Filecoin, and then cash out in Bitcoin. : ShipBob provides on-demand shipping on your smartphone. The main focus is shipping for businesses but it can also be for personal use. A ship captain will physically show up to take items to the post office and handle packaging and tracking for you. Launched in Chicago 8 weeks ago, the company is growing 28% week over week and it says 58% of customers plan to repeat use. It also claims to be growing organically. The startup claims every one of its customers has referred the service to at least three more customers. Shipbob now moves beyond Chicago and into the mainstream market. Read more on the company . : This is a “smart irrigation system” for gardeners and small farmers. Edyn has built a wireless and solar powered device that uses sensors to understand everything that’s going on with your plants and water them as needed. The system has a connected app that lets gardeners see what’s going on with their plants from anywhere in the world. If the company looks familiar, it may be because it’s been around and gathering popularity for months: The company first debuted at the Disrupt San Francisco Startup Battlefield in September 2013. Since then, it’s renamed to Edyn, raised a on Kickstarter, and locked down a production deal with device manufacturer Flextronics. Edyn says it is on track for a retail launch in 2015. : This company offers A/B testing for social sharing. Much like Buzzfeed and Upworthy’s proprietary platforms, a publisher can submit a link with multiple headlines to Naytev’s software, and based on data gathered from social networks, it determines which will generates more clicks and shares and distributes that headline across platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Naytev claims that as it gets bigger, its algorithm will become more effective, as getting more customers means they can collect more data, which they can then turn into better optimization. Read more coverage . : Neptune.io is a company from some of the founding engineers behind Amazon Web Services. Their goal is to make servers “self-healing.” By that, they mean that their service will automatically fix some of the most common server alerts like when a process crashes, when a disk is full or when there is low CPU utilization. That will help those reliability engineers sleep more peacefully at night. The company says that the IT industry loses $26 billion annually on outages. Since launching two weeks ago, the company is supporting 60 servers and seven companies. They say they’ve been able to save 10 hours of down time for each company and charge about $10 per server per month. : Rigetti Computing is on a mission to build the world’s most powerful computer. Led by a specialist from Yale and IBM, the company hopes to bring quantum computing to the masses. The problem to date has been that quantum computing was too expensive to build at scale, but it’s planning to build and launch its first product in the next 18 months. In 3 years it expects to have a 1,024 Qubit machine available and in 5 years it projects that it will have a machine that is 10x faster than today’s most powerful supercomputer. Read our earlier coverage on Rigetti Computing . : Beep is a device that connects the music to every speaker throughout your home at the same time. It wirelessly connects to your speakers, receivers, and dock to play synchronized music in every room. Beep sells it’s computer to manufacturers and they integrate it into their speaker design. Pandora and Spotify have worked with Beep to integrate with the platform. It is also working with Nest so soon you’ll be able to control your home temp with your voice as well. Beep has 12 partners in the pipeline and is built on an open platform on iPhone and Android. Competitor Sonos is currently a 5% market but Beep aims to go beyond what Sonos does and create a smart computer platform on both software and hardware. Led by ex-Googlers Daniel Conrad and Shawn Lewis, Beep aims to put a platform in every room of your home. Read our earlier coverage of Beep and . : Built by a co-founding team with solid business and financial backgrounds, Local Lift aims to bring the crowdfunding power that’s been leveraged by thousands of startups through sites like Kickstarter to specifically benefit small local businesses. With the Local Lift platform, business owners are able to raise funds directly from their customer base and the community at large by running 30-day campaigns for small amounts of funding (campaigns are currently averaging around $7,000-$8,000, based on early trials.) The company has helped out small businesses such as local fitness studios, and provides much-needed support for companies that traditionally have only been able to rely on difficult-to-obtain small business loans from traditional banks. Local Lift debuted in late May, and currently is serving select beta markets including Austin, New Orleans, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Read more about Local Lift . : Craft Coffee has a simple mission: to sell coffee online. While Starbucks and regional coffee shops have built lasting businesses by providing an option for getting coffee while on-the-go, Craft sees the $5 billion market for coffee prepared and consumed at home as a playing field without a clear leader in online sales. It wants to claim that mantle by providing consumers who don’t already have a clear idea of what they like guidance during the browsing process with a recommendation engine that points out beans that a user might like based on their responses to a survey about their coffee consumption habits. Read our earlier coverage . : Shift is a Bitcoin debit card that lets you pay for everyday goods and services the way you would with a regular ATM or credit card. It connects to your existing Bitcoin wallets and deducts the appropriate amount for eating out, drinking, paying bills and making everyday purchases. “This card is the form factor that people want to use spend Bitcoin,” said co-founder Meg Nakamura on-stage. Users have spent more than $20,000 worth of Bitcoin in the last few weeks alone. “This Bitcoin card may seem like a simple idea. But it is really hard to produce. You have to work with a bank, card issuer, card processor and card network,” said Nakamura, one of Shift’s co-founder who added that the rest of the team has experience from Square and the Federal Reserve. : BillForward is a highly flexible subscription billing platform that is designed to help businesses that are in that business online. The subscription economy is evolving and those businesses are entering a new world of sophistication. The goal is to solve the billing problems that those companies have. That has led the company to grow by 150 percent week over week processing growth as it seeks to go after the $33 billion subscription business market. : Immunity Project is creating a FREE vaccine to end HIV and AIDS. Founder Dr. Reed Rubsamen says his approach is radically different. He says 1 out of 300 people has a natural immunity to the virus. Immunity Project created a sort of Trojan horse to get the immune system to recognize the disease and attack those infected cells. The team has already tested the vaccine out on the blood of Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham. His blood sample was given the lab created vaccine and then infected with the AIDS virus. Then a miracle happened. The vaccine worked! According to the National Institutes of Health(http://www.niaid.nih.gov/topics/hivaids/research/vaccines/Pages/default.aspx), there is not currently a working vaccine in the market. Dr. Rubsamen says during the course of his talk 7 people will have died of AIDS. He says this is the most important work we can do. Immunity Project now needs a little over $8 million to complete trials and move forward.
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Former Obama Campaign Manager To Lead Uber’s Political Crusade | Cat Zakrzewski | 2,014 | 8 | 19 | After taking Obama to the White House in 2008, will lead ‘s campaign to bring its driving services to new cities. and campaign manager to direct the company’s global policy and political activities, communications and branding efforts. The company has reportedly been looking to hire a top political strategist since earlier this summer as it aggressively challenges local regulations and the taxi industry in multiple cities. “Over the years, what I’ve come to realize is that this controversy exists because we are in the middle of a political campaign and it turns out the candidate is Uber,” wrote founder . “Our opponent – the Big Taxi cartel – has used decades of political contributions and influence to restrict competition, reduce choice for consumers, and put a stranglehold on economic opportunity for its drivers.” Earlier this month, Politico ran a story about repeated speculation that the former White House adviser would return as Obama’s chief of staff, .” He is the most high profile-political insider the company has picked up in its recent push to make more regulatory hires. In May the company hired . “We’re on an inexorable path of progress here,” Plouffe said in an . “Uber is making transportation safer. It’s providing jobs; it’s cutting down on drunk and distracted driving. I think the mission is really important.” Plouffe was not the only top political strategist considered for the new position. In July, was in talks former White House press secretary Jay Carney and Howard Wolfson, who served as a strategist to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Hillary Clinton during the 2008 campaign. Plouffe will start at Uber in September. |
Liam Casey, AKA Mr. China, Will Join Us At Disrupt SF | John Biggs | 2,014 | 8 | 19 | I am personally pleased to announce that Mr. China himself, , will appear on our TechCrunch Disrupt stage to talk about the rising tide for hardware startups. Casey has spent the last two decades in Shenzhen, China where he has become the go-to supplier for almost every major hardware manufacturer on the Fortune 100. He will talk to me about gear, gadgets, and his new accelerator, . Casey is the Founder and CEO of PCH, which designs custom manufacturing solutions for Fortune 500 and startup companies. Since founding PCH in 1996, Casey has grown the company to over $900M in revenues in 2013. The company has been a huge advocate and supporter of startup hardware companies, such as LittleBits, Cue, Ringly, Drop, Navdy and Blaze, among many others. Named after California’s famed Pacific Coast Highway, PCH is headquartered in Cork, Ireland. It opened its U.S. headquarters in 2013 in San Francisco. The company also operates an innovation hub in San Francisco, which includes PCH Lime Lab, a design engineering division with state-of-the-art prototyping capability, Highway1, a hardware incubator, and PCH Access, which helps startup companies scale. Casey is widely recognized as a thought leader in hardware, supply chain management, and startups. He spends his time between San Francisco, Cork and Shenzhen. Liam is a real straight-shooter and a charming conversationalist. I think this will be a blast. Tickets are , with early-bird pricing now through Sept. 1. If you’re interested in becoming a sponsor, for more information. |
Apple’s Valuation Nears Record Highs | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 8 | 19 | Apple’s shares closed today at $100.53, a record high, provided that you adjust the company’s former heights for its . The technology firm had a previous, adjusted closing high of $100.30. However, its record intraday high — again taking into account its split — was a skyscraping $100.72. So, Apple has traded for more than it closed at today, but its final trade today represents the company’s highest end-of-day price. Given that record close, is the company worth more than ever, on an end-of-day basis? No. Apple repurchases its own shares as part of shareholder return program. Quick analysis indicates that Apple’s valuation is below where it once was. Apple is currently in the . In its last quarter, according to its , the company returned $8 billion to shareholders in dividends and share buybacks — a large percentage of which went to picking up its own equity. As the company’s $130 billion shareholder return effort carries on, the number of its outstanding shares will decline. And thus to reach its past total valuation heights, its share price will have to pass its former record levels by a reasonable margin. |
YC-Backed Ravti Wants To Digitize The HVAC Industry | Cat Zakrzewski | 2,014 | 8 | 19 | co-founder walked into TechCrunch with a stack of crumpled yellow slips in his hand. “This is what the Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning industry still looks like,” he said, showing me a stack of papers with unintelligible scrawl. But Rangel and his co-founder Chris Ginter want to make managing HVAC units easier for property owners by marking equipment with digital tags. Property owners who use these tags will be able to use to manage all of their units and easily dispatch their preferred vendors to them when they are in need of repairs, without remembering complicated unit codes. So far the company has tagged equipment for 30 million square feet of real estate, and they have agreements with a national portfolio manager. Rangel compared Ravti to software solutions like . Just like travelers can use KAYAK to find the best rates for travel plans, building managers can use Ravti to save money and better manage their HVAC repairs. Ravti starts out by taking pictures of each unit and tagging it with a digital barcode. Owners can then easily select units and dispatch a repair vendor with the click of a button. The digital inventory of their HVAC units is cloud-based and secure. And that’s no small feat. Rangel tells me HVAC maintenance accounts for about 32 percent of the average facility’s budget. He says Ravti can save owners anywhere from 18 to 40 percent on a HVAC replacement because it allows them to buy units in bulk directly from vendors, rather than at marked up prices. “Every building needs it,” Rangel said. When Ravti tags a unit, it also gives it a condition score. Rangel says in phase two of Ravti, they hope to implement that information they gather about machine’s conditions to make them more energy-efficient. Ravti is already . Ravti charges property owners for the service by the square footage of the building. Throughout the summer, Ravti has been focused on unit replacements and day-to-day service calls. Rangel said he entered Y Combinator somewhat skeptically as a company in enterprise sales, but he said the experience has “surpassed every expectation.” He also said working with so many entrepreneurs building consumer-facing apps has helped him enhance the Ravti software. “A lot of the problem with enterprise software is that it doesn’t have the users in mind,” Rangel said. “When we can make using this software easier, everyone wins.” Rangel and Ginter have been friends since high school. Rangel first got the idea to start Ravti when he was working in Florida as a sales engineer for . The pair will be presenting today at YC’s Demo Day. |
YC Demo Day Session 2: Helion, BitAccess, uBiome, Fixed, And More | Contributor | 2,014 | 8 | 19 | Summer 2014 Demo Day is in full swing here at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. The room is packed with investors and press, the coffee is flowing, people in startup t-shirts are pitching, and a team of us TechCrunch writers are hunched over our laptops taking notes on each company that takes the stage. There will be four sessions in total today, and as always, we’re writing up a post for each. You can see our post on the first session of the day . With 75 startups launching today in total, 66 of whom are presenting “on the record” (this YC class has a record 85 startups, meaning that 10 of them opted out of taking the stage today) we’ve got our hands full. Here are the YC startups that pitched onstage in the second session of the day: : Bayes Impact is a nonprofit that hooks data scientists up with civic and nonprofit organizations to solve big social impact challenges. According to the founders, data science can be too expensive for most non-profits. However, good data can mean less wait for ambulances and save lives, for instance. BI has created a 12 month social development program to recruit data scientists to work on projects for good. Data scientists admitted to the program get a “living stipend” to work on the projects. Bayes Impact has employed over 30 projects, including more productive housing approval in SF and working with a microfinance organization on fraud detection. The fraud detection project has reduced fraud losses by 30%. The startup has done all this with a team of just four people in two months time. You can read our prior coverage of Bayes Impact . : Ravti provides software to manage HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) for commercial real estate. That’s a $1 billion industry today, and represents about 32 percent of commercial real estate spending currently. But it’s a hugely fragmented market with 86,000 HVAC companies servicing those buildings. Ravti provides an alternative by cataloguing all a facility’s HVAC equipment, bid projects out for them, and help them save money. The company currently has 30 million square feet of real estate under management, and another 150 million square feet in the pipeline. But there’s an 85 billion square feet opportunity to go after. Ravti wants to take over that market by helping clients do better with software. : This is certainly one of the most talked-about startups in this YC class, due to its big ambitions. Helion says it is building the world’s first commercial nuclear fusion reactor. The company says that it can do this now despite failed government and private efforts for the last several decades because of advancements in modern electronics in the last three years.They already have a working magnetic-interial reactor in their labs in Redmond, Wash., and they think they can prove commercial scale fusion in three years’ time, building a 50 Megawatt reactor that could power 40,000 homes without producing carbon emissions or radioactive waste. Read our prior coverage of Helion . : Yes, the name refers to what you might assume — Pretty Padded Room is dealing in mental health space, and is specifically aimed at women. Well, you can’t say it doesn’t grab your attention. Founded by a licensed mental health counselor, Pretty Padded Room aims to “redefine the mental health experience for the online generation.” Even though the benefits of talk therapy are well-documented, the process of finding and seeing a counselor is still a relatively difficult one: It’s tough to find insurance, the wait for good counselors can be long, and the entire thing is pretty darn expensive. That means that many of the people who are interested in getting therpay never actually get around to trying it out. Pretty Padded Room wants to make the whole system more accessible by offering licensed therapists via text or video chat for introductory prices of $25 per session. So far, the company has made $170,000 in revenue and is growing 100 percent month over month. 43 percent of its current user base is totally new to therapy. : Kash is attempting to replace Visa and MasterCard’s vast credit card networks, which charge 2 to 3 percent on every transaction. “Swipe fees are a tax on everything,” the company explains. “It leaves every single retailer desperately searching for a way to avoid credit card tax.” Users just have to install the Kash app for iOS or Android. Kash’s app gets around credit cards entirely by letting users pay straight from their checking accounts after entering their online banking log-in info, as you would with an app like Mint. Some people might not be comfortable with that, but Kash promises that it fully covers any fraud that could result from using its app. They say they’ve worked with 150 stories so far in the last four weeks and that they reduce transaction costs by 70 percent. Read our earlier coverage . : Gamified shopping site HauteDay applies the same addictive gaming mechanics to women’s fashion. The community on HauteDay goes to the site to look for and vote on a particular pair of skinny jeans, for instance. The person who finds the jeans gets them free. The site launched two weeks ago and is reportedly seeing a 50% daily retention rate so far. According to the founders, this means each person who signs up is coming back each day. The founders believe they’ve built what could be a $100 million dollar shopping game. : Tiempo provides a platform for helping freelancers to get paid instantly. With up to 40 percent of people moving to freelance or contract work in the coming years, there’s a huge opportunity to serve people who regularly wait up to 60 days to get paid. Tiempo provides a mobile app where freelancers can track their hours and send invoices to those who are paying them. The freelance market is a $9 billion market opportunity today, but it’s growing to $15 billion by 2020. The team worked with small business owners at Intuit, and has also felt the pain of working as freelancers. So yeah, they’re excited about changing up the market. Read our prior coverage of Tiempo . : This company is building out a network of Bitcoin ATMs, with more than 30 currently in operation. BitAccess sells its ATMs to licensed operators like gas stations, convenience stores, and other frequently-trafficed locations. The startup has sold its teller machines in 15 countries, and is profitable based on sales of the physical hardware alone: each costs $4,000 to build and sells for sells for $12,000. In addition, the company takes 1% off the top of all transactions on its ATMs. While the company acknowledges the niche audience that currently uses Bitcoin, it identified several use cases that make sense for users who aren’t cryptocurrency enthusiasts, like sending Bitcoin to friends and relatives between in other counties instead of dealing with exchanges rates or paying for expensive wires. Read our earlier coverage of BitAccess . : There’s a in medicine that “death begins in the colon.” That sounds dramatic, but it’s often true: The complicated mix of bacteria in your gut has a massive impact on many parts of your overall health. Certain bacterias are linked to everything from indigestion to cancer to autism. uBiome has created a system that uses big data to take a complete picture of your personal mix of bacteria — also known as your microbiome — and provide ongoing analysis about it. The process works a lot like 23andme: As a customer, you take a sample of your microbiome (in this case, through a stool sample), send it to uBiome, which then uses its patent-pending system of robots and machines to sequence the sample and deliver pertinent information. Read our prior coverage of uBiome . : Fixed is that controversial and interesting platform that helps drivers contest parking tickets. You get the app, you take a photo of your parking ticket and Fixed’s legal advocates will figure out if there are errors or issues with the ticket. If so, they’ll write a contest letter to the city on the driver’s behalf. About four to six weeks later, the consumer will figure out if they’ve gotten their ticket dismissed. If they do, Fixed earns a 25 percent success fee when they win. Their win rates are about 20 to 30 percent. They say they’ve been growing at a 20 to 30 percent clip since the start of Y Combinator. They’re currently contesting about 400 tickets per week in San Francisco. Next year, they plan to expand to 100 cities and then into other types of overcharges like Comcast overcharges, healthcare overcharges, traffic tickets and other types of moving violations. They refer to their model as “justice-as-a-service.” “The anger comes from thinking there’s nothing you can do about it,” the company explains. : Flynn is a single, open-source platform to help developers scale and deploy apps with git push and Docker containers. More startups are sending out apps than ever before. Flynn aims to solve the pain points for the little guy and Fortune 500 companies alike. Flynn crowd funded a campaign to validate the problems associated with ops to prove the concept first. Developers send any app to any cluster in seconds. As it says on the site, “Flynn is the single platform that ops can provide to developers to power production, testing, and development, freeing developers to focus.” : Think Gaming helps mobile games find paying players through advertising. Today, mobile gaming is a $15 billion opportunity, with the biggest games as big as the biggest Hollywood blockbusters. The problem is that it takes a ton of advertising to grow, but there are more than 400 mobile ad networks for game publishers to use. Think Gaming helps them to learn what works and what doesn’t by pooling data from game publishers and making it available to the total group. That combines the network effects of pooled data across games with a huge market to conquer. Read our earlier coverage . : A mobile app for offering feedback to coworkers. Impraise wants to replace today’s system of using performance reviews, which it says are broken because the biannual nature of most companies’ reviews don’t allow companies to identify problems and implement change fast enough. The startup claims that users of its app offer feedback every week, providing much more data to human resource departments than traditional reviews. Impraise already has pilot programs at 60 companies, including eBay, Dropbox, and Intuit, 25% of which were started by workers themselves. Read our earlier coverage of Impraise . : It’s a well established opinion that as ubiquitous as it is, email as it is today is not the most efficient way to communicate, especially among groups. Front is the latest startup to toss an email alternative into the ring. Front is essentially a shared inbox for enterprise teams, giving the constant “BCC” and “CC” method of writing the heave-ho. The company describes its product as “a multi-player version of Gmail in a smart desktop app,” and so far it seems to be catching on. Since its launch two months ago, Front has attracted 130 active companies as users, processed more than 1.2 conversations, and the average Front user spends 3 hours per day on the app. Its revenue is growing 25 percent week over week, and its engagement figures are pretty good too. Read our earlier coverage . : Sliced democratizes access to hedge funds. Even though hedge funds have outperformed S&P 500 over the past decade, very few investors have access to them. They typically have minimum investment sizes of $1 million. “They should be part of everyone’s portfolio,” Sliced explains. The company groups together investments of roughly $20,000 and pools them into hedge funds that meet certain strategies — say, equities or real estate. After the pool meets a certain threshold, the accumulated monies will be disbursed into several hedge funds that match the selected strategy. Read our prior coverage . : Bannerman is basically an on-demand bouncer service. It hooks you up with a private security guard within 30 minutes of your order. in much the same way as you might order an Uber or cleaning service from HomeJoy, you visit the site and give details such as date, address, and number of security guards needed. Bannerman sends out licensed guards for $35/hour, per guard. Co-founder Johnny Chin says most of the Bannerman guards are veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq. The YC startup looks to tap into a $96 billion security market. The largest player only owns 8% of that market, currently. Bannerman has 35% in operating margins and it says it pays security guards more but costs less than the competition by using on-demand software. : ListRunner is a startup that is seeking to help prevent the more than 400,000 deaths each year that are caused by physician error. Many of them are caused by communication problems between doctors, and those communications issues are caused by doctors who are forced to share notes on paper. ListRunner offers a HIPAA-compliant app that enables doctors to better keep track of patients and share information with colleagues. Rather than sell to hospitals, ListRunner sells to the doctors who use the app, using a bottom up approach to capturing the market. Read our earlier coverage . : The Doblet team is creating a network of portable batteries in restaurants, bars, and coffee shops. The company provides these venues with a supply of mobile batteries that can be distributed to customers, who can pay per use or subscribe for unlimited use anywhere they’re available. Besides making battery life less of a concern for its users, Doblet promises to bring business in for its partner venues, as its app will give a notification offering navigation to the nearest Doblet location when a device’s battery runs low. In the last five weeks, the company has deployed batteries at 80 venues in San Francisco, and as part of its expansion plans to move to new cities and to offer its chargers at new venues where chargers are frequently needed, including airports and hotels. Read prior coverage . : Even throughout the whole “software eating the world” movement of recent years, getting a quote on lawncare and landscaping is usually an in-person affair, and booking and payments are not often conducted through the web or a mobile phone. Lawn Love brings some Uber-like technology to the whole process of finding, booking, and paying a landscaping or lawncare provider. The platform, which is currently live in four areas in California (Orange County, San Diego, the South Bay of San Francisco, and Los Angeles) serves as a middle point int he two-sided marketplace between independent lawncare providers and customers. Since its launch earlier this summer, Lawn Love has grown an average of 80% month over month in jobs booked, grown its revenue by 107 percent month over month, and currently has a $250,000 run rate. Read our prior coverage of Lawn Love . |
The noPhone, Because Smartphone Separation Anxiety Is Real | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 8 | 19 | The other day, as I sat on the couch with a dead iPhone resting on my belly, I found myself wondering why my phone is dead. And I had a revelation: I’d rather have a dead phone within reach than be even a few feet away from it as it charges across the room. It’s pathetic, I know, but absolutely true. Enter the . The noPhone is built specifically to alleviate the anxiety that comes along with not having a phone, and/or work as a substitute for a phone during those moments when you should really be more attentive to what’s happening in your real life. The noPhone can come with you on a first date so that you can still maintain eye contact and pay attention without having a panic attack. You can also take the noPhone with you when you go camping or hiking, where your phone won’t work properly anyways, to feel that smooth, cool, block of happiness in your pocket. Or, if you’re like me, you can let the noPhone sit in your lap as your real phone charges on the other side of the room. Unlike most phones, the noPhone is toilet-bowl resistant, shatter proof, sand proof, and requires no battery or software upgrades. To learn more, head on over to the . |
The Garmin Fenix 2 Brings The Running Watch Into A Dystopian Future | John Biggs | 2,014 | 8 | 19 | , walking along in the sand, when all of a sudden you look down and see a tortoise. It’s crawling toward you… how do you train yourself to outrun it? I like to think you’d probably want a . I’ve used running watches since their first, bulbous balls of GPS electronics were launched in the early 2000s. Now, after multiple generations and iterations, after the slimming down of most of the battery and a general improvement in GPS connectivity (plus a generous dollop of improved styling) we have reached the apex of the activity watch summit. The Fenix 2 is one of the coolest-looking sports watches you can get and, for once, it’s surprisingly accurate and very, very usable. And it looks like something Pris would wear. What does it do? Pretty much what you expect from a trail watch and a running watch combined. It features a compass, barometer, and altimeter, easily accessible from the main time screen, as well as heart rate, pace, and distance when it’s in exercise mode. In fact it supports a number of sports including, Garmin notes, “running, climbing, riding, hiking, paddling, skiing or swimming.” I’ve used it primarily for running although it was nice to have the outdoor features on bike rides. First, let’s talk about battery life. This thing lasted about a week of regular use. I run three times a week for about an hour and, when in exercise mode, there is definitely a visible decline in battery life. As for the sensitivity of the altimeter and compass I saw no major issues and GPS lock-in times were either instantaneous in areas where it had locked in before or, unfortunately, interminable in places where there was little sky visibility or in new areas. If you’ve read my previous , you’ll learn that I never have good luck with GPS lock-in here in deepest Brooklyn. The , an entry-level watch, had a terrible time locking in while other watches like the Nike+ Sports Watch and Polar devices suffered from the same problem. In a new location, the Fenix 2 takes about eight minutes to lock in and, once it has connected once it takes just a few seconds to lock in again. That is far superior to any of the other watches I’ve tested. [gallery ids="1045391,1045390,1045389,1045388,1045387,1045386,1045385,1045384"] Other cool features – sadly ones I couldn’t try out – are the swim and ski modes. From Garmin’s website: In fact, the list of potential sports is so long on the watch it’s almost comical. I’m surprised Salsa Dancing and Bocce aren’t on the list. If you’re like me, a weekend warrior looking for an all-purpose outdoor and sports watch, this is one of the better ones I’ve seen. It’s also worth noting that this watch is compatible with Garmin Connect, Garmin’s online service that shows you nearly everything you need to know about your runs. I especially like the route setup, a feature that allows you to drop breadcrumbs and set waypoints as you run. This means you can set a beginning and end point and then allow the watch to navigate you towards that point as you run or walk. It syncs with a PC or Mac using a specialized cable – that’s one thing Garmin hasn’t fixed yet – and can connect to Garmin’s own heart rate monitors and other ANT+ and Bluetooth-compatible accessories. In all, I’m very pleased with the Fenix 2. It’s one of the few sports watches I would actually wear on a daily basis and, barring the need to recharge it every week or so, it could pass for a standard digital trekking watch. It’s dense and dark and cool-looking and it does just about everything a Citizen or Seiko hiking watch can do but with a styling and UI that is instantly agreeable. The GPS and heart rate features, then, are icing on the dystopian cake. Sadly, though, I’m not certain the Fenix will be able to tell Replicant from human, a major feature that Garmin should add in upcoming versions. [gallery ids="1045375,1045373,1045372,1045370,1045368"] |
