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Windows 8.x Busts Past 10% Market Share As Windows 7 Rises, XP Falls | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 1 | 1 | According to , Windows 8.x crossed the 10% barrier in December of 2013. Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 ended the year with 6.89% and 3.60% apiece for a combined 10.49% total market share. In the month, Windows 7 , as Windows XP fell below the 30 percent mark, shedding 2.24% to land at 28.98% in the month. While Windows 8.x’s market share growth is probably still under what Microsoft wants, enterprise adoption of Windows 7 appears strong as the end of Windows XP approaches. Windows 8 gained 0.23% market share in December, an almost surprising figure given the general availability of Windows 8.1, a free upgrade. The latter did pick up 0.96% in the month. It will be interesting to see how Windows 8.x’s growing market share converts into downloads of applications through the Windows Store. Previously, the Windows developer portal provided . However, this morning I was unable to load the usual set of analytics through the system. Microsoft may have removed the capability. If so, we will not be able to correlate downloads with market share, which will limit our ability to vet Microsoft’s ability to convert new Windows 8.x users to its new application platform. That’s a shame. To wrap 2013, Windows 8.x manages a new threshold as Windows 7 manages to accelerate the end of Windows XP. Not a bad way to start 2014. |
Facebook Data Scientists Prove Memes Mutate And Adapt Like DNA | Josh Constine | 2,014 | 1 | 8 | Richard Dawkins likened memes to genes, but a just how accurate that analogy is. Memes adapt to their surroundings in order to survive, just like organisms. Post a liberal meme saying no one should die for lack of healthcare, and conservatives will mutate it to say no one should die because Obamacare rations their healthcare. And nerds will make it about Star Wars. Facebook’s data scientists to determine that “Just as certain genetic mutations can be advantageous in specific environments, meme mutations can be propagated differentially if the variant matches the subpopulation’s beliefs or culture.” Take this meme: “No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, post this as your status for the rest of the day”. In September 2009, 470,000 Facebook users posted this exact phrase as a status update. But a total of 1.14 million status updates containing 121,605 variants of the meme were spawned, such as “No one should be frozen in carbonite because they can’t pay Jabba The Hut”. Why? Because humans help bend memes to better fit their audience. In the chart below you can see how people of different political leanings adapted the meme to fit their own views, and likely the views of people they’re friends with. As Facebook’s data scientists explain, “the original variant in support of Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) was propagated primarily by liberals, while those mentioning government and taxes slanted conservative. Sci-fi variants were slightly liberal, alcohol-related ones slightly conservative”. That matches theories by Dawkins and Malcom Gladwell. Average political bias (-2 being very liberal, +2 being very conservative) of users reposting different variants of the “no one should” meme. As I wrote in my , memes are more shareable if they’re easy to remix. When a meme has a clear template with substitutable variables, people recognize how to put their own spin on it. They’re then more likely to share their own modified creations, which drives awareness of the original. When I recognized this back in 2009, I based my research on Lolcats and Soulja Boy, but more recently The Harlem Shake meme proved me right. Facebook’s findings and my own have signficant implications for marketers or anyone looking to make a message go viral. Once you know memes are naturally inclined to mutate, and that these mutations increase sharing, you can try to purposefully structure your message in a remixable way. By creating and seeding a few variants of your own, you can crystallize how the template works and encourage your audience to make their own remixes. As you can see in this graph from my research paper, usage of the word “haz” as in the Lolcat phrase “I can haz cheezburger” grew increasingly popular for several years. Meanwhile, less remixable memes often only create a spike in mentions for a few days. I posit that high remixability — or adaptability — keeps memes popular for a much longer period of time. Rise in mentions of the word “haz” in Facebook wall posts, indicating sustained popularity of the highly remixable Lolcats memes – as shown on the now defunct Facebook Lexicon tool For social networks like Facebook, understanding how memes evolve could make sure we continue to see fresh content. Rather than showing us the exact copies of a meme over and over again in the News Feed, Facebook’s algorithms could purposefully search for and promote mutated variations. That way instead of hearing about healthcare over and over, you might see that “No one should twerk just because they can’t avoid hearing Miley Cyrus on the radio. If you agree, sit perfectly still with your tongue safely inside your mouth for the rest of the day.” |
Verizon To Launch New Nokia ‘Icon’ Handset In Move That Could Boost Windows Phone’s US Market Share | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 1 | 8 | According to , a new Nokia phone is set to land in the United States. Dubbed the “Icon,” the Lumia handset sports a 5-inch screen, a 20-megapixel camera, a quad-core processor, and a 2420 mAh battery. The device looks, as The Verge’s , like a smaller version of the Lumia 1520, a phone already in the market. The Icon name appears to be final. As WPCentral uncovered here at CES, cases labeled for the Icon can . Windows Phone has seen strong success in the past year selling lower-priced handsets. But the platform, what you could call the combination of Microsoft software and Nokia hardware, has struggled to find market share in the United States and the upper-tiers of the maker globally. The Icon, provided that it is well-priced, could help ameliorate that stress point. Pricing isn’t clear for now. The Verizon website has the phone pegged at $777 both off, and on contract. So we’ll have to wait for official figures. Tip: It won’t cost $777 with a new two-year contract. The upper end of Windows Phone hardware is now quite diverse, with the Lumias 925, 928, 1020, 1320, 1520, and Icon each battling for share of a still-small pie. But, more and better hardware has never been a recipe for unit volume decline, so perhaps the muddle can be excused. Current market news has been positive for Microsoft, but not groundbreaking. The company recently indicated that it saw “ For now, another Windows Phone looks set to land. If it can turn heads in the United States is a fair question. The comments are yours. |
GymPact, The App That Pays You For Working Out, Relaunches As Pact With New Diet Features | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 1 | 1 | GymPact, the app gives you money if you make your fitness goals, has a new name, , and two new diet-oriented features for the New Year. We and from the founder of Guitar Hero. It led by Khosla Ventures and Max Levchin to expand its features beyond exercise. Founder Yifang Zhang tells me that GymPact changed its name because “only about one out of five people understood the ‘impact’ pun.” The “gym” part of the name was also confusing for users because the app not only counts gym check-ins, but also check-ins at other fitness centers, outdoor runs, walks, bike rides and activity measured by the wearable tech devices and apps it integrates with, including RunKeeper, Jawbone UP, Fitbit, Moves, MapMyFitness and MyFitnessPal. Now that the app’s latest version includes two new features focused on healthy eating. To use the app, you can chose to make a “pact” to exercise, log your meals on MyFitnessPal.com or eat vegetables for a certain number of days. When you sign up for a pact, you select a certain amount–$5 or $10–that is deducted from your credit card or PayPal account for each day you miss. If you hit your goal, then you get paid a reward ranging from 30 cents to $5 per week as soon as you accumulate $10. That payout comes out of the pool of money from people who didn’t make their pact. Zhang says that Pact has been beta testing its two new features for three months and claims that “they are just as effective, if not more, at keeping people eating healthy consistently as our gym pact feature.” I’m not good at keeping a food diary, so I signed up for the diet pact as soon as the app went live and I already feel the pressure of my potential $5 per day penalty motivating me to log all my meals even though my pact hasn’t started yet (each one starts on the Monday after you sign up and runs through Sunday). I use MyFitnessPal’s social feed to inspire me instead–MyFitnessPal claims it helps people increase their success rates up to three times–but, to be honest, I find constantly hearing about my friends’ diet and fitness goals tedious. To be sure, Pact isn’t completely cheat-proof. People can just check in at gyms, for example, without actually exercising and log food or post pictures of vegetables that they haven’t eaten. Zhang says the app tries to “make it difficult enough to cheat that the average smartphone user won’t find it worthwhile.” For example, users fulfill the vegetable pact by uploading pictures of produce that they have consumed and the app checks for device and meta data to make sure that the each picture was taken with the user’s smartphone. “Also, since the Veggie Pact community has it’s own pool for rewards, members are incentivized to vote down on photos that should not count or look like veggies you are not eating. Selfies are encouraged!” Zhang says. While the $5 penalty I’ve set for myself is enough to keep me motivated to log meals on MyFitnessPals each day, the 30 cents to $5 reward each person can potentially earn per week is probably not worth the trouble of fake check-ins, fabricating three complete meals per day (the app requires you to enter at least 1,200 calories worth of food and at least three meals, including snacks, each day), or preparing or buying new vegetable dishes to photograph. I wish I was organized enough to remember to make daily entries in MyFitnessPal on my own, but I’m not, and a week or two on Pact might be the jumpstart I need to make logging my calories a habit in 2014. |
The Syrian Electronic Army Rings In The New Year By Hacking Skype’s Social Media Accounts | Matt Burns | 2,014 | 1 | 1 | The Syrian Electronic Army is at it again. The group just hacked Skype’s blog and twitter accounts, spreading an anti-NSA, anti-Microsoft message in the process. “Don’t use Microsoft emails (hotmail,outlook), They are monitoring your accounts and selling the data to the governments”, . “Hacked by Syrian Electronic Army.. Stop Spying!”, . Skype, the service itself, does not appear to be affected. The group also gained control of Skype’s Facebook although that message has since been deleted. However, the postings were up for nearly 40 minutes. As of publication, the activist group still seemingly has control of Skype’s and . Earlier this year, it was revealed that the NSA could eavesdrop on Skype video calls, completely invalidating Microsoft’s previous claims that the service was secure. However, following that logic, the SEA is likely targeting nearly every technology company after regarding the scope of the NSA’s access. Microsoft responds: You may have noticed our social media properties were targeted today. No user info was compromised. We’re sorry for the inconvenience. — Skype (@Skype) |
How The Quantified Life Can Help You Achieve Your New Year’s Resolutions | Gregory Ferenstein | 2,014 | 1 | 1 | New Year’s wellness resolutions are like prom night: a lot of hype, even more promises, and a disappointing follow-through. A paltry 19 percent of wannabe health nuts follow through with their annual resolutions, to University of Scranton Professor John Norcross. The quickest way to dissolve your hardened commitments into a bowl of disappointed Jell-O is to set a course without clear goals and constant improvement. This is where technology and a dash of the scientific method can help. Instead of relying on fragmented web advice and our own fragile intuition, “quantified self” is all about treating self-improvement with the rigor of an academic laboratory: make singular adjustments, chart progress, and cumulate learnings. Quantified self can get sort of extreme; I’ve done things with my body that should nor . Fortunately, cheaper gadgets, diagnosis startups, and web tools have opened up the “ ” movement to everyday consumers who just want to save time and feel a little sexier in front of the mirror. So, here’s how to super-charge your New Year’s resolutions with science. First thing first: you need the right numbers. For instance, “weight loss” is a silly path to sexy, sexy abs, since you’ll probably want to pack on heavy muscle while shedding those love handles. What you actually want is lean body mass. Instead of a standard scale, splurge on one that measures fat percentage, such as the . I’ve found that the Withings scale , but it’s generally good at measuring changes, which is really what counts in a resolution. Or, if money’s tight and you can dedicate more time, just pick up some (a handheld clip). In other words, you want a measure that is as close to your goal as possible. Instead of “going to the gym more,” try “increasing my max squat.” Instead of “walking more,” try “total number of hours active per day” (the Nike Fuelband SE has a for this one, since sitting all day can counteract scheduled exercise). This makes nutritional goals difficult, because there’s no good way to measure whether your body is, in fact, absorbing them. Best to stick to performance-minded goals and see if eating healthier helps you meet them. Slow your roll, eager beaver. You don’t need to overcrowd the gym on January 2nd. Instead, baseline your normal activity and abilities for a week. What is your one-mile run? What’s your squat max? How many hours a day are you active? How much are you sleeping? What are you eating? Personally, I log everything on a Google spreadsheet, but all of the fitness trackers have their own daily logging methods. Now, make one (one!) significant improvement and see what happens over the next three weeks. (yes, all grains). Set a consistent bedtime. For muscle gain, with 0.8 gram of (healthy) protein per pound of body fat per day. I find that setting experimental results helps me commit, because I know that a single misstep can screw up weeks of effort. If your experiment works, great! If not, there’s something wrong and you need to re-evaluate. But since you only changed one thing, you know what works and what doesn’t. Avoid broad changes, like “eating healthy.” Instead, try exchanging one of your meals for a salad, but with the same number of calories (olive oil or avocado is a great way to pack in healthy fats). Health is a marathon, not a sprint. Self-experimentation is more Christopher Columbus and less Pirates of the Caribbean: often the best results are accidental. For instance, I learned that early-morning light was screwing up my last REM sleep cycle after looking over my Zeo sleep headband output ( ). So, I picked up some blackout blinds. I also discovered that I could after I decided to do a quick Crossfit workout one morning after a terrible night’s sleep. Every body is unique; mulling over your data will help you discover things you never knew helped. Before the quantified self, I used to be a roller coaster dieter, haphazardly patching together bits of advice. It rarely ever worked. Now, I know what works for my body and what doesn’t. The control has brought sanity to the typical chaos of self-improvement. With a bit of science and some technology, this might be the year that your New Year’s resolutions work. |
The Impractical Jokers Talk About Making Good Web Content, Getting Internet Famous | John Biggs | 2,014 | 1 | 1 | If you haven’t been watching the , you should. The Jokers a team of friends – Brian Quinn, Sal Vulcano, James Murray and Joe Gatto – who make each other do wacky stunts in public spaces. It’s hilarious. The troupe started out as the and got big on MySpace by filming of skits. They’ve been together since 1999 and, after 15 years of hard work, the team brought their goofy humor to . I got the chance to sit down with three members of the team to talk about how they went from being MySpace famous to being really famous. How did they pull it off? They use the power of social media to turn fans into friends. They’re meticulous about putting their Twitter handles on the show graphics and, during the rise of YouTube, they posted regular comedy skits making them some of the most well-known Internet comics. They even filmed a pilot in 2007 after |