YC Demo Day Session 1: Gingko Bioworks, Bikanta, Checkr, WalkSource, ClearTax, And More | Sarah Buhr | 2,014 | 8 | 19 | We’re at the the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif., to see the startups in the Y Combinator Summer 2014 class pitch their wares to investors and the press. There will be four sessions in total today, and we’ll be writing up a post for each. This is the largest number of startups that YC has ever had as part of its batch, so bear with us! Here’s the first set of companies presenting on-the-record… We’ll have to wait to talk about a few of the companies, who aren’t ready for their public debut: Ginkgo Bioworks is a Boston-based startup that speeds up the process of genetically engineering and growing ingredients. The market for natural ingredients is an estimated $2 billion. The Boston-based biotech company is currently working on a project with DARPA to treat antibiotic-resistant germs, using designer microbes to convert CO2 emissions into fuel and is somehow making yeast smell like roses. They say they’re able to grow ingredients in about 10 days, which reducing the costs of producing these goods by 50 to 90 percent. “This makes it a process that’s more like producing beer,” the company said on-stage. So far, they have nine contracts signed with $4.5 million in development fees and $10 million in annual royalties. The company’s founders have worked together for more than 10 years and they have 15 Ph.D’s and two MIT professors on staff. TicketLabs is a platform that provides ways for artists to make more money off their concerts and sell directly to fans. Nearly 3/4 of all their revenue comes from live performances, but most artists don’t have very good insight into who their fans are, because platforms like iTunes and Ticketmaster don’t share fan data with them. TicketLabs hopes to change that by helping artists to sell directly to fans. It’s changing the way users are purchasing tickets: About 50 percent of tickets are both on mobile, and 75 percent are connected through Facebook Connect. The company wants to change the way ticketing works, to capture what is a multi-billion dollar opportunity. An e-filing service for paying income taxes in India. It makes tax filing significantly easier — instead of filling out a complicated spreadsheet, filers using their software simply upload their W2, and the app automatically prepares all necessary forms. In a few years, the company predicts that 100 million people in India will file their taxes electronically. ClearTax already has a lead on capturing that market, as this year the company processed tax filings for 300,000 individuals, making it the biggest e-file site in India this year. Next year, the company estimates that it will process 1 million tax filings. Backpack is a company that arbitrages the cost of goods in different countries by using international travelers as a distribution network. For instance, a Macbook might cost $1,099 in the United States and $1,520 in Bangladesh, where Backpack’s founders are from. “They don’t want to pay $400 more,” explained the company’s founders. So Backpack connects shoppers with travelers who are already going on the appropriate route and they’ll carry goods back for a fee. So for that theoretical laptop, travelers can save $300 while the traveler would earn $120. The company says it is already experience 15 percent week-over-week growth and says that this behavior constitutes a $16 billion market alone in China. This startup sells men’s custom shirts by measuring you with the camera on your phone. The comapny hopes to change the way that customers buy shirts and makes sure they fit. Since its measurement process is done with machine measurements, it’s able to get a better fit than most tailors. It’s also able to cut out the middleman cost of tailoring those shirts. As such, the same custom shirt that would sell for $125 from a tailor will be shipped to you for $69 instead. MTailor is going after a $10 billion shirt market, but that’s just the start — after that, it hopes to do suits, pants, and other custom-fit clothing for men. Creates technology for genetically engineering plants. Based on early success racking up more than $500,000 in pre-sales for a glowing plant, the company predicts that it can achieve success in the consumer market by creating living products, like plant-based air filters that don’t require new cartridges every few weeks. Eventually, the company would like to build large facilities for creating plants with industrial uses, including genetically-modified plants that could produce milk or biofuels. Carlypso is attacking the $400 billion used car market. If you’re a car owner that wants to sell your vehicle, you have two options. You can either sell it to a dealer in less than an hour and earn substantially less for your vehicle or you can engage in the time-consuming process of selling it yourself. Carlypso says this process can take at least 20 hours and the owner opens themselves up to all kinds of spam and unwanted messaging. With Carlypso, a seller enter details the car’s details on Carlypso’s website, and the company advises the seller with a ballpark figure of how much money it could fetch using its own pricing algorithm that takes into account local data from dealerships and successful listings (an extra large pickup truck will fetch a higher price in Texas than in Manhattan, for instance.) Carlypso then sends an inspector from its nationwide network of certified mechanics to inspect the car, take photos, and attach a “Carlypso device” that tracks the vehicle for when potential buyers come for test drives. Carlypso also formats a “for sale by owner” listing, and helps post it across a number of outlets. From there, the seller continues to use the car as usual. When it’s not in use, the seller parks it in a driveway, or a local parking lot, or down the block, so that interested buyers can check it out or take it for a spin. Carlypso filters through all of the inbound offers, and contacts the seller only when there is one that is deemed reasonable. The seller never needs to meet the person who buys the car. If the car is sold, Carlypso collects a 5 percent “listing fee” that’s capped at $1,500. Bikanta is using nanodiamonds to redefine medical imaging. Those nanodiamonds act as miniature flashlights that can be used to “shine light” on a number of medical problems, including the detection of cancer. And that’s important because the faster you can detect cancer, the more likely you are to successfully treat it. The technology was developed as part of the founder’s post-doctoral study at the National Institute of Health, and they hold key patents in the field. The company is selling into the $12 billion imaging probe and instrumentation market, and already has letters of intent for $3 million worth of nanodiamonds. A professional networking platform that applies the simplicity of Tinder with the traditionally tedious process of making connections. Instead of spamming potential employees or partners with LinkedIn notifications or email, the app gives people a way to quickly determine whether having a conversation with someone is worth their time. The company claims that in fewer than 50 swipes, users can expect to make at least 1 relevant meeting, which takes less than five minutes of use. The company sees its biggest opportunity in the world of recruiting, where $5 billion is spent by recruiters on web recruitment despite the fact that only 20% of people are hired from online postings. Theorem tries to create a unified marketplace for independent brands. The company says that consumer tastes have changed as buyers have shifted from big box retailers to independent, small-batch designers. There are 500,000 independent designers worldwide but no centralized destination for them all. They usually build their own websites or go on Amazon, eBay or Etsy. On Theorem, there’s an interesting twist: The price of each item is up for negotiation. Buying something on Theorem hearkens to the kind of give-and-take that’s been practiced in flea markets and bazaars for centuries, but brought online and into the modern age. The company’s larger vision now is to become the “Priceline for fashion,” bringing the name-your-own-price model to a new type of market, and letting independent brands benefit. Roughly 60 percent of offers presented by shoppers on Theorem are being accepted by merchants at the moment, giving growing independent brands an outlet for selling items to a new customer base, without diluting their carefully-crafted images. This startup is reinventing the way that parents connect with each other and find the resources they need. It’s a common struggle for today’s parents, because they are either stuck on web discussion forums or listservs which don’t serve them well. Parenthoods, by contrast, offers a mobile app to help a new generation of parents that are increasingly on the go. The app is pseudo-anonymous and local, and is already seeing 25 percent of parents who sign up interacting with it eevry single day. A service for scheduling spa-style massages at home. The company describes itself as “Homejoy for massage and wellness,” letting users book a massage in minutes with a licensed therapist, who will bring everything necessary to your home. The company has been operating in San Francisco for seven months, and in that time it has seen some evidence that making it easier for massage therapists and customers to connect, more massages are done overall: customers have more sessions over time than the industry average, and massage therapists working with the service make 2-3 times the industry average. Vizera has some cool technology that uses projection mapping for designer showrooms. Their software can change the color and patterns projected on furniture so that buyers can see what chairs or couches would look like with certain kinds of fabric. This enables showrooms to be much more space-efficient and smaller. The company says that showrooms make up 28 percent of all retail revenue and are part of a $1.3 trillion market. This startup wants to change the manual process of doing background checks for a new generation of employers. With a growing number of companies hiring contractors for on-demand services, it’s a huge and growing market. Already, it’s doing background checks for companies like Instacart, Homejoy, and DoorDash, and has gone from 0-$40,000 in revenue in just one month. It’s seeking to build the trust layer of the Internet, with an API for background checks that could, over time, lower the cost of doing them. Livblends wants to revolutionize the smoothie market by bringing fresh smoothies directly to your door. ““There’s an enormous shift toward food that isn’t killing us” joked co-founder of LivBlends, Elise Polezel. The startup has received a healthy growth of 30% week over week and says it plans to take on the $10 billion dollar smoothie marketplace against companies like Odwalla. Polezel says this type of food is dead and Livblends delivers live, fresh mixes instead. The company has made inroads delivering freshly blended mixes to several San Francisco startups. It counts Twitter, Box and others among customers now receiving its smoothie mixes on a daily basis. Polezel and her co-founder, MIT engineering grad Matthew Udomphol also plan to release a Keurig-like smoothie maker that removes the messy cleanup of most juicers later this year. Billing itself as “an exchange for overbooked hotels,” Walksource has built a network that connects hotels together and allows them to see who has room availability in the same geographical area. Just like airlines, hotels frequently overbook with the assumption that some customers will cancel their bookings at the last minute. But unlike airlines, most hotels don’t have a software system for finding overbooked customers somewhere else to go. Hotels that are overbooked for a night must “walk” customers when they check in — call around to other neighboring hotels in walking distance to see who still has an available room. According to the startup, the demand for this service has been huge: In the six months since WalkSource’s beta launch, the company has gotten 43 percent of all San Francisco Bay Area hotels to sign up for its service. That’s more than 200 hotels in 33 different cities. WalkSource charges $200 per hotel per month for its service. In the future, the company says that it can also take its knowledge of last minute available hotel rooms and sell the information to companies like Hotel Tonight and Priceline. San Francisco Open Exchange is a trading platform for Bitcoin that helps buyers find the cheapest prices between various exchanges. The company says that 90 percent of all Bitcoin trades are done in U.S. dollars even though the most popular exchanges like Bitstamp and BTC-e are based outside of the U.S. because of domestic banking regulations. The company has grown to $50,000 in weekly volume and is aiming for the broader Bitcoin trading market, where $3 billion worth of Bitcoin was exchanged last year. The company’s two founders, Akbar Thobhani and George Melika, have built at least four trading platforms between them. This startup offers a name-your-own price marketplace for products — think of it as “Priceline for products.” The price you see on a retailer’s website often isn’t the lowest price it is willing to sell something for. That’s because manufacturers keep retailers from publicly displaying the lowest price. By helping customers name their own price, Greentoe has already generated more than $1 million in revenue, and it has a return customer rate of 34 percent. By remaining independent of retailers and manufacturers, Greentoe can provide the lowest price available. A service offering tax and insurance assistance for independent contractors.The company notes that independent contractors make up 40% of the work force and that their segment of the labor force is growing two times faster than the labor market overall. As with Intuit’s Mint, the company is able to offer its service to contractors for free by making its money as an insurance broker, collecting a small percentage when its users take its advice when buying insurance. |
Philips Hue Lux Review: Smart Lighting For Less | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 8 | 19 | If you’ve been eyeing the connected lighting series with keen interest but are also unwilling to spend the big bucks the current series demands, now’s your chance to get on board: Philips has kicked off pre-orders for the line of bulbs, including individual units and a starter kit including two bulbs and a base. The Lux trades programmable colors for a cheaper price tag, but most consumers won’t miss the extra features. The Philips Hue Lux retails for $29.99 per bulb, which is half the price of the standard Philips Hue and Hue Downlights and Spotlights. The Starter Kit retails for $99.99 U.S., which is $100 cheaper than the starter kit for the standard color-changing bulbs, albeit with one fewer bulb included in the kit. The trade-off is that they only offer up a soft white light, which isn’t changeable, but all other Hue features are included, including times, geofencing, scene compatibility with other Hue apps and remote brightness control. The Lux is a 750 lumen bulb at max brightness, which is roughly equivalent to a 60 watt incandescent lightbulb. The original Hue and the Hue Downlight produce 600 lumens and 630 lumens respectively, so theoretically you’re getting brighter maximum light here, but the softer light might appear less bright than a more pure white you can get out of the adjustable rest of the range. Overall, the Hue Lux is a good option for those looking to supplement their existing Hue setup with bulbs for their desk and floor lamps, and for other installations where they just need basic lighting without all the fancy extras like color changing in sync with media playback. If you think about the fact that you can kit out a kitchen’s worth of six overhead sockets for $180 instead of $360, that’s going to make a big difference. The Lux bulbs also use 80 percent less power than a traditional incandescent bulb, and should last a lot longer, too, with estimated life span tapped at 22 years, adding to the overall value proposition. It’s about twice the price of the non-Hue 60W equivalent Philips of the same design, but you get the connectivity in the mix, which really increases its overall versatility. If you’re a Hue system user, or if you’ve been curious about the Philips smart bulb range, this is a great new addition to the lineup. It’s available for pre-order now through Amazon and the Apple Store in the U.S., and begins shipping in the first week of September. |
Y Combinator-Backed Traction Is A Marketplace Connecting Brands With Freelance Marketers | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 8 | 19 | A new startup called says it’s giving brands an alternative to the traditional marketing model — instead of working with agencies, Traction has created a marketplace for finding the best marketing specialist for a given campaign. Traction is part of the current batch of startups incubated at Y Combinator, i.e., the one that’s taking the stage at today’s Demo Day. The company has already raised funding from Digital Garage, 500 Startups, Ullas Naik, and others. Brands that have used Traction include Sony, Kraft, Danone, Unilever, Yahoo, CBS, and the Republican Party. Those are bigger names than I was expecting, but co-founder Ken Zi Wang argued that brands are looking for “innovative solutions” and products that are more “performance-based.” In other words, they want more data about what’s actually working, and they want to pay for actual results. Those brands set up a campaigns on Traction by entering information like the primary objective, the target audience, the maximum budget, and the area of expertise where they’re looking for help. The marketplace will then algorithmically match them with marketers specializing in fields like search optimization, media buying, lead generation, content marketing, and social media. In some ways, the model reminded me of the freelance marketplaces that companies have built for content marketing. Wang said that’s a fair comparison, but while those companies are focused on content creation, Traction is more about distribution and promotion. More broadly, he said his goal is to create “this new job category,” similar to Uber, except in this case with “partner marketers” rather than drivers. (As Uber and other marketplaces for freelance work have expanded, t about the desirability and sustainability of those jobs.) The marketers currently on the Traction site include some who are completely freelance, and others who are looking to make extra money on top of their existing jobs. Wang said they sometimes team up to form “flexible work groups.” He added that Traction partners are often “very skilled digital marketers” who would otherwise “never have a chance” to work with large brands. |
Fly Or Die: Sex Toys | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 8 | 19 | This episode of , focused on two different sex toys, may seem straightforward, but John and I actually learned a lot. We realized that not all sex toys are created equal, especially when you’re weighing sex toys for girls against those for boys. In this particular episode, we look at the , a blowjob machine that launched on Indiegogo earlier this summer, and the OhMiBod , a panty-insert vibrator that connects to your smartphone. While both are surely effective in their intended goals, we noticed a very glaring difference between the two products that is representative of a larger trend. Boys sex toys kind of suck. For instance, the AutoBlow 2 only has one speed, feels generally plastic-y and cheap in real life, and must be plugged in to work. Essentially, you’re making love to a thermos as you cower near an outlet. Meanwhile, the OhMiBod is a beautifully designed, full-featured product that has Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity alongside an iPhone app. In short, this is a call to all the entrepreneurs out there building sex toys for guys. Step up your game. |
Steve Ballmer Steps Down From Microsoft’s Board | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 8 | 19 | Steve Ballmer is out at Microsoft. In a , the former Microsoft CEO announced that he is stepping down from the software company’s board, effective immediately. Current Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella thanked Ballmer for his service to the firm, and for his “support” during his early days as CEO. The Ballmer era is over. Ballmer’s letter is worth reading. A passage: I bleed Microsoft —have for 34 years and I always will. I continue to love discussing the company’s future. I love trying new products and sending feedback. I love reading about what is going on at the company. Count on me to keep ideas and inputs flowing. The company will move to higher heights. I will be proud, and I will benefit through my share ownership. I promise to support and encourage boldness by management in my role as a shareholder in any way I can. Ballmer’s tenure as CEO was controversial, but it was rare to find someone who doubted his conviction, whatever the efficacy of his decisions. Microsoft’s stock is all but unchanged on the news. The former chief executive officer cited his new, post-Microsoft commitments, including his recent purchase of the Los Angeles Clippers, as reasons for the departure. So, no more ‘developers, developers, developers,’ but there is plenty more where this comes from: A post shared by (@jovanbuha) on |
Tom Daschle’s Son Raises Half A Million To Remake Ruck.us Into The Kickstarter Of Local Politics | Sarah Buhr | 2,014 | 8 | 19 | Political startup has raised half a million dollars and made a major switch from the to a local political fundraising platform. The site went through a reboot after it didn’t get the votes needed to make a social play over the last few years. It did, however, figure out a larger need in local politics – a free way for grassroots politicians to create websites to raise money online. Co-founder Nathan Daschle (yes, former U.S. Senator Tom Daschle’s son) alludes to it as a community-based Kickstarter for your local school board rep. “We’re hoping that Ruck.us will help level the playing field in the races that matter,” says Daschle. In the process he and his co-founders Jonathan Zucker and angel investor Leo Wang realized they were actually building something that a lot of political candidates might possibly want. And so pivot, they did. Now Ruck.us, flush with half a million to keep itself going, has partnered with the Democratic Parties in Maryland, Idaho, and Michigan to get candidates and local and county party organizations online. “Our partnership with Ruck.us is at the center of our effort to revamp our digital infrastructure,” says Michigan Democratic Party chair Lon Johnson. According to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, campaign expenditures for Michigan State House races totaled nearly $20 million. It should be noted here that Ruck.us is a free platform. It makes its money by charging 5.75 percent of funds raised, or net 2 percent, much like a Kickstarter or Indiegogo monetization model. Of course, there are other solutions out there besides Ruck.us. A local school board rep could cobble together a WordPress page that hooks into Facebook and a host of other applications instead of Ruck.us. They could also get a website custom-made or just gin up a Facebook page and hook it into PayPal. Some of this would take either a lot of work or some technical know-how to do – technical know-how that may seem very simple to those in the tech community but not necessarily to a local person running for office. Daschle says the grassroots politicians really needed a one-stop shop for this sort of thing. Ruck.us offers bundled event management, an email blaster, social media marketing, a free donations page, and provides the data needed for political campaign finance filing, all on one platform. It came as a surprise to Daschle how easy the buy-in has been with local candidates. “It’s just harder to find the ones not already online yet,” he tells me. Next up is to target the five states that will hold statewide elections next year—Virginia, New Jersey, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Daschle believes this new Ruck.us will be the digital change local candidates need in their political world. “The ability to state your issues and communicate them clearly on the Internet can be the difference in winning a race, and a website from the late ‘90s isn’t going to cut it,” Daschle says. We’ll be waiting to see if this new iteration of Ruck.us will actually rock the vote on a local level as well. |
MIX for Android Lets You Create And Save Custom Photo Filters | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 8 | 26 | is the app for you if you often feel like Goldilocks when confronted with the filters in other photo-editing apps. Not only does MIX let you edit photos, but it also allows you to create custom filters, which you can then save to use again. MIX, now available for , is the latest product from Camera360, which has already gained 300 million users with its other apps, including its flagship product . Camera360’s head of overseas public relations, Caroline Luo, says the company decided to create MIX after browsing through photos edited using Camera360 on Instagram and seeing that users applied a wide arrange of effects and filters. MIX was specifically created for Instagram users who want more customization. “Through MIX we hope to remove any previous limitations placed on their creative process and open up unlimited possibilities,” she says. There are already other Android apps that allow users to create custom filters and effects, like and , but Luo says MIX differentiates by being centered entirely on “the creation and propagation of DIY photo filters.” Once you take or load a photo from your gallery into MIX, the app gives you a selection of nine series of filters (MIX has a total of 115 pre-made filters, including ones designed for portraits, HDR, or black and white photos) to choose from if you want to edit photos in a hurry. Alternatively, you can also add a filter and then start building on it by adding different effects. If you skip the filters, MIX takes you to the rest of its features, which include 10 more filter series (including ones designed for portraits, HDR, or black and white photos), a comprehensive selection of editing tools, including a blur tool that allows you to replicate the depth-of-field in a photo taken with lens ranging from f1.0 to f3.2 in aperture size. Then you can add different textures (from a selection of 40), light effects, like lens flare, “stage” lights, and light leaks, and a rainbow of adjustable tints. MIX allows you to save filters as “formulas” in the app. You can see how your photo looks before and after editing by tapping on it to see the original, which is a helpful feature, but one of MIX’s drawbacks is that you can’t undo each step. Hopefully Camera360 will add an undo feature to its next update, because with a total of 200 filters, textures, light leaks, and other effects, it’s a pain if your photo doesn’t quite look the way it should. The app does, however, allow you to save your edits at any point for future use. The app will monetize by offering in-app purchases including, presumably, more filters and effects. For more examples of what MIX can do and formula guides, check out the . |
Google To Open Campus For Startups In Seoul | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 8 | 26 | Google will open a new space for entrepreneurs in Seoul, the company . Called a Campus, it will include co-working spaces, programs like , , and office hours with Google employees. The Seoul location is Google’s first Campus in Asia. Google has opened similar spaces in Tel Aviv and London, and also plans new Campuses in Warsaw and Sao Paulo. The London location was profiled by TechCrunch in December 2013, 20 months after it opened. As Mike Butcher pointed out, Google Campuses are high profile marketing for the company (when it opened, Google was under pressure by the UK government to drive tech entrepreneurship), but the one in London appears to be a success so far. By its second year it had 22,000 members and has “done a lot to act as a locus for startups in London,” Butcher wrote. Though Seoul’s startup ecosystem is growing, with accelerators like and , it’s startup scene is still very young. Like other nascent ecosystems, entrepreneurs have to deal with a lack of mentorship and funding and exit opportunities, so hopefully Google’s Seoul Campus will help provide them with more opportunities. |
Pinterest Investor Fritz Lanman Working On Two Different Companies | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,014 | 8 | 26 | Less than two years after , early Pinterest and Square investor is up to his old entrepreneurial tricks. Lanman, a former Microsoft VP who continues to make angel investments (he led the seed round of ), is trying out the model, dividing his efforts between , which is focused on wearable tech products, and , a framework for mobile app development in the same space as , . Each company has already raised seven-figure seed rounds: Doppler from investors , and among others and DWNLD from CrunchFund* and William Morris Agency among others. Each startup is set to launch product in September, with Doppler at 30 employees and DWLND at 15. Doppler Labs wants to “change the way you hear the world,” and we’ve heard that it will be coming out with an entire product line, with its first product offering hearing protection (details are scarce). DWNLD wants to create apps for media companies, and has attracted quite a few former Googlers, Tumblrs and Foursquares, in addition to former Thrillist VP as CEO. Both fledgling startups have products that will debut this September, under the guidance of Lanman, who did not have to join Pinterest full time as part of the acquisition deal. Oh the sweet smell of new startups. * CrunchFund was started by Michael Arrington who also started this blog. |
European Travel Planner Platform, GoEuro, Pulls In Another $27M For Regional Expansion | Natasha Lomas | 2,014 | 8 | 26 | Berlin-based multi-mode travel planner platform has closed a $27 million Series A funding round led by New Enterprise Associates, seven months on from topping up its seed funding with another . The new funding will be specifically targeted at market expansion and ramping up GoEuro’s rate of growth. As well as new investor NEA, all three of GoEuro’s existing VCs participated in the round: namely and . GoEuro raised a back in March 2013 to build its vision of a multi-modal travel platform for planning longer distance journeys in Europe. GoEuro’s platform can be described as a meta search engine focused on European transport options. Users enter their start point and desired destination and the system crunches possible routes, considering factors such as speed and price, and presenting a series of options covering different transport modes and spanning the entire journey. GoEuro currently operates in seven countries in Europe: its , plus Spain, Italy, — which means that it can only offer full bus, rail and air options for those markets. It does not currently support ticket booking within the platform but that is a feature the startup aims to add in future. One likely candidate to be added to its market coverage footprint now that it’s flush with Series A cash is France, which plays a key bridging role in European travel geography, connecting land journeys from the U.K. (via the channel tunnel/ferry) on to many key destinations in central Europe. In terms of travel terminals, GoEuro says it now covers 20,510 railway stations, 10,011 bus stations and 207 airports. That’s up from 12,900 rail, 8,500 bus (coach) stations and 150 airports back in January. Competitors in the multi-modal travel planning space include the likes of , and . The size of the market is likely to support multiple competitors — although GoEuro is evidently gunning to be one of the biggest in the space. |
Facebook Hosts First Hackathon For Female Veterans | Cat Zakrzewski | 2,014 | 8 | 26 | There are dozens of hackathons in Silicon Valley every month, but on Monday Facebook hosted one with a twist. Rather than , female veterans were the only participants at the first . About 30 female veterans participated in the hackathon, pitching a variety of ideas from Bohdi therapies, an app to provide therapy to vets suffering from anxiety, to Puppyness, a crowd-sourced app that would tell dog owners which restaurants and stores in their area are dog friendly.” This is the fourth since it hosted its . The organization focuses on teaching veterans entrepreneurship skills and connecting them with tech companies as they return from active duty and search for employment. The Facebook hackathon was the first that was only for female engineers. Starting the day at 7 a.m., the women veterans worked with Facebook engineers on developing business models and pitches for a panel presentation later that night with judges from Facebook, , and . Thx and for a fab hackathon with some rockin women vets — Bethany Coates (@bethanycoates) Great event today producing some awesome companies. Honored to be apart of it cc: — Kyle Ellicott (@kyleellicott) , a clinical psychologist who has worked with veterans and who is a military veteran herself, took home first place in the competition with her proposal for a company that would create an app and a virtual reality simulator using technology such as to provide veterans with anxiety treatment. As the winner of the competition, Erickson is now . She also receives office space and lunch with . In a phone interview with TechCrunch on Tuesday, Erickson said she realized the need for a service like Bohdi while talking with veterans who were frequently not completing their treatments for anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder because the exposure treatments they were receiving were too painful and difficult. But knowing that 91 percent of patients who complete treatment have improved quality of life, Erickson wanted to find a way to help other veterans complete their treatment. In her work, Erickson implements , which she says focuses on helping patients cope in real world situations. She said this therapy could be enhanced by creating an app patients could access on the go. In an example, she said a patient beginning to experience anxiety symptoms while walking through a crowded Walmart could pull out the app, which would then provide the patient with situational coping techniques. Patients could also practice these techniques stimulation exercises using virtual reality technology. Erickson said she has been thinking about creating a company like Bohdi for almost a decade, but technology has just caught up with her vision. Her project was enhanced at the hackathon when she was able to work with a veteran who had experience working with Air Force flight simulators and another veteran who worked with a nonprofit for homeless veterans. “There’s just a great need right now for military service members to gain treatment,” she said. “We all know about the problems right now with the VA and access to care. If we can come up with these new ways to use technology we can reach more of the people who actually need the help.” Facebook first became involved with the Vets in Tech initiative last year, when its own internal group of veteran employees connected with the group and started a veterans hackathon at the company’s headquarters last year. This year Vets in Tech came back to Facebook, asking them to host a hackathon specifically focused on female entrepreneurship. , a Facebook Diversity Recruiting Strategist and veteran, said the number of veterans working at Facebook is increasing, although Facebook does not publicly disclose how many employees self-report as veterans. “It’s a very active group,” she said. “We’re always looking to recruit more veterans to work here at Facebook.” Another Facebook employee and veteran, , was one of dozens of Facebook employees who came to offer technical advice to the female veterans. Pompliano, who had two startups after serving in the military, said it was important to give military veterans the confidence that they have the skill sets one needs to succeed in the tech sector. “We hope people can leverage those skill sets rather than feel they’re at a disadvantage,” he said. The dozens of veterans in attendance on Monday ranged in their technical abilities. Some just had experience in social media, while others were full stack developers. said it was important for Facebook to host an event like this because frequently companies underestimate the technical skills military veterans have. She said more resources should be devoted to accelerated programs that teach veterans these skills because they made sacrifices for their country rather than taking the traditional path and immediately spending four years in college. “I’m so impressed with the quality of these women,” Webster said. “They’re just as smart as people at any hackathon, and on top of all that they fought for our country.” |
Microsoft Promises Fix For Surface Pro 3 Overheating Issue | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 8 | 26 | The issue that is causing some Surface Pro 3 devices to restart and tell users that they are overheating is an error, according to Microsoft. The company has promised a fix in short order. Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3 tablet hybrid has an Intel Core i7 processor option; Microsoft says the chip requires “[its] fan to spin more regularly and at higher speeds – and for the unit to run slightly warmer.” Reasonable enough. I’ve noticed that my loaner Core i5-based Surface Pro 3 can get a bit warm when docked, but that’s not too surprising given its hardware mix when you consider the size of the device. According to the software company, “a very small number” of Pro 3 devices are impacted. It’s been an interesting rollout for the Surface Pro 3. I recently regarding Surface revenue in Microsoft’s most recent quarter due to my miscomprehension of how pre-order data for the Pro 3 device would be accounted for. Presumably, Surface revenue for Redmond will be quite a bit higher in the current financial period. For now, if you sprung for the priciest Pro 3 SKU, help is on the way. |
PSA: HP Recalls 6 Million Laptop Cables Because They Could Start Fires | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 8 | 26 | Are you using an HP laptop? Quick — take a look at its power cord. Specifically, the part that connects from the power brick to the wall. If it says “LS-15” on it, you might need to stop using the cable and get it replaced (though, confusingly, some “LS-15”-marked cables are fine.) According to an alert from the US Consumer Safety Product Commission and , some 6 million-or-so power cables floating about out there are now considered potential fire hazards. To date, the CPSC says there’ve been 29 reports of cords overheating and charring, with two of those resulting in minor injuries and 13 claims of property damage. As you might expect, HP is replacing all affected cables free of charge. If your power cable looks like the one above, you can right over here to determine if you’re due for a replacement. [ via ] |
Seagate Ships An 8 Terabyte Hard Drive, Perfect For All Of Your Totally Legal And Not Pirated Stuff | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 8 | 26 | Around a decade ago, I spent a few days piecing together a 1TB networked storage device. It wrecked my then-teenage savings, but I didn’t care; with 1TB under my command, I was the coolest kid on the block (there… weren’t a lot of kids on my block.) Today, Seagate is announcing a hard drive with 8x the capacity of my little project — a full 8 terabytes. When it ships, it’ll be the first time anyone has crammed that much storage into a 3.5″ drive. Up until about a year ago, the record for a 3.5″ drive sat at 4TB. Then Western Digital came along and bumped the ceiling up to 6TB using helium to reduce friction on the spinning disks. A few months later, Seagate reached 6TB without the need for helium. And now they’re up at 8TB – . So how are they doing it? tl;dr: Magnetic hard drives use circular tracks of data on a spinning disk. The components that write these tracks are already about as small as they can get — and, thus, so are the tracks they create. But the components that these tracks are smaller than the writing components, and can read smaller tracks than the writers can create. So by overlapping tracks – that is, writing a new track partially on top of the one before it — they’re able to force more tracks into less space without compromising the tracks or the data they store. More tracks = more storage. No pricing has been disclosed yet for their 8TB drive (it’s “shipping to select customers” now, with wider availability in the coming months) – but for reference, the consumer version of the 6TB drive they announced back in April currently goes for around $300. Whatever the announced price is, you’ll really be paying about 2x that… because at 8TB, if you don’t buy a second drive to mirror the first, you’re absolutely bonkers. BRB, having a panic attack at the idea of losing an 8TB drive full of data. |
Hands-On With Hyperlapse, Instagram’s New Video Creation App | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 8 | 26 | Instagram has just launched a brand new standalone app , which focuses entirely on mobile video creation. The app dead simple, but is actually doing a lot in the background. When you first open , you’ll go through a very quick tutorial and are then sent straight into a full-screen camera. The button on the bottom starts and stops recording. Once you have recorded a video, the app gives you a single control over the content: speed. Users can switch from 1x speed (a slower version) all the way up to 12x speed (super fast). But beyond speed, the real draw here is the ability to shoot a steady video on mobile that appears professionally shot. Generally speaking, image stabilization tech is processing-intensive to the point where it really isn’t feasible on mobile. However, by using the gyroscopes in the phone itself, the Instagram team used algorithms to calculate the movements of the phone and correct it in the shot. They’re able to get away with this by using a cropped portion of the massive resolution available in your phone’s camera, leveraging the extra pixels of the sensor to stabilize the view. The end result is an app that creates beautiful, souped-up videos that look and feel as though they were shot by professionals using expensive equipment. Without a doubt, the technology itself is impressive. And the execution isn’t all that bad, either. Instagram chose to let Hyperlapse stand as its own app, rather than integrating it into the main Instagram app. This makes sense given the fact that such a great feature would be buried within Instagram proper, either upsetting the loyal users who don’t like it or hiding from users who might love it. That said, Hyperlapse doesn’t have its own feed. When you complete a video, you can either send it directly to Instagram or Facebook through an automatic app switch on your phone. It’s also automatically saved on your phone’s camera roll. This means that there is no single place for a person to watch a feed of Hyperlapse videos, just like there’s no dedicated video-only or photo-only feed for Instagram. From a business perspective, it’s no surprise that Instagram and Facebook want to push all the content created with Hyperlapse onto their own massive networks, as opposed to opening up yet another place for content to live, away from their existing users. However, I’ve always felt that video never belonged on Instagram in the first place. [gallery columns="5" ids="1048697,1048698,1048699,1048700,1048701"] For a long time, the biggest hurdle to creating the “Instagram for Video” was the fact that it was so difficult to film a compelling, beautiful video on a smartphone. The entrance of HD video on mobile changed that, but then image stabilization got in the way. Now, Hyperlapse solves the problem of image stabilization (and bravo!), but it doesn’t change the issues around consuming mobile video. Instagram is all about simplicity. Pre-set filters take the place of a tedious editing process, and a few buttons take the place of actually going to a bunch of different apps and uploading the picture. You can comment if you wish, but a double-tap to like will do the trick, too. From start to finish, the process is centered around simplicity. The same was true for Instagram’s consumption experience before video. It was the ultimate time sink. Users could open up the app during any lull, whether they were meant to be paying attention during a meeting or sitting on a bus or at a dinner with friends. Almost all the photos were pretty (because that’s the point) and if you didn’t like one, you merely had to flick your thumb to get to the next. The bits of content were bite-sized and silent. . Not only was it harder to capture beauty for an extended period of time (15 seconds) as opposed to a single moment, but it was intrusive and sometimes startling to have a video pop up out of the blue. It took time to decide whether or not it was actually worth watching — up to 15 seconds, sometimes.