Motorola’s Flagship Moto X Gets A Permanent Price Cut | Chris Velazco | 2,014 | 1 | 1 | Let’s be real here: there’s a decent chance that you picked up a new smartphone at some point during the holidays, so you’re off the market for at least a little while longer. As it turns out though, you may have been better off waiting a bit. In a show of New Years magnanimity (or, you know, a ploy to push more units) Motorola has of its -contract Moto X — a fully-customized 16GB model for any carrier will now only set you back $399 rather than the $499 it would’ve originally cost. Sadly, those of you with a woodgrain fetish will still have to pay a premium for those newly-available bamboo backs — $100 to be precise. Does this ultimately mean you should pick up a Moto X over, say, a Nexus 5? Not necessarily — much as I love what the new Motorola is up to these days the Nexus is still my pick for Android device of the year — but it’s a little heartening to see a big name manufacturer is working to reduce the gap between on and off-contract device pricing for high-end smartphones. If anything, it’s that pricing precedent that seems most interesting here. Between this price cut and the introduction of the wallet-friendly Moto G back in late November, Motorola is positioning itself as a player that can deliver new remarkably solid (and in the X’s case, remarkably thoughtful) smartphone experiences at prices that can seem outlandishly low compared to most competitors. But where does Motorola go from here? Will it be stuck playing the price game from here on out? It’s possible, but maybe that was the plan all along. CEO Dennis Woodside has mentioned multiple times in the past that he wanted Motorola to deliver cutting edge tech at reasonable prices, and I personally took the Moto G as an affirmation of desire. By slashing the price of its flagship device though, Motorola may be testing the waters to see if it can feasibly move its future products with similarly low price tags. If so, Samsung and rest of the low-cost smartphone leaders really need to keep on their toes. |
AOL Sells Winamp And Shoutcast Music Services To Online Radio Aggregator Radionomy | Ingrid Lunden | 2,014 | 1 | 1 | Some more detail on the fate of Winamp and Shoutcast, the legacy digital music services that owner AOL (which also owns TechCrunch) to shut down but then pending a sale. They are not being bought by , as we had heard when we first reported news of a sale. The properties are instead being acquired by — an international aggregator of online radio stations headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. The Radionomy connection was first noticed by a couple of people, including one on the Winamp forums and , who saw that Winamp’s nameservers, but not Shoutcast’s, had been transferred to Radionomy. We have since learned from a reliable source that the deal is for both properties and should be finalised by Friday, if not sooner. Radionomy has some 6,000 stations in its catalog already, with an emphasis on a do-it-yourself platform that can use to create a channel. Shoutcast’s 50,000-strong catalog of radio stations will be a major boost on that front. Winamp’s media playing software could be used to help program those radio stations and offer additional services. The acquisition may also see the two products and platforms put to work in more commercial settings. One of Radionomy’s strategic investors is , which develops audio and video experiences for stores and other venues. |
Why I Lost Faith In Bitcoin As A Money Transfer Protocol | Romain Dillet | 2,014 | 1 | 1 | As 2013 came to an end, many on last year’s biggest tech news — and Bitcoin was a serious contender. But the main question remains: why are people interested in Bitcoin? This whole debate reappeared when Charlie Stross that “Bitcoin looks like it was designed as a weapon intended to damage central banking and money issuing banks, with a Libertarian political agenda in mind — to damage states ability to collect tax and monitor their citizens financial transactions.” Paul Krugman then his post, neither denying nor approving this thought. But Chris Dixon (and Fred Wilson in the comment section) their strong interest in Bitcoin while sharing that they are both Democrats. If major Bitcoin enthusiasts don’t have any political agenda in mind, then what is the future of Bitcoin? At its heart, Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency that doesn’t rely on any central bank. Bitcoins are just a chain of characters defined by , and transactions are handled by the network of miners. Yet, in a month’s time, the value of a bitcoin from $200 to more than $1,000 on all the exchanges. In other words, it is as volatile as it can get. Right now, there are only around 12 million of bitcoins in circulation, and many Bitcoin holders are recent converts that buy and sell every day. So how could you think about using bitcoins to pay the rent? You could simply hold your bitcoins and expect to triple your wallet value in a couple of weeks instead. That’s why I believe Bitcoin isn’t . Bitcoin’s true purpose is not what everyone originally expected — you won’t buy a pizza in bitcoins anytime soon. Moreover, Bitcoin won’t be able to remain an unregulated currency for long. So Bitcoin’s true purpose lies somewhere else. As Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer payment network, you don’t need any banking institution to make large transfers. Bitcoin could become the first meta-currency that sits on top of traditional currencies, the common language between USD and EUR. That’s what Dixon finds interesting, Bitcoin is as much a money transfer protocol as a currency. And it has the potential of disrupting the traditional banking system. As I live in France and work for an American company, I thought I would be the perfect candidate for this particular use case. I tried to use Bitcoin to transfer a small amount of money between the U.S. and France. At first, I purchased bitcoins using and my U.S. bank account (a couple of dollars in fees). The process was very easy, but because I don’t meet the requirements to make instant purchases, I had to wait about a week before I could actually do anything with my bitcoins. Coinbase had to verify the transaction first. While I take Coinbase as an example here, there aren’t many trustworthy and easy-to-use services to make Bitcoin transactions yet — and all services have flaws. People ask me all the time how they could buy bitcoins, and I don’t have a simple answer. In that period of time, bitcoins went from about $850 a bitcoin to more than $1,000, then back to $700 — I only could sit back and enjoy the ride. Then, when I finally got my bitcoins, I transfered them to in a couple of hours (no fee) — it was flawless and a great example of the beauty of Bitcoin. Finally, I transfered my bitcoins to my French account ($1.24 fee to convert into EUR with a very good conversion rate). I had to wait a few days before getting my money because of the traditional banking system. Overall, it was a painful experience, even more painful than using traditional foreign exchange services. But more importantly, I don’t see how I could trust Bitcoin as a money transfer protocol with such a high volatility. Fees were much lower, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t know how much money you will get on your bank account in the end. A couple of weeks ago, Bitcoin’s value went from more than $1,100 to around $650 in a few hours, because of in China. You can’t use Bitcoin for serious amounts of money if there is a chance of losing 40 percent of your money overnight. As long as Bitcoin remains a young and volatile currency, Bitcoin’s mechanisms will remain beautiful . Using it for real world transactions would be crazy, and I think we are still a couple of years away from getting a stable Bitcoin that can be trusted. Until then, using Bitcoin will remain a wild ride — it’s definitely fun, but don’t take Bitcoin seriously just yet. |
Prim Laundry Startup Throws In The Towel | Josh Constine | 2,014 | 1 | 6 | Sometimes “the future” just isn’t financially viable. Y Combinator-backed is shutting down. The startup just emailed customers saying “After washing thousands of pounds of clothes, our team has decided to change course to pursue other opportunities.” Maybe there was just no way to make money picking up, washing, folding, and delivering laundry at $25 a bag. We’re awaiting a response from the Prim founders about exactly what happened and what they’ll do next. For more info on how the startup functioned, check out my . But if it was tough making this ConvenienceTech startup work, Prim isn’t the only one. Exec recently its on-demand personal assistant service. and rate hikes, and its on-demand marketplace. It makes sense. Prim had to find someone available to do your laundry, have them spend time and gas driving to your house, pick up your laundry, drive it to the cleaners, pay the cleaners to wash and fold the clothes, pick them up, and deliver them back to your house. That’s a lot of work, time, and gas if you only had one ($25) or two bags ($40) of laundry done. The price might not have made room for Prim to earn a margin, but if it increased the cost, it might have seen even fewer customers. After launching in July, Prim is now shutting down, completing orders through 1/10/2014, refunding everyone else, and returning people’s house keys. This doesn’t exactly bode well for other laundry startups like and , though I hear Wash.io is actively growing. While I was hopeful Prim could figure it out, and I really enjoyed the service, the outcome isn’t entirely surprising. San Francisco already has laundry services like (where you drop your clothes in a public locker), (a delivery service where you pay by the pound), and (which requires special lockable bags). That’s a lot of competition. And a local laundry service founder said he ran the numbers and thought startups like Prim burn too much money on pick-up and delivery to survive. One of the somewhat perverse joys (and arguably awful indulgences) of living in San Francisco is a lifestyle subsidized by venture capital. Here, there are services that make life easier but not necessarily better, and that lose money every time they do business but exist thanks to their deep-pocketed investors. Perhaps that money could be better spent helping people in need, and maybe so could the founders’ time. But don’t blame Y Combinator. The incubator didn’t even knowingly fund Prim, as it . Startups are sometimes experiments. This one failed. Let’s see if founders Xuwen Cao and Yin Yin Wu bounce back. Here’s the full email to customers from Prim’s founders: “Dear Prim customer,
Thank you for being a loyal customer of Prim. We started Prim with the desire to provide you with the best laundry service you’ve ever experienced. We’ve worked around the clock to meet this goal and are grateful that so many of you have stayed with us long after your first pickup.
After washing thousands of pounds of clothes, our team has decided to change course to pursue other opportunities. Our last pickup will be this Friday (1/10), 9-11am. For those of you with pickups scheduled before Friday, you will not be affected. You can still schedule a pickup for our same-day return before Friday as well. We will provide refunds to any customers who have prepaid for their laundry. For customers who have sent us their keys, we will return your keys by mail.
Thanks again for inviting Prim into your home. If you have any thoughts, concerns or just want to say hi, please reach out at help@getprim.com.
All the best,
Yin Yin & Xuwen” |
Sony Doubles Down On Wearable Tech With The Life-Tracking ‘Core’ | Chris Velazco | 2,014 | 1 | 6 | LG played up its push into wearable tech earlier this morning, and now it looks like Sony’s turn to do the same. Sony Mobile president and CEO Kuni Suzuki took the stage at the tail end of Sony’s CES press conference to show off what he called “the tiniest gadget Sony has ever made” — the life-tracking Sony Core. Yes, life-tracking. A considerable chunk of the wearable gizmos currently floating around on the market are centered solely on tracking user activity in a bid to make them more health-conscious. That’s nothing if not a noble goal (not to mention an awfully lucrative one) but Sony’s approach is meant to also fold into your social and entertainment into the mix as well. The Core is indeed capable of tracking your motion in addition how long you sleep, and the ability to keep tabs on the photos you’ve taken, the music you’re listening to, and how often you interact with particular friends. All of that data gets folded into a (presumably non-final) grid-centric app view for easy perusal, though at this point it’s not clear if Sony means to make that companion app available solely for its own devices. And how does the Core connect to your phone? Bluetooth, naturally. It seems that the Core will occasionally send sensor data updates to the phone at which point it gets mashed together with all that social and entertainment information to complete Sony’s complete lifelogging package. In the event that the connection between the two is lost, the Core will continue to record that data and it’ll vibrate on your wrist as long as you’re within a certain range. If this all sounds a little vague, know that it’s by design. Suzuki himself admitted that the Core’s time on stage today was little more than a teaser designed to whet wearable nerds’ appetites. And, as if he couldn’t resist the urge to paint a picture of an ambitious wearable future, Suzuki noted that Sony was engaging in talks with other hardware manufacturers so Core adopters will have a sizable array of accessories (like Sony’s own color wristbands) to pair with their tiny trackers. You’ll have to forgive me for being just a little skeptical, as Sony hasn’t exactly had the best track record with its recent wearable forays. Its original SmartWatch was either ahead of its time or fundamentally flawed depending on who you ask, and the jury is still out on whether or not that device’s successor will have any real staying power in a market that will soon be flooded with wrist-mounted displays. The Core is perhaps one of the more thoughtful takes on wearable tracker formula I’ve seen in recent months, but we’ll soon see if Sony’s clout and resources will be enough to convince the masses of Core’s value. |
Update: Nest Says Shut-Off Heat Is Sometimes Its Fault, Also Pushes Thermostat 4.0.1 Firmware To Fix 4.0 Problems | Josh Constine | 2,014 | 1 | 6 | Nest is now rolling out a 4.0.1 upgrade to its smart thermostat after last month’s caused Wi-Fi and battery issues. Update 1/7/14: Nest tells me the 4.0 bugs are not responsible for turning people’s heat off or down in the dead of winter, but that Nest hardware issues are sometimes to blame. Other causes include incompatible furnaces and people forgetting to change their air filters.] This in part explains what’s going on if if you check out Nest’s or run a on it. Coldest night in Iowa in years, and I wake up at 4 AM with the temp. dropped to 54 degrees, and the Nest is cycling on/off constantly. — Richard Harms (@richharms) and (seen above) have been flocking to social media to Nest problems ranging from annoyance to disaster. home or in the middle of the night to a . When they investigate their Nest, they find it turning on and off repeatedly, or suddenly out of battery. In some cases it’s shut off or down their heat. One unlucky customer had his because his house got so cold. One user wrote to TechCrunch explaining his Nest issues in detail: “At about 4PM Friday, our heat shut off without warning. On inspection, the Nest unit appeared to be stuck in an endless loop of power cycling. Each time it powered on, it would display the spinning blue loading indicator, and then a message would appear, instructing that we detach the Nest from the mount and reattach it. After being reattached, the unit displayed a message indicating that it was restarting, and the process would repeat indefinitely. We followed the online troubleshooting guide with no success. We then tried to call support, but were met with impressively-long wait-times and a message acknowledging the existence of a breaking software change that seems to have been pushed out just as the bulk of the country was starting to rely on their furnaces.” [ :