While I still don’t care for Instagram video, Hyperlapse feels like something truly new in the mobile video landscape. Videos made on the new app and sent to Instagram will undoubtedly up the Instagram Video game on the whole, as Hyperlapse clips are silent by default and are steady and engaging even without filters. However, I do think the app is interesting enough that power users would enjoy a feed where they can take inspiration from other Hyperlapsers. All that said, Hyperlapse is potentially the coolest thing Instagram has done since building Instagram. |
This Is Not The iPhone 6. | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 8 | 26 | [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34T80iLYojk&w=640&h=360] But it the hardest I’ve laughed all month. Everything from the over-done splash animation at the beginning with its blaring techno track, to the “teardown”, to that glorious hair/beard combo hit: it’s perfect. [Made by Chicago improv group ] |
VR Gives Game Developers A Chance To Take Streaming Time From Twitch | Kyle Russell | 2,014 | 8 | 26 | Yesterday for $970 million. I argued that for the foreseeable future, it seemed like Amazon’s efforts in the gaming space line up well with Twitch’s goals and that Amazon has to turn the site into a money-maker going forward. While I think that Twitch is probably going to be a win for Amazon, justifying the fact that it , there are a few threats on the horizon in the streaming space that the company will have to watch out for. Beyond direct competitors like , and , the emergence of virtual reality over the next few years offers game developers an opening to take some of that streaming time back from Twitch by providing game spectators a far more immersive view of games than is available today. Twitch streams are general either direct from the view of someone playing a game, or someone watching via a game’s spectator mode so that they can maneuver around in the game to provide commentary on different things that are going on. Those are two great options for the biggest draws for using Twitch: to see if a game is worth buying; see fun commentary as a celebrity gamer plays; see competitive players compete in tournaments; and learn those professionals’ strategies. In a virtual reality environment however, not having control over the camera when looking at content from a first-person perspective can lead to motion sickness. You could still show Twitch streams as giant movie-theater-sized projections in a virtual environment, but to show first-person gameplay of something like you wouldn’t want to give the viewer the same perspective as someone actually playing the game: http://youtu.be/DEzfzis725k?t=23s This drawback for Twitch is an opportunity for game developers to keep more game spectating within their own apps. Most multiplayer games offer some kind of spectator mode, either letting you watch strangers and friends as they play or simply watching your allies after you die near the end of a match. As the virtual reality gaming market matures, developers will have the chance to rebuild those features to better take advantage of the immersion possible in a virtual environment. Instead of simply watching your Xbox Live friends play a match of Madden, you could walk around in the thick of things, seeing the action from the best vantage points. In Chivalry, you could walk behind the lines of storming soldiers as they mount their attacks on the enemy fort. will enable this kind of spectating from anywhere. As mobile phones get stronger, games built with multiplatform engines like Unreal and Unity could build native (but stripped-down) versions of games that let you jump directly into a match to spectate at any time. Each of these uses come with new possible business models, including charging for spectatorship (which will seem less and less crazy as eSports take off), ads between matches, free mobile versions for spectating that let you pay for an in-app purchase in order to actually play, and more. This isn’t to say that Amazon should be too worried about the prospect of developers bolstering their in-game spectating experiences. In yesterday’s , Twitch CEO Emmett Shear made it clear that both Twitch and Amazon aim to help their “partners” in the game industry make more money. While VR gives developers the chance to lure gamers to spend more time engaged with their games on more platforms, it seems likely that a more pressing goal is to sell more units, a task that Amazon is more than willing to help with. |
As Samsung Falters, An Opening For Startups | Danny Crichton | 2,014 | 8 | 26 | In the smash-hit movie , Korea’s naval hero Admiral Yi-Sun Sin defends Korea from an invading Japanese imperial navy, single-handedly using his ship to hold off their advance in a treacherous current that today is considered one of the great naval battles of all time. The movie may be historical with its gruesome depictions of war and battle, but its themes still deeply resonate in the country today, and it has since become the most popular film ever released in Korean history. The story though also acts as a parable of the roaring currents of the technology industry, where massive change driven by foreign influence has meant constant competition and complaint for Korea’s largest and smallest technology firms. I spent the last nine months living in Seoul, talking with founders, investors, and other interested in the health and future of startups in the country. At a time when Samsung’s revenues are not just flagging but collapsing, there is increasingly a need for Korea to find its next phase of development. Incredible challenges remain, and that dream remains far off. But the country has built the first steps of an ecosystem, and those in the US interested in the “rise of the rest” should take note as Seoul grows up into a mature innovation center. The rise and strength of the Korean economy has been driven by one company that today is the country’s most recognizable global brand: Samsung. The company represents approximately 17% of GDP and is the largest exporter of goods from ships to LCD screens and of course, smartphones. In fact, the company is so identified with the government and the progress of Korea that the country is occasionally referred to locally as the Republic of Samsung. So when Samsung repeatedly presented bad news to investors this past year, — the first drop in three years — there has been something of a slowly boiling panic underway in the country. From talks with people who work at the company, stress levels are off the charts, . My colleague John Biggs has , but that was before these most recent results. With consumers unwilling to pay top dollar for Samsung’s best smartphones and Chinese manufacturers readying a dizzying array of competitive and inexpensive products, Samsung faces what might be considered an almost overpowering inevitability crisis about its downfall. Samsung’s leadership certainly knows its potential fate, having witnessed the rise and fall of Sony, the Japanese conglomerate from which Samsung takes its historical inspiration. It has experimented with new form factors with its Galaxy Gear device, and the company as it pursues new avenues for growth. Perhaps its most ambitious change is simply to buy up areas of future growth. was an attempt to get into a white hot market like Internet of Things through an acquisition. SmartThings is notable for being one of the only acquisitions the company has made in the technology space in its history. The company is also expanding its presence in American innovation centers like San Jose and New York. There is a very thin window of opportunity for Samsung to change its style and approach to the market, but few are waiting for that moment. Certainly Korea’s political leaders are preparing for a post-Samsung world, with the president emphasizing the phrase “creative economy” to articulate a vision of a more entrepreneurial and disruptive Korean economy. There is no doubt that there has been a deep verve to build up a startup ecosystem in Korea for sometime, but 2014 may be the year that the country first breaks free of its large conglomerates and starts to take the startup model more seriously. Samsung’s continuing woes are taking a toll on its image among university graduates. For the first time in ten years, , replaced instead by Korean Air in a survey conducted by Incruit. Positive news from the startup world also has helped draw more attention. Just take the news from Coupang, one of the country’s top startups, which led by Sequoia’s chairman Mike Moritz, the legendary investor behind Google, Yahoo, and Paypal. The investment is easily one of the most important overseas venture capital infusions in Korea’s history and demonstrates the country’s increasing profile among U.S.-based investors. An early-stage success story came from the winter batch of YCombinator, where Korean startup Memebox was by other YC founders. And Korea’s popular messaging app , one of the largest M&A deals among startups here ever. In short, the country has started to produce case studies for how startups can start, scale, and exit in the market. More importantly, startups have started to develop their own approaches to management and culture, creating open floor plans inspired by Silicon Valley and using English names in communication to avoid issues of social hierarchy intrinsic to the Korean language. But for the region to move from a handful of case studies into a deeply-integrated innovation center, it will have to overcome immense obstacles, ones that are simultaneously cultural, political, economic, and social. Perhaps no issue looms larger for the startup ecosystem than its profound isolation. There remains a huge gap in knowledge between startup founders in Seoul and those in the United States, and there seems to be little effective efforts to close it. Local Korean-language publications like BeSuccess, Platum, and VentureSquare provide news, and , often translated from Silicon Valley writers. Part of the challenge is that the ecosystem is so scattered around Seoul, a city of 10 million people. A good number of startups are located in Gangnam along what would be considered Seoul’s Wall Street, a location that may be convenient for venture capitalists, but seems like a poor fit for the startup culture many founders are hoping to develop. There are programs that are designed to move startups to the US and bring Silicon Valley experts to Seoul like . Such efforts are certainly helpful, but the problem is far more broad. There simply isn’t enough of an emphasis society-wide on supporting and engaging intellectually with new ventures, an issue that founders have confided to me on at least a dozen occasions. That isolation spills over into other areas of the ecosystem like fundraising. Due to the risk-averse nature of venture capital in the country, many term sheets still mandate a personal liability clause in exchange for an investment. This means that if a business fails, the founders may have to personally pay back the money from their own savings. As one founder told me in frustration, “venture capitalists here want to get venture returns with bank loan-level risk.” When I look for lessons to extract from Korea and apply more generally, this is probably the most important one. Entrepreneurs are weird people, driven more by the excitement and thrill of starting a new business rather than the life of a wage slave waiting for retirement. But rules, process, and norms can eliminate the incentives to starting a business so entirely, that it is unfeasible for even the most entrepreneurial of founders to try a new venture. Those regulations deeply undermine the notion that certain cultures have an “innovative spirit,” or that others lack creativity. There is a stigma against failure in Korea, but that comes more from the complete destruction a failure has on an entrepreneur’s personal finances than it does about failure itself. If America had bankruptcy laws or term sheets like those in Korea, we’d see entrepreneurship evaporate as well. What we are talking about is building a new economic model, one that is built for innovation and change rather than scale and stability. It requires every institution in society to rethink how its procedures can inculcate and germinate creativity. The challenge here comes from the transition itself, when massive companies disintegrate in an orgy of creative destruction and a new strata of startups are built from the ashes. Few countries have navigated such challenging currents, but if there is one city that has the potential, it is Seoul. |
Snapchat Raising A New Round From KPCB At A $10B Valuation | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,014 | 8 | 26 | The rumors are flying around vanishing messaging app Snapchat, . These rumors hold that Microsoft and Snapchat are in acquisition talks, though we can’t really grok why they would be, other than that the situation would make a great plot point in the inevitable Snapchat movie (“The Sexting Network”?). According to people familiar with Microsoft, there is little chance of these talks going through, or if they are even happening. And maybe about the Windows Phone? We also keep hearing the company is in the process of raising another round of funding. According to one source, the raise will be an over-$100 million Series D to follow the The new round would value the company at $10 billion, according to our sources. Per , one of the high-profile investors looking at the deal was Alibaba, but those talks . Corroborating these reports, Snapchat earlier this month authorizing a sale of 17.4 million of its shares, at a fraction of a cent. We are hearing that the Snapchat quest for more cash is ongoing, and that the L.A.-based company has been talking to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in addition to New York-based hedge funds like General Atlantic and Tiger Global. [Update: We’ve subsequently heard, and the WSJ is , that Kleiner has agreed to invest. The WSJ is reporting a $20 million raise. Snapchat’s comment: “The valuation of our business and our capital requirements are the least exciting aspects of supporting the Snapchat community. We have no further comment at this time.”] Snapchat most likely needs the money to launch and bolster Snapchat Discovery and other monetization efforts — perhaps a Snapchat ad network? , Snapchat Discovery is a media play that would position ads against ephemeral content like news and video clips. MailOnline, the web version of Daily Mail, has been outed as a Snapchat Discovery partner, and viral behemoth BuzzFeed, during its last funding announcement, made brief mention of one day being able to Snapchat its content. My significant other works at General Catalyst, an early investor in Snapchat. |
Facebook Hires The Team From WaveGroup Sound, An Audio Production Company | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 8 | 26 | : VentureBeat has with Facebook that this was not an acquisition, but it has hired the team behind audio production company WaveGroup Sound. The headline has been changed to reflect this. Original story with more background below. Facebook has made an interesting acquisition, having picked up , an audio production company headquartered in Burlingame, Calif., that specializes in sound for games, and that produced tracks for the Guitar Hero series, as well as Rock Band and Dance Dance Revolution titles. It also makes sounds for many startups, hardware devices and mobile apps. The team that formed WaveGroup has now become the full-time in-house sound design team for Facebook, according to the company’s . They’ve also already worked for FB plenty as a contractor, creating the in-app sounds for apps like Messenger, SlingShot and Instagram Bolt according to an posted to Facebook. WaveGroup’s last project for a client outside Facebook was creating the music for the just-released Star Wars iOS game , a real-time strategy game that pits Empire against Rebel forces. WaveGroup also created the sounds for the Jawbone Era, a Bluetooth headset created by that accessory maker, as well as its Jambox speaker series. Perhaps the company’s most visible work has had a lot to do with producing cover versions of existing songs that separate the tracks, making them especially easy for people to remix or use in other interesting ways. This kind of thing could come in handy at FB, too, in terms of helping to build tools that let users remix and share their own content, a la . More likely it’ll just keep providing all the sounds for Facebook’s growing stable of external apps, such as the few but well-executed ones found in Instagram’s new . Facebook is increasingly looking like an app-building studio, and securing a top-tier in-house sound design crew only serves to reinforce that impression. |
null | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 8 | 19 | null |
Hands-On With Bublcam’s Spherical Video Camera | Kyle Russell | 2,014 | 8 | 26 | The is a video camera that can capture a sphere of content with its four high-def sensors. We first covered it when its creators looking to raise $100,000 to bring the gadget to market. After raising more than three times that, the team behind it has spent nine months tweaking the camera to prepare it for launch this fall. We had Bublcam CEO Sean Ramsay stop by the office to show off the current version of the device, which is In our demo, we used the Bublcam to stream a live video, take a selfie, and record footage from around the office. Operating the camera with one button is easy once you know how long you need to press it for each function, and the color-changing LEDs let you know what the camera is doing at all times. The Bublcam has a few handy features that make it easy to share video taken on the device. While storage on the device is handled by a MicroSD card (letting you add as much storage as you’d like), you don’t have to take out that memory card to access your video files. The camera has Wi-Fi built in, so you can see it wirelessly access the file system directly from apps on your phone, tablet or PC. That also means that you can wirelessly stream a spherical video from anywhere that has wireless Internet access, as long as you’ve got a hotspot or pay to have the feature on your phone carrier’s plan. The camera’s price makes it more of a “prosumer” device than something like a GoPro, which you can (especially after Bublcam’s preorder period ends and the price goes up to $799). That means that Bublcam has to find markets where people would be willing to pay more for the advantages that come with being able to capture a complete sphere of video. Ramsay says that Bublcam has been chasing a few high-end markets for its cameras. It’s looking to bring in filmmakers who’d like to create stories that can vary between viewings, letting you get one story by looking at one spot while other things happen in areas of the visible sphere. Other applications include creating content for VR applications, security, documentary filmmaking and providing interactive streams of live events. For some of those uses, the images that the Bublcam can capture aren’t quite on par with the quality that can be taken from traditional cameras. The company hopes to push into that market next year with the release of a higher-resolution device, something it originally hoped to finance as a stretch goal for its |
Uber Gave Contractors Burner Phones And Credit Cards To Create Fake Lyft Accounts And Recruit Drivers | Ryan Lawler | 2,014 | 8 | 26 | Earlier this month, Lyft and Uber got into a over shady recruitment processes and anticompetitive tactics used in the literal “street fight” over drivers in markets that the two compete in. Based on a today, Uber’s recruiting tactics included the systematic use of contractors to request rides and try to lure away the competition’s drivers with fake Lyft accounts. Previously, Lyft had accused Uber of systematically requesting and cancelling rides during the process, . The next day Uber cried foul as well, claiming an and saying Lyft had planted the story because its investors had been . The Verge’s post, however, shows how Uber gave a group of contractors burner phones and a series of credit cards that could be used to create dummy accounts on its competitor’s service. Those contractors, which it calls “brand ambassadors,” were hired through a recruiting firm with the express purpose of stealing away Lyft drivers. Uber, for its part, tried to defray what it calls misinformation in the press ahead of the article being published, with a blog post that attempts to “set the record straight” and “demystify our recruiting efforts.” It provided its side of what “ ” entails, which includes a series of rider and driver incentives for recruiting new Uber drivers from the competition. The evidence presented against Uber is pretty comprehensive and damning, however: The Verge includes a playbook for its “brand ambassadors,” explaining a process for requesting a ride through temporary Lyft accounts using Uber-provided burner phones and credit cards, asking Lyft drivers if they’d like to work for Uber, and getting them signed up on the spot. It also includes an online form where contractors can request phones, credit cards and driver kits for those it gets signed up. And while the evidence comes from a contractor who was a part of the recruiting program in New York, based on The Verge’s report it appears that Uber was replicating the program in other cities around the country where the two companies compete. The post doesn’t address the issue of ride cancellations, which both Lyft and Gett had accused Uber of participating in as part of a DDoS-style attack. And in its blog post, Uber writes that it “never use[s] marketing tactics that prevent a driver from making their living – and that includes never intentionally canceling rides.” However, Uber’s use of on-the-ground contractors for recruitment shows just how competitive this space has gotten, as both companies seek to provide a high level of driver supply in the markets they operate in. It might not be a winner-take-all market, but Uber has made it clear that it intends to win the ground transportation battle. |
Someone Keeps Sending Us Fake Tips About Path | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 8 | 26 | Someone very desperately wants TechCrunch to write about Path. Over the past few weeks, we’ve received over half a dozen tips about layoffs, visitors from China in the office, an Alibaba “partnership,” potential acquirers and more. The funny thing is, none of these things seem to be true. For starters, the company outright denies it – on the record. Other sources also confirmed there were no layoffs, and not even incentives to get employees to depart on their own. And there’s no Alibaba partnership in the works, either. And yet, the tips keep rolling in. Fine, Path pot-stirrer. We’ll write about this. But maybe not in the way you had hoped. The majority of the tips have to do with layoffs at Path. They paint a somewhat believable story of a startup that many already think of as struggling to find its niche. The numbers of those supposedly let go remain fairly consistent in between these emails, citing around a dozen – or just under – as having lost their jobs. Some are written by those who reportedly let go themselves, while others say they were “just having drinks” with some of the downsized staff. The company, however, has strongly denied these claims, saying “there were no layoffs last week.” And to make sure it wasn’t an issue of semantics (i.e. “last week”), a spokesperson clarified on the phone that there were no layoffs period, nor was it a situation where “layoffs” was not the term they were using – like if employees were being offered “voluntary redundancy” but were not technically being laid off. We also confirmed this with other sources from Path, who weren’t speaking on the record or making statements on behalf of the company. The other major thread through this series of tips were allusions that Path was looking for an acquisition. One claimed Path was shopping itself to Asian-owned tech companies. Another mentioned foreign visitors from China in the office. A more recent one hinted vaguely at “an exciting partnership with Alibaba” – a name brought up in a good handful of these tips. Again, the company goes on record to deny this, even when most businesses generally decline to comment on rumor and speculation. “We are not in talks with any foreign companies to be acquired,” the company says. “There is no partnership with Alibaba.” But still not taking Path at its word alone – we ask around. And sure enough, we’re hearing there’s no Alibaba partnership. (Alibaba declined to comment.) Still, every few days, it seems, the tips roll in. They’re detailed enough to give them that air of legitimacy – one even refers to a personal matter which we’re not going to repeat here, but know to be based in truth. The question now is why is this person (or persons) continuing to send these tips? Is this one single disgruntled employee with an ax to grind? Sure, that’s an easy enough theory – and one of the reasons we’ve declined thus far to publish anything on the matter, whether rumor-debunking or not. Just because someone makes a lot of noise, that doesn’t make it news. But there’s another possibility as well. Perhaps someone involved with Path (or a competitor) – someone who would benefit from it finding an exit – is trying to get news of layoffs and “chats with potential acquirers” in the press. It positions the company as one ready to be bought. Reduced staff, interested investors, etc. And Alibaba, after all, does have a U.S. investments team scoping out Silicon Valley startups, including mobile companies. Over the past year or so, Alibaba has made investments in American companies – it has done so in Kabam, Quixey, Lyft, Peel and Path competitor Tango, for example – not outright acquisitions. It was also rumored to be in with Snapchat. So perhaps this devoted tipster(s) thinks Alibaba should be checking Path out, too? If we had blindly republished the rumors, even as rumors, that’s exactly what would have happened: Path would have rocketed up on its potential acquirers’ radars. So why publish at all? That was the debate. Maybe because the nature of these tips, thanks to that personal info one disclosed (referenced above), makes it sound like an inside job. And even if that’s not the case, it definitely smacks of someone who’s looking for more than just the usual giggles by anonymously sharing misinformation. The consistent nature of the tips, not to mention the barrage, indicate that there is a person or persons out there trying to manipulate the situation, possibly to their advantage in some way. This sort of thing happens all the time – ever since this site installed a , of course. Manipulation of the press via quiet sources and blind tips is old hat — but it’s become even more prevalent in this era of stories based on . It’s our job to tell the difference and do the due diligence. Still, the persistence and detail of the ‘Path campaign’ are somewhat atypical. And hey, maybe potential Path investors or acquirers would want to know that, too. |
Google Adds 152 Patents To Its Non-Assertion Pledge | Frederic Lardinois | 2,014 | 8 | 26 | Back in 2013, Google its plans to not sue anybody who had implemented open-source versions of its MapReduce algorithm. Since then, the company has what it calls its “ ” to a number of other patents. Today it is its largest expansion of this program to date, with the addition of 152 additional patents. This brings the total number of patents included in this program to 245. Google made the initial non-assertion pledge at the height of the “patent wars” that had embroiled all the major tech companies. That situation seems to have cooled off a bit and the pledge always focused more on open-source software than anything else anyway. Under the pledge, Google commits that it will not sue the developers of open-source software who implement these patents. Most of the patents that were previously covered by this pledge focused on back-end technologies. Google says today’s batch includes technologies related to and . The largest number of patents included today, however, focuses on XML and . In addition, Google is adding another five patents related to MapReduce. It’s worth noting that Microsoft and other vendors have made in the past. The 245 patents included in Google’s program are obviously only a very small part of the company’s overall patent portfolio, but it’s a start. |
A 12.9″ iPad Could Make 2015 The Year iOS Breaks The Mobile Mold | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 8 | 26 | A new Apple iPad is in development, according to , with a 12.9-inch display that adds around 3 inches to the size of the iPad Air in terms of diagonal screen dimensions. Such a device would be a lot larger than Apple’s current top tablet overall, and is apparently already gearing up for a production run starting in the first quarter of 2015. We’ve long heard rumors about a bigger tablet coming out of Cupertino, but if it’s finally arriving, next year could be a milestone for iOS and how it’s used. The 12.9-inch iPad has been in development for at least a year, according to Bloomberg’s sources, and is designed to help “shake up” iPad sales according to the publication. It’s true that iPad sales have essentially plateaued over the last couple of quarters, instead of continuing to grow, as has Apple’s iPhone segment. Some analysts claim consumer shyness around new tablet purchases are tied to the availability of smartphones with ever-increasing screen dimensions. Following that logic, offering a tablet with dimensions approximating those of laptops, albeit presumably with a much smaller overall physical footprint, makes a lot of sense. If the current lineup isn’t appealing because there’s not enough difference between big phones and standard tablets, maybe a larger display will give consumers something to get excited about. The challenge is that larger tablets threaten to quickly become unwieldy. But there’s recent evidence to suggest that larger screens on tablet devices might not be nearly as preposterous as they once were; the Surface Pro 3, for instance, has a 13-inch display and packs a full computer within, yet remains perfectly usable (if a tad heavy) as a tablet device. There’s other evidence to suggest a larger iPad could be on Apple’s roadmap: code in iOS 8 points to a feature in development that would allow users to run multiple apps side-by-side on the iOS-powered tablet, which would make even more sense given more screen real estate to do so. Apple could use simultaneous multitasking with increasing processor power and app capabilities to turn a large iPad into a strong competitor for notebook computers in education and in enterprise markets. Upsizing the physical hardware for iOS could begin to reveal the true potential of Apple’s mobile platform, in much the same way Microsoft’s attempts to shoehorn mobile functionality on desktop Windows have not. Apple’s 12.9-inch iPad is far from a sure bet despite this report; as mentioned, we’ve heard rumblings about this kind of hardware in the past. But Bloomberg reporting a concrete production timeline with confidence is the best evidence we’ve had yet that it could become a reality – and if it does, it’ll be very interesting to see how Apple positions the device and what impact it has on the tablet market and Apple’s growing role in the overall PC industry, too. |
Square Cash 2.0 Adds Free Money Transfer By Text Message, Payment Notes And More | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 8 | 26 | Square has a out for its Cash app that lets users send cash by text, greatly improving the versatility of the mobile payment app. The update also improves the user interface for sending, reducing steps and increasing speed, and offers a host of new features like putting notes on payments and a new reward system that provides $1 each time someone you invite via text message signs up. The update also adds address book importing, profile pictures for user accounts, a unified email/phone contact listing and push notification/text message-based incoming transfer request approval. Cash is designed to be a peer-to-peer money transfer app, which is what some used the original app and card reader for (i.e. splitting checks, vacation tabs, group gift purchases and more) but it enables the transfers for free, instead of incurring the charges that its merchant-facing point-of-sale software does. Cash has extremely high App Store ratings, and reviewers have praised its simplicity and ease of use (Walt Mossberg called it “the quickest, simplest method [he’s] seen for sending money from one person to another, for instance”). Estimates surrounding Square’s financial model with the app suggest it’s losing as much as 25 cents per transaction on transfers made in the app, which beats other services by requiring no sign-up or special accounts. |
Federal Court Shuts Down Aereo’s Attempt At A Comeback | Cat Zakrzewski | 2,014 | 8 | 21 | In an eleventh hour attempt to save its business following the Supreme Court’s , Aereo changed its tune and claimed to be a cable provider . But the Second Circuit Court Of Appeals isn’t hearing it. The Washington Post that the the company’s request to reconsider the case, classifying the streaming service as a cable provider that would pay royalty fees. As the opposing broadcast companies pointed out, it was a long shot for the company that repeatedly argued that it was not a cable company in its defense to both the Supreme Court and lower courts. The ruling doesn’t have many immediate implications for Aereo, which in the days following the Supreme Court’s decision that it was illegal. The Post reported Aereo can continue to pursue the case in district court. And although the company’s CEO famously said the company continues to have a few — albeit unpromising — other options up its sleeve. for users to lobby their representatives to change existing copyright laws so that the service would be legal. But with a divided Congress heading into a midterm election season, that option does not seem like it will yield any results for the company anytime soon. The Aereo has is to change the service it offers. In the past legal experts have said the company could continue to operate if it served more as a DVR system and didn’t stream TV live. The cable companies definitely won this battle, and Aereo’s chances of winning the war are looking slimmer. |
There Is One New Book On Amazon Every Five Minutes | John Biggs | 2,014 | 8 | 21 | In an interesting post, writer estimated the total number of books on Amazon – about 3.4 million at last count (a number that could include apps as well) and then figured out how many books were added in a day. Nougat noticed that the number rose by 12 books in an hour, which suggests that one new book is added every five minutes. And, most likely, it’s probably an indie book. Let’s let that sink in. What does that mean for the indie publisher? If you’re perpetually optimistic, very little. If you’re even a little bit pessimistic, however, you might want to rethink your career. As Nougat writes: The reason why? Basically the tsunami of books that buries every single newcomer! This also means that this onslaught buries mainstream titles as well, which is something that should give the big five publishers pause. With so much choice, why would we pay $14.99 for a mainstream Kindle edition when we can experiment with a few 99 cent (or free) books. The answer to that, obviously, is that the mainstream title has been vetted and edited by professionals, but even that is quickly changing. Indie publishing is immensely popular and it’s already being programmatically In fact has created 100,000 books. Given the junk available, reviews and rankings become ever more important. And, when that happens, even folks just under the top 100 can fall into oblivion. Even indie millionaires aren’t doing quite well. , vampire writer, made millions on her novels but now her titles are going for free or cheap and have fallen far on the rankings. Hugh Howey’s is at 800th place in the pantheon of books, which might as well be the bottom. It’s hard being a writer. Indie publishing tools have made it easier and Amazon is leading the way. But barring a miracle don’t expect Amazon to pay for your new boat or pay your salary. It can be done, but there are 3.4 million reasons – and 12 reasons an hour – why you will be buried. The trick is to rise above the noise, which is as noble a writing goal as any. |