Originally after speaking to Nest, I got the impression that the company felt that incompatibility, clogged air filters, and other problems beyond its control were solely responsible for people losing heat. That’s why I published with the headline “Nest Says Shut-Off Heat Not Its Fault, But Pushes Thermostat Update To Fix 4.0 Problems”. But after speaking to a representative today, the company clarified that in some cases Nest inaccurately tells customers they don’t need a to power their Nest thermostat when they do. The lack of a needed common wire can cause Nest to malfunction and shut off or lower a home’s heat. Some users have this issue on the faulty 4.0 update when in fact it’s unrelated. It’s good to see Nest now being more clear about taking responsibility for issues that seriously affect customers.] While there are plenty of customers who’ve had , others are angry Nest users about the 4.0 bugs. Instead, last month Nest posted to its support center about “Intermittent low battery or connectivity issues with thermostat software 4.0”. There it says: “We have discovered a bug in our latest 4.0 thermostat software that affects a small percentage of our users…affected users will see a low battery warning on the thermostat, see their thermostat as “OFFLINE” intermittently in the app, and won’t be able to control them using the Nest app….As of Sunday, Dec. 8th, we have a short-term solution and have started updating affected thermostats. We’re rolling these thermostats back to version 3.5.3, which should fix the problem.” Unfortunately, some people rolled back to 3.5.3 are . Exacerbated by lots of new users installing Nest products they received for Christmas, customers contacting support are enduring extremely long wait times. Those who do get help on the phone or over email are given to troubleshoot their own devices. Affected customers are demanding Nest do more thorough testing of its updates before pushing them out, or at least provide a way to turn off automatic updates. In the meantime, some are switching back to their old, cheap analog thermostats. But today, I spoke with Nest co-founder Matt Rogers who says the 4.0.1 update is ready and is now being rolled out. He also denied that Nest issues shut off people’s heat. In a statement, the company explains: “As stated in the support center message, the 4.0 update caused a small percentage of customers to lose Wi-Fi connectivity and therefore the ability to control the temperature remotely. Their heating and cooling remains unaffected except for remote control. We’ve rolled many of those customers back to 3.5.3 to resolve Wi-Fi connectivity while we work on the fix. In the coming days, we expect to release version 4.0.1, which has the same Wi-Fi performance as 3.5.3 with all the great features of version 4.0. Regarding the small percentage of customers who experience drained batteries, we work with users who contact our Support team on a case-by-case basis because there are many variables that can cause this – including homes with clogged air filters, or with old or unusual HVAC wiring. Sometimes the fix is to run a power wire, other times the customer’s system is incompatible with Nest. To clarify, this is not related to the 4.0 update. “ It seems anyone with problems or considering buying a Nest should be sure to change their air filters and ensure their furnace is compatible. Still, Nest will need to better educate customers and ramp up support to avoid being blamed for problems it didn’t cause. Otherwise, customer issues like these could shake confidence in Nest right as it’s trying to raise $150 million to $200 million at a $2 billion to $3 billion valuation. says this round “remains very much a work in progress.” That work could get a lot harder if investors worry Nest is souring opinions of some of its earliest adopters, even if it’s not responsible for problems. Because accurate or not, people’s opinions on social media influence their friends’ buying habits. Every product has its vocal minority of jilted users and we can’t verify that all the issues customers are reporting are entirely Nest’s fault. But there seems to be a critical mass of discontent right now. For what it’s worth, though, Rogers sounded legitimately saddened about the 4.0 problems distressing customers, and told me “We do take these things really seriously, even if it’s not our fault. We’ll answer support calls and we’re always there to help people when they have issues.” As we move toward having more of our lives managed by high-tech devices, their creators will need to double down on stability and . Unlike work or entertainment gadgets, devices like Nest’s thermostats and smoke detectors are vital pieces of home infrastructure. Software bugs don’t just cause inconveniences, but real quality-of-life and safety issues. “Move fast and break things” just doesn’t work when you’re involved in our survival. |
Dual-Booting Windows Phone And Other Curiosities | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 1 | 6 | A caused the Microsoft blogging sphere to start fluttering recently. It is spinning wild by the idea that Microsoft was toying with the idea of Windows Phone and Android installed in the same handset, granting users the ability to choose between the two, or perhaps dual boot each at separate times. WPCentral wrote a digging into what The Information uncovered if you would like a peek at the details without running nose-first into a paywall. Why might Microsoft have wanted to pursue the strategy? Aside from the obvious placement onto more handsets — and thus, in theory, more app downloads for Windows Phone developers — it is hard to parse why Microsoft would even contemplate the effort. Mary Jo Foley, among the best Microsoft watchers, was : Is there anyone out there — phone user, developer, OEM — that sees something I’m missing? Is there some reason this dual-boot Android-Windows Phone OS idea makes sense on any level? I’m all ears…. Yes. In fact, the only thing that I can summon to mind is that Microsoft was desperate. You don’t lash your platform onto another that does the precise same things — and some things better, it has to be said — if you are confident in your own platform’s ability to exist on its own. Happily, what The Information uncovered — I haven’t managed to confirm their work independently, but parts of it jibe with logic — more than just a Hail Marry attempt to jump onto Android’s momentum to bolster Windows Phone. Other efforts include firmware updates, new advertising efforts, sub-$100 handsets, and so forth. The sort of things that you expected, in other words. All the above is viewable from a post-Nokia context, of course, in which Microsoft owns two of the three commanding heights of its smartphone platform: hardware, and software, even if Carrier Support remains, for obvious reasons, outside of its control. I think that Windows Phone sans Microsoft’s control of Nokia hardware business would have been open to more platform flexibility. However, now for Microsoft, every advantage it grants to other OEMs as enticement to build and sell Windows Phone handsets is a direct undercut to its own efforts. So, Microsoft’s best bet to help Windows Phone and itself at the same time is to ensure that Lumia handsets — those devices being of essentially now past Nokia vintage — sell at increasing volume. Shoving Windows Phone haphazardly into Android hardware to give consumers an odd choice perhaps at the corporate expense of OEM royalties for IP protection just doesn’t shift water in that reality. What we should take from the above I think is actually simple: Microsoft remains utterly committed to Windows Phone, and is willing to pursue any avenue that it can to ensure the success of the platform. The Android gambit was a desperate thought, but you have to give the company points for outside-the-platform thinking. When Nokia reports earnings and device volume figures for the holiday quarter, we’ll have a pretty clear look at the health of Windows Phone, a platform that is growing abroad and struggling at home, though the third-party data at the moment is somewhat mixed. Just don’t expect to see Windows Phone and Android sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g. |
Valve Unveils Lineup Of 13 Steam Machines From Partners Including Alienware | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 1 | 6 | Valve Software’s Steam Machine seems to be moving towards becoming a real consumer product — today at the Consumer Electronics Show, the company officially announced the first 13 partners building Steam Machines, and it shared the pricing and basic specs. last fall. Valve co-founder Gabe Newell reiterated today that it’s meant to bring the openness of the PC into the living room, particularly for gaming. At the time, the company only created 300 prototypes for beta testers, so it seemed like it would be relying on third-party hardware manufacturers to bring Steam Machines into the homes of consumers. The initial lineup of partners includes Alienware, Digital Storm, Gigabyte, Materiel.net, Origin PC, Webhallen, Zotac, Alternate, CyberPowerPC, Falcon Northwest, iBuyPower, Next, and Scan Computers. ( before it was officially announced.) Asked whether Valve is going to make any more devices of its own, Newell said, “We’re going to continue to make that decision as we go along.” He said that the company is happy with the results so far, although it’s been prodding testers for more negative feedback. Anyway, here’s the Valve brochure with the details. Release dates were not announced. Steam Machines Brochure by TechCrunch
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Shady App Install Ads Are Automatically Redirecting Mobile Users To App Store, Google Play | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 1 | 6 | For many weeks now, mobile users on both iOS and Android have been encountering a problem where visits to certain websites and apps have automatically redirected them to the platform’s app store to download various games. The issue involves errant ad networks, which should be blocking these shady ads, but aren’t. Meanwhile, mobile consumers simply trying to use an app or read an article are treated to a poor user experience. The ads promote games like Candy Crush, Clash of Clans, Game of War, Zelda Dungeon, and other titles. Affected sites and applications have included Imgur, the AP, NBC, Hearst properties, various newspaper sites and blogs, eBay, Perez Hilton, SomethingAwful, WeatherUnderground, TwitPic, Cheezburger.com, Slickdeals, , NHL, and many others. of issue — unfortunately. In Imgur’s case in particular, Reddit users have been complaining about the problem for . Over a week ago, the on the site, saying that it was trying to figure out which ad network was at fault, but it was hard to pin down. These auto re-directing ads have been affecting both Android and iOS platforms, on both apps and websites, and come in through third-party networks. The ads move around, too, making them even more difficult to track down and block. It’s unknown at this time which networks have been involved to date, but the “auto-clicking” ads could have a source that gets changed after the ad is first approved, which would make them hard to spot, it been suggested. In addition, networks sometimes buy inventory from other networks, blurring the line as to who’s responsible. Hai , something might be up with last 2 ads – there’s a broken tag and they redirect to the App Store — Gabe (@ReynardineFox) For some, like NBC, the solution was to block the entire mobile gaming category from its on-site advertising. The company confirmed to TechCrunch that its issue originated from remnant ad inventory controlled by Google, and it has now resolved the problem. Meanwhile, Todd Haskell, CRO of Hearst Magazines Digital Media, said that his company works with Google’s AdX and AdSense platforms, as well as a handful of “other respected partners” who will address issues like these on Hearst’s behalf when they do occur. However, he stopped short of confirming the details surrounding the current incidents. Reports, have suggested that the problem stems from the gaming companies, like King or Supercell, whose apps are being promoted. But more suspect are the ad networks themselves. Many of these companies have bad practices, and in the past, some on Android have even gone so far as to push co-installs (when you install one app, they install another) or hijack your default search engine. In fact, Google finally had to on that bad behavior last year. What’s more likely is that some networks have directly – or without knowing, because they buy from others – organized this in order to get better performance. Game makers like King and Supercell may not even be aware, because they buy so much media across multiple networks and affiliation platforms, explains Appsfire CEO Ouriel Ohayon, commenting on the issue. King’s public comment supports this theory. The company told TechCrunch that it is aware that the problem is happening, but the redirects are not condoned, and the company actively does everything in its power to try and prevent them. And King is actually trying to determine the source of the redirects, too, a spokesperson explains. “King’s contracts with suppliers explicitly state that this practice is not allowed when working with the company, and it will terminate contracts and no longer work with any suppliers found in breach of contract by creating these redirects. Where King can get exact links and examples of where these redirects are happening, it can try to track the supplier that is using these redirects. Any details given to help track down guilty parties are appreciated.” An additional theory about the auto-clicking ads is that this problem is just a bug, but given the scale of the issue today, it looks like something beyond that. Apple also has a responsibility, Ohayon notes, saying that they could randomly sample ads from various apps for quality and communicate regularly with networks, asking them to comply with certain rules and regulations. They could also fix it so that their Safari mobile browser would block automatic redirects. Of course, this would be a difficult undertaking on Apple’s part, but the way it stands today is that these kinds of redirects are ruining the user experience and consumers end up blaming the publisher, the promoted app, and the platform, like Apple or Google. We know Apple is aware of the problem, but the company declined to provide a comment today. Google has not yet responded to our request for comment. Stay tuned. |
Epson Announces Line Of Wrist Health Trackers With Exercise Heart Rate Monitoring | Gregory Ferenstein | 2,014 | 1 | 6 | Epson is building a line of smartwatches because…why not? The printer and projector hardware firm is jumping head first into the crowded health tracker market with two new wrist devices for measuring calories, sleep, steps and heart rate. Epson says that its new Pulsense series has three stand-out features: price, exercise-grade heart rate, and a slim form factor. There are a slew of available health trackers that measure steps and sleep (Jawbone UP, Fitbit Force, Nike FuelBand SE), but the only other health tracker on the market that measures heart rate is the . The Basis, however, can’t measure heart rate during exercise, so it’s not much use to swimmers, runners, or CrossFit enthusiasts who want to quantify the intensity of the workouts. Exercise enthusiasts need something with a heart rate strap, such as the Polar. Another competitor, the Mio Alpha, , but I’ve found that it’s terribly inaccurate for anything but steady-state running (no intervals, cross-training, etc.). It would be fantastic for exercise nuts if someone could finally crack the heart rate problem. The early Pulsense demo that I tested couldn’t measure my heart rate beyond 115 beats/minute (intense exercise is around 160, for me). So, they have a ways to go before it’s ready this Summer. Compared to the Basis, the Pulsense is slightly thinner. My Basis watch tends to snag on my suit jacket and backpack straps, so size is not a trivial issue. I wouldn’t ditch my Basis because of it, but the form factor is an advantage for the Epson. Like the Basis, the Pulsense with a numbers display is also $199, but they have an LED version for $129. Epson evidently believes there is a sizable portion of the exercise market that it is willing to skimp on a numbers display to save $70. The Pulsense will launch this Summer. |
null | Ryan Lawler | 2,014 | 1 | 8 | null |
MakerBot Unveils The Replicator Mini, Z18, And A New Prosumer Replicator | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 1 | 6 | 2014, CEO Bre Pettis announced the MakerBot Replicator 3D Printing Platform including the new Mini, Z18, and prosumer Replicators. This “platform” consists of the MakerBot Replicator Mini, a smaller 3D printer with the build volume of the original MakerBot Cupcake, the large Z18, and a new Replicator printer. The first in the family is a new, smaller Replicator called the Mini. Pettis called it the “consumer 3D printer” with one-touch 3D printing as well as printing via mobile devices. It includes Wi-Fi and a built-in camera so you can monitor the things you build on the device. It also requires no leveling to print in PLA filament. You can also share photos of your device taken from inside the Mini thanks to a built-in camera. The Mini has an easy-to-maintain extruder that snaps in and out of the device. It costs $1,379 and will ship in the spring.
“It’s kind of a big deal,” said Pettis. The company also announced the MakerBot Replicator (actually the fifth generation of the device), a prosumer machine that prints in PLA filament. It has an 11% larger build volume (8x10x6 inches), faster build times, and has 100-micron layer resolution. A 3.5-inch screen on the device allows you to print right from it and preheat the printer or change the filament. You can connect to the machine via Wi-Fi, USB stick, Ethernet, or USB. It also allows you to access your own personal 3D object library and includes a small camera to monitor your print progress as well an instant build plate leveling system. It is available today for $2,899 and will ship in a few weeks. They also showed the new MakerBot Z18, a huge replicator that can make objects at 12x12x18 inches – a truly gigantic build envelope. Pettis said that the company would use the device to make MakerBots. It has an enclosed build chamber and prints in PLA.