Unscaling The Trillion-Dollar Power Industry | Hemant Taneja | 2,014 | 8 | 21 | Throughout the history of the power industry, the answer to all of our problems has been to “get bigger.” Due to economies of scale, utilities have concentrated on building larger and larger power plants to increase efficiency and improve profitability. That’s why we still receive the vast majority of our power the way we have for decades — from massive plants based on natural gas, coal, oil and nuclear energy. Now, the industry is starting to reach the limits of scale. Utilities are facing declining demand due to substantial advancements in energy efficiency, and they are grappling with stern new rules regarding carbon emissions from the Environmental Protection Agency. Global climate change is putting incredible stress on our power system, requiring us to find new methods to increase its resilience and reliability in the face of more severe weather. In short, we urgently need to find a new way to upgrade our aging infrastructure in a time of austerity. If we want secure, clean and affordable energy, we can’t continue down this path. Instead, we need to grow in a very different way, one more akin to the Silicon Valley playbook of unscaling an industry by aggregating individual users onto platforms. Let me give two examples of startups that have taken on large industries through just this form of unscaling. For years, many homeowners have had extra bedrooms, but this untapped resource was wasted except for a handful of days per year. Now with Airbnb, that owner can place their unused bedrooms online and rent them, securing an additional income. Despite the scale of the hotel industry, Airbnb has managed to become the largest hotel company in the world, adding just one room at a time. Another prominent example is Uber, the on-demand taxi service. Uber allows car owners to drive their vehicles and accept taxi rides, again making an income from a previously underutilized resource. Today, Uber is the largest taxi company in the world, simply by aggregating all of these individual users together. The more I think about what I am seeing in these two startups and others in Silicon Valley, the more I believe that economies of unscale is the way forward for the power industry to tackle its looming problems. Unfortunately, many of us already have a car and an extra bedroom, but we don’t just have a spare power generator lying around. Generators have traditionally cost tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars, placing them out of reach to all but a handful of people. The creation of small-scale power plants — exemplified by the rooftop solar panels that are increasingly visible on homes and businesses — has begun to solve this problem. Only within the last decade has it become feasible for everyday homeowners to purchase their own energy production technology, thanks to lower costs, better financing, and easier installation through companies like and Admirals Bank. With more local power generation, our aging grid infrastructure became the next obstacle. Given its design, the grid we have installed today can’t easily handle the diverse and intermittent energy sources that come from small-scale generators. But we finally have the enabling technology necessary to make our grid more flexible. , a company that we incubated at General Catalyst, has invented power routers that allow utilities to harness energy from any source and standardize it for distribution. Together, these innovations are making a real economic case for decentralized power generation. With a greater density of small-scale power plants and sophisticated grid technology, our energy system can become cheaper, more environmentally friendly, and more resilient. Even more importantly, this transformation means that local citizens are increasingly reaping the rewards of power, literally turning their roofs into sources of income. Despite all of the gains we have made with technology, has surfaced a number of obstacles that need to be solved in order for a fully unscaled energy system to emerge. Due to the deep influence of equity analysts and public utilities commissioners, utilities have a great aversion to risk. They can’t shed their old business and regulatory models and make the investments needed in technology to become energy platforms and provide differentiated services for customers. With a changing operating environment, the status quo is no longer feasible. We need to educate all stakeholders on the value of this new model and why an investment in platform technology is important. For instance, decentralized power generation can allow utilities to grow with lower capital expenditure needs. For PUC commissioners, that means more local control and more local job creation, and for stockholders, that means a better balance sheet, more profits, and more returns. It’s not often that an industry has the opportunity to disrupt itself in the face of a whole new competitive environment, but utilities still have plenty of time to embrace and profit from the changes in the energy markets. By transitioning to a platform model and unscaling power, we can create a better system that is secure, clean, and affordable. |
Movie Theaters May Be Getting More Interactive, Thanks To Audience Entertainment’s SDK | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 8 | 21 | You may soon be doing more twisting, turning, and jumping around when you go to the movies, if startup succeeds in launching a new type of in-theater interactivity. The company’s technology basically allows audiences to play together, usually as part of an ad campaign. Imagine standing up with everyone else in the room, then waving your arms left and right in unison to control the game onscreen. That’s essentially what the company promises, and it’s actually brought these experiences into theaters, for example as he slides down a waterslide as part of a promotion for Disney Cruise Lines. Founder and CEO Barry Grieff (whose include a stints at National Lampoon Magazine, Rolling Stone, and Interpublic Group) argued that we’re in the middle of “a sea change in content creation,” moving away from linear content and towards interactivity. He’s hoping to bring that shift into movie theaters and other locations like arenas and concerts venues, by installing cameras to capture motion and sound. Comparing it to 3D, Grieff described this interactive experience as “iD”. To move beyond one-off experiments and individual campaigns, Audience Entertainment needs to put its tools into the hands of more developers, advertisers, and filmmakers. And that’s why it’s announcing that will allow third parties to create content for the platform. The company plans to launch the SDK on Sept. 29, during Advertising Week, but it’s already . When asked about the extent to which Audience Entertainment will control the content on its network, Chief Marketing Officer Adam Cassels said that as the platform opens up, the company will be serving as “a conduit to interactive content” and will continue to perform “quality assurance.” When I first heard the pitch, I thought of previous failed experiments in “ “. But then I had a chance to try out the technology for myself — sadly not in a crowded movie theater, but using the camera in the Audience Entertainment conference room. As I played one of the games, I found myself enthusiastically (if awkwardly) jumping around in my seat to touch different cubes as they appeared onscreen. Since the platform is trying to combine the actions of dozens or hundreds of people, you can’t have particularly fine grained controls — but perhaps we’ll see more creative uses of the group dynamic after the SDK goes live. And when it comes to advertisers, at least, the goal isn’t to create a deep game that you can play for hours. Instead, it’s about getting viewers to engage with the ads onscreen, even if only for 30 or 60 seconds, rather than just checking Facebook and Twitter while they wait for the movie to start. You can see more examples in the video below, and in . (Though with the game, presumably you’re using a mouse to play in your home or at the office, so you’ll have to imagine the part where you’re in a theater, waving your arms around to make different choices, and maybe shouting at the people next to you.) Oh, and in terms of actually getting the technology into theaters, earlier this year, with the aim of bringing iD to 3,000 screen worldwide. [vimeo 97172184 w=500 h=281] from on . |
PonoMusic Raises More Than $6M In Equity Crowdfunding In One Week | Colleen Taylor | 2,014 | 8 | 21 | became the on Kickstarter back in April, when it raised $6.2 million on a goal of $800,000. The project now has raked in an additional $6 million in equity funding from a campaign. Pono Music is building a music download service and physical music player that is set to launch in a few months. The project focuses on ultra high-quality sound, projecting to offer a digital music store with more than more sound data than typical MP3 files. The company’s project raked in endorsements not only from celebrities in the music industry like Bruce Springsteen, but from prominent people in the technology world, including Oculus COO Laird Malamed and Amazon CTO Werner Vogels. Check out the video below to see interview PonoMusic’s former CEO John Hamm back in April, with a hands-on look at the Pono Player prototype. |
Salesforce Beats In Its Fiscal Q2 With Revenue Of $1.32B, EPS OF $0.13 | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 8 | 21 | After the bell, Salesforce its fiscal second quarter financial results, including revenue of $1.32 billion and non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.13. The company beat estimates in the fiscal 2015 quarter, as investors had expected it to earn $0.12 per share — excluding certain costs — on revenue of $1.29 billion. In its , Salesforce’s revenue totaled $1.23 billion. The company was essentially flat in regular trading. Salesforce’s shares are down in after-hours trading. In the quarter, Salesforce’s revenue included $1.23 billion in “subscription and support” top line, and “professional services” intake of $86 million. The latter figure is up 58% from the year-ago quarter. On a year-over-year basis, revenue at the firm was up 38%. Using generally accepted accounting principles, Salesforce reported a net loss of $61.09 million, or $0.10 per share. The company had a GAAP profit of $76.60 million. Investors could be somewhat skittish about its swing to negative profits. Salesforce expects to lose, on a GAAP basis, $0.48 to $0.46 in its current fiscal year. Between twelve and thirteen cents of that deficit is expected for its fiscal third quarter. The majority of the difference between the company’s GAAP and non-GAAP earnings per share figures is the cost of share-based compensation. Many quickly growing technology companies discount that cost, and instead focus more heavily on the cash-based parts of their business. Some investors find the dismissing of dilution-related costs as somewhat daring. Twitter is another company with heavy stock compensation expenses, and a large gap between in GAAP, and non-GAAP earnings information. Salesforce ended the period with cash of $1.67 billion. |
This Robot Butler Tried To Get Me Drunk | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 8 | 21 | The little android, outfitted with a fancy collar and racing stripes, brings small items from the front desk of the Aloft hotel, to the rooms of customers. The cute R2 can handle elevators on its own, and scoots along at around one to two miles per hour. The Botlr is the first of its fleet, and is still in testing. We put it through its paces, tasking it with the delivery of a little something that hails from the South to room 335. And the little robot can even dance. What’s cooler than that? I wouldn’t be surprised to see technology of this sort grow. With improved and cheaper sensor technology, smartphones, and pervasive Wi-Fi, there is quite a lot that could be done with robots in both domestic and professional environments. The Botlr is not the last of its kind. [gallery ids="1047256,1047259,1047255,1047257,1047258,1047261"] |
Facebook Rolls Out Analytics For App Links | Kyle Russell | 2,014 | 8 | 21 | Today, Facebook is for , its initiative to in partnership with Parse (which it ) and . The data available is still rather simple, but it’s a first step to convincing developers that they should use it to send traffic between apps. Developers using Facebook’s new analytics tools can see when they send someone to another app, when a user has arrived at their app from an App Link, and when someone to their app from another app. That information doesn’t seem to valuable to begin with, but it’s vital for getting developers to use App Links for ecommerce and ads on Facebook’s mobile News Feed. Those are the two most important use cases for Facebook — in the long run, it wants developers to pay to get apps installed on their devices, and then pay up again to get by giving “reminders” in the News Feed in the form of ads that go to specific targeted content in the native app experience. In addition to analytics, Facebook announced several minor updates to App Links. The initiative now supports both Windows 8 and universal Windows apps and can detect taps of the Android back button. The App Links site has also been updated with that will be updated with example projects and case studies to give people a better idea of what’s being done with the tech. |
Product Hunt Briefly Banned From Reddit, Reinstated | Kyle Russell | 2,014 | 8 | 21 | : A Reddit spokesperson sent over the following statement, which notes that a ban placed on Product Hunt links was the temporary result of startups posting Product Hunt links, not the responsibility of the site itself: “There was some recent suspicious activity that caused ProductHunt to be temporarily banned from reddit, but it was from a few select companies on ProductHunt and not ProductHunt itself. This situation has been resolved so that links from ProductHunt can once more be submitted to reddit and the ProductHunt team & reddit will work together on addressing future potential spam issues.” , the Y Combinator-backed social network for sharing links to interesting new startups and apps via a Reddit-like interface, has been banned from We first got wind that links to Product Hunt could no longer be submitted to Reddit from by Google Ventures announcing that the search giant’s investment wing invested in I tested the claim this by attempting to submit a link from today’s top startups on Product Hunt to a relevant subreddit. The result: While it’s possible that Reddit blocked links from Product Hunt as a competitive measure — at the Y Combinator Demo Day earlier this week, the startup — chances are that it was blocked based on standard Reddit policy. There’s a chance that Product Hunt’s community is still small enough that startups can easily manipulate its upvote-based aggregation system to gain attention. Such manipulation is not just frowned upon in the submission policies at and , it’s a ban-able offense. With that said, it wouldn’t have been much of a surprise to see an exception made for Product Hunt. Besides the fact that links from Product Hunt do well on Y Combinator’s Hacker News on a daily basis, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian has been and . We’ve reached out to Product Hunt and Reddit for comment and will update this post with their responses. |
Achieving Anonymity Online Remains Difficult Despite Evolving Privacy Tools | Tomás Touceda | 2,014 | 8 | 21 | Some things are best kept secret. But when it comes to your online activities, can you ever truly conceal your identity? A variety of tools and best practices can help you achieve some level of privacy when surfing the web, but it is nearly impossible to ensure that your online activities remain completely anonymous. While some users will go to great lengths to conceal their identities online, others are content to let cookies and other applications track their activities as they surf the web, only going so far as to delete a questionable link from their browser history every once in a while. Whether you’re intent on evading every government snoop, or just curious about how much information you’re giving out as you visit your favorite sites, it’s important to know just how public your online behavior can be. Many of the most popular web browsers, such as Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari, offer the option to browse the web “privately” or “incognito.” However, this type of privacy doesn’t extend much further than your own computer. While Safari promises that its “Private Browsing” mode will keep your browsing history private, the reality is that websites you visit will still be able to identify your computer by its – a unique identifier for each of your devices – given by your ISP. Your ISP (or your employer, if you’re using a work computer) may also keep a log of your browsing history that “Private Browsing” cannot hide or delete. The same is true for Chrome, which in fairness warns users that “going incognito doesn’t hide your browsing from your employer, your internet service provider, or the websites you visit.” In general, these basic privacy modes only help keep your actions private from other users on the same computer. Some users may choose to block their browsers from accepting – small pieces of data sent from websites and stored in your browser – to make it more difficult for organizations to track them while they surf the web. (For more info on how cookies track your behavior online, check out .) In fact, the “privacy mode” setting in most browsers will delete the cookies your browser picks up during the private session to cover up your tracks. However, blocking or deleting these activity-tracking cookies still leaves major openings for companies to see what you’re up to on the web. Blocking cookies doesn’t prevent websites from logging your IP address. If you log into your Facebook, Google or Yahoo account, no matter where you’re accessing the web, those companies will be able to see your IP address and pinpoint your location. And of course, whatever ISP you’re using can still keep records of the sites you visit. Furthermore, shows that even when users have blocked cookies, their browsers still put out enough unencrypted information to give the user a unique “fingerprint” that enables organizations to follow you from site to site. While it remains unclear if any organizations are actually taking advantage of this information to track users, to track users who don’t accept cookies. To overcome these gaps in online privacy, certain people have turned to forms of encrypted browsing that hide their web-surfing habits from both the websites they visit and their ISPs. The most popular tool, , is a free application that encrypts the original data being transferred to and from your browser through a series of relays, making it extremely difficult for anyone to see which websites you’re visiting or what device you’re using. This also protects against the type of browser “fingerprint” tracking that the EFF recently warned about. However, searching for privacy-related applications like Tor , to mark and track users’ IP address (even though it may be impossible for them to monitor your online activities). In some cases, users who want to avoid government scrutiny may prefer to simply avoid privacy preserving tools altogether – the digital equivalent of “laying low” – and choose other methods for surfing the web anonymously (such as using computers at libraries or other public places). Until privacy applications like Tor gain broad adoption, this route may expose users to more scrutiny, undermining their efforts to remain anonymous on the web. While Tor and other privacy-focused technologies may protect you from revealing most of your personal details as you surf the web, how you behave online may ultimately expose your true identity. If you think of the web as a public meeting place, then privacy technologies are like a mask or disguise – people won’t be able to recognize your identity on sight. But other details, such as the way you walk or talk, may be enough to tip off a careful observer. For example, computer scientists have begun to demonstrate how stylometry – the study of someone’s unique style of writing – can be used to identify anonymous posters in online forums. Drexel University researchers last year studied leaked conversations and contributions of hundreds of anonymous users in underground online forums and . Stylometric analysis could become a common tool for law enforcement and government agencies to uncover supposedly anonymous posters on web forums, although this technique requires a large amount of data to be effective (the study required a minimum of 5,000 words for complete analysis). Even something as simple as posting a photo online may be enough to give away precise details about your identity. One came after Vice magazine published a picture on their website of the fugitive tech pioneer John McAfee standing beside one of their journalists. Because the person taking the photo hadn’t turned off the geo-tagging feature that is common on most smartphones, McAfee’s location was exposed, leading to his arrest shortly thereafter. The bottom line is that while there are many powerful tools that can help conceal your identity online, complete anonymity can be very difficult to achieve. Relying on a few techniques to hide your IP address or block cookies may be enough to hide from most trackers, but every online activity leaves at least some trace, and each trace has the potential to expose your personal identity. How carefully you guard your behavior on the Internet will depend on your desire or need for privacy, but protecting your identity online is impossible without first understanding what information you’re giving away. |
Pandora, Indiegogo Release Employee Diversity Reports | Cat Zakrzewski | 2,014 | 8 | 21 | Both and released diversity reports today that highlight an absence of African-American employees. The companies join a bandwagon of tech brands that have been releasing similar reports throughout the summer. At Pandora, approximately 3 percent of its 1,300 or so employees are African-American/black and 4 percent are hispanic. That’s notable given that the company is , where about 28 percent of the total population is African-American and 25 percent is hispanic. The percentage of African-Americans is even lower in leadership and tech roles, where they represent only 1.1 and 2.8 percent of employees. In contrast 6.3 percent of Pandora’s leadership is hispanic. At Indiegogo, a company of slightly more than 100 employees, only 2 percent of total employees are African-American, and the group is not represented in leadership or tech positions. African Americans make up 12.9 percent of the U.S. population, but at tech companies they are continually underrepresented. At , and , African-Americans make up 2 percent of employees. Despite lagging in ethnic diversity, both companies seem to be making some progress in closing the gender gap repeatedly highlighted by these diversity reports. Women make up almost half of Pandora’s total staff and almost 40 percent of the company’s leaders, which is impressive for a company of its size. However in tech, women make up only 18 percent of total employees. reported of its tech employees are female, a relatively higher percentage than other companies . In comparison, Twitter’s tech employees , and those numbers are only slightly better at Snapchat (about 15 percent), and . Both and reported more than 20 percent of their tech employees are female, but Indiegogo is the first company in the recent string of reports to break 30 percent. However when comparing these numbers, it is important to keep in mind that Indiegogo has significantly fewer employees, and only has about 30 female engineers on its staff. That being said, the company has committed to remaining inclusive and diverse as it increases its scale. |
Congresswoman Anna Eshoo Enlists Reddit Users To Rebrand Net Neutrality | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 8 | 21 | Today in a video and , asked Reddit users to help come up with new branding for net neutrality. The term ‘net neutrality,’ while useful, is being misused by some, according the Congresswoman. A new phrase — or word, perhaps — could clear the air, and help the average person grok just what it is we in tech are talking about. The average person isn’t going to give half a care about the current ‘notice of proposed rulemaking’ to decide the legal foundation for new ‘net neutrality’ rules, or whether ‘paid prioritization’ is such a bad idea after all. Internet fast lanes. See? That’s a slogan. The contest rules are “simple,” according to the Congresswoman’s post: “The most popular entry on this Reddit post will be declared the winner on September 8, 2014.” Reddit users are asked to “refrain from using vulgar or otherwise inappropriate language.” That’s funny. What is winning so far? Sorting the Reddit thread by ‘Top’ doesn’t yield much that is any good: “The Net Amendment,” and “Freedom to Connect (F2C)” fail to raise the temperature of my blood. If, however, something that was simpler to get than net neutrality is proposed, voted highly, and ‘wins,’ that could be a positive result for the current debate. I do not have particularly high hopes, however. Here’s the Congresswoman: |
Instagram Starts Offering Essential Ad Tools At Last | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 8 | 21 | Facebook-owned Instagram is making itself more advertising-friendly today with the rollout of a suite of business tools aimed at brands which offer insights and analytics related to their use of the image-sharing network. Included in the suite are tools that show a business’s reach and impressions, as well as engagement, plus the performance of paid ad campaigns. Specifically, businesses are being offered a dashboard interface for tracking their performance, where they’ll have tabs for things like “Account Insights” and “Ad Insights,” the latter which shows the analytics for things like impressions, reach and frequency as it related to ad campaigns and individual ads. Another section, called “Ad Staging” is where advertisers and their creative teams can create their ads, preview them ahead of running, and work together on upcoming campaigns, explains a post on , first spotted by . [gallery ids="1047122,1047123,1047124,1047121"] Notably, the campaign summary data is being offered to advertisers in real-time, allowing them to see how the audience is reacting to their sponsored photos, possibly so they could defuse the sort of situation Michael Kors faced when the company ran the first Instagram ad, and had to deal with massive user backlash. (That ad, however seemingly disliked, was actually fairly it was later pointed out. The account gained 34,000 followers in 18 hours after running.) Instagram says it developed the new business tools in conjunction with select advertising partners, and is now making them available to all advertisers working to reach the network’s over 200 million users worldwide. Ads on Instagram were inevitable, following the Facebook acquisition and the service’s need to begin generating revenue at last. However much some users won’t care for the further invasion of ads on Instagram, brands have already been participating for some time on the network, growing their follower accounts and establishing their communities. Offering these businesses tools to make better decisions about what users want to see and how well they’re engaged with the company and its shared photos only makes sense as the next logical step. Instagram ad tools have been a long time coming, and highly anticipated by businesses. The company first introduced ads 10 months ago, and yet have waited until now to make campaign monitoring tools available. However, the actual public release of these tools is still being kept vague, for whatever reason – Instagram says that the suite will roll out “over the coming weeks and months,” without providing a more solidified timeframe. |
Restaurant Discovery Service Zomato Eats Its Way Into Central And Eastern Europe With Two Acquisitions | Steve O'Hear | 2,014 | 8 | 21 | , the restaurant search and discovery service that’s raised a in VC, is making good on its promise to continue expanding to more countries beyond its origins in India. The 2008-founded company — which counts Yelp, IAC-owned , Priceline-acquired , and as competitors — is adding a presence in Central and Eastern Europe by means of two local acquisitions. It’s gobbled up the Czech Republic’s Lunchtime.cz and Slovakia’s Obedovat.sk — the leading restaurant guides in their respective countries, according to Zomato — for a combined $3.25 million. This follows the acquisition of New Zealand-based restaurant search service MenuMania in July and means the service is now available in various cities in 15 countries, with the startup targeting a further ten or so in the coming months. Zomato co-founder Pankaj Chaddah tells me this will include, Poland, Ireland, Malaysia, Vietnam, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait and Canada — with the U.S. notably still missing in action. “We are looking at the U.S. in the second half of 2015,” he says, adding that the company plans to raise another round of funding before that. In contrast to the U.S., Chaddah says Canada is underserved in the restaurant search space and offers a “huge opportunity for us. We will launch Zomato Toronto in the next 2 months.” Spanning information on over 250,000 restaurants, Zomato’s restaurant search and discovery service attempts to differentiate itself from the likes of Yelp with a “feet on the street ” approach in the hope of giving its local eatery information an edge. The startup began as a menu card scanning service in India, sending people out to collect menus from restaurants and then scanning them using OCR. Today it augments this data with various social features, including the ability to follow other users’ activity and write and read reviews, as well as letting you find a restaurant by dish and offering up other granular info like opening hours and services offered (take-away, dine-in, home delivery, etc.). Interestingly, data is then re-checked in person by Zomato’s team every three months to ensure it stays relatively fresh, which is obviously more labour intensive and less scalable than a purely online data play. The company currently employs around 800 people, the majority of which work on content. “Our core strength is fresh, exhaustive restaurant information, and we have a team in every market focusing on this core to make sure we are relevant and reliable for users,” explains Chaddah. “This includes re-visiting restaurants to ensure that our data is fresh and accurate. In that sense, it does pose a challenge while scaling, and finding the right people for the job isn’t easy – but we think that’s a good problem to have.” Which, of course, brings into focus today’s two acquisitions (though the purchase of Obedovat.sk isn’t expected to close till the end of September). I asked Chaddah why the decision was made to buy rather than build something from scratch in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. “It’s not really about build vs buy for us – it’s about hitting the ground running with the right team,” he says. “We have a labour-intensive model, and execution is very important for us. We enter markets as soon as we have a team that can make things happen quickly. In Portugal, we built from scratch, but we were fortunate to have acquired teams like we did in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Acquiring market leaders with local insight and experience in countries we want to expand to is obviously a good choice.” To that end, Chaddah says Zomato will be working with Lunchtime and Obedovat on building an integrated product over the coming months. He also shared some updated metrics with TechCrunch: The service now has a monthly user base of 23 million across web and mobile, 50 per cent of which is from India. Meanwhile, mobile (web and native app) now accounts for 55 per cent of total traffic. “We have two focus areas for the immediate future – expansion across multiple geographies, and building vertical depth within the restaurant space,” adds Chaddah. “In markets where we have strong merchant relationships, you can expect to see in-app payments, and realtime consumer-merchant interaction very soon.” This will be in addition to the native ads that currently monetise the service. |
Camu Is A Beautiful, All-In-One Camera App, Photo Editor And Mobile Messenger | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 8 | 21 | A new mobile application called , launching today, is designed to serve as a lightweight replacement to the iPhone’s default camera app while also offering the ability for users to edit and share photos more easily after the fact, without having to switch between other applications. The app somewhat competes with long-time popular camera apps like or but with a simpler, more streamlined feature set. “Most of the camera apps in the market are filled with complicated settings,” explains Ilkka Teppo, CEO at Sumoing, the company behind the Camu app. “At same time the messaging solutions are built text-first or for photo-chatting,” he adds. “We wanted to create a true mobile-first camera experience – challenging the assumptions that capturing, editing and sending photos and videos has to be in separate apps.” Of course, Apple’s native iPhone Camera app also offers some of these functions in the latest version of its iOS operating system, iOS 8, expected in September. You can change camera modes, add filters, and then hop into your Photo Gallery with a tap to or share the photo via iMessage, email, iCloud, AirDrop, Facebook, Twitter or Flickr. So Sumoing is right in believing a combined feature set of snapping, editing and sharing is something users want. But because of the similarities, it will have to compete via the experience of using Camu, as well as its extra features. These include things like a “super-focus” mode for adding depth-of-field to images, a different set of filters, the ability to add text to photos, the ability to turn photos into collages in real time (also popular among Instagram users), and a “selfie” mode that automatically shoots a photo when no more movement is visible in the frame. After editing your photos or videos, you can then share your media and chat privately with friends on Camu, or post more publicly on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. The company, composed of a team of designers and engineers hailing from the Nokia cluster in Helsinki, Finland, already has a decent track record when it coms to mobile apps. Sumoing’s first iOS app Repix, which combines photo editing and painting, was launched in early 2013 and has now grown to over 12 million installs. Sumoing has a small amount of seed funding and now also generates revenue via Repix, which has helped to fund Camu’s creation. Camu’s business model is not yet set in stone, however, but Teppo says they see “lots of different options” for it in the future. We’d expect those to include in-app purchases, but nothing is confirmed. The app, now an Editor’s Choice on the App Store, is a free download . |
Swift Navigation Raises $2.6 Million For Its Ultra-Precise GPS System | Ryan Lawler | 2,014 | 8 | 21 | GPS technology is everywhere nowadays — it’s built into phones, cars, and an increasing number of industrial devices. But to date, GPS hasn’t been very precise. Conventional GPS modules have an accuracy range of about 15 feet, which is good enough for guiding you to a location but not the best if you’re building unmanned drones. hopes to improve on that, with centimeter-accurate GPS technology that can be used for a much wider range of applications. The company has developed a GPS module that comes at a fraction of a cost of competing chips with the same accuracy, which it hopes will be used in all sorts of agriculture, drones, and construction applications. To do so, it’s raised $2.6 million in funding to get its low-cost GPS modules embedded into a whole bunch of new devices. That funding was led by First Round Capital, with Fall Line Capital, Felicis Ventures, Kal Vepuri, Lemnos Labs, Qualcomm Ventures, and VegasTechFund also participating. According to Swift Navigation CEO Tim Harris, its Piksi module was developed with low-cost, off-the-shelf components, meaning it costs much less than competing products. What sets it apart is the software inside, which uses to enhance the precision of the GPS measurements. All of that adds up to a GPS chip that is the same size of existing modules, at 1.5″ x 1.5″ but much more precise. And while highly accurate GPS chips are already available for up to $10,000, Swift Navigation makes and sells its chips for about $500. That might not be low enough to install in your mobile phone, but it could enable a whole bunch of new applications in agriculture automation or drone navigation. The company first made its chip available through a last year, and since then has done a few production runs of its chips. Early backers were mostly — that is, folks with drones who want to make their navigation more precise. Now, however, it’s seeing demand from a number of different customers, including some Fortune 100 clients. According to Harris, the chip could be used in a whole bunch of new fields where the technology was previously too expensive, including automated agriculture and mining. It’s sold more about 1,000 modules to more than 300 customers, and is looking to increase that dramatically in the coming months. The funding will be used for hiring and expanding its product offering, including a ruggedized version of the chip which will be coming soon. |
null | Frederic Lardinois | 2,014 | 8 | 26 | null |
Estimote Wants To Pioneer ‘Nearables’ With New Stickers Beacon Hardware | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 8 | 21 | [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrRS8qRYXCQ&w=1236&h=695] The Internet of Things gets a lot of hype, but its rollout is slow and it will take a long time for consumers to upgrade existing, non-connected devices that still work fine into something that can communicate with computing gadgets like smartphones. has put a lot of time and work into expediting our connected future via its beacon hardware and developer platform, and now the startup is taking the next step with its new Estimote Stickers – the pioneering gadget in a coming wave of “Nearable” tech, according to the company. Estimote’s Stickers are iterations on their original Beacon gadgets, which provide developers with a ready-made Bluetooth LE device that can plug into Estimote’s SDK and give apps hyperlocal awareness – letting them detect nearby devices and provide contextual information about the world around them instantly. Stickers continues that mission, paring down the size of the beacon hardware to an impossibly thin 3mm, with a smaller, more hideable footprint and battery life that still lets them work for up to a year without running out of juice. Each carries an adhesive backing, just like the first-generation devices, and they include accelerometer and temperature sensors in addition to Bluetooth radios. Accelerometer and temperature sensors mean that the devices can do more than most beacons, which tend to be geared towards stationary use. These can be attached to your dog’s collar, for instance, in order to work like a basic Whistle-type activity tracker providing information on your pet’s exercise level. They could be attached to your bike, in order to trigger the activation of a turn-by-turn direction app when you approach, or something like the Strava cycling activity tracking software. These Stickers aren’t a direct-to-consumer play, however; Estimote’s audience is still ultimately developers. But part of winning that audience means building hardware that’s production- and consumer-ready, in order to make sure potential clients see the value and convenience of both the software platform and the physical devices required to make everything happen. “The challenge is, if you’re going to sell something to anything including developers, ultimately you need to create long-term value,” explained Steve Cheney, Estimote co-founder and SVP of Business, in an interview. “We need the hardware to work wherever customers want to put it and to be robust and so we can’t actually compromise any of the design. It’s kind of why just buying Beacon hardware off of Alibaba doesn’t really work.” Estimote’s business is about building a brand that can do for beacon tech in general what Apple has done for iBeacons – namely inspire trust and confidence. “We think in the Internet of Things the full stack approach is better,” Cheney said, meaning Estimote wants to give its clients ready-made solutions, not just elemental components from which they have to basically build from scratch. Estimote has already signed up partners to work with the new hardware, including Cisco, IDEO, The Guggenheim Museum and more. Cisco Engineering Director for the Wireless Networking Group Pritam Shah provided the following statement to TechCrunch about its work with Estimote and their new Nearables project, and how it’s helping their current project development: iBeacon has the potential to enrich our in-venue experience forever. The convergence between BLE solutions like iBeacon and core networking technologies like Wi-Fi are happening rapidly. We’ve enjoyed working with Beacons to help unify middleware services like network management and application services like indoor positioning. We’re super excited about Nearables, as they represent an opportunity to bring truly mobile context to location based services. The Estimote Stickers work with the existing Estimote SDK, which is already in use by over 25,000 developers. They’re now available for pre-order, and will ship this fall. Pricing has improved vs. the original Beacons package, too, with a pack of 10 devices retailing for $99, which is the same price as a pack of just three. The next generation for computing is ubiquitous connectivity, with Bluetooth LE shipping in anything where it makes even some kind of sense. Estimote envisions a future where that can be used to give our main devices, like smartphones and tablets, a kind of ‘sight’ whereby they’re aware of the world immediately around them in a way they haven’t been before, and Estimote Stickers bring that vision a lot closer to realization. |
Game Developer Gumi, A Sega And Line Partner, Enters North America With Four New Studios | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 8 | 21 | The North America digital game market is , but it’s proven tough to navigate for high-profile companies like Candy Crush maker and . But Japanese gaming company is undeterred. It announced today that it will open four new game studios to make content specifically for the North American market. The gaming studio, which is headquartered in Tokyo, also says it will hire 100 new employees in North America to address the distribution demands of their publishing and developer partners. gumi’s partners include companies like , , and , and it recently raised $50 million in funding, which was led by Silicon Valley VC World Innovation Lab (WiL). gumi’s U.S. headquarters will be in Austin, with other studios in Vancouver, Stockholm, and Kiev. It also plans to open an office in San Francisco to focus on business development and public relations. Additional studios are being planned will be announced over the next six months. The company also announced that it has hired A.J. Redmer, formerly CEO of game publisher and developer and general manager of Microsoft Game Studios Asia, as well as a previous director of game design at Nintendo Software, to head their North American operations. “With his leadership, AJ will bring consumer production quality to gumi’s mobile development strategy in the West, along with identifying key blue ocean opportunities in each market and building our teams to execute on those opportunities,” said Hironao Kunimitsu, CEO of gumi. gumi is also for this year. Redmer says “at this point, we are considering all possible financing options, but we don’t have anything more to comment on regarding that.” The company currently has more than 800 employees and says it has grown 300 percent over the last two years, with operations in Singapore, Korea, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, and the Phillippines. Over 50 percent of gumi’s revenues come from outside of Japan, and it plans to release a total of 30 new games by 2015. Its top title is currently a Japanese-style role playing game called “Brave Frontier” developed by Alim that gumi publishes. The title has been released in 12 languages across 55 countries, and currently claims 10 million users around the world. Other top games are “Puzzle Bobble” by Taito, which reached the number one spot for free apps on the App Store and Google Play in Korea, with three million downloads in one month, and “Attack 1942”, which was published on Kakao Talk’s platform in Korea and reached the number one free app overall ranking on Android there. gumi’s 30 titles in development mostly cover casual and mid-core semgents, and includes Sega’s “Chain Chronicles,” which it plans to release in the U.S. soon. The company’s top markets currently include Japan, the U.S., Korea, and parts of Europe and Southeast Asia. Gumi is expanding into the U.S. now because “the current success of Brave Frontier in the U.S. market confirmed that we are able to compete in the West, and by operating the game for North America, it has provided us with tremendous insight and expertise about U.S. mobile gamers already that we will continue to leverage across additional titles we’re launching in this market,” says Redmer. “We’ve found that each market has unique tastes to their local cultures and playing styles and in order to develop games to the best of our ability, it’s important to have studios focused solely on development, monetization, and operations for each market,” he adds. But if the fates of other game makers are anything to go by, tackling the U.S. market may throw several obstacles in gumi’s way. For example, over the past year, Zynga has faced several well-publicized challenges, including a , even as it continued to acquire smaller companies. And Candy Crush maker King’s stock after it reported disappointing earnings. Redmer says gumi plans to differentiate from other game companies like Zynga by taking “a hands-on, homegrown approach to North America and building our presence brick by brick” instead of “going on a big acquisition spree.” “We operate several studios worldwide and each studio is deeply integrated with their local market. Our new studios will focus on genres we think have been overlooked on mobile (especially in the West), and each studio will have its own organic and deep understanding of the markets in which they operate. Additionally, each studio will develop their own game operations technology, local marketing expertise, and other best practices for their specific market,” he adds. Gumi’s largest partners currently include Sega and Line. Sega was also part of the recent $50 million fundraising round. The first game gumi will publish with Sega is “Chain Chronicles” for the U.S. market. “Sega Networks and gumi have partnered to bring Sega’s Japanese games to new territories like North America, Europe, and South Asian countries, and the two parties will further collaborate in order to provide consumers with localized support to match player preferences, languages, and gameplay environments,” says Redmer. gumi’s strategic partnership with Line includes distribution and investment capital. “Line will leverage its strengths to reinforce gumi’s business in both Japan and overseas markets, while gumi will begin development for specific gams that will be published on Line, reaching approximately 500 million users globally,” says Redmer. |
Android Device Ecosystem: More Diverse Than Ever | Natasha Lomas | 2,014 | 8 | 21 | Growing Android fragmentation — or device diversity if you prefer — has been visualized in a by crowdsourced cell phone signal startup , which has surveyed 682,000 devices to build its at Google’s mobile OS ecosystem. While OpenSignal’s recorded just under 4,000 different Android devices using its software over the prior 12 months, its saw that figure grow almost 3x, to near 12,000. This year’s report shows continued expansion in the number of different Android devices in use, with the survey identifying 18,796 unique Android devices — a growth rate of around 60 percent, year on year. The data also shows a slight dip in dominance for leading Android OEM Samsung, which takes a 43 percent share of the Android device market over the surveyed period, vs. 47.5 percent in the year ago report. That tallies with a slowdown in Samsung’s growth this year that has . Interestingly Nokia’s abortive attempt to turn Android into a Trojan horse for Microsoft services — by — cuts itself a small but visible chunk of the overall pie. Roughly about a quarter of the share garnered by Google’s Nexus-branded devices, or about half the size of fast growing Android startup on the brand fragmentation view. All of which is academic now, of course, given that the new owner of Nokia’s device division, in favour of focusing its efforts on its Windows Phone OS. OpenSignal’s data pegs uptake of the latest version of Android — KitKat — at around a fifth (20.9 percent) of Android users. That’s down notably on the 2013 figure for users on the (then) latest version of Android. Back in mid-2013 Jelly Bean usage stood at more than a third (37.9 percent). Increasing device diversity/fragmentation means developers choosing to target the top 10 Android devices are addressing a smaller proportion of overall users (although the overall size of the Android pie is growing). OpenSignal notes that last year the ten most popular Android devices in the market represented about a fifth (21 percent) of the devices out there, vs this year’s top ten representing 15 percent. The survey also flags up the link between increased OS version fragmentation and decreased GDP/capita — which, from a developer point of view, suggests it’s more challenging monetizing apps in emerging markets because devices are more spread/fragmented across less recent Android versions. OpenSignal’s data indicates that over a third (35 percent) of Android devices in countries with GDP/capita of greater than $20,000 are on the latest version of Android vs just 12 percent in less economically developed countries. The full 2014 OpenSignal Android ecosystem report can be viewed . |
Yahoo To Strengthen Email Encryption | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 8 | 7 | will join in providing users of its email service with end-to-end encryption, helping to keep the private communications of people protected from the prying eyes of governments and hackers alike. The company made the announcement on stage at the Black Hat security conference earlier today. According to Yahoo chief information security officer , Yahoo will publish the source code of the effort later this year. His group “is working closely with Google to ensure that [its] implementations of end-to-end encryption are compatible,” the executive said in a statement. Google its efforts to provide end-to-end encryption to its email users in early June. Hopefully, the Yahoo-Google alliance will spread to other webmail providers, allowing for a network of popular email services to pass encrypted messages between themselves, helping keep a majority of users more secure in their digital papers. The context for the above are the Snowden revelations that have led technology companies to greatly tighten their information security. Yahoo and Google have measures to following the revelation that the NSA was between their data centers abroad. More encryption in ways that the average consumer can use is precisely what the market needs. Good on Yahoo for working on this. |
‘Survivor’ Creator Conrad Riggs Hired To Produce A ‘House Of Cards’ For Amazon Prime | Josh Constine | 2,014 | 8 | 7 | To fight Netflix, Prime Instant Video needs must-see TV you can’t get anywhere else. That’s why a source confirms that Amazon has hired , co-creator of Survivor and The Apprentice, “to make their House Of Cards.” credited “House of Cards” with providing “a halo effect on our entire service” that included . Amazon hopes that Riggs’ reality game-show expertise could help it spawn its own hit program. That could convince people to buy Amazon Prime subscription bundles that come with access and drive physical product sales. Riggs hasn’t updated his LinkedIn profile in years and IMDb doesn’t show him working on other projects beyond his Survivor co-executive producer credit. However, a source confirms he’s now a full-time executive at Amazon. We’ve requested a comment from Amazon and will update if we hear back. Conrad Riggs mastermind Mark Burnett worked with Riggs to adapt the program from Swedish show back in 2000. The American version became the country’s first breakout mainstream reality TV show, and was rated among the top 10 most-watched shows through 2006. Burnett and Riggs collaborated again in 2004 to create The Apprentice. Both shows feature the dramatic ‘worst competitors gets voted off’ mechanic that struck a chord with American viewers and is still prominent in shows like The Bachelor and American Idol. It’s unclear exactly what kind of show Riggs will develop, but there’s some likelihood that he’ll stick to the genre he knows. Most big game shows today are on network TV, while premium platforms like HBO and Netflix’s original series tend to focus on drama and comedy. With Amazon’s technology background, perhaps Riggs will be able to integrate an interactive element so viewers can participate somehow. The hire is part of a big content push at Amazon that includes the , a basic on-demand music streaming service that’s free for Prime subscribers. The company has also been staffed up to build , and recently scored a deal to make its Fire TV the only place you can play the new game. The TV shows, music, games, and devices all unite to drive . If it can get you to buy a Prime subscription with free two-day shipping or view its store through Amazon gadgets, you’ll buy more physical goods and get more locked in to the platform. That way Amazon’s revenue will keep growing and investors won’t kick it off the island. |
Hired Now Helps Tech Companies Find Executives | Billy Gallagher | 2,014 | 8 | 7 | , a startup working to make recruiting more efficient, has expanded to include a category for VPs of engineering and chief technical officers (CTOs). Engineering Management is now the company’s fifth vertical. Mickiewicz notes that while the new category will naturally be smaller than the original engineering vertical, it is a very profitable and important addition, as many companies look to expensive executive search firms when hiring for these positions. The startup, formerly known as DeveloperAuction, has been scaling as it fills its own internal hiring needs. CEO tells me internal needs drove the decision for Hired to launch UX/UI Designer, Data Scientist, and Product Manager verticals, and that Hired brought on employees in all three categories off its own platform. , which has a little under 50 employees, currently has offices in San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles. Mickiewicz says Hired plans to open offices in Seattle, Boston, and London by early 2015. In addition to expanding geographically, Mickiewicz says the company is looking a few years down the road at the non-tech hiring landscape. He specifically points to recruiting for the legal and finance sectors as potentially massive, profitable segments that “are really messy and broken.” This expansion beyond tech is where Hired could really get interesting. An undergrad at Stanford emailed me a few days ago explaining how working in investment banking for a summer led her to change paths and learn to code; she specifically mentioned Hired, noting that she wished the recruiting process for non-technical jobs was better. If Hired can keep growing its reach within technical recruiting while expanding to non-technical fields in the coming years, it could dramatically change the way companies recruit and hire talented people. |
These Are Our Favorite Startups From The DreamIt NY Demo Day | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 8 | 7 | This week, we met that graduated from DreamIt’s NY Demo Day. We have the scoop on all of them , from the shoppable Pinterest to an ID scanning app to a real-time CRM app for all businesses. But we also decided to take a lap around the room to get a closer look at some of our favorites. : Launched as a beta last November and with an official launch in June, wants to speed up the time users take creating a PowerPoint or a presentation with a web tool by placing content first. The web tool prompts you to input content first with options to choose what kind of slides you want. Images can be uploaded or can be imported from , and videos can be embedded with one-click playback. After adding the content, you can design the slides by choosing from five different color palettes and five design options, which comes with animations. gives you a link to share your presentation, which are all public and searchable. Slidebean is mobile-enabled and rendered as HTML5, and operates as a freemium model with certain features requiring a $4.99 monthly subscription. If you’re interested in fashion and are an avid user, might be the right service for you. is a board on Pinterest that’s trying to tap into the Pinterest market where users have the interest to purchase but cannot necessarily trace pinned items back to retailers. Once you give Browsy access to your pinned items, the service uses image recognition technology to connect those items to retail sites that sell it. The service gives you the lowest available price in a click. As the company hopes to expand, Browsy want to move their service off Pinterest’s platform and create a browser plugin to make all browsable content shoppable. Browsy takes 7 percent off every purchase, and 5 cents for every click through to a retailer’s site. Founded by three high school friends, is a machine-learning social reminder that relies on geographic locations. With the desire to be the of the real world, Acorn’s founders wants actions to occur through location-tracking. For example, if you are heading to a location where it is raining, Acorn’s technology will remind you to grab an umbrella as you are leaving your house. You can add favorite locations such as your work and home, and friends using the app can “drop you acorns” when you arrive at a specific location. After doing a stress test with competitor , Acorn’s team found that their app used one percent of battery life per hour, while Swarm used up 20 to 24 percent. As more users join Acorn’s base, the battery life becomes better. Right now the app can send reminders, messages and pictures to yourself and others. Acorn is looking at two business models: one is a gamified experience geared at younger users where they will leave a clue that initiates a scavenger hunt scenario for deals, and the other is native advertising. Event planning can be a pain in the neck and is looking to create a seamless way to help organizers and vendors work together. Fiestah, a subscription-as-a-service, is a marketplace focused on New York City where users can post event needs and will receive bids from various groups to work with them. If you ask for access to a photo booth for three hours, local vendors that can provide that space will bid you and you can choose where you want to work. Within 24 hours of posting, the user should receive about three to five proposals. Fiestah’s beta launched last year, but the company is looking to build deeper tools for its service. They’re raising $650,000 and are hoping for an official launch in the next six to twelve months. Frustrated with outdated software platforms for hotel management systems, wants to disrupt the hotel industry with its easy-to-use and cloud-based system. Zairge is a property management system, global distribution system liaison, point-of-sale system, food and beverage system, inventory tracker and housekeeping/maintenance platform — it pretty much wants to be the one software a hotel needs to operate. The service, which can be taught to an employee in a day, gives hotel managers real time analytics on what’s happening everywhere. Zairge is a mobile-enabled web-based service that stores data in the cloud and doesn’t require a server requiring maintenance. The company charges $5 per room per month for its service. Zairge, which began its beta six weeks ago with four hotels taking part, is focused on Virginia, but the company is looking to expand to New York, Houston and San Francisco. They are looking to raise $750,000, and $100,000 has already been committed. |
Twitch On Defense After Abrupt Changes To Its Content Policies Anger Users | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 8 | 7 | Until recently, could do no wrong. The streaming service, to cater to the burgeoning gaming and e-sports industries, , and , and was tipped to be . Recently the company announced and that mutes stored video content when it detects third-party music. The company’s moves were impactful and poorly announced. Users, faced with drastic changes to how the service has operated before, are displeased. Twitch CEO ‘s on Reddit that took place earlier today was something akin to a rout. To understand the virulent user antipathy, let’s examine what the policy changes that the company instituted. Users will no longer have the ability to save their broadcasts forever. Instead, users will be able to store broadcasts for 14 or 60 days, depending on their Twitch user status. Highlights, limited to two hours, will be up for long-term archiving. In three weeks, Twitch announced, the company will start to remove past broadcasts from its servers. So all the content that its users have created and saved on its servers is up for deletion. Users can make highlights of them — up to two hours in length, of course — or export them. Twitch is no longer a safe harbor for past content. The idea has not proven popular. The company’s choice does make some sense. It extended the automatic saving period for broadcasts from four days to at least 14, increasing its storage needs. It has to have room for that content, so older, less popular material is a reasonable place to cull. Twitch’s CEO in a Reddit comment that the two-hour rule is under review following complaint. Twitch also announced that it had rolled out audio detection software to scan stored video content — both past and to come — for music that belongs to third parties. If the service detects music — which includes in-game music, for what it’s worth — that it recognizes, the VOD in question will have a 30-minute block muted. The company knew in advance that the system would not function properly: Please note that Audio Recognition is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate. It may return false positives or miss content from copyright owners who do not work with Audible Magic. It did. The new service muted the official VODs from the recent . Valve, publisher of Dota 2, recorded the material. Twitch in its Reddit session, saying that it wants “every broadcaster on Twitch to be protected from potential liability. No matter how remote you might feel the issue is, [the company isn’t] willing to run the risk someone’s life gets ruined over this.” Is Twitch prepping for an acquisition? Cleaning its house ahead of new capital? Merely sick of swimming in a sea of aging content that exposes it to potential legal action? Take your pick, but it’s certainly true that the company messed up its messaging. Twitch appears to now understand that. A from Reddit: Why was no advanced notice given before these policy changes were implemented? (Specifically, Justin.tv shutdown and Audible Magic muting) The from the Twitch CEO: Simply put: we screwed up and should have announced it ahead of time. Sorry. For a company that is supposed to be worth nearly 10 figures, that’s a pretty stark statement. Twitch didn’t think to alert its growing community that it was going to delete all their stored content, end a key plank of its platform (long-term broadcast storage), and that its policies on music were changing from laissez-faire to draconian in one shot. The company has promised a new blog post with “updates on changes [Twitch] is making.” Stay tuned. |
Russian Hackers Probably Have Your Passwords. Now What? | Cat Zakrzewski | 2,014 | 8 | 7 | By now you’ve seen that a security firm found a Russian hacking ring had pilfered 1.2 billion user name and password combinations and more than 500 million email addresses. Like many people, your first question is probably whether or not you were included in that dragnet. , the Milwaukee-based security firm that uncovered the hack, says you can fork over $120 for an annual subscription to find out in the next 60 days if you were affected. The opportunistic move cast doubt on initial reports of the breach, but prominent cybersecurity experts have confirmed them to be accurate. At this point, you should just assume you were hacked. , the so-called CyberVor gang collected more than 4.5 billion records, and about 1.2 billion “appear to be unique.” There are about , so considering the scope of the breach, chances are CyberVor has yours. It’s too late to safeguard your email and password from this hack. Luckily according to the Times report, many of the records have not been sold yet. They’ve primarily been using the data to send spam on social networks, including Twitter. Although this hack is the largest that we’ve seen in quite some times, it’s one in a series of reminders, from to the , that our online accounts are not as safe as we think. Here’s a few steps to make your accounts more safe in the event of a future breach: This may feel like , but you should change your passwords, especially if you are using the same password for multiple websites. With all of the different accounts you have online, it’s hard to keep track of complex and unique passwords for each one. That’s where password managers can help. These websites generate and store longer, complicated passwords for each of your accounts . Here are some of the best options out there, but they aren’t foolproof: One of the most prominent cybersecurity experts, , held about the hack. His advice to commenters: Enable two-step authentication. When you enable two-step authentication, every time you log-in to that device on a new device, you have to respond to an additional message, usually a SMS message on your phone. two-factor authentication is more secure because it requires “something you know” (your password) and “something you have.” With the exception of AOL (who owns TechCrunch), , as well as some social networks like Twitter. Even with all of these steps, there is no way to completely protect all of your data. It’s important to continually monitor your online accounts, especially your email and financial accounts, for unusual activity. |
Square Will Now Pay Hackers For Reporting Bugs Responsibly | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 8 | 7 | If you consider yourself something of a white hat hacker, listen up: you’ve got a new service to poke at without fear of getting hauled into court, and it’s a big one. Last night at the BlackHat security conference, ‘s resident hacker announced that the company would be launching a bug bounty program soon. This morning, that program went live. I figure most TechCrunch readers are plenty familiar with the concept of a bug bounty program, but in case you’re not: it’s a company’s way of officially declaring that they don’t mind if you dig around for security vulnerabilities, as long as you follow their rules and let them know if anything turns up. In exchange, they’ll credit you for the discovery and kick down a chunk of cash as a sign of thanks, with the amount you’re paid generally going hand-in-hand with how severe the bug could’ve been. Square is setting the minimum bounty at $250 bucks. It’s also a promise from the company that they won’t try to crush you in court, as long as you follow their rules for disclosing a bug. You can find Square’s , but they’re all pretty standard: tell Square about the issue ASAP, don’t disclose the issue to others without fair warning, don’t DDoS their servers, don’t break the law, etc. Square also specifically prohibits social engineering of their employees and physical attempts like breaking into Square’s datacenter. The concept of a bug hunt/responsible disclosure program is by no means unique to Square. big companies launch one at some point — but how (or even if) a company rewards bug hunters can vary greatly. Bugcrowd has a |
Disrupt Winner Vurb Raises $8 Million To Steal Mobile Search From Google | Josh Constine | 2,014 | 8 | 7 | The conundrum of mobile is you either use one convenient app that is mediocre at doing many things, or you have to discover and hop between a flotilla of single-purpose apps. wants to solve this for mobile search by aggregating utility from top third-party apps so you can make decisions rather than click links. Today the announced it’s raised a meaty $8 million Series A led by Redpoint Ventures to play David to Google’s Goliath in search. is still rolling out its private beta to a , and must figure out how to uproot one of our most ingrained digital behaviors. But if everything else changed in the mobile age, why shouldn’t search? Vurb’s search engine cobbled together from factual information (like Google’s answer boxes) and third-parties like Yelp, Foursquare, OpenTable, YouTube, Spotify, IMDB, Netflix, Amazon, AngelList, and Crunchbase. For now it’s focused on places, movies, and media, but is looking to expand to many more verticals including travel and shopping. Vurb tries to anticipate the most common reasons for a search, and splay out the info you might need to take action. Vurb founder and CEO tells me “Search is a very poor experience on mobile. You have to figure out which app has the right information and have to jump app-to-app to cross-reference information. It’s a really painful process.” Vurb is different. Search for a movie, and you’ll get IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Flixster scores, nearby showtimes, trailers, cast breakdown, reviews. But say you choose a theater and click through to buy tickets for a specific showtime. One more click of Vurb’s Nearby Places button will show you top restaurants and bars close to the theater that you can filter by type, price, and more variables. Find a nice eatery and Vurb will pull up menus, maps, and an OpenTable booking button. And you never had to type another word or pop open a bunch of tabs — two actions that are clumsy on mobile. On the web, juggling services from Google results is a bit easier, but Vurb goes a step further with the ability to save individual cards or whole stacks of them you’ve browsed through. These modernized folders of bookmarks can be referenced later or shared with friends, which is great for collaborative group decision-making.