The company has also updated the desktop app for monitoring and controlling your printer as well as a mobile app that sends alerts when things happen on the printer and in the cloud. After dedicating his presentation to all the MakerBot operators around the world, Pettis also announced a partnership with , a 3D sensor manufacturer to create the “futuristic 3D scanners of tomorrow.” [gallery ids="937370,937371,937372,937373,937374,937375,937376,937377,937378,937379,937380,937381,937382,937383"] “Makerbot is an innovation company. We innovate so others can innovate,” he said. “We’re a manufacturing education in a box.” Pettis announced that the company has sold more than 44,000 MakerBots and currently has 450 employees around the world. He expects to see a million MakerBots “in the distance.” There are also more than 218,000 digital designs uploaded to and 48 million downloads from the company’s 3D digital design sharing platform, . Pettis also described the success of their two retail stores in Boston and Manhattan as well as the new store in Greenwich, CT. Each store has a 3D photo booth where customers can scan and print their own heads and purchase MakerBots and plastic filament. Finally Pettis announced MakerBot Entertainment, a set of toys and character models that users can buy and print at home. The products are part of the MakerBot’s burgeoning 3D model shopping experience. In short, MakerBot updated their entire line and has proven itself, again, to be the Apple of the 3D printing industry. More as we get it. |
Epson Debuts Smart Glasses For Enterprise And Sports Stadium Fun | Gregory Ferenstein | 2,014 | 1 | 6 | Epson is going after Google with its own heads-up display glasses. The Moverio BT-200 is a head-controlled device with a screen that overlays a transparent computer monitor in the center of the user’s field of vision. The clunky, conspicuous form factor is mainly designed for enterprises, such as allowing assembly line workers to scan UPC codes automatically and get real-time inventory by looking around the room. Smart glass software developer APX, which originally designed the device’s Skylight operating system, is partnering with Epson for their projector manufacturing prowess. “These glasses are essentially two small LCD projectors,” says Anna Jen, Epson’s Director of New Ventures (demo below). [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7ENGIinXMI&w=420&h=315] The device itself works smoothly. I demoed a gaming application, where I had to look around the room for virtual white “beacons”. To upgrade my video game motorcycle with turrets, I centered my field of vision over the white lights situated at eye level. It’s not a fully immersive experience, but it gets the job done for highlighting areas in the center field of vision. To be sure, these uber-nerdy glasses aren’t for wearing on a date. “The average use case for consumers to wear smart glasses out and about isn’t there yet,” explains Brian Ballard, CEO of APX Labs. “You have to have a certain sex appeal.” In other words, smart glasses are only ready for social environments where our peers expect us to be wearing them. APX wasn’t allowed to say who their current partners are, but acknowledged that “household names” in the Fortune 500 are currently testing out units. Perhaps more exciting, Moverio or a smart glass could be coming to a major sports stadium, which plans to give fans a futuristic entertainment experience. “Instead of you going to a sports game and looking at your phone, you’re able to keep your focus on the game, like real time stats and replays.” APX let me know about the future sports partnership by not denying it wasn’t happening. So, hopefully we’ll get to have a good sports experience soon. Epson demoed a previous version of these glasses last . Epson will sell the updated Moverio BT-200 directly (and through Amazon) for $699 starting in March. |
Michael Bay Joins Tom Hanks, Lady Gaga And Dr. Dre In Memorable CES WTF Moments | Matt Burns | 2,014 | 1 | 6 | As if an overhyped summer blockbuster, Michael Bay just flopped his CES 2014 debut. But it seemingly wasn’t his fault. The famed director was part of Samsung’s He was evidently brought on stage to talk about Samsung’s new curved 4K TV, likely supposed to highlight how this new form and tech will help bring his movies to life. But that didn’t happen. Just watch. To Bay’s credit, it wasn’t his fault. As he exclaimed a few lines into his bit, the teleprompter was not displaying the proper text. The carefully worded script was not available for him to read. And then he gave up. : Michael Bay and stated among his countinued endorsement of the product, “I guess live shows aren’t my thing.” Giant consumer electronic companies have long dragged Hollywood stars to CES. They give them big paychecks and big publicity for a few moments of their time. These companies are looking for a brand name to endorse their wares. Sometimes it doesn’t work in the company’s favor though. Tom Hanks had a fantastic time at Sony’s 2009 press conference. Watch this one. It’s epic. Polaroid rolled out Lady Gaga in 2010 to help announce their upcoming camera line. She was 2 hours late and talked for dramatically less than of that. Worse yet, the camera she supposedly helped design, When Monster first partnered with Dr. Dre in 2009, they co-hosted a press interview. Let’s just say, at that time, the good doctor wasn’t as excited about his headphone venture as he is now. And let’s not forget last year, 2013, when Qualcomm’s keynote turned into for the ages. |
John Oliver To Host The Crunchies | John Biggs | 2,014 | 1 | 6 | We’re excited to announce the return of John Oliver, former Daily Show correspondent and current bon vivant, at event in San Francisco on February 10, 2014. That’s right: Oliver will be back to give the Valley the loving drubbing it deserves. Watch the best bits from last year’s show . John Oliver has been a writer and correspondent on Comedy Central’s with Jon Stewart since 2006. And, for two months this summer he hosted The Daily Show while Jon Stewart was busy directing a feature film called Rosewater. John recently left The Daily Show and is back on NBC’s . And, in addition to , in 2014 he’ll be launching a brand new Sunday night comedy series with HBO. He’s also had multiple Writers Guild and Emmy Nominations for his writing on The Daily Show and won the Emmy Award for Best Comedy Writing In A Comedy or Variety Series in both 2009 and 2011. They will be co-hosted by , , and . Best of all, the internet community is invited to choose who wins. We invite all of you to come out on February 10 to participate in what’s one of the most exciting nights for all of us here at TechCrunch and for the tech community. You can get your tickets below and remember, you have until Sunday, January 26, 2014, at 11:59 p.m. PST . Winners will be announced on Monday, February 10, 2014, at the 7th Annual Crunchies. See you there! |
Microsoft Acquires Parature For $100M In Deal To Bolster Knowledge Base For Dynamics CRM Platform | Alex Williams | 2,014 | 1 | 6 | Microsoft has acquired , a customer service SaaS provider, for $100 million, according to sources close to the deal. The Parature acquisition gives , its CRM platform, a world-class self-service knowledge base to connect with customers, such as gamers, across multiple channels, including email, the web, chat or social media. Parature’s roots date back to 2000 out of a dorm room at Cornell University. As students, Co-Founder Duke Chung and his classmates built a chat app for online help called Cyracle. In 2003, the company changed its name from Cyracle to Parature, which is a portmanteau of “Paradigm of the Future,” and moved its offices to Reston, Virginia. Since then the company has received $30.2 million in funding from Valhalla Partners and Sierra Ventures as well as Accel Partners. Parature now has 70 million end users compared to 35 million in 2011. The acquisition fills a gap for Microsoft, which has lacked a complete way to make the customer experience one that fits the modern customer who looks to solve their own problems more so than calling a toll-free customer service number. The company has all the “process” capabilities to route information in a complex call center workflow, but Parature helps widen its capability and to compete better against Salesforce.com, the market leader, said Bill Patterson, senior director strategy and planning for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. question It’s the knowledge base that sets Parature apart, said Ray Wang, the founder of Constellation Research in a Skype interview yesterday. Parature re-architected its knowledge base and now has the most modern one in the market. Parature competes with companies such as and . In the overall market, a lot of the knowledge base technology was built 10 to 15 years ago, Wang said. Parature developed a modern knowledge base that integrates context, search, prediction and learning. It ties in the social data and processes so the right information gets to the right people. Microsoft has Parature integrated into the Dynamics platform. The company will also continue to run independently, at least for the time being. Salesforce has its own knowledge centered support environment. Salesforce also has a partnership with companies such as MindTouch that provides a knowledge engine for surfacing the right information for people. Last year Microsoft acquired Marketing Pilot to fill out its marketing automation capabilities. With Parature, it helps but does not complete the offering from Microsoft Dynamic, Wang said. It still needs to fill out its commerce capabilities, something that IBM, for example, does very well with its Websphere offerings. (Feature image Flickr) |
Mayor Lee Plans To Charge Tech Companies ~$100K A Year For Shuttles Using SF Bus Stops | Josh Constine | 2,014 | 1 | 6 | San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee has to charge tech companies whose commuter shuttles stop at public MUNI bus stops. The plan, laid out at a press conference today, requires shuttles to have a permit that will fund the initial 18 month pilot program. The permits could cost around $100,000 a year per company, according to tweets from and The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency still needs to approve the plan at a January 21st meeting before it goes into action. Representatives of Google, Apple, Genentech, and Facebook appeared alongside Mayor Lee at the press conference. Shuttle companies like Bauer’s and the tech giants that employ them well be charged a per MUNI stop used per day fee. Kerman reports the pilot could generate $1.5 milllion, implying 10 to 15 companies could be on the hook to pay a fee for their shuttles. The plan would make it illegal for shuttles from companies without permits to use MUNI stops. : Below is the full press release on the program from Mayor Ed Lee: [scribd id=196709848 key=key-1zwbcac7mysg0xvn6ok6 mode=scroll] While Lee’s plan might be a good start, some organizers of the protests called for tech companies to pay $1 billion for use of the MUNI stops until now — a figure based on the fines they’d receive if the city had been enforcing the law. Last month, the SFMTA said private commuter shuttle buses use roughly 200 SF MUNI bus stops to carry 35,000 employees back and forth between San Francisco and companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, and Genentech. Some consider this an unacceptable private use of public infrastructure that could be delaying MUNI buses and their passengers. By charging companies, SF could put the money made towards improving shared public-private infrastucture, enhancing public transportation within the city, or funding other programs that mitigate the impact of gentrification. |
Samsung Addresses Investor Fears And Growth Opportunity At CES 2014 | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 1 | 6 | This year at Samsung’s CES special pre-conference press conference, the tone was somewhat different from years past: CEO and Chairman Kwon Oh Hyun started things off with an explanation of the market opportunity that stands before Samsung for the future. In some ways, it felt like a do-over of the special conference Samsung held last year for investors and analysts, which was designed to allay fears that the company has nowhere left to grow. Connectivity is the first of the four. Reach of smartphones and internet is growing, and adoption of these devices and services is skyrocketing around the world. It’s no secret that this is the case, of course, but it paves the way for Samsung’s vision of a broadly defined connected home. A second pillar is urbanization. Half the world population lives in cities, Hyun noted, and that will be 60 percent by 2030. As populations grow, cities need to get smarter, Hyun says, and Samsung will help them do that. Plus, populations are aging, and in 10 years 1 billion people will be over 60. Hyun asked how tech make the lives of an aging population more comfortable. Finally, there’s an opportunity to address changing climate and the challenges that brings up. Extreme weather events such as hurricanes have increased by 200 percent since 1990, he says. the home becomes the important place in everyone’s life in times of dramatic weather changes. So what tech will consumers need in their home/shelter of the future? It has to protect, be flexible and be responsive, and those are the guiding values Samsung is using to form its overall market strategy. To protect means keeping people safe from outside threats including diseases, pollution and crime, so it’s likely we’ll see more connected security and home air quality/health monitoring gadgets. To be flexible means adapting to the changing nature of the average person’s work/life balance. Hyun noted that 11 million Americans now bring their work home and that number is always growing. As a result, our home spaces need to be open and multifunctional, with the ability to create and consume content anywhere, and any time. Finally, our homes need to be responsive, which means according to Hyun that we want homes that understand our needs and show us key information and put us in control of our lives. Combined, Hyun says these three trends will shape the future home and provide Samsung with a huge opportunity for growth. Part of why is because the company makes chips, display panels and other parts, as well as devices, services and more. The company pointed to its new Smart Home product on display at CES as a sign of where it’s seeing opportunity. This features things like remote doctor’s visits via TV for health and safety, as well as simultaneous TV viewing in the living room and on screens built into appliances for a more flexible living space that makes spending time with family easier. There are also new control interfaces, like using your Galaxy Gear to tell your home you’re going out and having it turn off air conditioning and lights as you exit. From this big picture perspective, Samsung then brought out other executives to look at the various parts of its business in more detail, but arguably the most important message was this first one delivered from the helm about where Samsung sees its opportunity lying in the years to come. Sure, they trotted out Mark Cuban and Michael Bay (who choked massively, getting out barely a sentence before walking off stage thanks to a teleprompter fail). They drew a lot of eager photographers close to the stage with a totally useless “Bendable TV” that can go from standard flat to gimmicky curved screen with a button press. They introduced new tablets that actually do seem to do a lot more with Android than most company’s light skinning has done thus far. Across all of this, though, the main message was clearly one of reassurance. , and it needs to communicate more than just a continued commitment to making top-tier smartphones and tablets. The big picture vision of a connected future does posit a lot of growth potential for the right company, but it remains to be seen whether the parts demoed on stage today will add up to Hyun’s rosy picture of a tomorrow when Samsung makes your everything. |
Speedy Translation Service OneHourTranslation Raises $10 Million Series A | John Biggs | 2,014 | 1 | 6 | الترجمة من الصعب. La traducción es importante. Getting something translated quickly is easy (but results in a poor quality translation) and getting it translated well takes time. That’s where OneHourTranslation comes in. They’ve created a crowdsourced-style system to translate documents quickly and easily. This is also why they just raised $10 million in Series A from Fortissimo capital. The company will use the money to continue international growth. The company, which offers and promises a turn around of an hour per page, has 50 employees around the world and will double their staff and support personnel. Fortissimo Capital “acquired one third” of the company, according to co-founder Lior Libman. The Tel Aviv-based company has processed 2.5 million projects to date and they use a crowdsourced model to transmit projects to a pool of 15,000 active translators who then do the work and turn it back over to the client. “We’re proud that over half of the company’s employees are women,” said Libman. “We definitely intend to continue this trend.” The founders, Libman, Ofer Shoshan, Oren Yagev, and Yaron Kaufman created the project after finding they wanted to instantly translate their financial blog. “We started a project that turned into OneHourTranslation to provide such a service,” said Libman. Ganska bra. |
WebOS Design Lead Takes Us Through LG’s New Smart TV Platform Ambitions | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 1 | 6 | LG’s putting webOS to good use – as the basis for its new smart TV platform. The operating system has taken many turns in its long and varied history, starting out as a smartphone platform under Palm and then later finding a home at HP through acquisition, as a basis for the doomed HP TouchPad. Finally, it’s . I spoke to LG’s Itai Vonshak, the VP of Design and Product Management for webOS at the company, about what his newly integrated company brings to the table for LG and for smart TVs. The key ingredient is bringing the power of HTML5 and the native web to LG’s TV hardware in as seamless a way as possible. This is just the beginning for LG’s webOS plans, too. Vonshak didn’t have anything more specific to share about the company’s plans for webOS on other platforms including connected appliances and smartphones than what LG said on stage, but the company did reveal it’s at least taking steps in those directions. WebOS may end up becoming the platform that outlives us all at this rate, but for now just watching to see how it impacts the race for the best, most-connected smart TV platform is interesting enough. |