Let’s face it, though. Google has web search locked up tight. The desktop Internet is already an open, free-flowing platform where every site is a quick click away. Aggregation isn’t as valuable. On mobile, though, where content is locked into siloed apps you have to know about and install first, aggregation is quite helpful. To tackle such a big problem, Vurb raised this new $8 million round led by Redpoint, whose partner Geoff Yang will join its board. The new round brings , and includes Stanford University and existing investors Charles River Ventures, CrunchFund (started by TechCrunch’s founder), , DCVC, and angels including Naval Ravikant, Max Levchin, and Drew Houston. Yang explains his excitement to back Vurb, saying “It is a completely logical experience that matches how our brains work, not how the structure of browsers or apps work.” The funding will help the seven-employee team expand, continue research and development of the core product, build an Android version, add more search verticals, and upgrade its office. There are two types of apps. Monolithic ones like Facebook that do many things, and single-purpose ones like Rotten Tomatoes that do one thing like movie reviews very well. Each have their issues, as Andreessen Horowitz partner . Monolithic apps worked on the web where there was plenty of space, but are forced to bury features in hidden menus because there’s no room on mobile. That makes it easy to forget and tough to navigate to extra functionality. This is why we’ve seen Facebook and Foursquare spin off features into companion apps like Messenger and Swarm. Meanwhile, monolithic apps are rarely best in class. You could try to determine a movie’s quality by looking at its Like count or scant star ratings on Facebook, but Rotten Tomatoes will give you a better answer. People use monolithic apps, though, because they’re well-known and conveniently bundle everything together. Single-purpose apps are the trend in mobile because people want fast access to functionality. With multi-tasking, it’s just as easy to switch to a different app as it is to dig a feature out of a monolithic one. But this all requires that you know about a mobile app, have downloaded it, and remember to use it when you need it. This slams into the crowded app store problem. And juggling lots of apps to make decision is much harder than keeping multiple windows or tabs open on the desktop web. I believe Vurb’s opportunity is in bridging monolithic and single-purpose apps to get the best of both worlds. It does the discovery of expert, third-party, single-purpose apps for you and mashes their insights together into cards with everything you need. Lo tells me Vurb’s goal “is not to replace or compete with any of these services because they are the best at what they do, but to provide a new avenue for discovery that branches into these apps.” Vurb could monetize its search engine with tried and true channels like keyword ads, sponsored placement, and affiliate fees. Chinese apps are already rebundling third-parties to let you chat and buy movie tickets at the same time Vurb’s success may hinge on being a platform that single-purpose apps want to integrate with. If it pisses developers off by aggregating too much of their content while driving back too little traffic, they might block Vurb. If they can cooperate, though, Vurb has a chance to one-up Google. Apps like Baidu Maps are already using this platform strategy in China, hoping to solve any use case related to theme like location by pulling in taxi hailing, restaurant reviews, and appointment booking. Search is a huge theme to rebundle, and Google is a juggernaut. Betting on Vurb is very risky even if the upside potential is enormous. But that’s what venture capital is for. While was talking about the Chinese aggregated apps, the same thought could apply to opportunity to become a rebundled portal for the mobile age. “Is this what Yahoo might look like on mobile now if it hadn’t spent a decade asleep?” |
EyeEm Partners With Foursquare And The Huffington Post For Latest Photography Challenges | Kyle Russell | 2,014 | 8 | 7 | Photo-sharing service is announcing today that it is partnering with and to get photos taken by its users in front of more people with the introduction of two new competitions in its iOS and Android apps. The competitions are part of ’s “Missions,” where members of the community can submit photos around certain areas or topics (like the World Cup or photos of people in love) in exchange for prizes. The missions announced today are both intended to get the work of EyeEm users in front of more people outside of the company’s app. For its partnership with Foursquare, users submit photos to the mission by adding a tag to photos they upload to the app, which then show up on the profile pages of venues in the Foursquare app. Ten days from now, a winner will be selected to receive $300 and their submission will be hung in Foursquare HQ in New York City. Runners-up will receive Foursquare apparel and be featured on EyeEm’s blog. The mission for The Huffington Post (which, like TechCrunch, is owned by AOL) is a more straightforward content partnership between the two companies. The theme of the mission is and users can freely submit photos that they think match the theme. There’s no cash prize for photos submitted to the mission — the only reward is to have your work featured in Huffington Post articles, with picture linking back to EyeEm profiles. While that seems like a great opportunity to get work out their for photographers, it’s also in that awkward gray area where artists give out work for free online in exchange for “exposure,” a practice that some consider exploitative. With that said, this is something you can opt-in to from an app where you’d freely share those photos anyway many EyeEm users submit photos to the company’s missions in order to get feedback on their work, not for the monetary rewards. In other news, EyeEm also began today. The two biggest changes are a simplification of the overall interface and the addition of a feature the company is calling “EyeZoom.” As you can see in the photo above, everything in the app is available at all times — nothing is hidden off to the side in a menu you have to know to swipe to. The introduction of EyeZoom is part of the company’s efforts to put as much emphasis on high-quality photos in its apps as possible. Tapping anywhere on a photo seamlessly zooms in on a high-resolution version of the portion of the photo while the rest downloads in the background. The result is you can appreciate photos as they were intended to be seen faster than you would clicking on a thumbnail and waiting for the entire photo to load in other apps: |
Pyrus Shows What Productivity Apps Will Look Like On Android Wear | Kyle Russell | 2,014 | 8 | 7 | The first few months after a new platform opens for developers are always exciting to watch. For every category of apps, assumptions about how things work have to be tested and new ways of doing things become standard practices. The simplicity of Google’s about what functions actually need to make the jump, which is easier said than done for some apps. Task management app developer philosophy is to get things out of your way as quickly as possible. When you respond to something that required your attention, it’s gone from your inbox — as far as the app is concerned, dealing with the issue is no longer your problem. That’s a lot like how I use Gmail: I respond to things and then archive them, because the number of items in my inbox generally has a pretty strong correlation with my stress level at any given time. While many developers are they should send to your watch and how frequently they should try to get your attention, . You don’t see a list of all tasks assigned to you when you unlock your device, just things that are time sensitive that you can deal with by a tap or a quick voice response. In terms of choosing which feature to bring to watches, has it easy: most of their smartphone app’s functions have to do with staying on top of orders, budgets, proposals, and the like. It makes lot more sense to use than some of the other productivity offerings on the platform. , whose apps I use every day on my smartphone and laptop, makes it really easy to add to your notes using voice on . The app also lets you then look at those lists from your wrist, which doesn’t really make much sense on the user experience side of things. As you can see from the screenshot below, you can only see three items at once in Evernote on Android Wear. If you’re out shopping, presumably you’re going to have to scroll around a lot to cross off everything. While you’re doing so, you have to hold your wrist at a usable angle and manipulate the screen with your other hand. Considering the fact that you need your phone with you for Android Wear to work and using the watch doesn’t free up your hands, you might as well look at the list on your phone. You can see Pyrus on Android Wear in the video below. Everything is done within the standard “card” interface, so as other developers of task management apps bring their products to Android Wear, their controls and workflows are almost guaranteed to look similar: When it comes to the practicality of actually bringing apps to Android Wear, Pyrus CEO is mostly enthuiastic about the platform. On a phone call, he told me that his team was able to quickly roll out Android Wear functionality because they basically just had to “extend” certain features out to the watch from the main Android app — it’s not quite the same as building for an entirely new platform. His customers who have used the app on Android Wear enjoy the convenience of not having to get their phone out for things like approving a budget they already knew was on its way. With that said, Nalsky told me that they also consistently shared the same complaint: Android Wear’s battery life just isn’t long enough. That’s an issue without a clear solution: a screen, processor from a low-end smartphone, and constant usage of Bluetooth in a small package make it difficult for device maker’s to offer “all day” battery life with today’s technology. |
Intuit Acquires UK-Based Payroll Service PaySuite | Sarah Buhr | 2,014 | 8 | 7 | Continuing on its acquisition roll this year, has added cloud payroll service PaySuite to its roster. Intuit and in May. It also this July. The merger was jointly announced on both the and today as well as in a tweet sent out from Intuit Quickbooks UK: Today we’re welcoming @PaySuite to the Intuit QuickBooks family: — Intuit QuickBooks UK (@QuickBooksUK) Intuit announced plans to integrate the UK-based PaySuite into its Quickbooks service back in April. PaySuite is one of the larger providers of payroll software in the U.K. The company says that the partnership will help them to continue development for “small businesses, accountants and bookkeepers across the U.K. and around the world.” “By bringing PaySuite into the QuickBooks Online ecosystem in the UK, we’re striving to ensure that small businesses and accountants in the UK benefit from a seamless experience,” Intuit’s blog post states. There are more than 1.7M Quickbooks users worldwide, according to Intuit. PaySuite says it will now be able to fully integrate the 5 million small businesses it works with in the UK. This is the first acquisition for Intuit for the fiscal year, which starts August 1st. |
iCracked Goes Global With Its iPhone Trade-In And Repair Services | Jonathan Shieber | 2,014 | 8 | 7 | Four years after its launch, is taking its wildly successful iPhone trade-in and services business worldwide with plans to open offices in London and Berlin in the next few months. The company has been on a tear since launched the business with his high school friend, Anthony Martin, and Leslee Lambert in 2010. , when the company first launched from , and since then it’s been growing pretty solidly. And by pretty solidly, I actually mean lights out. In July, the company reached the milestone of having its over 600 iTechs generate over $1 million in revenue for themselves. Using a turnkey model, where interviews and vets potential iTechs before providing them with the tools, training, and marketing material to open what amounts to an iCracked franchise in their region, the company managed to build out a network of over 600 technicians. And iCracked expects to add 1500 iTechs worldwide over the next 12 months, according to Forsythe. There are already iTechs who work overseas, but the London and Berlin offices will be the company’s first locations outside of the U.S. “It’s been a pretty wild learning experience from being a startup in a living room to having 75 full-time employees in Redwood City,” says Forsythe. “We’ve helped create these 600 full-time and part-time jobs that people can start to make extra income and take care of our customers.” To start up an iCracked operation, iTechs don’t pay any money to license any content. They buy the inventory that they repair customers’ devices with and charge a mark-up on replacement parts and services. There’s also money coming in from the express sell program, which allows customers to sell their used iPhones to iCracked from roughly $120. The company’s iTechs receive between $30 and $50 for facilitating the transaction. The repair and trade-in services are netting iCracked more than $1 million per-month, according to Forsythe. “The goal is not to be the largest iOS repair network, but to be the cradle-to-cradle network for iOS services,” he says. “Everyone’s focused on building the software that will run on the hardware, but not many people are focused on running the software that will repair the hardware.” |
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Apple Sets Up A Special Section On Its Online Store For Beats Gear | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 8 | 7 | isn’t wasting time putting the brand to good use after its acquisition of the streaming music and audio hardware maker – the Mac maker now has a dedicated section of its online store, both on the web and via its iOS app, that’s . The new section is divided into headphones, in-ear headphones, speakers and accessories, and actually gives the essentially ridiculous ‘Beats Pill Dude’ its own big hero image. Apple’s marketing line with its new Beats brand emphasizes sound quality, and otherwise presents the products that were already available on its store in newly organized categories. Beats’ own website redirects all customers looking to purchase to the Apple Store, as it has done since Apple relaunched the site of its subsidiary after closing its deal in the U.S. on August 1. The special section is available once you click on the Shop Accessories tab link on the main Apple Store homepage, so it’s not necessarily a huge advantage over other audio accessory makers, but Apple’s homepage is also currently basically a paean to all things Beats, dedicated category aside. It’s reasonable that Apple would promote its new brand; however, it will be interesting to see how other accessory makers react. Bose has already sent a pretty regarding the new alliance between Apple and Jimmy Iovine’s darling. Via |
Wikipedia Picks Up $140,000 In Bitcoin Donations In One Week | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 8 | 7 | In late July, announced that it would . In its first week of accepting bitcoin, Wikipedia racked up $140,000 in new funds, , the service that powers its cryptocurrency influx. , a publication that tracks bitcoin and other alternative, digital currencies as suggesting “the staying power of digital currency donations, owing to the combination of tax benefits and transaction cost savings.” I’m slightly more skeptical, but it is without doubt that the donations are welcome at Wikipedia. As TechCrunch , the Wikimedia Foundation — parent to Wikipedia — doesn’t intend to hold bitcoin, but instead convert it to dollars at the time of donation. TechCrunch also noted that the Foundation raised $18.7 million last year, making this $140,000 less than one percent of its prior haul. But one percent in a week could add up to a tidy figure, provided bitcoin donations continue. doesn’t charge non-profits transaction fees. Recently, bitcoin has faded from the news media as the price of the stuff has settled into a predictable range, and volume isn’t growing. So, there hasn’t been too much to talk about. What should we expect regarding donations to Wikipedia? That they slow down. How do we know? Bitcoin sales at Overstock.com . Still, bitcoin donations to Wikipedia could make a material difference to its parent group. |
Google Launches A Preview SDK For Its Fitness And Health Tracking Service | Frederic Lardinois | 2,014 | 8 | 7 | Earlier this year, at its IO developer conference, , its service for bringing health and fitness tracking to the Android ecosystem. It’s essentially Google’s version of Apple’s and will launch with the release of Android L later this year. Today, however, the company the for Fit so that developers can now start building their own apps for the service before it becomes widely available. Currently, the SDK gives developers access to . Developers will be able to use from connected apps and devices through the . Using these APIs, a running app could register with a heart rate monitor, for example, to get its data every five seconds so it can display this info and give feedback to a runner. The is somewhat similar, but instead of direct access to the data, it allows apps to register for cloud-synced background data collection. The Sensor API doesn’t store this data automatically, so you need the Recording API if you want to use any of this data later on. Google says an app could use this to store a user’s location during a run so it can show a map based on this data after a run is over. Right now, the cloud backend isn’t actually available yet, but Google says it’s coming “soon.” With the help of the , developers can also get access to a user’s fitness history and use this data in their own apps. It allows developers to import batch data to Fit and read information that was recorded using other apps. It’s worth noting that the SDK neither includes support for the promised REST API for web developers who want to use Fit data nor any specific APIs for Android Wear. To get started, developers will have to a special version of the Android L Developer Preview on either a Nexus 5 phone or a second-generation Nexus 7 WiFi tablet. Google has always said that it wants to create an open ecosystem around Fit, so while the Preview SDK only works for a limited number of devices, the overall idea is to allow fitness apps to work with data from almost any wearable or sensor. |
Zillow Expands Its Mortgage Services With Mobile Pre-Approvals | Frederic Lardinois | 2,014 | 8 | 7 | Unless you are buying a house , you pretty much have to have a mortgage pre-approval letter from your bank before you even start house hunting. That’s typically something you would go to the bank for, but a number of mortgage services now also allow you to go through this process online. Online real estate site has long offered mortgage comparison services and a web-based pre-approval process, but today it is taking this one step further by adding pre-approval to its mobile apps, too. So now, when you spontaneously decide that it’s time to buy your dream home, you can get pre-approved right on the doorstep as you walk into the Saturday open house while the smell of fresh-baked cookies from the seller’s agent wafts into your face. Pre-approval is available through Zillow’s Mortgages app and its real estate search app on iOS. The process on mobile is the same as anywhere else. You fill out your info and lenders will come back with some initial quotes. From there, you can authorize the lenders you like best to pull your credit report info and assuming your numbers match up, you’ll get a pre-approval letter sent right to your phone. Given that these letters are just for show and tell, you can always select another lender later on anyway, but at least nobody will kick you out of the open house because you aren’t pre-approved and look like a hobo. According to its latest , Zillow’s Mortgage Marketplace — which is essentially a lead-generation service — handled 5.5 million loan requests in the second quarter of 2014, up 3% from the year-ago quarter. Adding the pre-approval service to mobile, the company believes, will help continue to drive up this contact volume to lenders. In the last quarter, mortgages accounted for almost 12 percent of Zillow’s total revenue – up from 8 percent a year ago. That makes it the company’s fastest-growing revenue source, though it’s still far behind what it makes from its real estate and advertising services. |
Bikanta’s Tiny Diamonds Find Cancer Before It Spreads | Sarah Buhr | 2,014 | 8 | 7 | -backed biotech company wants to find and stop cancer at its source by inserting tiny, fluorescent diamonds inside your body. The brainchild of Dr. Ambika Bumb, who holds a PhD in biomedical engineering from Oxford, these nanodiamonds can detect molecular abnormalities at a much earlier stage, essentially stopping cancer from spreading any further. Bumb was working on her first post-doctoral fellowship with the National Institute of Health (NIH) at Oxford University when she became dissatisfied with current limitations for cancer screening. Current methods are unable to detect small tumors or breakaway tumor cells that lead to something called micrometastatic tumors, which can go undetected at the source and lead to the spread of cancer throughout other areas of the body. Bumb also points out the technical limitations involving signal loss, high background interference and unacceptable toxicity that have sidelined research endeavors. Quantum dots (one of the two other fluorescence/optical imaging agents) are made of CdSe/Cds/ZnS core materials that are toxic, for example. According to the , cancer rates around the world are expected to rise 57 percent over the next 20 years. That would mean cancer diagnoses would rise from an estimated annual total of 14 million to 22 million. Small or breakaway tumors go undetected each year, leading to unnecessary death. This is all because current methods don’t allow us to see them when they form. This need for better methods of finding disease at the source has also led to a $3.5 billion market in optical imaging reagents. In other words, the market is huge for creating better fluorescent dyes, nanodiamonds and other things used to light up the insides of your body. The market could be worth up to $5 billion by 2017, . There’s also the challenge of un-mixing fluorescent signals from the background. Tools used to light up the molecular abnormalities, such as fluorescent dyes and quantum dots, are very limited in helping to literally highlight this problem. Fluorescent dye doesn’t give off any light if the molecular structure is different, for instance. This is where the nanodiamonds come in. Bumb discovered that crushing up essentially imperfect diamonds into dust created a fluorescent, reflective light that could highlight any molecular abnormality. “It’s like having a flashlight inside your body that basically lasts forever,” says Bumb. This is also a breakthrough method not currently available in the market. Nanodiamonds have an additional magnetic sensitivity property that can be used to resolve this issue. Initial tests revealed the signal-to-background ratio was improved in vivo by 100-fold with the fluorescent nanodiamonds. And, says Bumb, there is potential for even greater reduction of background noise with more testing. The technology has so far been used to visualize lymph nodes that were invisible in conventional imaging. Beyond cancer detection is an even bigger potential here — precise, hands-free surgery. These nanodiamonds may one day be able carry cancer-destroying technology along with it. Unlike conventional nanodiamonds that form into clusters, Bikanta’s nanodiamonds remain separate but stable in liquid suspension, and they can be tightly bound to any targeting agent (e.g. aptamers, antibodies). This means Bikanta could create designer drugs with the diamond material that would effectively detect specific diseases. So, just as the nanodiamond material searches through the body to find molecular abnormalities, it also gets rid of them at that very moment. “My thought is, if every doctor helps ten patients a day, engineers who create technology employed by a hundred doctors can help one thousand patients a day,” says Bumb. |
Beauty Data Startup Poshly Scores $1.5 Million | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 8 | 7 | A New York-headquartered data company focused on the beauty industry, , has closed on a $1.5 million seed round of funding, which will largely be used to grow its engineering team in San Francisco. The funding was led by Frontier Equities VC, and included Astia Angels, CPEG Ventures, WI Harper Group, and other private investors. To date, Poshly has raised over $2 million to date. was co-founded by former employees, (CEO) and (CTO). Falk’s background also included time as an engineer at cosmetics brand Bare Escentuals, giving him a first-hand look at the beauty industry. As Bloch explains, traditionally, beauty brands haven’t had access to the sort of detailed data on their consumers’ preferences and behavior that Poshly now provides, having relied heavily on purchase data and traditional market research to inform their decisions. Poshly’s website offers a variety of beauty product giveaways which consumers can compete to win by answering personal questions about their beauty routines, habits, interests, and more. The data these questions generate is highly personalized, but only shared with Poshly’s brand customers after being anonymized – meaning users’ personally identifiable information is removed, like their name, email or address. This “hyper-personal data,” as Bloch calls it, helps brands better understand their customer base in general, or influence larger decisions, like what retail channel to roll out to next, for example. “When we started, we knew there was something special about collecting very personal data – stuff like whether someone has dandruff or acne scarring – very personal information that no one would post on Facebook or share on Twitter,” says Bloch. Today, the company works with everyone from large conglomerates down to small brands, and has “dozens” of clients like L’Oréal, Unilever, Interpublic Group, Weleda, Borghese, illuMask, Bluebeards Original, Montagne Jeunesse and others. Clients pay anywhere from $2,500 to $25,000 per campaign, depending on a range of factors. In exchange for participation on the site, consumers have the chance to win the product they’re being asked about – which may be makeup, or skin cream, or perfume, bath products, or sometimes even gift cards. The products are generally provided by the brand doing the survey. As someone who spent a solid week answering questions on the site shortly after last summer it and never won a thing, using Poshly began to feel like playing the lottery – it was fun to dream about the products it offered, but you’d never win even when you thought you’d be the ideal customer. Bloch admits that this could be because there are only a small number of samples provided – each campaign has one to ten units available, she says. That’s great for the brands participating, of course, as their costs are minimal. Over 200,000 consumers have interacted on Poshly to date, so eventually if word got out how hard it was to win, one would think retention rates would be an issue. But Bloch claims the opposite is true: 62% of visitors return on a monthly basis, spending over 7 minutes on the site, on average. Over time, users answer around 400 questions. Now that the company has a trove of data on hand, it will also begin to help brands better target their samples to the most receptive consumers – that, in turn, will also help more of the site’s users feel like they’re getting rewarded for over-sharing their personal data. My gut takeaway from the consumer’s perspective is that you should always receive something when you give up your private data to a company, whether that’s a platform for social interactions or communications, like Facebook or Gmail, or a history of their location, . Poshly today is acquiring of personal data, without having to give back much in return. Of course, from a pure business angle, it’s fairly impressive that they’ve accomplished that. With the additional funding, Poshly is moving to a SaaS-based model, focusing more on generating subscription revenue from its clients rather than working on one-off campaigns. It will grow its team of 8 to around 20, with engineering and design hires in San Francisco coming on board in the next few months. |
The World Of Everything-As-A-Service | Tom Blomfield | 2,014 | 8 | 9 | Over the last few years, it’s become dramatically more simple and capital-efficient to launch and grow Internet businesses. In particular, “X-as-a-Service” providers help startups get off the ground with only a few hundred dollars. Amazon and provide on-demand servers that scale to meet hosting requirements, and run high-performance mail servers at very low cost, while , and make payment processing straightforward. As companies become more comfortable using these outsourced services, more specialized and niche services can flourish, and so the process of launching startups becomes faster and cheaper. It’s become possible to build billion-dollar companies with a handful of . Thanks to these services and tools, we’ve “decoupled the technical ability and experience needed to write tricky software from the ability to solve problems for people.” In the brick-and-mortar world, it’s a different story. While outsourcing to external services is certainly not a new concept, the benefits haven’t trickled down to newly launched companies, as the scale required to access most offline outsourcers is prohibitive. Three related factors may explain this disparity. First, with most online “X-as-a-Services,” you can get up and running straight away. There’s no procurement or long purchasing process; you can simply sign up and go, often without even talking to a human being. Second, robust, well-documented APIs make this sign-up-and-go approach possible. Implementation consultants and long integration processes are usually a thing of the past. Plugging services together is a matter of minutes or hours, not weeks or months. Third, the minimum required volume to use these services is often “one,” with a price-point of “free.” These zero-cost trial periods make sense because the infrastructure to power the API has already been built. You can have customisation, but only within the boundaries of the existing API. In contrast, solutions offered by brick-and-mortar outsourcers are effectively custom-built each time, making the marginal cost of an additional customer prohibitively high. This, in turn, explains the long procurement processes and staggering minimum-order volumes. In certain brick-and-mortar industries, we’ve seen a fundamental change in the way business is done. Take the fast-food delivery market. Chains like Pizza Hut traditionally operated a vertically integrated model, owning and running their own website, delivery fleets and restaurant portfolios. As smaller competitors struggled to compete, the first thing to be “outsourced” was the website, iPhone app and payment processing, led by companies like Seamless, GrubHub and JustEat. The next candidate for outsourcing might be the delivery network. Seamless’ core competency is branding, building colorful websites and acquiring customers. For restaurants, it’s cooking great food. But no one is particularly good at optimizing a last-mile delivery fleet – I’d expect to see a number of very large Delivery-as-a-Service companies emerge in the next few years (think Uber Rush, Wun Wun and Postmates on an industrial scale). The next billion-dollar fast-food corporation probably – it may simply be a collection of intellectual property – brand name, menus and recipes – with all the physical work of food preparation and delivery performed by service providers. Indeed, Burger King has doubled its stock price by taking this . In another real-world industry – grocery shopping – is a fascinating example, as it has the potential to build the largest grocery chain in the world without owning a single grocery store. It uses the existing network of grocery stores to effectively warehouse their inventory, while focusing on the final-mile delivery and a delightful customer service. In its early days, found an ingenious way to solve the three requirements for efficient outsourcing; instead of spending years dealing with large warehousers, woeful APIs and huge minimum-order volumes, they simply had their personal shoppers walk into city-centre grocery stores to pick produce off the shelves. Instead of negotiating access to stores’ inventory lists, they simply bought one of every item in Trader Joe’s and photographed them all in a studio over a weekend. Instacart is a dramatic example of Everything-as-a-Service – the ability for smart, scrappy entrepreneurs to build billion-dollar, real-world businesses with a handful of staff, no premises and minimal capital investment. It’s an exciting time for entrepreneurs working in offline spaces: Real-world startup costs will become dramatically lower, allowing new business models to be developed and tested with much greater velocity. As in the online world, access to capital, infrastructure and specialist skills have become less important than the “ .” |
Microsoft’s Surface And The Fine Line Between Investment And Loss | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 8 | 7 | There’s been quite a bit of on ‘s line of tablet-hybrids published recently. The Surface project loses money. Understanding the magnitude of those deficits is important. The analysis led to the Verge’s Tom Warren asking the somewhat provocative question of whether , a product line that improved throughout its life, but never achieved escape velocity. Let’s take a look at the history of Surface, Microsoft’s comments on its vision for the product line, stack those next to its current losses, and then compare the product line to another Microsoft hardware project and see where we end up. When I first encountered Surface in Redmond back in 2012, I was told along with the rest of the assembled press that the hardware line was ‘a real business.’ That’s to say that it wasn’t a hobby, and that Microsoft expected it to perform financially. Microsoft reiterated the business line to me , conducted before the release of the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2, immediately after I had first held the devices, again in Redmond. This quote, from Brian Hall of the Surface team is worth meditating on: We are running this as a business. But we also are running it as a long-term business. Which means that there are different priorities at different times. Take dropping the price of [the first-generation Surface RT] to $349. That was to primarily get it into more people’s hands. That’s because we knew that the most strategic thing is more Surface users. People that used it loved it and became good advocates. And we had to get that seed planted, watered, and fertilized. We want to have a great portfolio. We recognize that people start from price points in their head. And I think that they will see that each of these at its price point is an amazing value. If there is someone who wants a tablet that can really be productive. That was the company’s vision when the was presumably under development, along with whatever the Surface Mini was going to be. The latter, of course, has been shelved. ComputerWorld digging into Microsoft’s earnings reports to suss out how much money the company has lost on Surface by comparing revenue statements with cost of revenue numbers when possible, and estimates of cost of revenue when not. The gist is not pretty: “Microsoft has lost $1.73 billion ($676 million plus $1.049 billion) on the new hardware.” It’s actually worse than that, in my estimation, as ‘cost of revenue’ calculations don’t include certain expenses like advertising, something that Microsoft has spent heavily on for the Surface line. ComputerWorld’s , even if it only takes into account cost of revenue, is worth ruminating on: What’s visible is an improving gross margin using cost of revenue as the measuring stick, and a growing influx of revenue. So, are the losses too staggering for Microsoft? There is a small tension here between Ballmer’s Microsoft, and Satya’s Microsoft: Ballmer was willing to plow billions into hardware, as evinced by the Nokia deal and his support of Surface’s early days — Satya just inherited the stuff. I’ve heard some rumbling that Microsoft’s new CEO wasn’t as big a fan of the Nokia acquisition, but I haven’t heard that he was at all inclined to jump off the Surface bandwagon. I think it’s fair to say that Microsoft’s hardware efforts are not islands, and that the company’s work producing Windows Phone handsets isn’t utterly distinct from its Surface investments. As such, we can view them from something approaching the same perspective. In both cases, Microsoft is working to build what it considers to be the best hardware for its platform. A platform it’s no longer exclusively tied to anymore, certainly, but still a platform into which it’s willing to pour money to make it succeed. I don’t think that the Surface line is in much short-term danger of being terminated. A few things are worth considering: Stepping back the above only gets us to the point of saying that Surface isn’t likely to be cancelled in the short-term. If the product fails to grow its revenue, and shrink its losses, Microsoft could well push it over a cliff in the future. But that’s true for products. Therefore if the Surface Pro 3 can move units, Surface should be on decent medium-term footing. Past that everyone is just guessing. Returning to that quote after digging through the financial pit of Surface’s first few years of life implies a Microsoft that has a multi-year plan for Surface mapped out. I think it executes that plan, provided that losses don’t again materially diverge from expectations. That $900 million writedown, in formal financial terminology, was a fucking shitshow. However, it hasn’t happened again, regardless of what impact the death of the Surface Mini had on last quarter’s costs. We’ll have a new Surface revenue figure in just over two months. It, and the following holiday quarter should give the market, and company a pretty good barometer as to whether Surface Pro 3 was an incremental, or decisive improvement to its predecessors. |