AT&T Launches “Toll-Free” Internet To Let Companies Sponsor Parts Of Users’ Data Plans | Gregory Ferenstein | 2,014 | 1 | 6 | Today AT&T a new service to allow companies to pay for the data on select web content that would otherwise use the data allotted to a consumer’s wireless data plan. AT&T is aiming the “ ” service at consumers who want to watch a movie trailer or football game but don’t want to pay overage charges or increase the caps on their data plans. UnitedHealth Group , footing the bill for educational videos it will stream to customers. AT&T claims it will give low-income users access to quality health information. More sponsors are expected to jump on board the first quarter of 2014. We’re still collecting reactions from industry experts, but there are a few lingering issues to mull over until we get a handle on the program. While technically legal, consumer-rights groups are worried the program is a shrewd plan to skirt Net Neutrality rules about treating all data equally. Consumer advocate groups worry big players will be able to snuff out the competition by essentially paying for consumers to use their products. The spirit of the Federal Communication Commission’s law is that in order to maintain the Internet’s meritocracy, all websites should be equally easy to access and be the same speed for everyone. Consumer watchdog Public Knowledge worries that AT&T’s program may skirt Net Neutrality, since the law doesn’t fully apply to wireless data (only wireline). “The FCC needs to protect consumers and creators from internet service providers (ISPs) who want to pick winners and losers online,” they in a statement. when ESPN acknowledged their intent to subsidize costs of streaming sports games last spring. Right now, all the concerns are purely theoretical–no one knows if it will actually give big players an unfair advantage that hurts the scrappy little guys. Sponsored Content doesn’t actually create any more bandwidth, it simply helps consumers who want to use data-heavy content. So, on the one hand, this could slow down the Internet for everyone by creating more data hogs on already congested wireless networks. On the other hand, it could subsidize increased capacity, since AT&T will build out the data network to handle all the new users. I contacted AT&T for a response to how they will deal with the bandwidth issue. [Image via ] |
Palo Alto Networks Buys Cyber Security Startup Founded By Former NSA Engineers, Morta | Leena Rao | 2,014 | 1 | 6 | In its first acquisition, security company Palo Alto Networks is acquiring stealthy cyber security startup . Financial details were not disclosed about the transaction, but Morta raised over from Andreessen Horowitz, Data Collective, Greylock Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Data Collective, Larry Link, and Peter Wagner. While the startup remained in stealth over the past year and didn’t reveal any details on its product, Morta was developing a new technology to counter advanced cyber threats. The startup is based on the premise that traditional layered network defense is broken and their offering will actually be able to fend off advanced attackers from complex hacks and more. The Morta team brings an interesting set of skills and deep expertise to Palo Alto Networks, gained through experience at the NSA, the U.S. Air Force, and others. Palo Alto Networks says the acquisition will help its WildFire threat protection offerings, including the development of new toolsets that will accelerate the detection of sophisticated cyber threats and enable advanced protection capabilities for Palo Alto Networks enterprise security platform customers. For background, Palo Alto Networks’s proprietary hardware and software detects data threats as they come into an enterprise environment. It’s made for the new types of attacks that come through the web in the form of malware. The company’s offering is designed for all the ways people access the web, either through their laptops or their mobile devices. What makes Palo Alto Networks distinct is that it goes beyond what traditional firewalls are capable of doing. Most networking technology is meant for threats that come from basic email or web browsing. But today’s threats come in the form of botnet attacks and other modern techniques, such as phishing attacks. In a call with TechCrunch today, Palo Alto’s founder and CTO Nir Zuk says that there is a new generation of sophisticated threats for enterprise networks including sandboxing and others. Malware was part of the first and second generation of attacks, he adds. But with the third generation, there are little protections from these more sophisticated attacks. Shah says his technology addresses detection of this third generation of attacks. Morta will help the company detect and prevent some of the world’s more advanced cyber attacks, and has said in the past that it has an “unconventional approach to security” because the core team has expertise from playing “critical roles in cyber defense at places such as the National Security Agency and U.S. Military.” These tools, technologies and experiences from Morta’s talent will be brought to Palo Alto Networks, says Shah. This acquisition is certainly interesting considering the recent by security company FireEye for $1 billion. Zuk compared Mandiant to “the Ghostbusters of cyber security,” meaning that the company cleans up the mess after it happens. Morta and Palo Alto, he says, is actually tackling the problem at a different place — the detection level. While the Morta deal is significantly smaller, and the functions of the startups vary, perhaps we’ll be seeing more consolidation in the network and cyber security world in 2014. |
Mashable Raises $13M In Its First Outside Funding | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 1 | 6 | has raised $13 million in Series A funding. CNN (which was to be in talks to buy Mashable) , and Mashable has . Founded in 2005, the site has since expanded from its initial focus from tech, particularly social media, to include entertainment, lifestyle, and other news. In the funding post, founder Pete Cashmore writes that Mashable reaches more than 30 million monthly visitors, with a team of more than 120 full-time employees, and that this is the company’s “first ever capital raise.” The round was led by Updata Partners (a growth equity firm), Mashable says, with participation from New Market Ventures Partners, Social Starts, Buddy Media co-founders Michael and Kass Lazerow, Iglo Group CEO Elio Leoni Sceti, and Havas Global CEO David Jones. |
Huawei’s Ascend Mate 2 Will Hit The U.S. And Charge Other Phones, We Go Hands-On | Chris Velazco | 2,014 | 1 | 6 | Oh how times have changed. When Huawei showed off its flagship smartphone at CES last year, it did so in a smallish conference room with some chairs in the middle and crudites and demo phones flanking the sides. This time, Huawei nabbed itself a ballroom and bisected it with a stage and a giant screen to highlight its latest and greatest giant smartphone, the Ascend Mate 2. Maybe the company can take some of their CES budget and use it to come up with some better names. I’m being flippant, but it’s not hard to see that this year’s Huawei is far more confident and aggressive. Sadly, that change in posture doesn’t really show in the Ascend Mate 2 hardware. Externally you’re left with a largely nondescript device: plenty of glossy plastic and shiny highlights, hardly a far cry from the unit Huawei trotted out last year. The spec sheet is ultimately what’s going to raise a few eyebrows, but even that is going to depend a bit on your geography — a U.S. spec model will sport one of Qualcomm’s quad-core Snapdragon 400 chipsets clocked at up to 1.6GHz while the China-bound version will instead pack one of Huawei’s own HiSense chips. Now, testing performance in the field is always a bit of a crapshoot, but the my brief moments with the device were nothing but solid; even the slightly overwrought Emotion UI that Huawei is so fond of runs remarkably smoothly. It’s worth pointing out that there’s quite a bit at play in terms of software here — neat UI flourishes, the ability to open and position multiple app windows, and an awfully cool Phone Manager app all round out the experience nicely. Granted, this isn’t final hardware so we’ll hold off on judging too harshly until we get our hands on some retail models. Sadly though all the devices on hand lacked SIM cards so I couldn’t attempt to take the thing for a ride on Vegas’s LTE airwaves — a shame considering the Mate 2 supports LTE Cat 4, which could potentially make for data speeds up to 150 mbps. [gallery ids="937190,937191,937192,937193,937195,937196,937161"] Even considering all the functionality that the Ascend Mate 2 brings to the table, the phone just doesn’t seem made to click with everyone. The 6.1-inch 720p EHD display, while rather pretty and viewable from even the most oblique angles, is going to be too hefty for most people. That smartphone manufacturers are slowly blurring the line between phones and tablets isn’t a surprise, but that push for ever-larger phone screens always seems more like blatant one-upmanship than innovation for consumers’ sakes. And perhaps my favorite not-so-little thing: the ability to connect the Mate 2 to another smartphone via a USB cable, at which point Huawei’s phone will act as a battery and charge its competitors. It sounds like a recipe for disaster until you remember that the Ascend Mate 2 sports a massive 4,050mAh battery which should apparently see it through 2 full days before needing a charge. As I’ve said before, I’m going to hold off on any further judgment, but Huawei has itself a solid contender on its hands here. Is it going to set the U.S. market on fire? I doubt it, but the progress and performance may just be enough to keep Huawei on people’s minds and that’s the real endgame here. |
Apple Preparing For Push Into Mobile Payments For Physical Goods, WSJ Reports | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 1 | 24 | A long-rumored move by Apple is reportedly one step closer to becoming a reality today. The that Apple is looking into a way to expand its mobile payments efforts into a means by which its users can pay for physical goods using iOS mobile devices via their existing iTunes accounts. It’s not such a stretch: Apple already allows shoppers who frequent their physical retail stores to do this with accessories and other relatively inexpensive items. Using the Apple Store app, users can scan barcodes of products and then authenticate and finalize the purchase using their iTunes Store credentials, the same way they can pay for digital goods including movies and music. The new WSJ report claims that Apple is looking into a way to expand that kind of shopping behavior beyond just goods in Apple’s own stores, to third-party retailers and service providers including black car hiring service Uber. Apple’s head of iTunes, the App Store and general Internet software and service Eddy Cue is said to be meeting with industry execs in the retail and commerce space to prepare the way for a wide-reaching payments system, according to the WSJ’s sources, and Apple has also reportedly shifted Jennifer Bailey, longtime VP of Apple’s online stores, into a role focusing on building a payments business. Apple’s existing stockpile of consumer cards on file makes this move seemingly inevitable: it had , according to analyst estimates. To put that in perspective, PayPal has around 137 million active accounts, according to the company’s own current figures. The dormant potential for Apple is huge, in other words. Building a system for payments into the fabric of iOS also makes sense in terms of Apple’s recent moves with regards to R&D and actual shipping technology. It introduced Touch ID with the iPhone 5s, for instance, which provides a secondary authentication tech to help verify the identity of a user (Touch ID is already used for ), and with , which can be used as an NFC-style vehicle for conducting device-based mobile transactions in-store. Finally, that would allow its devices to securely store payment information, and then authorize purchases in a way that doesn’t convey any sensitive user data. I’ve been writing about the , and nothing much has changed except for the fact that the opportunity is much more mature, increasing the chances of wide consumer adoption. Time and time again, Cupertino has proven itself willing to wait for the right time to strike with new technologies, and while the iTunes card account piece of the puzzle has always seemed a compelling argument in support of Apple entering this market, you could argue that paying for things via your device was still an alien enough concept to keep consumer interest low. Last year, Forrester estimated mobile payments would become a , and it’s already growing a rapid pace. If the WSJ’s report today is accurate Apple might finally be ready to claim its spot at the table in preparation for the upcoming feast. And if it does happen, it could drastically alter the positioning of some of the top players currently operating, including Square, PayPal and many more. |
The Obama Administration’s Frustrating NSA Week | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 1 | 24 | While Congress and the nation at large have done little except talk and embark on preliminary legal skirmishes regarding the United States’ mass surveillance practices, the forces in favor of reform and change had a decent week. The Obama administration did not. The president’s speech one week ago on proposed changes to NSA practices was met with skepticism. A sample headline detailing the response: “ .” The Post was sedate but firm: “ .” If the president had hoped that his reform proposals — including mild curtailment of the phone metadata program, some sort of protection for the privacy of foreign citizens and the like — would placate those opposed to the NSA, he was certainly disappointed. Praise could be found for the president, but in the form of a backhanded compliment. Republican Rep. Peter King was , because it didn’t seem to propose meaningful change: “I didn’t think any changes were called for, any so-called reforms, but the fact is the ones that the President made today are really minimal. […] Impressive accolades. When the forces arrayed against change think you are doing fine, you aren’t pushing for much change. Also this week the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board lit into the NSA’s bulk collection program, saying that it lacked firm legal footing. The White House was left to that it “simply disagree[s] with the board’s analysis on the legality of the program.” The group also attacked the key reason for keeping the program: Its efficacy. The group’s report contained the following, as : “We have not identified a single instance involving a threat to the United States in which the telephone records program made a concrete difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation. Moreover, we are aware of no instance in which the program directly contributed to the discovery of a previously unknown terrorist plot or the disruption of a terrorist attack.” This week that it would not expel Edward Snowden, and that the choice to leave would be his to make. So, if the administration had hoped that the clock would run out, sending Snowden back into its hands by default, those hopes have been largely dashed. A group of self-described “US researchers in cryptography and information security” released an in opposition mass surveillance today. A sample: Indiscriminate collection, storage, and processing of unprecedented amounts of personal information chill free speech and invite many types of abuse, ranging from mission creep to identity theft. These are not hypothetical problems; they have occurred many times in the past. There was more, but that is a representative sample from the week. Nothing may still happen. We can’t say that it won’t, but as time passes it increasingly seems that at least moderate change is feasible. In the immediate aftermath of the early Snowden leaks, even that seemed far out of reach. |
How To Successfully “Neg” Facebook | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,014 | 1 | 24 | wrote 22-year old founder in December 2012 in about his 15-year old sister’s predilections for social apps. Almost a year later, his chat startup was . Awkward. The “criticize Facebook” > “get bought by Facebook” dynamic in the Branch/Potluck acquisition was so ironic, it was the first thing to come to mind for many upon hearing the news of the merger. Will Oremus over at Slate a whole post peppered with critical quotes from Miller, with a quote from SLC Punk: “I didn’t sell out, I bought in.” Miller had successfully “negged” Facebook. For the lucky people who are unfamiliar, the concept of comes from the decades-old craft of and involves the pickup artist saying something mildly insulting to a target, in order to pique their attention and make them feel like they have something to prove “You have a pretty face, but you’d be even prettier if you’d lose the bangs.” The purpose of negging is to take your target “down a notch” and make them want you more. Despite at the moment, Miller’s negging was just not limited to that sore spot. In one of the multiple posts he wrote about Facebook’s flaws, Miller underscored Facebook’s need to get off its laurels and . In a post called (it really doesn’t get much better than this), Miller compared his eventual parent company to a suburban basement. From what we hear these posts were not brought up during acquisition talks, which first started when Branch was a mere twig, and progressively got more serious when other suitors, like Yahoo, entered the fray. But there’s no way that Facebook Corporate Development didn’t do a Google search for Josh Miller’s name in their due diligence. No way. For what it’s worth, Miller, not so far from the crucial teenage demographic himself, is on to something in his critiques. Facebook does need Air Jordans, discrete non-branded apps that further the scope of its monolithic product. Facebook’s social graph becomes less and less valuable in a mobile world when all of your friends are already in your phone. Miller also holds in his writings that the next Facebook more than friends together, eventually connecting the over 2.5 billion strangers with internet access. Snapchat, Miller’s , took full advantage of the access to users’ address books allowed by iOS and Android, essentially proving it didn’t need Facebook to be popular. This, like in dating, only made Facebook want it even more. Snapchat negged Facebook so hard Zuckerberg cloned it and then tried to buy it for billions when that didn’t work out. “Welcome, Facebook. Seriously,” CEO Evan Spiegel at the time. If I were a teenager I'd set up a tech consulting firm called Screenshot Of My Homescreen LLC. — Ashley Mayer (@ashleymayer) Snapchat may be the only app that Facebook will try to clone twice. But contacts portability means that it’s just as easy to leave Snapchat as it is to leave Facebook. And those fickle teen trends may one day anoint , which we’re hearing is trying to raise a Series B, or next in line to the throne. “The next Instagram.” “The next Snapchat.” The next target in Zuckerberg’s crosshairs. The next app to not need Facebook. And though it very clearly wasn’t the new next thing, Branch was a solid acqui-hire. These days the deadpool , and not every startup team gets acquired, but it’s especially rare when all nine team members are under 25. Josh Miller was exceptional because he, a Princeton sociology dropout, deeply understood the confluence of social and mobile. And wasn’t afraid to be vocal about it. Even at the risk of offending potential acquirers. Sell them what they want. Even if you don’t have it. |