T-Mobile Is Testing An App That Unlocks Your Smartphone With A Single Button | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 8 | 9 | The good news: is playing with the idea of letting you unlock your phone (so that it can run on other carriers) with a single click. Hurray! No more convincing customer service to help you, or digging through endless forums for a tutorial that may turn your phone into a fancy paper weight. The not-so-good news: they’re only testing it on a kind-of-meh Samsung phone for now — and even there, there are some catches. The biggest catch is a fair one: to unlock your phone permanently, it has to be completely paid off. So, no, you can’t pop into a T-Mobile store, get the phone at a discount on an installment plan, then unlock it, cancel your plan, and ride off into the sunset. You also need to have been with T-Mobile for at least 40 days, and your account must be in good standing. But what if you only need the phone to be unlocked for a while, like when you’re traveling? Though it seems like T-Mobile is still working out exactly what the guidelines for a temporary unlock are, a second button within the app allows you to unlock the phone for up to 30 days without quite as many rules. Alas, as mentioned, T-Mobile is currently only testing this on a phone that you probably haven’t even heard of: Samsung’s Galaxy Avant. If you’re on some other locked down T-Mobile phone, you’re stuck doing it the old way. [Or just skip all this nonsense and buy a phone that comes unlocked out of the box, like the fantastic Nexus 5] Our buddies checked what happened when they stuffed the app into other Android phones, and it’s about what you’d expect: the app itself boots up just fine, but the unlock buttons are worthless. |
Men Initiating Change Is An Important Step Toward Eradicating Tech’s Bro Culture | Telle Whitney | 2,014 | 8 | 9 | The conversation about women in tech is shifting as technology companies begin to hold themselves accountable. Recent moves, such as , , and releasing their employee diversity numbers, show an intensified commitment to making real change for women technologists, but the sentiment is not industry-wide. We often hear from tech leadership that they would like to hire more women in technical roles, but they continue to reference the lack of women in the STEM pipeline as the cause. Deferring accountability will not affect real systematic change. We are saddled with a chicken and egg stalemate. The fact is, the that startups are known for is a for women being put off from working in the industry. On HBO’s “Silicon Valley” – a show that often to be considered satire – one of the running jokes is the app Nip Alert, one character’s creation that helps locate women with large breasts. This app, of course, is based on real-life incidents in the tech industry, which crop up every day, and then are all too often swept under the rug. When it becomes commonplace for technical conferences to include a or to uncover a startup founder’s , it is a red flag that the startup fraternity culture is out of control. The tech industry’s “boys will be boys” mentality in the face of these recent events is taking a toll on diversity in the STEM pipeline. In the face of all the negative stories coming out of the tech industry, it is no wonder that young women are not flocking to be the next target. Intelligent young women are generally uninterested in joining a frat house environment that stereotypes them in negative ways and demeans them regularly. A perceived lack of opportunities to flourish in a tech career may be keeping young women out of the computer science and engineering pipeline. There is a way to enact a cultural change, and it starts with the men in tech. Women will continue to be vocal and push for change, but it is just as important for men to step in and speak up. This includes men at all levels of the technical workforce, leadership and especially at venture capital firms. As it stands, many of the recent controversies in tech were met with silence and inaction from VC firms. When spoke up about the , the only response from the company’s VC firm was a from Marc Andreessen supporting the founder who resigned. There was no apology to Horvath and no indication of support for improving the work environment for women. Similarly, when the CEO of , , was convicted of two misdemeanors for domestic violence and battery against his girlfriend, the drawn-out of board of directors only resulted in his when the media firestorm became too much. Even when laws aren’t being broken, the absence of women has failed to register as an issue for VCs, such as the on Twitter’s board just before their IPO in 2013. Silence in the face of incidents like these, especially from those who hold the purse strings, sends a terrible message to women technologists and young women considering careers in the field. A culture that glorifies the boy genius founder and encourages a frat house environment in spite of all the warning signs is not a place where most intelligent young women feel they can succeed, leading them to pursue other careers. At the Anita Borg Institute we regularly see men in leadership positions stepping forward to take part in the conversation. Over the past 20 years of hosting the , we often feature many of our committed board members, including from Google, from Facebook, from Intel, and from Microsoft. This year we have Microsoft CEO as one of our keynotes. These men understand that changing tech’s culture is not just a women’s issue, it is an . Now is not the time for complacency. There are men in the technology industry can take to show their support. The most important action is to speak up in opposition to inequality and inaction and to speak out in support of women technologists, especially when you see actions or messages that are inappropriate or condescending. Individual male support for women in tech will lead to a greater grassroots effect that will bring about a more accepting and innovative tech culture where all parties can thrive. |
The Poet, Scientist, Journalist, Boxer Approach To Entrepreneurship | Zachary Hanson | 2,014 | 8 | 9 | One of the great challenges for startups is figuring out where to start. Entrepreneurs believe that unless they build something now, their idea will become outdated or stolen by their competitor. However, that thought process is akin to running a marathon with one month of training. Yes, it can be done, but you run the risk of burning out and failing more quickly. What is needed is a contemporary guideline to help develop unadulterated focus for the new startup founder. Great startup mentors understand this struggle, and the very best mentors soothe their disciples by telling them what to focus on in the beginning — things such as, iterating the core idea, creating a simple business model, or guidance on building the minimum viable product (MVP). Based on our own experience with mentors and the chaotic birth of our startup, we have developed a linear remedy that all entrepreneurs can apply to improve their chances of success. Our theory is called “The Poet, Scientist, Journalist, Boxer Approach to Entrepreneurship.” The four-stage process starts with the poet. This stage is initiated the second that the proverbial “apple” falls on your head and you that you have a great idea. The telltale signs of this experience are having trouble sleeping and feeling a mix between wanting to tell everyone about your idea and the feeling of paranoia that if you mention it someone will steal it. Once you recognize that you have entered the poet stage, it is time to channel your inner Walt Whitman and put all of your thoughts down on paper. Putting your ideas in writing, ink to paper, is an important part of establishing a real understanding of your own idea. Now, don’t worry about your tone or voice, just write as if you were planning to start a revolution — pour your heart and soul into it. Write your values, your vision, your goals, and focus on why and how your idea will change people’s lives. Once you can’t squeeze anything else out of your brain, it’s time to put your lab coat on. Step two, becoming a scientist, involves developing and releasing your MVP. With critical eyes, you must look back at the work of the poet and extrapolate the core theory and decide what is needed to test that idea. Here, feasibility is key, which means that the scientist must only pick what is necessary to test the poet’s theory. The scientist, with the help of engineers, then builds a test experiment. This experiment should encompass the core idea and lead to the development and delivery of the MVP. Once the MVP is shipped, you send the journalist out in the field to tell the story. Step three is to become a journalist. It’s now time to listen to the first users (also known as early adopters) and learn from them. You no longer stand on your pulpit preaching your product’s utility, but instead inquire and listen as to whether the sees your products in the same light. When interviewing users, it is important to ask open-ended questions that trigger enlightened responses. The journalist then takes all of the knowledge gathered from the users and drafts the company’s bigger story — the story about the marketable product, and how it will fit into and change the market you are entering. Now that you have validated your original idea through science and journalism, you are ready to strap on your gloves and fight to take your idea to market. Becoming the boxer is the ultimate achievement for the startup founder. When you get to this point and lace up your gloves, you will be set to face many opponents from several weight classes. As with any great fighter, it is imperative to study your opponents in depth. The boxer becomes an expert at dealing with pitching events, customers, investors, incubators and PR relations. Pictures of all of the upcoming opponents are hanging on the boxer’s wall as a reminder of the fight to come — and the boxer can’t wait to throw the first punch. The moment the boxer steps into the ring, there is no turning back. There are 12 rounds to be fought in order to get your product to market. Every round you can either win or lose, but every time you return to your corner you will iterate with your mentors and adapt your product to the situation before heading back into the fight. Given the nature of fighting, you will always run the risk of getting knocked out during any round (e.g. maybe you find out the market you entered is saturated, or your product is not going to survive), or conversely, could knock your opponent out cold (e.g. maybe you receive a buy-out offer from a large company). As a seasoned pro you know that those are the risks and rewards of the startup fight and that the battle could end early, but you always come prepared to slug it out for all 12 rounds. No matter the outcome, the boxer always picks himself up, win or lose, and lives to fight another day. The journey to the ring is a long one. It takes time and patience to make sure that you are prepared to face your opponents, and at the end of the day you will always run the risk of failure. That inherent risk is secretly (or not so secretly) what so many entrepreneurs crave, and just as the adrenaline junky throws himself off of a building to get his fix, it is time for you to prepare yourself to step into the startup ring and feel the rush. Express your inner poet, build the experiment, tell the story, and make sure you are training for the fight. |
Timista Wants To Be Your Pocket Concierge | Natasha Lomas | 2,014 | 8 | 9 | There’s no shortage of startups making apps to help you find something to do in select cities. Apps like last minute event planner . Or YC-backed if you’re after local nightlife events. Or, for tourists wanting to book excursions and tours on their city break, there’s . But what if you want to chain together a sequence of activities — say something cultural, dinner and a movie — rather than just booking one thing to do? That’s where sees a gap in the market for its multiple event planning app. The idea is to offer something akin to a pocket concierge service, with the app being smart enough to figure out which events can be realistically chained together, based on their proximity, availability and timings — so things like how long it takes to walk between them. The startup started life as a side project, while its co-founder was still at his day job in marketing at Apple. A prototype web version launched in 2012, with Camillieri quitting his role at Apple to go full time on the project in early 2013. An iPhone app launched at the end of last month — with an initial focus on London. The team has been bootstrapping development thus far. Along with Camillieri, the other co-founder, Julien Bieren, works as a structurer/quant in the City, heading up a team developing complex models for the financial market. This experience is something draws on for the algorithms that power its recommendations. “We found that there was no good way to answer a very common question: ‘We are free on Saturday, what can we do?’ in the same way a real concierge could,” says Camillieri, explaning the inspiration for Timista. A “proper answer” to that question — such as a hotel guest might expect from a conceirge — would list multiple activities that are happening and check availability, and indeed offer combinations of activities that work well together to maximise free time, he argues. “That’s what our smart planner app does. You just state your ‘constraints’ (when and where you are free) and it lets you curate optimised timelines of social events in London,” adds Camillieri. Timista’s team has created a patented system to identify events going on in London, including schedules and real-time availability, and then uses “maths and artificial intelligence” to help the user find and combine multiple activities. “We have more than 10,000 events and venues in the system, representing 1,000,000 time slots available per week,” says Camillieri. “It uses… genetics algorithms — a class of algorithms more often used in very complex applications including bioinformatics and NASA engineering to help you find and combine activities that work well together.” “Timista is the only service using artificial intelligence techniques to help you plan your time out,” he adds. “Traditional competitors include publications such as TimeOut, Londonist etc. They are very exhaustive and they add great editorial value. Yet, they do not offer a ‘smart planning’ service and you, the user, still need to find your way in the content and organise your time yourself. “Newer competitors include last minuters such as (and to some extent Groupon, Living Social etc). They make it extremely easy to book a limited set of activities, potentially with discounts. Yet, by design they are not exhaustive and you will miss some of the most exciting venues/events (that do not want to give away their inventory). In addition, they will not let you combine activities to create bespoke plans for you.” To be clear, the Timista app currently only works for London, UK, but the team obviously sees potential to expand the concept to other cities in time. They also see potential to offer it as a b2b whitelabel service for hotels or travel companies to offer as a free service to their customers. The business model for Timista is a “ type of model”, says Camillieri, with it sidestepping revenue share on booking and taking money through affiliation instead — via partnerships with companies such as OpenTable, Livebookings and London Theatre Direct. So the idea is to be a meta search engine for a sequence of timely events. That does mean users can’t book the activities they choose within the app — but rather are directed to various other websites to do so. Camillieri says the reason for doing this is to be “exhaustive” on venue choice — being as some venues don’t support bookings via third party apps. It also means it’s not taking any commission from users for using the service. The app’s interface uses drag and drop to let users build an itinerary, with potential events displayed as circular thumbnails, and the nearer the top of the screen they are the more convenient an activity is likely to be — relative to your chosen location. “Once you find something and you drag and drop it into your time line, the app will check availability for you and show it. If you tap on “+” in the timeline, either before or after the activity you have chosen, the app should list restaurants in the vicinity of the show, with availability at the right time and good reviews. The first proposals shown should be the most convenient: in the same area, with availability at the right time, and good reviews. And so on if you add a 3rd activity,” adds Camillieri. It’s obviously early days for Timista, with its app just launched and only around 5,000 active users so far. The interface can also slow down at peak usage times, so there’s work to be done on building out robustness. Camillieri says the startup’s aim is to seek external funding once it’s built up some traction with the product. The question is whether it can convince enough people to let its algorithm do the thinking when they’re planning their next day out in the smoke, rather than relying on friends’ suggestions and/or serendipity. |
Gillmor Gang: More of the Same | Steve Gillmor | 2,014 | 8 | 9 | The Gillmor Gang — Dan Farber, Robert Scoble, Keith Teare, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — split down the middle on the latest app trend known as unbundling. Foursquare begat Swarm, Facebook produced Messenger, and Yo popped out a beta with non-disclosed super powers. Tying it altogether was the seamless fabric of notifications, about to crescendo with iOS8’s app-to-app extensions. While some worry about VC funding drying up for apps that don’t swing for the fences, others are betting on building notification share as the true metric of engagement. @stevegillmor, @scobleizer, @dbfarber, @kteare, @kevinmarks Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor
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For The Love Of Open Mapping Data | Frederic Lardinois | 2,014 | 8 | 9 | It’s been exactly ten years since the launch of , the largest crowd-sourced mapping project on the Internet. The project was founded by when he was still a student. It took a few years for the idea of to catch on, but today, it’s among the most heavily used sources for mapping data and the project is still going strong, with new and improved data added to it every day by volunteers as well as businesses that see the value in an open project like this. To celebrate the project’s birthday, I sat down with , who now works at , to talk about OpenStreetMap’s earliest days and its future. Here is a (lightly edited) transcript of the interview: So the original idea was way simple. I had a GPS unit attached to my laptop and there wasn’t very much you could do with it because there wasn’t any data. You could download a picture of a map, but if you wanted to do anything like have the computer figure out what roads you were on or do turn-by-turn navigation or anything that’s kind of useful, you couldn’t do it because there wasn’t any map data. So I just thought: why don’t we create some map data? When you have a GPS, you can just drive or bike or walk around all the streets, all the roads, all the footpaths and use that information to create a map. I build a little bit of the map where I live and you build a little bit of where you live and we build this thing like a jigsaw puzzle — and incidentally give it away for free. Just like was building an encyclopedia in a very similar way, I copied many of the ways Wikipedia was built with — like open licensing, the ability for anybody to contribute and so on. I was working at the computer laboratory in Cambridge. I did a lot of stuff and most of it didn’t work out. Well, there’s a couple of ways. One is just PR. I gave a lot of talks. Linux user groups used to be very popular — people getting together on a Saturday afternoon to talk about Linux. They already knew half the story because they knew about open source and they knew about computers and data. So it wasn’t too hard to explain what OpenStreetMap was doing. From there I gave talks at mapping conferences. I stopped counting at something like 500 talks. I used to use the number on my first slide. Yeah. Absolutely. And then we had some mailing lists and started to form a community. I also invented this thing called , which were typically a weekend event. People would come along and we’d show them how to use a GPS because this was pre-iPhone. We’d walk around, collect data and show them how to upload it and integrate it to OpenStreetMap. And then we’d go to the pub afterwards. I really wanted to get people talking and make it feel like a community. It took a while and you can’t convince everybody, but it got to the point where it was self-sustaining. Ha. I’m not sure I do. I look at it really as a series of milestones, right? We are still not quite there. I mean, OpenStreetMap is a great display map, but there is still not a whole lot of navigation data and address information, for example. But I can still remember when I stopped being surprised, and that was when I was at a mapping party. To show people the power of the project, I’d ask them to pick a place that was important or interesting to you. And then on OpenStreetMap, we’d zoom in to what was interesting to them. Then I’d ask them to tell me if they saw any mistakes or what was missing — and then we’d edit it. That made it very personal and showed the power of the map. And typically they’d say there’s a road missing or something and we’d edit the data. There was this particular time when somebody said “let’s zoom in on Cuba.” At the time I thought the UK would be great, Spain had a bunch of information but if we zoom in on Cuba, there would be nothing there. So we zoom in over Havana and it was basically complete. All the roads, one-way streets. That’s when things stopped surprising me. That was around 2008. There are a couple of ways to look at this. It was less of a technology problem than it was doing things that other people didn’t want to do and getting people involved. I had a bunch of experience running large SQL databases and doing large SQL queries. There were other people who were trying to do open mapping, but they maybe two mistakes. One is they concentrated on the shiny stuff: the editor and the website and so on. I focused on making the backend work. That wasn’t quite as much fun to work on. The other projects also wanted to limit you in some ways. They’d say you can map whatever you want, but it has to be in England, or it has to be footpaths. What we did was say: hey, it’s open source for everything. That made it relevant to everyone. But in terms of the technology itself, initially I wrote the whole thing in Java and it was talking . But around that time, REST was becoming popular and it was becoming obvious to me that it was going to win. Java was also becoming increasingly painful. That’s when I switched the whole thing to Ruby. And then about that time was when Ruby on Rails started, so I switched to that. It was a fairly early project to use Rails. The costs were actually very low. There were a couple of computers and bandwidth that was needed. There wasn’t actually a lot of infrastructure that was needed. I just convinced the university to host it and at the university where I was [University College of London at that time], they had great Internet connectivity. So the cost were actually pretty minimal. But to answer your question more directly: the money that we did need would typically come from conferences. We’d run a conference and sell t-shirts and we could buy a couple of servers every now and then. The early smartphones were pretty terrible, right? You could have something in your pocket to access the Internet, but the turning point was really the arrival of the iPhone. It replaced the five devices you used to carry around. The short answer is that it lowered the cost of us collecting data and made it more accessible to everyone. But it also changed people’s perception of what a map was and how accessible a map should be to someone on the street. It also changed peoples’ relationship with maps. Instead of this static artifact, it was now something you’d always have with you. It made it malleable from this static artifact — and it turned it into something self-updating. Maps used to be this stand-alone app for your PC — and then Apple and Google Maps changed it to this thing that was always with you. And now maps are just going into every application because you can make them relevant for everything. Fiji’s Mana Island resort on OpenStreetMap. I think the challenge remains to open up the data. OpenStreetMap is focused on the data, not necessarily competing with Google. They have a lot more data, right? Anybody can go and make a nice mapping experience available on the web or on mobile, but the limiting factor is the data. Google made this huge investment in building its own data set. Opening up the data levels the playing field for everyone. Not necessarily for consumer experiences. It’s still hard to make something that’s delightful for your users. But if you don’t have the data, you don’t have the option for even trying that. We’ve got tile servers and people are doing that, but the reason I joined was to get navigation working. We’ve had the ability to use OpenStreetMap as a display map for quite a while now. You look at it and it looks great, but it’s much harder to make it navigable. And that’s really what you need to make the end-run to the consumer experience. You have to be able to get from A to B. It’s pretty hard to do. OpenStreetMap lacks a couple of things. Navigable information like one-way streets, time restrictions or speed limits. It also lacks address data. Telenav has a lot of GPS traces. We process all of those into navigable information. If you take all the people traveling on the freeway and they all go 55, you know that’s probably the speed limit. If nobody is turning left at an intersection, there is probably a turn restriction there. So you can fix that with GPS traces. But the address data is harder. In the U.S. you can license this data, but in Europe and other places it’s much harder. In the U.S.. the federal government is mostly a public domain organization and that trickles down to the local governments. You can get data from that. Every other country tries to own all the mapping data. In the U.S., most of the address data is also very predictable. In the rest of the world it’s not that simple. In Japan, the street number is often based on the block and the age of the house. So the first house is number one, the second number two and so on. So it’s much harder to figure out where things are by inference. It’s something that a lot of people want to solve, so I expect it will get fixed somehow and there are a bunch of interesting way to do this. You can crowdsource the data, you can pay people to go collect it, but I expect it’ll be a mixture of a number of things. Every time you use a check-in app, for example, you are signalling that this restaurant with this address is in this location. Telenav has hired a number of key people. One thing we do is we contribute our data back as much as possible. When we figure out a street is a one-way street, we have a process to contribute that back. We sponsor a website called , which is a crowdsourced game for contributing. We also sponsor the conferences and do various spot donations. For the 10th anniversary, there are and we are giving them gift cards to buy foods and drinks. That sort of thing. The raw numbers have gone up, but it’s also — in the beginning it was very much around open source ideology. “Data wants to be free” and so on. But as the project grew, it’s got much more diverse. There are lots of companies involved now that want to improve the mapping experience. There is a huge variety of people now involved that wasn’t there in the beginning — and that’s a good thing. The address data is really the most important and interesting thing to work on. The routing stuff you can infer from GPS traces and there are many ways to do that. But if I had a solution for the address data I’d let you know, but we’re not there yet. That’s a good question. I’m not sure but I think it would be either the inner or outer circle of Regent Park in London. |
Who’s Doing Common-Sense Reasoning And Why It Matters | Catherine Havasi | 2,014 | 8 | 9 | Imagine for a moment that you run into a friend on the street after you return from a vacation in Mexico. “How was your vacation?” your friend asks. “It was wonderful. We’re so happy with the trip,” you reply. “It wasn’t too humid, though the water was a bit cold.” No surprises there, right? You and your friend both know that you’re referring to the weather in terms of “humidity” and the ocean in terms of “cold.” Now imagine you try to have that same conversation with a computer. Your response would be met with something akin to: “Does. Not. Compute.” Part of the problem is that when we humans communicate, we rely on a vast background of unspoken assumptions. Everyone knows that “water is wet,” and “people want to be happy,” and we assume everyone we meet shares this knowledge. It forms the basis of how we interact and allows us to communicate quickly, efficiently, and with deep meaning. As advanced as technology is today, its main shortcoming as it becomes a large part of daily life in society is that it does not share these assumptions. We find ourselves talking more and more to our devices — to our mobile phones and even our televisions. But when we talk to Siri, we often find that the rules that underlie her can’t comprehend exactly what we want if we stray far from simple commands. For this vision to be fulfilled, we’ll need computers to understand us as we talk to each other in a natural environment. For that, we’ll need to continue to develop the field of common-sense reasoning — without it, we’re never going to be able to have an intelligent conversation with , Google Glass or our Xbox. Common-sense reasoning is a field of artificial intelligence that aims to help computers understand and interact with people in a more naturally by finding ways to collect these assumptions and teach them to computers. Common Sense Reasoning has been most successful in the field of (NLP), though notable work has been done in other areas. This area of machine learning, with its strange name, is starting to quietly infiltrate different applications ranging from text understanding to processing and comprehending what’s in a photo. Without common sense, it will be difficult to build adaptable and unsupervised NLP systems in an increasingly digital and mobile world. When we talk to each other and talk online, we try to be as interesting as possible and take advantage of new ways to express things. It’s important to create computers that can keep pace with us. There’s more to it than one would think. If I asked you if a giraffe would fit in your office, you could answer the question quite easily despite the fact that in all probability you had never pictured a giraffe inhabiting your office, quietly munching on your ficus while your favorite Pandora station plays in the background. This is a perfect example of you not just knowing about the world, but knowing how to apply your world knowledge to things you haven’t thought about before. The power of common sense systems is that they are highly adaptive, adjusting to topics as varied as restaurant reviews, hiking boot surveys, and clinical trials, and doing so with speed and accuracy. This is because we understand new words from the context they are used in. We use common sense to make guesses at word meanings and then refine those guesses and we’ve built a system that works similarly. Additionally, when we understand complex or abstract concepts, it’s possible we do so by making an analogy to a simple concept, a theory described by George Lakoff in his book, “Metaphors We Live By.” The simple concepts are common sense. There are two major schools of thought in common-sense reasoning. One side works with more logic-like or rule-based representations, while the other uses more associative and analogy-based reasoning or “language-based” common sense — the latter of which draws conclusions that are fuzzier but closer to the way that natural language works. Whether you realize it or not, you interact with both of these kinds of systems on a daily basis. You’ve probably heard of IBM’s , which famously won at Jeopardy, but it’s a lesser-known fact that Watson’s predecessor was a project called that was developed in 1984 by Doug Lenat. The makers of Cyc, called , operate a large repository of logic-based common sense facts. It’s still active today and remains one of the largest logic-based common sense projects. In the school of language-based common sense, the project was started in 1999 by Marvin Minsky, Push Singh, and myself. OMCS and ConceptNet, its more well-known offshoot, include an information store in plain text, as well as a large knowledge graph. The project became an early success in crowdsourcing, and now ConceptNet contains 17 million facts in many languages. The last few years have seen great steps forward in particular types of machine learning: and . They have been instrumental in advancing language-based common sense, thus bringing computers one step closer to processing language the way humans do. NLP is where common-sense reasoning excels, and the technology is starting to find its way into commercial products. Though there is still a long way to go, common-sense reasoning will continue to evolve rapidly in the coming years and the technology is stable enough to be in business use today. It holds significant advantages over existing ontology and rule-based systems, or systems based simply on machine learning. It won’t be long before you have a more common-sense conversation with your computer about your trip to Mexico. And when you tell it that the water was a bit cold, your computer could reply: “I’m sorry to hear the ocean was chilly, it tends to be at this time of year. Though I saw the photos from your trip and it looks like you got to wear that lovely new bathing suit you bought last week.” |