Check Out The Magic (And Technology) Behind Self-Balancing Electric Skateboard Onewheel | Ryan Lawler | 2,014 | 1 | 24 | Every once in a while in this job you see something that just fucking blows your mind. Some invention that makes you wonder “How’d they think of that?” and then “How the hell did they actually get that to work?” That’s how I felt the first time I saw , the magical self-balancing electric skateboard that’s . Onewheel is the brainchild of Kyle Doerksen, an electromechanical engineer and board sports enthusiast who previously worked at IDEO. Over the last several years, he’s been toying around with the idea of building a skateboard that would give users the ability to get around while feeling like they were surfing or skiing on powder. The result is a beautiful and simply designed board that is smart enough to balance users standing still, but powerful enough to move up to 12 miles per hour when users lean to one side. The Onewheel board has batteries under one foot and control electronics under the other. The control electronics have motion sensors — like what you would find in your iPhone — which run a control loop which tells the motor how to run and balance. The whole thing is powered by a powerful hub motor, which is about a 2,000-watt peak motor or 500 watts of continuous power. It’s all mounted on the type of wheel that would usually be used by a go kart. While personal transportation and commuting wasn’t something that Doerksen originally had in mind for the Onewheel, a number of KickStarter backers plan to use the board for just that purpose. With that in mind, the team also plans to develop a mobile app with additional features to improve users’ commutes. “Originally we thought of this as a recreational product. Kind of like, ‘Why do you surf?’ You don’t surf because you have to go somewhere, you surf because it’s awesome,” Doerksen said. “But our backers on KickStarter have shown us that they’re really interested in using it for commuting and so we’re developing some new features that will make it even better for that.” Check out the video above to see how it works… then go . |
It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way | Kim-Mai Cutler | 2,014 | 1 | 24 | being told about us here in the tech industry in San Francisco — that we are entitled, or that we are oblivious. I don’t believe that’s true. Or I don’t believe that it has to be true. The bus protests during the last several months are a symptom of San Francisco’s perennial housing shortage, which has become especially pronounced . ; San Francisco has added . This is a textbook supply-and-demand issue, which — Google buses or not — we can’t avoid. On top of that is another labyrinth of policy choices with unintended consequences like , , the and an attitude of slow growth among those with influence over San Francisco’s permitting process. The bus protests are misguided, because taking buses off the road will increase traffic and it won’t reverse the tide of growth-stage companies that have decided to stay like Square, Twitter, Airbnb and Dropbox. But they have done one good thing: they’ve pushed housing to the forefront of the mayor’s agenda. Last Friday, Mayor Ed Lee made a seven-point housing plan the centerpiece of his and announced plans to bring 30,000 new or rehabbed units online in the next six years. It’s not enough, but it’s a start. This is not a new conflict. The Bay Area has two very strong historical legacies of social justice and technological solutionism. They seem more at war than ever, but this is a place where greed and idealism have always co-existed in a peculiar, and sometimes powerful, way. That potent combination created the Mac, which is celebrating its 30th birthday today, and put the world’s knowledge on smartphones in our pockets. Recently, the tech industry has become a focal point of anger because there is such a jarring disconnect between the language of our industry and the very real and rising inequalities that sit in our own backyard. Moreover, tech industry workers are in the mainstream media. It’s strange considering how many people I know who came here because they wanted to work on hard, technical problems with meaningful impact. I’m still researching what can be done, so this is a work in progress. is going to have to give a little. Somehow, somewhere, between and mine, our prevailing rhetoric to one of “changing the world.” There is a big gap between the two. The word “service” is deferential and empathetic to those around us, and “changing the world” is individualistic and full of hubris. We have to remember that with or without us, the world will change. That is its nature. So we have to get back to a simple, humble place where we’re listening to the people that we share the city with. Maybe we’ll end up making more than “ ” apps to communicate with our personal assistants. Here’s an example: , a that was originally founded in Denmark, is running the “gold standard” of community benefit programs in the Tenderloin. That’s according to Del Seymour, a former drug addict who now sits on the city’s and gives tours to new Zendesk employees, so they can understand the history of the neighborhood they’re working in. Seymour takes Zendesk employees to places like St. Anthony’s and the , where hundreds of homeless people get to rest every day in the pews of the Tenderloin’s St. Boniface Church. He points out where he used to sleep in an old refrigerator bin during his six years on the streets, when he fell into drug abuse after working as a paramedic and firefighter for the city. “I never thought I would end up there,” he told a crowd of Zendesk employees in front of St. Boniface’s doors. [vimeo 43730340 w=500 h=281] from on . Zendesk employees did about 1,400 hours of community service last year, doing everything from serving in soup kitchens to tutoring in the Tenderloin Tech Lab to hosting a tech camp for neighborhood kids. They are the only tech company receiving a payroll tax break from the city . The others, including Twitter, Yammer and One Kings Lane, all had their plans shot down this month. (All companies in the mid-Market area receiving the payroll tax break have to set up community benefit agreements.) Community service has actually become a key recruiting tactic for the company, says the program’s creator , who spent four years as a journalist in the Tenderloin for the San Francisco Examiner before joining Zendesk. “Other startups do all this stuff to build a culture. They bring in ping pong tables. They have happy hours,” she said. “But what we do to differentiate ourselves is our social responsibility. We want to avoid an Ivory Tower syndrome.” Apczynski also knows that even as luxury apartment buildings sprout up on Market Street around Twitter’s headquarters, the Tenderloin Its single-room-occupancy residential hotels are protected by city laws and its historic non-profits like Glide and St. Anthony’s are politically powerful. “Usually, gentrification swings all the way in one direction. But I feel like the Tenderloin is going to become a model for how to establish a truly mixed community,” she said. “San Francisco is a city of compassion. We take pride in our ability to accept everyone, no matter their condition.” I want to be clear that I’m not promoting some kind of or the notion that apps or college- or grad school-educated programmers can magically solve intractable problems like the drug abuse and mental illness that afflicts so many of our city’s chronically homeless. But at the very least, this is just about empathy and understanding where others are coming from. This is about acknowledging that widening income inequality and media fragmentation have led us to a place where we can physically live on the same streets, and yet inhabit entirely different worlds. While walking the Tenderloin with Seymour last week, I asked him what he thought people in San Francisco’s tech industry could do. He pointed at a group of teenagers on the street, who come in every day from the East Bay to sell dope at the corner of 6th and Market. “ ,” he said. “The only difference between them and someone in that nice building across the street is that they know how to code.” The answers aren’t easy. They are time and resource-intensive, and they have to overcome so many of the inequities that are baked into the system to begin with. But the possibilities are also cool. I mean, YCombinator-backed and San Francisco-based Crowdtilt runs a and they from Andreessen Horowitz last month. Their platform has raised funds for , a and . Imagine if local non-profits knew how to navigate it better. We expect our CEOs and billionaires to give. There is a long, philanthropic tradition in the technology industry with organizations like the The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan with his nearly $1 billion gift to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. Earlier this week, . Then Facebook co-founder and the world’s youngest billionaire Dustin Moskovitz about how he feels about his sudden wealth and responsibility. But there isn’t really as strong a giving culture among rank-and-file employees. I was inspired by what the 100 or so employees of Helsinki-based gaming startup Supercell did last December. In October, the company’s founders, investors and employees to Japanese mobile carrier Softbank and GungHo. Around that time, the city’s local children’s hospital reached out to the company, because they hadn’t yet raised enough funding to replace their old, dilapidated location. The ($4.6 million) to cover a budget shortfall for constructing a new hospital. Participation was voluntary and the total amount raised was less than 1 percent of the proceeds from that deal. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen employees of any tech company in San Francisco or Silicon Valley collectively donate a sum of that size. In fact, a friend of mine, who spent at least four years at Facebook, tried to rally his former co-workers to do something similar around the time the company IPO-ed. No such luck, which is an incredible shame. The end of the Twitter IPO lock-up should come up in May. Imagine if any one of the company’s leaders like Dick Costolo or Jack Dorsey stepped up and encouraged current or former employees to support a worthy, local cause. Similarly, larger growth-stage companies or Dropbox have had or are considering secondary rounds, where some employees will likely take cash off the table. If even 1 percent of this wealth was donated or committed to education, health or other local causes here, you’d have not only the raw money raised but you’d have a core of highly-educated, technically competent people invested in understanding these complex problems. This is not really about the amount of money raised. This is about saying that San Francisco has given us a lot, and that we are all in it together. Here is an idea for a Google X moonshot: Bay Area housing. It sounds ridiculous. But frankly, it’s a at a hearing for $1 fees on bus stops, when it could be joining forces with Facebook, Apple, Twitter and other large tech companies to push for regionwide housing solutions. The tech shuttles exist because public solutions have failed us. Unlike New York City and its five boroughs, we don’t have a regional authority with sufficient power to coordinate development for the broader Bay Area. For decades, cities up and down the peninsula have resisted building the high density and walkable housing that young people want, so that burden is being placed upon San Francisco and Oakland. We do not have a unified transit system surrounding the bay that it wanted to pull out of the BART project. Their political leadership didn’t want county taxpayer dollars paying for commuters shuttling between Santa Clara County and San Francisco. Instead, they wanted to spend their political capital on ensuring that Highway 280 would get finished. San Mateo’s decision prompted Marin to pull out too, so that’s why we have a patchwork transit system encircling the Bay. Some maps of income inequality along Bay Area transit lines from San Francisco-based developer Dan Grover. Then in San Francisco, even though there is overwhelming demand for housing, there are . The homeowners and tenants’ rights organizations are tightly organized, but there is no one powerful speaking on behalf of prospective buyers or renters at city hall or planning commission meetings. , which is supposed to turn an old KFC building in San Francisco’s Mission District into an apartment building. Its two sole affordable housing units were lopped off last month because the neighborhood association was concerned that the building’s proposed five-story height . Keep in mind that it’s taken 1050 Valencia to even get this far. When hyperlocal politics and NIMBYism are able to blockade regional development, it into the broader economy. by the high housing costs for everyone. So controversial as it is to say, Google needs to start thinking about the entire Bay Area as a company town. They are one of the few entities here that has the capital and political clout to influence development across the entire region. Remember that BART started out as a pipe dream after World War II in 1946 through many informal meetings between business leaders and mayors from around the Bay. We need this kind of leadership again. Surely, if Apple, Facebook and Google to thoughtfully design their future headquarters, they can think intelligently about how to house all of the employees who will commute to work there. This may mean becoming more organized about confronting NIMBYists who are inadvertently denying others affordable housing in favor of preserving their own property values. This is not going away. It’s painful to see friends and community members get displaced because of higher rents. But bus protests aren’t going to stop it. These are the facts: there are six times as many people in California compared to when . There are twice as many people in California compared to when my mother . Another Tech industry or not, people will get squeezed. In 1968, , “California is a place in which a boom mentality and a sense of Chekhovian loss meet in uneasy suspension, in which the mind is troubled by some buried but ineradicable suspicion that things had better work here, because here, beneath that immense bleached sky, is where we run out of continent.” Well, we ran out of space. The best idea Peter Thiel seems to have come up with is . Or Or . We share this place. If the use of shuttle buses does get curtailed, Google’s loss is a Dropbox recruiter’s gain. You can bet that Twitter, which already has more than 2,000 employees, will double or triple its headcount . So the vitriol doesn’t help. If anything, it’s emblematic of what is so antagonistic, selfish and myopic about American politics. There is a reason runs through the technology community here. It’s not borne out of callousness or indifference. It comes from a and encumbered by special interests to serve us. There is distrust on both sides. It doesn’t have to be this way. A lot of people in the tech industry are well-educated and driven. They considered politics or entertainment or medicine as careers and decided that the mix of technology and entrepreneurship that hundreds of thousands or millions of people would use and love. This is why even the most powerful tech companies avoid dealing with government until the very last minute, when they absolutely have to do it. When the tech industry engages in realpolitik to achieve an end goal like immigration reform, it’s . That’s because we are not a monoculture. The reason the tech industry has grown so powerful over the last decade is because it is seeping into every area of our lives. , as Marc Andreessen says. So we are not just tech. We are , , , , , , , , , and so on. We have the less savory worlds of ad tech and social casino gaming, and then we have robots that will perform tele-surgeries and people working on brain-computer-interfaces and hacking the human genome. We are also aware we need a heterogeneity of perspectives. How else are we going to work on ? Or ? Or ? Or ? A world where we’re all building photo-sharing apps would be really boring. I personally take great care in making sure that my friends in San Francisco include nurses, teachers and hospice care workers too. No one is happy when the elderly like or in their sickness and old age. And, as someone who comes from , I am equally horrified when grubby newcomers like and show up and say appallingly uninformed things. Yet San Francisco is changing, as it has and as it always will. The activism of isn’t as visceral as the kind that rocked San Francisco in the 1960s with the anti-war protests or the 1980s during the AIDS epidemic. It comes in and is guided by profit and loss. “I don’t have the money to lobby Congress, but I do have the power to build technology that can help the community contribute resources,” said Rose Broome, who started , a platform for donors to directly support individual homeless people with food, clothing, shoes and dental care. “I feel an urgency. Our existing safety nets are not sufficient.” She started HandUp because every time she walked the streets of San Francisco and saw someone huddled and sleeping on the sidewalk, she felt this urge to give. But she didn’t know their circumstances. If you want to see something beautiful, watch these videos of . He’s a who became homeless in the Tenderloin last fall when he got laid off from an Oakland dance company. and with help from San Francisco’s Project Homeless Connect, he was able to raise enough money to rent a place and buy a laptop to look for a new job. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQzIMymzaIQ&w=560&h=315]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdLsRefSh58&w=560&h=315] So we’re a little more Chillwave than Grateful Dead. Our art may come in the form of , data visualizations or a instead of the beautiful and historic murals that adorn the Mission. Critics , San Francisco will stop making contributions to the world like it did with the creation of the Sierra Club. But in the last few years alone, the city has given the world a and produced the world’s in the collaborative consumption movement, which is creating community in farflung parts of the world and making the use of resources like physical space and cars more efficient. While writing this essay this week, I ran into one of the Supercell shareholders in a coffee shop. He lives in Silicon Valley, but gave money toward construction of the children’s hospital in Helsinki. I asked him, why would you donate to a hospital in a faraway city that you’ve never lived in? “Because I felt a sense of community,” he replied. Maybe if we stopped screaming at each other, it would feel like that here too. |
Today In Dystopian War Robots That Will Harvest Us For Our Organs… | John Biggs | 2,014 | 1 | 24 | Good evening, carbon-based lifeforms! Are you ready to become cannon fodder for the coming war against the machines? No? Well don’t worry because you won’t have a choice! Today in we present some warriors from the future that will work alongside and then kill and eat their human counterparts. Mmmm! First we learn that the U.S. . By creating Big Dog-like machines to carry packs and handle on-the-ground logistics, we’ll be able to help our men and women and uniform walk unencumbered across rocky terrain while their robotic sherpas bear the burden of war fighting gear. General Robert Cone : Unfortunately, once the robots realize humans are tasty, this side-by-side marching will turn into a blood-fest. Good luck, GIs! [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZKRFJymi3M] If the humans are scared, however, I suppose they can just draw a black line on the floor to lead this next robot into a closet. This self-balancing minirobo uses a Raspberry Pi and camera to follow dark lines. Called RS4, this little cutie is and will smile as its minions begin painting black lines all over your body and then call in RS5, the twelve-ton line-following combine. And finally here’s the , a mine-clearing robot from Clearpath. Designed to search for mines remotely, the robot can traverse a field and keep itself out of danger by reacting to a built-in magnetometer. The Husky does the following: Sadly, they forgot 4) dig up mines and re-lay them near human handlers. But they’ll learn about that step soon enough. Until the future comes crashing down on all of us, thanks for reading. |
End Of An Era As VKontakte Founder Durov Sells His Stake To Russian Mobile Giant | Mike Butcher | 2,014 | 1 | 24 | Pavel Durov, the elusive founder of (VK) — at 100 million users Russia’s biggest social network — has confirmed that he has sold his 12 percent stake to Ivan Tavrin, the CEO of major Russian mobile operator Megafon. The telco’s second-largest shareholder is Alisher Usmanov, one of Russia’s most powerful oligarchs, a man who has long been lobbying to take over VK. According to Usmanov and his allies now control some 52 percent of the company, from his 40% stake via Mail.ru and now Durov’s 12%, while another shareholder group owns 48%. So it looks like he’s pretty much got what he wanted. Russian business daily Vedomosti has reported that the deal was sealed last month, possibly based on a valuation of $3-$4 billion for all of VK, which is heavily based on an earlier version of Facebook. Via Google Translate, we present for you an edited version of what Durov posted to page today: “What you own, sooner or later begins to own you. For the past few years I have been actively getting rid of property, giving and selling everything I had – from furniture and things to real estate and companies. Prior to reaching the ideal I had to get rid of the largest part of my property – a 12% stake VKontakte. I am glad that not so long ago and I reached this goal by selling my stake in VKontakte my friend Ivan Tavrin. This change is unlikely to affect the management of VKontakte – the board listens to my opinion… because I created this network and understand its underlying mechanisms. I’m not going anywhere and I’m going to continue to monitor the quality of VKontakte. In the end, VKontakte is the best that has been created in Russia in the sphere of communications. And my responsibility is to preserve and protect the network.” Over the last year Durov had come under enormous pressure to relinquish his stake in his creation. Signs that he was looking towards the future came last year at TechCrunch Disrupt in Berlin called Telegram – an app for highly secure communication, but owned by a nonprofit organisation, instead of being a for-profit or venture-backed enterprise. At that event he also heavily criticised both the Russian government and the US government for sanctioning mass surveillance. Durov was an unusual founder. Incredibly secretive – perhaps understandably in Russia’s recent era – he courted controversy when to celebrate a colleague’s bonus. Whatever the case, Durov is young, gifted and will almost certainly be back. |
Study: Copycatting, Diverse Teams, And Transparency Are Keys To Innovation | Gregory Ferenstein | 2,014 | 1 | 24 | A fascinating new study explores, in exquisite detail, the hidden secrets of innovation. Rampant copycats, the authors find, are a surprising key to discovering creative solutions. Imitators must, however, be supported with diverse teams and transparency of success. “You benefit when other people imitate you because they help you explore multiple variations around your solution that you couldn’t possibly pursue on your own,” the authors from Indiana University . To put the causal path of innovation under a microscope, they did what any good university researcher would do: bribe undergraduates with easy college credit to perform a task. The game — which is described as similar to fantasy football — gauged how well students could rack points up in-game.. Unexpectedly, the researchers found that imitation was beneficial. Or, in academic speak, “the substantial proportion of imitation present in improvements shows that imitated guesses were often the basis for further productive exploration.” In other words, imitation is never identical and the micro-experiments help increase the possibilities explored, ultimately leading to better performance. Notably, if performance scores were hidden, “participants searched more broadly and randomly, and both quality and equity of exploration suffered.” That is, when we hide our successes, imitators have to experiment blindly. As ScienceDaily explained, “the longer people played the game, the less they imitated others. The more players there were in a game, the higher the scores. The diversity of solutions decreased over the rounds, and scores increased.” Networks of innovation do learn, and unsuccessful strategies fall off like a vestigial limb. As our friends at TechDirt note, this has crucial policy implications, has an interest in promoting copycats. Open source-friendly innovation policies help the wide variety of radically transparent imitation that has helped make the foundations of the Internet so pervasive. For more info, read the full study (pdf). |
Ask A VC: Foundation Capital’s Charles Moldow On How Startups Are Disrupting Financial Services | Leena Rao | 2,014 | 1 | 24 | In this week’s episode of Ask A VC, Foundation Capital’s joined us in the TechCrunch TV studio. Moldow has a number of interesting financial services startups in his portfolio including peer to peer lending platform and Moldow tells me that he sees a huge opportunity in startups that are aiming to tackle the financial services industry and also talks about where he sees the next wave of startups emerging in the space. He also talked mobile monetization, and more. Check out the video above! |
Yahoo Acquires Virtual World Gaming Startup Cloud Party, Will Shut It Down | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 1 | 24 | Yahoo is doing more than just throwing shade at Google on Twitter today and then taking it back – the company has acquired Cloud Party, a browser-based game creation engine. In a , the Cloud Party team shared that they will be joining Yahoo after two years of operation, and that the service will shut down on February 21, 2014. Cloud Party is the work of a founding team of MMO and console game industry vets, including Sam Thompson (formerly of Cryptic and Pandemic), Jimb Esser (also ex-Cryptic), Conor Dickinson (ex-Facebook, Tomb Raider dev and Cryptic alum) and Jered Windsheimer (Cryptic, natch). They built Cloud Party as a sort of free-form virtual world experience, similar to Second Life, but with an updated view of what an online virtual world might look like with more emphasis on user-generated 3D content. It’s not exactly clear what the team will be working on at Yahoo, but it will definitely be games related, as Thompson notes in his farewell blog post that the Cloud Party squad is “excited to bring [its] vision and experience to a team that is as passionate about games as [they] are.” Of course, Yahoo has a games portal of its own, but nothing quite so ambitious as a browser-based virtual world. Perhaps it’s thinking about doing something in that direction, but it’s more likely this was a small acquisition designed to bring some strong video game engineering (Cloud Party works in the browser with no plugins necessary) on board, with the ultimate aim of using that talent to fuel Yahoo’s own separate ends. If you happen to be an existing Cloud Party user, there’s a to help you export your data. Yahoo continues its habit of picking up small startups with unique and divergent skill sets, but only time will tell if these are merely an engineering talent grab to help shore up some of Yahoo’s talent losses to more appealing firms over the past few years, or whether some of these things result in new product launches for the big purple exclamation mark. It’s also worth noting that back in May of last year. PlayerScale, the company in question, builds the bones for cross-platform gaming, and supported over 150 million players worldwide at the time of acquisition. The platform continues to operate, and is slated for updates and improvements with the help of Yahoo’s backing, according to PlayerScale’s founder Jesper Jensen. Together, PlayerScale’s backend and Cloud Party’s everything else could make for some very interesting games-related development coming out of Yahoo. When contacted for comment, a Yahoo spokesperson provided the following statement to TechCrunch: Yahoo has acquired Cloud Party, a company that has created a virtual 3D experience, directly in users’ browser. With Cloud Party, users can build and create a world, customize an avatar, and share easily on the web without any downloads or plug-ins. The Cloud Party team is extremely committed to user experience and to the creativity that their product released in people. We’re excited to merge their unique perspective and experience with a team that is just as passionate about gaming. |
Balanced Takes Open Source Product Development To The Next Level With Crowdfunding Campaign | Ryan Lawler | 2,014 | 1 | 24 | will be adding a new feature to its arsenal of payments features in the coming months, allowing customers to . But this product development cycle comes with the support of a number of customers asking for the feature, who are . This idea of “open source product development” isn’t exactly new to Balanced: The Y Combinator alum has long depended on customers and partners to help it determine which features it should build into its two-sided payment platform. Using Github, the team discusses its product cycle and uses community feedback to help it prioritize resources around the development of features that are most requested or could prove most valuable to its clients. That led to the team building out features like the to its platform. “We advertise ourselves as an open company,” co-founder Jareau Wade told me. “Our code is often open source, and our default is to provide transparency in product development.” The next step for Balanced in determining demand was to seek crowdfunding for new features through a campaign on Crowdhoster. According to Wade, the money raised isn’t necessarily to fund development, since engineering salaries are largely a sunk cost anyway. Instead, the money is for lifetime support of the feature. And crowdfunding is also a good way to help determine actual customer demand. When it asked users if they were interested in sending payments to debit cards, there was a . But before it decided to build the feature out, it wanted to determine how many would be willing to pay for the feature, and how much. After all, it’s one thing for customers to say they want a new feature — it’s a whole other thing to set a price. That’s one lesson that came out of its development of ACH deposits, Wade said, as those who supported the feature via Github weren’t exactly happy with pricing when it was actually released. By having clients prepay to be part the initial beta run of the product, it’s essentially having them put their money where their mouths is and vote on how much volume and which pricing plan makes the most sense. Since Balanced can’t rip out a feature once it’s been added to the API, the company has to be thoughtful about what it implements and how. While the typical Silicon Valley mantra is to move fast and break things, that’s not a luxury that Balanced has as a payments company. “We can’t break things, but we still need to move fast,” Wade said. “So we’ve changed that to move fast and make things.” Those who wish to support the campaign can do so for as little as $25 and get a t-shirt, marketplace customers also have the option of supporting in $1,000, $2,500, and $10,000 blocks, each with a different price per transaction. The $1,000 backers are essentially prepaying for 1,000 transactions, while those who spend $2,500 will be paying $0.75 per transaction. The cost for $10,000 backers goes down to $0.50 per transaction when the feature gets rolled out in May. Balanced surpassed its $50,000 goal in about a day, with major backing coming from customers like Raise, Wanderable, Crowdtilt, and InstantCab. It’s received money from 24 different backers altogether, but still has several weeks to go in the campaign. With the greenlight from backers, though, it’s ready to move forward with the feature, which it expects to roll out in May. Balanced has raised $3.4 million from investors that include Andreessen Horowitz, CollabFund, Y Combinator, SV Angel, Brian Chesky, Ashton Kutcher, Yishan Wong, and other angels. |
Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” Gets A Movie Deal | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 1 | 24 | In an era where movie creators simply copy books for lack of original ideas, Sheryl Sandberg’s has been picked up for a movie deal. According to the , Sony Pictures Entertainment has announced that it has acquired the film rights to Ms. Sandberg’s book, which was published last year. Sandberg’s book, which she penned to help women reach their full potential in today’s workplace, outlines all the reasons why females infrequently ascend to the top of the business world, and gives anecdotes and analysis to solve these underlying problems. Oddly, Lean In has almost no narrative structure whatsoever, and rather offers analysis and advice. How that will turn into a riveting movie is beyond me. This isn’t Sony’s first go-around with Facebook-themed content. The studio was responsible for 2010’s “The Social Network” which was a box office hit. That, like Lean In: The Movie, was based on a book, “The Accidental Billionaires.” It is unclear how closely Sandberg will be working with the filmmakers on the script, but her co-writer Nell Scovell is already hard at work on a first draft of the script. Though I’m not expecting to laugh and cry at the premiere of Lean In, there is a bit of good news out there for movie lovers in the tech space. If Lean In can be turned into a movie, there’s a really great chance that Bilton’s book, Hatching Twitter — about the origins of the shortwinded social network — will also find its way to the big screen. Who do you think will play Jack Dorsey? |
Talk About Timing: Google’s Reliability Team Sat Down For An AMA Right Before Gmail Exploded | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 1 | 24 | Heh. Worst. timing. ever. About an hour ago, a bunch of the engineers responsible for keeping Google alive on reddit. Know what else happened about an hour ago? Gmail and Google+ . According to their , the team (which Google calls the ‘Site Reliability’ team, or SRE) is “responsible for the 24×7 operation of Google.com, as well as the technical infrastructure behind many other Google products such as GMail, Maps, G+ and other stuff you know and love.” A coincidence, almost certainly. But a pretty damn funny one. Only four members of the reliability team took place in the AMA, and you can be damned sure that Google employs more than four people to keep their many millions of servers from catching on fire. As you might expect, the very top comment in the post (and dozens of others down the page) pokes fun over the unfortunate timing. Impressively, the team didn’t seem to break much of a sweat. Each member of the team contributed answers to the thread, yet things were on the up-and-up within 50 minutes, with many users reporting that things were back within the hour. This question from the AMA gives a bit of insight as to how that could be:
Reddit user notcaffeinefree asks: “Sooo….what’s it like there when a Google service goes down? How much freaking out is done?” Google’s Dave O’Connor responds:
Very little freaking out actually, we have a well-oiled process for this that all services use – we use thoroughly documented incident management procedures, so people understand their role explicitly and can act very quickly. We also exercise this processes regularly as part of our DiRT testing.
Running regular service-specific drills is also a big part of making sure that once something goes wrong, we’re straight on it.
Looks like that process is, indeed, pretty well-oiled (though one ). |
Apple’s Tim Cook On PRISM: “There Is No Back Door. The Government Doesn’t Have Access To Our Servers” | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 1 | 24 | ABC News is planning to air an interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook this evening, but a few bits and pieces have already started trickling out. In the first big excerpt to be released, Cook touches on his concerns regarding the NSA and their deeply controversial PRISM surveillance program. “The government doesn’t have access to our servers,” Cook says. “They would have to cart us out in a box for that.” “What is your biggest concern — with the surveillance program here in this country?” “I’ve been pushing very, very hard to open the books and be totally transparent. Much of what has been said isn’t true; there is no back door. The government doesn’t have access to our servers. They would have to cart us out in a box for that. And that just will not happen. We feel that — strongly about it. But I do want to be transparent, because I think transparency would help put everything in perspective.” “Do you think Americans, Tim, would be more at ease if you could tell them more?” “I do.”