Getting Orwell Wrong | John Biggs | 2,014 | 8 | 9 | I was ready to come to defense (and I will, eventually). In their , they made some excellent points. They inflamed our passions, gave us historical context for our discontent, and then quoted none other than George Orwell on the disruptive nature of paperbacks and the need for evil publishers to crack down on upstart, low-priced alternatives. In the opening paragraph of the letter, Amazon notes the rise of paperbacks and how publishers wailed and gnashed their teeth at the prospect of selling their precious content at lower prices. The colluded. They flailed. Even George Orwell came to their defense. The “Amazon Books Team,” an Orwellian monicker if there ever was one, writes: The famous author George Orwell came out publicly and said about the new paperback format, if “publishers had any sense, they would combine against them and suppress them.” Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion. The real quote? “The Penguin Books are splendid value for sixpence, so splendid that if other publishers had any sense they would combine against them and suppress them.” It’s clear that Orwell is praising the paperback, not arguing for its abolition. Penguin books, , published beautiful little editions of classic and modern titles, priced at sixpence. They revolutionized learning, bringing about a new respect for the classics and triggered the rise of post-modernism, respect for international thought, and the advent of movements from the Beats to rock and roll. Only a fool or a businessman would twist that quote so completely. But that’s exactly what Amazon did and that’s horrible. If you haven’t been following the story, . After all, as George Bernard Shaw said, “If a book is any good, the cheaper the better.” This has been going on for months, and neither side will budge. Amazon, as always, is taking the high road. They write: Moreover, e-books are highly price elastic. This means that when the price goes down, customers buy much more. We’ve quantified the price elasticity of e-books from repeated measurements across many titles. For every copy an e-book would sell at $14.99, it would sell 1.74 copies if priced at $9.99. So, for example, if customers would buy 100,000 copies of a particular e-book at $14.99, then customers would buy 174,000 copies of that same e-book at $9.99. Total revenue at $14.99 would be $1,499,000. Total revenue at $9.99 is $1,738,000. The important thing to note here is that the lower price is good for all parties involved: the customer is paying 33% less and the author is getting a royalty check 16% larger and being read by an audience that’s 74% larger. The pie is simply bigger. This makes perfect sense to most of us, but not to . Publishers have long controlled pricing, distribution, and advertising. They’ve withheld popular titles, kept shops in bondage, and maintained a classist army of writers who, it seems, are finally figuring out they don’t . Hachette doesn’t want to give that up. And maybe they’re right. Publishers have done amazing things. They are stewards of culture, purveyors of new thought, and gatekeepers. Indie wiring has a long way to go. I’ve tried – I’ve really tried – to get into lots of indie writing. I’ve just found that books that have passed through the abattoir of the Big Five are better… for now. That’s why it’s important that this Hachette-Amazon problem be resolved. We need the produce of big publishers just as we need the produce of big movie studios. Art scuttles in the shadows of commerce, fattening itself on the scraps. It has always been thus. So what does this letter mean? It means Amazon is winning, despite it all. They’re the only side talking, they have addressed the writers directly, they gleefully and they endlessly play the victim with conviction, saying Hachette just won’t negotiate. And yet they are so ham-handed as to misquote Orwell in an attack post. “For the price of a modest meal you can ponder the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, the origin of species, the interpretation of dreams, the nature of things,” wrote Carl Sagan. That would have been a better quote, a quote more representative of what Penguin meant to a generation growing up in wartime and upheaval and what the call for cheaper ebooks means to writers and readers. Like it or not, Amazon is going to build another empire of words here and, ostensibly, they have our interests (or at least an interest in our wallets) at heart. The least they can do is not insult the memory of great writers. |
The New TV Pilot Season: Bringing YouTube Stars, Channels And Bloggers To TV Screens | Nuno Bernardo | 2,014 | 8 | 9 | Hollywood is in love with YouTube. Last year, paid $33 million for YouTube channel , Warner Bros. invested $18 million in the YouTube channel and most recently, for $500 million. At this point, many other studios are probably negotiating acquisitions of these multi-channel networks. The explanation for so much love is simple: These channels reach an audience bigger than any TV network, especially to a target demographic that proves hard to connect with TV. It’s a fact that new generations spend more time on the Internet than watching traditional linear television. This success has prompted some Internet-based web series or YouTube celebrities to cross to TV, but for many Hollywood executives, these new Internet sensations become an easy way to pilot new material that can be later transformed to a hit TV series, and some even say this is a cheaper way to pilot new shows. Just seed a few thousand dollars to new talent, let them shoot these shows with their friends, see the ones that can build an audience and then bring the YouTube hit shows to the TV screen. Since the NBC with Quarterlife, transferring it from Myspace to the 10pm TV slot, hundreds of producers and creators are still trying to find the secret formula for how to create a successful TV show out of a popular YouTube star or web series. Many tried and most failed and the reason is simple: Not all successful entertainment brands can translate really well to other formats, because what makes it unique on one platform may not work in other media. The problem of using YouTube to pilot new TV concepts, characters and hosts is that we are talking about two different media and two different audiences. Both media have totally different languages, rhythms and experiences. This is why YouTube audiences can’t be bothered with TV content repurposed on the Internet, and television audiences can’t understand the buzz about these new Internet stars. A 3 to 5 minute piece-to-camera with a teenage kid shouting into the microphone, showing something “cool,” with a lot of jump cuts and text on the screen is not what TV audiences expect. That is not to say that YouTube can’t be a valid platform to pilot and test new TV concepts. As we live in a world where there’s more and more content available each minute and fewer and fewer loyal eyeballs to follow it, it’s natural that the adaptation of an established brand (with a huge following) presents itself as a clear path to success in the very competitive TV market. Nonetheless, executives and producers need to understand that to get a hit show out of a YouTube sensation, it’s still necessary to develop the TV concept, adapt it to the format of the medium and to the expectations of a more “broad” audience. In the case of scripted content, more and more engaging characters need to be added and plot and backstory needs to be extended. All the hype and excitement that you can show on a 3 minute video will not hold up in a one-hour show, week after week. Then it’s necessary to think about the format: the length and the pace of TV, the ad breaks and the cliffhangers. TV is another beast completely and although successful on YouTube, TV shows based on these properties will still need to be piloted for TV Audiences. |
11 TechCrunch Stories You Don’t Want to Miss This Week (8/8) | Travis Bernard | 2,014 | 8 | 9 | Here’s a recap of some of our top stories from 8/2 to 8/8. There’s been a recent surge in news about bitcoin. After opening up bitcoin donations on Wikipedia, the Wikimedia group . Last week, . This week, . There were also three articles that came out last Friday afternoon (after I wrote last week’s recap) that gained a lot of traction. The first story was about . The second story is about the mystery Google barge in Portland; . Finally, the . As we get one week closer to Disrupt, I highly recommend checking out our Road to Disrupt feature. . Think of Ansa as an insurance plan for your 3 AM texts. What did we miss? |
John McAfee In Crazytown | Jon Evans | 2,014 | 8 | 9 | “The press has portrayed me alternately as a mad genius or a mad psychotic genius,” began , speaking at Def Con–and why break that streak now? I must admit: when he’s crazy, he’s crazy like a fox. Ultimately, though, as insane and riveting as his tale is, what’s most interesting to me is the way he has weirdly come to symbolize his audience. McAfee’s story, condensed: after refusing to pay a multimillion-dollar bribe in Belize, he instead donated to its government a slew of laptops infested with keyloggers and audiologgers, and amassed 17,000 hours of recordings which included evidence that the entire Belizean cabinet was in bed with people smugglers, money launderers, and the Sinaloan drug cartel. Hence his subsequent well-documented . Now, apparently, he lives or on the , half-deaf from an attempt on his life from a 17-year-old ex-lover. He says he and his wife have to replace their phones every week because they are quickly infested by “highly sophisticated” spyware courtesy of the cartel’s pet hackers, and the only thing keeping him alive is the dead-man’s-switch that will, upon his death, reveal all the evidence he has amassed. My professional opinion, as the author of a thriller novel set in part in Belize: it sure is a hell of a story. — Jon Evans (@rezendi) It’s not clear to me whether his entire tale is even meant to be interpreted literally. He mused during his preamble: “If you have enough experience with psychoactive chemicals, you understand that whether I imagine it or experience it is ultimately inconsequential.” Despite all this he has managed to found a Montreal-based start-up, which has pivoted from a to an Android app that and flags problematic ones. (This is .) Like the “17 different companies I founded while I was in Belize,” it won’t set the world on fire. But McAfee doesn’t need to matter as a founder, because inasmuch as he matters, it is, I think, as a symbol. I’ve spent the last week here in Las Vegas aka Crazytown amid the hacker/info-security community, which consists in large part of cranky iconoclastic black-clad geeks, resolutely opposed to The Man … who, through no fault of their own, are increasingly The Man, and don’t really know how to deal with the resulting existential crisis. Most of the black-shirted pink-mohawked heavily-tattooed attendees, along with the con’s official materials, are anti-government, anti-establishment, anti-corporate … and yet, at the same time, Def Con is the little sibling of , which swarms with employees and representatives of huge establishment companies, whose keynote speech was given last year– –by General Keith Alexander, then head of the NSA. Both were founded by , who sold Black Hat nine years ago for a reported $14 million but is still intimately involved with it, hosting and introducing its keynote. It’s like something out of Philip K. Dick’s ; one day Moss/Tangent hosts a massive, expensive, corporate security conference, and then, the very next day, a younger, angry, rebellious hacker mob, whose avowed ethos is nearly opposite to that of the first group…without ever addressing that contradiction. But I don’t mean to pick on him; he actually represents the whole infosecurity industry, writ small. We live in an era whose defining feature is that everyone carries a supercomputer in their pocket, wirelessly connected to everyone else’s supercomputer and to massive server farms. The people who know how to penetrate, control, and deny access to those devices and networks have immense power. It’s awfully hard to have all that power and not become The Man. And so: “information security officer” has become a . Senior security experts are in very high demand. Lucrative offers to sell out and join the system, often in some innocuous or objectively benevolent way, are everywhere; and as people get older, they’re more likely to accept them. Same as any industry–but this is one whose younger members identify as people here to the system, not someday it, even if the intent is to subvert/improve it from within. Hence McAfee, and his warm reception here. He’s an archetype of Def Con’s collective ethos, both good and bad, a cinematically awesome renegade / outlaw / trickster figure. And he’s also living proof, symbolically, that you can make your mark in the world, both technically and with a successful and famous startup, without selling out and turning corporate in any way; that you can accept everything life may offer and still remain fundamentally uncorrupted. Alas, that too, it seems to me, is a story that–while based on some real experiences–is more aspirationally true than authentically so. |
Microsoft Continues Its Campaign Against A US Warrant Demanding Overseas Data | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 8 | 31 | A search warrant commanding Microsoft to turn over certain customer email data that is currently stored overseas was unfrozen late this week. The . In a statement, Microsoft said that it “will not be turning over the email and plans to appeal.” This , arguing that domestic warrants should not be able to command access to data stored abroad, has from other technology companies. Profits are at risk. Modern technology companies vend cloud-based services to a global user base — if any one country can use domestic warrants to command access to the data of all companies that are headquartered within its borders, regardless of where the information in question is physically stored, no company can protect the data of users who hail from other countries from its own government. That would harm the company’s ability to sell services to those potential international customers. More to the point, why a United States search warrant would apply to a datacenter in Ireland holding data of a person that may not be a United States citizen is somewhat suspect. The ability to segregate data away from the reach of the United States government matters all the more in the current technological climate, living as we are in the wake of the NSA revelations that showed the world precisely how far the reach of the country’s surveillance powers actually are. If using the technology product of a United States-based firm leaves your data at the whim of the United States government, wouldn’t you consider using a rival product from a firm that doesn’t share the weakness? It would be nice to live in a world where companies could use geographical distance to protect the data not just from the United States government’s hands, but from the hands of all governments. The long gist here is that legal precedent commanding more user data privacy is good, and should be sought after. |
JUMP Cable Is The Right Smartphone Charger For Forgetful People | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 8 | 31 | Like many other users, the battery on my iPhone tends to die right before the end of the day. One obvious solution is to use a case like the , but I don’t like increasing the size of my phone. Another is to carry a battery charger around with me, but unfortunately, I am just too dunderheaded to remember an extra device. Trust me, I’ve spent more than 30 years trying to become less forgetful, but the hassle of remembering to keep one more device charged, in addition to my phone, various other mobile devices (I own an Android tablet in addition to my iPad), and laptop is beyond my already beleaguered mental constraints. That’s why I jumped (ha) at the chance to try , a nifty cable/battery pack combo. The JUMP Cable, which in February, is now available to buy for $49.99. That is a bit pricey because it only holds a 30 percent charge, but that 30 percent is enough power to buy you an additional hour or two on your phone at the end of the day when you really need it, even if you use power-draining apps. And since you can charge and sync your iPhone with the JUMP Cable instead of using its lightning cable (a micro-USB version is also available for other devices), it’s almost impossible to forget, even if you are woefully absentminded like me. I just unplug my phone and the cord, wrap it securely around the battery pack, and toss both in my bag. The battery pack and 19-inch cable weigh only 1.5oz together, so it doesn’t add much bulk to the mass of stuff I carry around each day. The Jump Cable is available for order on . |
null | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 8 | 7 | null |
Startup Mentors — How Do You Filter Out The Good, The Bad And The Ugly? | Mike Butcher | 2,014 | 8 | 31 | In light of the recent brouhaha over the who had a habit of attaching himself to accelerators as a ‘mentor’, it seems an appropriate time to do a quick rundown on the kinds of things entrepreneurs need to look for in genuine potential mentor to them and their companies. Because, in case you have been hiding under a rock, there a lot of new ’mentors’ flooding towards technology startups, and it would be good if everyone had a clear idea of how this relationship should play out. I asked and for some fast feedback on this and got what I think is a pretty representative list of ideas around what due diligence you should do when looking for a mentor for your startup. (Apologies if I don’t name-check everyone who contributed, but to give you a flavour…) Matt Clifford of , thinks there are three main issues. Firstly, he says, “you can’t get a (good) mentor by asking someone to be your mentor.” He says a lot of young entrepreneurs think they need a mentor, so they assume that they should go around asking for on. But, the “best mentor relationships seem to develop organically. The entrepreneur has a series of interactions with someone and after a while both sides realise they’re getting value from the conversations and – de facto – the person has become a mentor.” Secondly, “asking good questions is the key to being a good mentee (but is hard work).” A question like “What should I do?” is way too vague. You’ll get the most out of mentors when you ask them real, important, very specific questions that provide a lot of context, says Clifford. Thirdly, first-time founders usually “want the wrong mentors.” First timers picking a “celebrity mentor” or one who is far, far ahead, is often a bad idea and they are much better off with someone “two to five years ahead of them on a similar journey” says Clifford. Most of the day-to-day challenges founders face are highly stage-specific, he says. Is this the right person to help you get your first 1,000 users, for instance? “Hire more sales people” is not really an answer, and someone who’s been in that same place very recently is usually better. Startups can of course help themselves by clubbing together and sharing information on mentors. Perhaps write a notional “mentor spec”? But still, the basic questions apply: what they’ve done or achieved besides mentoring and advising. Entrepreneur Ian Broom tells me: “I get mentors to agree a contract, like a staff member, and set expectations. Especially if you’re offering equity, it’s crucial the mentor vests like everyone else.” James Bromley of adds that you should ask for references. And are they “ground level practical”? Also check if the mentor is a frequent ‘conference bore’, rather than actually working. Matthias Metternich of says you should check out the prospective mentor’s network and whether they’d be open to making relevant introductions to others. He also advises getting mentors who fulfil functional roles and who can go deep. “We have separate mentors for mobile, bus dev, branding, marketing, hiring, etc” Mentors who are still “doers” are more valuable. And keep them in the loop: “No one can mentor well without understanding what’s up – it’s a two-way street,” points out Metternich . Russell Buckley, formerly of Admob now partner of , says you shouldn’t over-pay mentors and Non-Execs, and . He agrees that vesting options along with other staff members means “you can fire people who don’t deliver to the stated expectations.” “I’m also encouraging some of the companies I work with to set OKRs or KPIs (depending on the tools they use) for their Board and advisors. Not a popular idea with many Directors, but I would like to see it as normal. After all, most investor/directors sell themselves as adding value prior to the investment, so why not hold them accountable?” Use tools to check out a mentor’s credentials and investments such as Companies House / http://duedil.com And looking through their AngelList, LinkedIn and Twitter / social profiles etc is an obvious move but sometimes forgotten. Eileen Tso Burbidge of says if the mentor has written catchy blog posts that can even qualify as usefulness as a mentor. Then there is Jason Lemkin’s which is: “After 2 1/2 meetings, after 2 1/2 intros to VCs or potential VP hires, after 2 1/2 times they “help” … you need to “pay” or they go away. Until then, you don’t have to pay. And many people if they are interested in you will make a few connections and help for free. 2-3 times.” The simplest way to pay mentors he says is to give them some stock options and if you can, let them invest in your seed, “A and B rounds IF they want to”. But, don’t connect the two. “The first is a (for now) unquantifiable “payment” for helping. The second is a “thank you”. Don’t confuse the two, but try to do both.” Michael Geer, COO of , emailed be a few choice thoughts. “Mentorship takes the perfect timing of the team looking for mentorship and the mentor actually having the bandwidth and desire to mentor. That is much harder to get when just one side reaches out.” He says it comes together roost naturally when his mentorships have “started from accelerators or classes I’ve taught.” He notes a drawback: many teams are either not ready to listen or not at the right stage to actually action some mentors’ most valuable advice when one side or the other reaches out. “Of course, when the timing is right, both sides learn and gain a lot.” But how do you avoid bad mentors? Matt Clifford says: “This is a very effective way of avoiding bad mentors, especially financially motivated ones: they just won’t last out the repeated interactions.” In other words, bad mentors don’t burnt out, they fade away… |
Typing Writer Turns Your iPad Into A Typewriter (And No, It Wasn’t Created By Tom Hanks) | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 8 | 31 | A couple of weeks ago, Hanx Writer, a typewriter app from movie star Tom Hanks, . I guess there must be something in the air, because . There’s also , an app created by Stephen Elliott, founder of the literary website , along with Eli Horowitz, Chris Ying, and Russell Quinn. Elliott stopped by the TechCrunch New York office a few weeks ago to show off the app — I haven’t used both of them, but judging from what’s been written, the Hanx Writer app emphasizes nostalgia for things like the sound of the typewriter, while Typing Writer may be more of a practical writing tool, with an emphasis on moving forward as you write, rather than constantly going back and tinkering. (To that end, it also comes with first drafts from writers like Jim Shepard, Melissa Febos, Aimee Brill, and Rick Moody.) By way of disclosure, I should also mention that Elliott is an old writing teacher of mine — and right after we shot this video, we decided to collaborate on a short film. Anyway, Typing Writer costs $1.99, and . |
Investor Pavel Curda Dumped By Euro Accelerators After Sleazy Emails | Mike Butcher | 2,014 | 8 | 31 | Pavel Curda, the European Angel investor and ‘mentor’ who became the centre of a media maelstrom after at a conference, has been shunned by the tech accelerators he as working with him. Curda has now been dumped by at least three accelerators, as well as losing his role as a writer with tech blog, The Next Web. The furore followed reports that outlined in detail how he had sent “I am not leave [sic.] Berlin without having sex with you. Deal?” to at least two women at the conference after meeting them in a purely business environment. The row exploded after both women, incensed at his behaviour, went public with the media, including TechCrunch. Seedcamp, Europe’s best funded venture accelerator, issued a statement saying: “As you’ll have gathered, Pavel has been involved with Seedcamp in the past – he mentored at two of our events. We were shocked and saddened to hear about his behaviour and our thoughts are very much in congruence with the folks at TNW and TechCrunch. Clearly, we in no way endorse this type of behaviour and suffice to say, we won’t be working with Pavel again.” Alex Farcet, Co-founder at Startupbootcamp in Berlin, said: ”This man is not a mentor at Startupbootcamp and if he was then we would immediately throw him out… [This is] totally unacceptable behaviour which no one should tolerate.” Following that, Startupbootcamp also issued a : “Curda is no longer affiliated with any of the Startupbootcamp programs. His behavior is completely unacceptable and absolutely not tolerated here. We do not wish to publicly shame Curda or draw any more attention to the women, but we also believe that the best way to deal with sexual harassment in this industry is to speak openly about it. We applaud the women for their courage in coming forward and speaking out, and encourage raising awareness through open dialogue.” Agnieszka Meller, manager of the Starter Rocket acceleration program in Gdansk, Poland, said: “I would like to publicly condemn Mr. Curda behaviour and inform that we will not continue any cooperation with him… Mr. Curda is no longer a mentor of Starter Rocket program.” Neeraj Mehta, co-founder of , Estonia, : “Pavel was on our advisory board a while ago, however on our very first meeting he asked about hookers, and I was taken by surprise. That was the time I had warned a lot of startup incubators in Europe about his behaviour and to be careful.” Curda has also been dumped by Deutsche Telecom’s accelerator hub:raum, Inkubator Starter in Poland, and Hubraum Krakow. Despite continuing to list them, he has not worked with Starcube in Czech Republic or Seedcamp for two years. However, some elements of the tech community in the Czech Republic where Curda is based have given him something of an easier ride. Journalist , Editor in Chief of Ihned.cz recently with Curda and subsequently wrote a describing Curda as a “popular consultant and investor” in Eastern Europe and largely writing off his actions as drink-fuelled and committed in the heat of the moment. Another, Jiri Sekera, a Prague-based advisor to the CEE event WebExpo who runs the Prague based web agency , : “One would almost got the impression that @pavelcurda is the first person in the history of mankind, which offered the opposite sex casual sex, right?” Most of his Czech respondents disagreed with this assessment, pointing out that Curda was the more ‘senior actor’ and therefore had more responsibility to behave appropriately in a business setting and context. Later Sekera : “Strange … when I was given unwanted offers for non-binding sex from rich and influential women, TechCrunch did not write about it …” (Update: Sekera says his tweets were taken out of context and : “I definitely support and admire Geshe and Lucie in fighting against serious sexual harassment, but this was just a personal drunk message followed by unnecessary lame lies. I think smart answer like “Enjoy the rest of the life in Berlin then.” would be more than enough. And power of this public coming-out could be used for many better opportunities.” He later : “Its hypocritical to act like this is not a regular part of people’s sex lives. Especially in these circles.”) When asked his reaction to being banned from working with the above accelerators, Curda emailed us the following: “I apologised to both of the great girls I met in Berlin, before the tech event, for my rude messages. There was no business deal or business offer to them in Berlin or afterwards. Some in the media got this wrong.” [In fact this contradicts Curda’s previous statement that he had engaged only in wholly business-oriented conversations with the women, and later offered mentorship to one of them after she had confronted him about his emails to complain]. Though Curda’s are , as previous reports noted they only came after he’d ( )and only after the women confronted him offline and online. He added: “However, this has been a big lesson learned. And I will change my behaviour. The tech industry should change — sexual harassment is a big topic. There is a lot of hypocrisy, too. I will tell my Berlin story and collect the experience of others. I will publish it in a book I will call ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’.” He plans to continue as an Angel investor. TechCrunch has no further comment, other than to say, that — as a general observation — being stupid and wrong is really no way to go through life. |
AnandTech Founder Anand Shimpi Is Heading To Apple | Ryan Lawler | 2,014 | 8 | 31 | A day after , it’s come to light that veteran journalist Anand Shimpi will soon be joining Apple. The move, which was earlier today, was confirmed by the company. Shimpi spent 17 years building the site AnandTech, focusing mostly on reviews of hardware and along the way providing detailed info on products from Apple and other consumer electronics manufacturers. But after so many years covering those products, he’ll now be going inside Apple to work for the company. We’re not sure what Shimpi will be doing for Apple, but based on his deep knowledge of its products he’ll probably be working in some sort of strategy role. While he moves on, AnandTech will continue to publish, with the site being run by new editor-in-chief Ryan Smith. |
This Labor Day, Reflect On Diversity And The Future | Danny Crichton | 2,014 | 8 | 31 | 2014 is the year that work became a central point of discussion in Silicon Valley. For the engineers and knowledge workers in the region, issues of diversity and inclusion finally got their turn in the limelight, forcing us to question our deeply-held views about the meritocracy of Silicon Valley. We also had to confront news that several of . While that legal case continues to wind its way through motions and procedures, the message remains crystal clear about how executives see their engineering talent. Our efforts have not just been internal though, but have also affected the way our entire economy runs. Airbnb, Uber, and other startups in the sharing economy have started to redefine work in the 21st century. That transformation has led to much controversy, such as when or . But it has also ushered in an opportunity for . There has certainly been obnoxiously bad behavior displayed by members of our community over the past year, but also deep glimmers of hope for a kinder and gentler Silicon Valley. As we enter into the final stretch of this Labor Day weekend, it’s worth taking a break from grilling, driving, or, you know, Burning Man, and assess the status of work today in our innovation ecosystem. Where are we truly improving the quality of life for employees, and where are we harming our own efforts? Some of the most important contributions that Silicon Valley has made to better the lives of employees are so common now that they are often taken for granted. Notwithstanding the , technology companies have encouraged all kinds of lifestyle improvements for employees, including both amenities and cultural improvements such as open communication, radical transparency, and flat management. It should be no surprise then that included five technology companies in the top ten, and Glassdoor listed ten technology companies in . For engineers and other startup knowledge workers, we live in a time of plenty. Job offers can be found in a period of days in some cases, and salaries even for new college graduates are well above the national average. Unfortunately, not everyone has had the opportunity to take advantage of the surfeit of activity going on in technology these days. Issues of diversity and inclusion have become common points of discussion about the future of the tech workforce. When it comes to female rates of participation in the Valley, there remains an incredible gap between our notion of a true meritocracy and what the reality is for female engineers and other employees of tech companies. Our increased awareness has meant that more and more news stories have come out about the bad behavior of members of our community. The list is long, , to . Yet despite such discussions, there remains a virulent group opposed to efforts to make our culture more inclusive, opposition that I honestly have never quite understood. Thankfully, women are starting to get the infrastructure to support their technology careers that they should have had years ago. While shaming is a useful and important tactic, ultimately it is our ability to foster the next generation of female engineers and entrepreneurs that will change our culture for the better. Boot camps like that provide a pathway into the tech industry. Other boot camps like DevBootcamp are offering discounts for women and other underrepresented minorities in order to build a more representative workforce. These efforts complement programs by Google, Facebook, and other technology companies to actively promote inclusion through conferences and activities. Cultural change is never easy nor fast, but we each have a responsibility to ensure that every member of both sexes has the opportunity to put their skills forward for the betterment of our society. If Silicon Valley is truly leading the world of innovation, we will certainly build even more awesome products when we take advantage of all the talents we potentially have at our disposal. Coupled with the increased attention to women’s issues has been the heightened understanding of the lack of diversity that plagues Silicon Valley’s top technology companies. , we now have real data that underrepresented minorities are only a tiny sliver of our workforce — particularly in engineering departments — despite representing about a quarter of the population in the United States. These workforce reports are vital for our understanding of diversity in employment, and frankly, they should be mandatory for any large employer. As product managers love to harp, data is the most crucial element for improving our products and services, and the first step in improving our diversity is simply to get a handle on what it looks like today. But even though these diversity statistics are important, such numbers belie the individuals who are the key to improving our engagement across gender, ethnic, and cultural lines. Each of us can find ways to give back to the next generation, whether its advising a code bootcamp or mentoring students in after-school activities. Heck, — that mentee of yours may just be the next Facebook founder. As a personal anecdote, these sorts of one-on-one sessions are what cemented my interest in technology at a young age. When I was in middle school, I wanted to learn more about programming, but like many U.S. schools, there wasn’t a class or a teacher who could teach me the subject. But my school reached out to the nearby high school, and they found a student who was willing to volunteer and tutor me starting with programming BASIC on TI graphing calculators. Everyone in our community has the power to make such a long-term impact on a student. Having recently returned from Asia, the thought that keeps coming up in my mind is how people outside California see Silicon Valley as a beacon on the hill, the pinnacle of innovation and the champion of our world’s progress. The quotidian moments of a Bay Area engineer’s existence, from getting on a private shuttle with Wi-Fi, to extensive meals filled with organic foods, to massage rooms and sleep pods, are completely alien to most of the rest of the world, and are talked about almost to the point of reverence. We have come far in improving the quality of our work and our lives. While we haven’t always been as inclusive as we should be, that doesn’t mean the future has to emulate the past. If ever there was a region that understood that, it’s Silicon Valley. |
Apple’s New Spaceship HQ Doesn’t Look Like A Spaceship Yet, But It’s Huge | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 8 | 31 | Apple’s new spaceship-style campus is one of the last things on the company’s mind right now, with the iPhone launch looming just over the horizon. However, that hasn’t stopped some curious folks from peeking around over at the construction site. YouTuber has captured video on a GoPro Hero 3+ using a Phantom 2 drone, and the end result shows us the foundation of this building for the first time. were pretty much just pictures of crop circles in the dirt. This video not only takes a look at the circular building structure, but shows just how big the campus is in relation to the neighboring buildings. Apple has been planning this new campus for a long time, with the city of Cupertino giving the company permission to get started . Of course, compared to the we saw back in November, the video can be a bit of a let down. But it’s Labor Day weekend, which gives you a bit more time to use your imagination. Check out the video here: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfZvimPkKio&w=640&h=360] |
AnandTech Founder Anand Lal Shimpi Retires From Writing | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 8 | 30 | We don’t always note when fellow tech writers hang up their hats, as those posts can start to seem a bit inside baseball-y. There are times when we just can’t help it, though — some writers are just too darned important. This is gonna be one of those times. Anand Lal Shimpi, namesake founder of the much-adored hardware news/review site AnandTech, announced his retirement from writing today. If you’re any sort of hardware geek, this news probably comes as a bit of a punch in the gut. AnandTech started as an itty-bitty motherboard review site hosted on GeoCities back in 1997, when Anand was just 14. Over the next 17 years, it’s grown into one of the most respected review sites on the Internet. It’s quite rare for a tech review site to be almost universally revered by its audience, but AnandTech has somehow pulled it off for well over a decade. They review hardware to a depth that very, very few publications would even consider approaching, and they do it well. AnandTech wasn’t around when I built my first computer, but it’s the site I turned to when I built my second. And my third. And every computer since. While Anand doesn’t get too specific about why he’s retiring from writing at just 32, he specifically notes that he’s not leaving for health or business reasons. It sounds like he’s just ready for something new — and given that he’s been doing this since he was , that’s pretty understandable. But fear not: while its namesake may be headed for something new, AnandTech itself isn’t going anywhere. Ryan Smith, previously the site’s Senior GPU Editor, will be taking over as the site’s editor-in-chief. You can find Anand’s . Best of luck in whatever comes next, Anand. |
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