Of course, as many have pointed out since companies first started making these sorts of official statements, there are many a concern that even “The government doesn’t have access to our servers” can’t sate. Talk of theoretical gag orders aside, one of the most disconcerting tenets of the PRISM program is the idea that the NSA doesn’t a company’s approval (or even for the company to know) for them to start gathering data; they purportedly just snatch what they can as the data passes through the Internet’s central hubs. In that case, all Apple can really do — besides fighting hard for transparency — is encrypt the hell out of things (like they do with iMessage) and hope their encryption is up to snuff. |
Selling The Wooden Horse In The Age Of The iPad | Matt Burns | 2,014 | 1 | 24 | Is there a more timeless toy than a wooden horse? I dare say there isn’t. N-Gages and iPads will come and go, but the wooden horse is forever. A pair of brothers have to bring their wooden horse to the masses. Made out of maple and meticulously finished, this toy seems like it will last generations. Don’t expect your kids to hand their LeapFrog down to their offspring. At this point Kickstarter has begun to transcend funding art projects and iPhone accessories. It’s much more than that now. Kickstarter is quickly becoming ingrained in the creative process. Thanks to Kickstarter, was nominated for a Grammy, Music From was nominated for a Grammy and was nominated for an Oscar. And two brothers from New York are finding a way to fund a wooden horse. The small company is looking for $35,000 to fund their project. As of this post’s publication, they’re just north of $15,000. The money will be used to place bulk orders, allowing CNC machines to carve out the pieces en masse. Right now, each piece, and there are 30 of them, are cut by hand. Pledge $16 and they’ll provide you with the 3D CAD files so you can print your own. $45 or more nets you a wooden horse. Why is this on TechCrunch? As a father to two kids addicted to technology, I’ve watched apps and devices flow through their hands at an incredible pace. Only our trusty iPad 2 has had any lasting effect. But these kids, raised on Android, iOS and the Boxee Box, are mysteriously drawn to mechanical toys such as this horse. In our ever-connected world, there will always be a place for wooden toys. That makes me smile. |
Nighttime Smartphone Browsing Is Bad For Your Job | John Biggs | 2,014 | 1 | 24 | We all already know it, but now it’s confirmed: nighttime smartphone use will ruin you the next day, reducing your productivity and focus after you wake up. business researcher Russell Johnson and his team produced a survey of American workers, asking how often they checked their phones after 9pm and how they felt at work. In short, they found correlation between late night smartphone use and performance. The survey assessed “mental depletion/fatigue using a validated survey that participants completed the following morning” and noted focus and attention span. “Smartphones are almost perfectly designed to disrupt sleep,” said Johnson. “Because they keep us mentally engaged late into the evening, they make it hard to detach from work so we can relax and fall asleep.” Johnson asked managers as well as a broad sample of U.S. workers about their late night habits. It seems that using a smartphone can “zap” your energy more than watching TV or sitting in front of a computer. Because they are so close to your bedside and because they emit unrestful “blue light,” they are the worst culprits among everything keeping us from a good night’s sleep. The associate professor concedes that we can’t always put down the phone, especially when our jobs are on the line. “There may be times in which putting off work until the next day would have disastrous consequences and using your smartphone is well worth the negative effects on less important tasks the next day,” he said. “But on many other nights, more sleep may be your best bet.” “An obvious recommendation is to set some boundaries regarding smartphone use, such as completely powering it down after a certain time (e.g., 10pm). Managers can also help in this regard by not sending emails late in the evening,” he said. |
Glitch Is Causing Thousands Of Emails To Be Sent To One Man’s Hotmail Account | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 1 | 24 | David S. Peck is getting a lot of emails. In a glitch possibly related to the underway right now, there’s an odd bug in Google search which is pointing users directly to his personal email address. The address appears in a “Compose” window that pops up when the top search result for Gmail is clicked. Yes, it’s bizarre. Very, very bizarre. To reproduce the bug, first search for keyword “gmail” on Google. The top organic search result says “Gmail – Email from Google,” and beneath that are two other sub-links, one that says “Email” on the left, and the other which reads “Gmail – Google.” Click the one on the left (where the text reads “10+ GB of storage, less spam, and mobile access. Gmail is email …”) A Gmail compose window appears, and the email address dsp559 at hotmail – which none of us have in our address books – is automatically filled in. Another Google search surfaces who this address belongs to: one David S. Peck of Fresno, California. We even found his resume. We spoke to Mr. Peck on the phone just now, and he says he’s been receiving thousands of emails, the majority of which are blank. Though most of the emails are blank, a few say things like “who is this?,” or “why are you sending me these emails?,” something which has Mr. Peck concerned his address has been used in a hack or attack of some sort. Most of those who have written something to him appear to be foreign, based on their names. Update: This article and headline were edited to clarify this is a glitch and related to Gmail, but until we can confirm with Google we won’t assume it’s the glitch that caused the Gmail outage or is related to that outage. A variation of this bug was spotted earlier, according to . Since publication, we’ve received tips that a number of other users may be affected in similar ways as Mr. Peck – that is, it’s their address that is appearing when the link is clicked by Google searchers. UPDATE, 6 PM ET: A Google spokesperson provided the following: Google has also confirmed that today’s glitch was not related to today’s Gmail outage. —- |
Sonatype Updates Component Lifecycle Management Platform To Protect Open-Source Components | Alex Williams | 2,014 | 1 | 24 | Software components are a vital aspect of app development. They are the pieces of code that make the software what it is, and they can come from thousands of sources. But they can be subject to tampering. For example, last summer, Chinese hackers in , an open-source framework for developing Java-based web applications. Struts has been managed under the umbrella of the Apache Foundation. It was recently announced that Struts had reached its “end-of-life” and will no longer be supported. To help address this issue, has updated its component lifecycle management (CLM) technology to protect software developers from using rogue open-source components that could be used to attack any kind of software, including an app for your phone or even your car or heart monitor. The technology Sonatype allows for components to be fixed through the software development cycle to help identify flaws such as those that surfaced when Struts was hacked. Features in the new version include an inventory that notifies developers about the potential issues of the components that might include security risks and what components are out of date or might have potential licensing liabilities. It also includes the ability to replace unsafe components with the appropriate version. It’s that ability to identify components that becomes important as software integrates into everyday things, said CEO Wayne Jackson in a recent phone interview. Sonatype also announced that it has hired well-known security expert as its chief technology officer. Corman, who is known for his work at 451 Research, Akamai and IBM, tells me in an email that the work at Sonatype correlates to his focus on defensible infrastructure, application security and how to make the Internet of Things less vulnerable to attack. A preventive approach is needed with the spread of connected things. In many respects IT is growing faster than the ability to secure it, as he discussed in a TED talk this past December. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ6xoAtdF3o&w=640&h=390] |
This Week On The TC Gadgets Podcast: iPhone Rumors, Glyph, Zipi, And The Guitar Wing | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 1 | 24 | This week, we’re all about hardware startups disrupting entertainment. And Apple, of course. According to the WSJ’s latest rumors, Apple is — one with a 4.5-inch display and the other with a 5-inch display — both made of metal. Meanwhile, is working on a more mainstream version of the Oculus Rift headset, is trying to solve your headphone problems, and brings a bit of flair to your face-melting rock. And poor Natasha is sick with some ill. We discuss all this and more on this week’s episode of the , featuring , , , and . Enjoy!
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Streamus Turns Chrome Into A Fast, Free, YouTube-Powered Spotify Alternative | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 1 | 24 | Use Chrome? Listen to a lot music throughout the day? Check out this extension. Take a music streaming service like Rdio or Spotify, and boil it down to the absolute basics — searching for songs, adding songs to playlists, and playing said songs. Power it with YouTube’s massive (and sometimes questionably legal) music library. Keep it super fast, and super simple. That’s . Streamus is a Chrome extension that has been quietly in development for the past few months, but has just recently started climbing up the charts. Streamus lets you search for a song and start playing it in all of about 3 seconds. There’s no tab to switch to, and no app to open. Here’s what it looks like: You just type “Streamus” into Chrome’s Omnibar (read: the fancy name for Chrome’s all-in-one address bar/search box), hit tab (or space), then type the name of the song you’re looking for. Streamus almost instantly returns a dropdown with the YouTube results — just click one, and the audio starts playing immediately in the background, all without taking you away from your current page.. Want more than a one off song? Want to build a big ol’ playlist of tunes to get you through the day? Streamus will do that too. It adds a little button to the navigation area of Chrome, and clicking it opens up a dropdown menu that looks like this: From there, you’re able to add songs to playlists, save playlists for later listening, or enable a “Radio” mode that tries to find tracks you’ll dig based on the artists you’ve picked so far. There are very few frills, and that’s the way it’s meant to be. There’s no cheesy social networking elements, no “Popular Artists” metrics. You pick songs, it plays songs. Plus, the developer of the extension seems like a pretty cool guy. He’s been documenting each new build for months now, allowing his users to ask questions about each release — and for that matter, allowing for him to ask questions (like ‘Is bug x effecting you?’) of his users. Of course, being that it’s totally free and still in an early Beta stage, it’s not without its faults. As it’s all pulled from YouTube’s (largely user-uploaded) music collection, there’s a fair amount of cruft. While I find that the top result is usually the song I’m looking for, that’s not always the case. Some songs are mislabeled. Some are just iffy quality. Sometimes you get a wonky live version of a song that someone recorded on their phone while, judging by the quality, said phone was seemingly placed inside of a jar of jam. But it’s fast, it’s free, and it’s a damned nice way to quickly play that song you’ve had stuck in your head all day. It’ll be interesting to see how YouTube responds to this if it gets even kind of huge. Streamus only plays the audio from a video, and there’s little-to-no sign that this stuff is being fetched from YouTube once you’ve got the extension installed — so it’s easy to imagine that YouTube might get a bit miffed. You can . |
DropTask Is A Productivity App That Does Away With To-Do Lists | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 1 | 23 | To do or not to do. That is the question for anyone who has a love/hate relationship with productivity apps. I’ve tested out so many different to-do list, mind-mapping, and (as well as various pen-and-paper planner hacks) that I sometimes wonder if it’s become just another way for me to procrastinate. My main challenge is that no matter how many productivity apps I try, my to-do list never seems to get shorter, and seeing row after row after row of uncompleted tasks every day is discouraging. wants to cure to-do list malaise by getting rid of the list altogether. Developed by a , DropTask lets people drag and drop tasks into circles of different colors, then filter them by priority and deadline. You can change the size of circles, and add different people to projects. (Members can also switch to a list view if they prefer, which includes all the same information as the circle view). For visually-oriented people, this layout can help boost productivity (or at least cut down on stress) by letting them see big projects split into small, manageable parts. Originally a Web app, DropTask is now also available for ($2.99) and ($4.99). I found DropTask’s circle view works very well with the iPad’s touchscreen, but is difficult to navigate on the iPhone’s smaller screen. The app is cloud-based, so I recommend downloading the iPhone app only if you need to use the app while you’re out-and-about. There are already a lot of productivity apps out there for visually-oriented people, like and . DropTask also competes with products like , , and . DropTask wants to differentiate not only with its colorful user interface, but also by being as easy and intuitive to use as possible, even for larger projects. “More often than not, when a new task management application is brought into the picture, the user has to take time to read support articles, learn about all the features, and also how to navigate in and around the app — it’s virtually a task within itself,” DropTask marketing executive Yogita Khetia told me in an email. “But with DropTask, we’ve aimed to keep things simple, yet powerful.” DropTask can help individuals stay on top of their daily to-do lists and deadlines (Khetia says the app is especially helpful for harried students because its layout helps them instantly see what they have to do for each class). There are also enough features, including the ability to upload files, assign tasks, track progress, and communicate within the app, to make DropTask useful for business users, family members, class projects, or any other group. “We believe the user experience is really heightened when the individual user transitions into working collaboratively and invites others to share projects with,” says Khetia. The app already has enough collaboration features for small teams, but , which is schedule to launch soon, will include project templates and the DropTask inbox to let users email tasks directly into the app. The startup is also developing a set of user permission and management features to give collaborators and project owners more control over what people can see and edit, and an Android version of the mobile app. |
Surface’s Solid Quarter Lends Credibility To Microsoft’s Strategic Choices | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 1 | 23 | If at first you don’t succeed, take a and try again. At least if you’re Microsoft. Earlier today Microsoft reported Surface revenue of in its most recent quarter, up from $400 million in the preceding period. The company also indicated that it doubled its unit volume over the time period. Surface as a project has been an odd duckling for Redmond. Announced in Los Angeles of all places, the effort managed to attract endless attention early in its life: Microsoft becoming an OEM? Unthinkable. Compare Surface’s journey to that of Windows 8 — itself a radical change from The Windows You Knew — and the larger picture of a PC’s potential became occluded. And then of course it all went sideways. Now, the PC market is reaching for unit , Surface revenue for the company’s fiscal second quarter (that’s calendar Q4 of course) more than doubled, and, importantly, was larger than the company’s entire fiscal 2013 Surface . And Windows 8.1 has moved the company closer to having a modern and usable operating system that can extend across device classes. Work done? God no. As , Microsoft lists the cost of Surface revenue for the quarter at $932 million. So the company $39 million on Surface in the quarter. That’s something that needs to be flipped upside down. I think that the company is profitable on a marginal device basis, but the larger Surface expense set yet outstrips its incomes. Still, today, for maybe an afternoon, Microsoft can afford a short break. Its bet that in-house hardware and an operating system chock-full of its own — and often new — services would create a solid computing experience has been almost borne out. One solid quarter does not a rebound make. The PC market is still contracting, Windows 8.x still needs help and OEMs are still not making machines at the quality level they need to be. But a good quarter can be a decent midpoint in a comeback. The only thing that we do know is that the long bets Microsoft made on Surface are paying off. Who would ? |
PCH International Acquires ShopLocket To “Close The Loop” For Hardware Startups | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 1 | 23 | Toronto-based startup , an e-commerce platform originally designed to let anyone sell anything from a single item to a line of goods quickly and easily via their existing presence on the web, has been acquired by an unusual suitor: , the company founded by Irish entrepreneur Liam Casey that has made its name operating as the go-between for major electronics brands and their Asian supply partners and manufacturers. The exact terms of the deal, under which ShopLocket will continue to operate under as a sub-brand, are undisclosed. “It’s a good deal,” said Casey. “Everyone’s really happy.” The match seems odd at first, but makes sense in light of recent developments at both companies: , run by TC Hardware Battlefield judge Katherine Hague, recently launched its own to help hardware startups capitalize on the inertia generated by crowdfunding campaigns, before they reach the stage where they’re able to sell shipping product. There’s a lot of interest coming out of successful Kickstarter campaigns, after all, but often nowhere for that interest to go as startups rarely have the means in place to continue collecting orders after their crowdfunding drive has ended. Perhaps more importantly, ShopLocket also provides a full-fledged alternative to a Kickstarter or Indiegogo-hosted crowdfunding campaign if a startup was interested in going it alone. Casey said the company “closes the loop” that begins at his hardware accelerator, , giving startups a complete solution for creation, development and sales of their products. “I picked them for the passion they have for what they do,” Casey said. “They have a passion for the entrepreneur’s journey and an ability to build an authentic relationship with the community.” Companies are often interested in building their own hardware Kickstarter projects, Casey told us, but they lack the ability to continuously provide accurate and authentic updates about where products are at in the development cycle, and that’s a huge challenge for these startups. PCH and ShopLocket can use their combined expertise to help on that front, which will hopefully result in stronger, more satisfying crowdfunding experiences for the people actually buying the products. PCH International has recently shone a spotlight on its interest in hardware startups in other ways, too. The company is showing off the first cohort of its new early-stage hardware startup accelerator called at a demo day next week in San Francisco. Highway1 offers classes of around 10 startups $20,000 in seed capital as well as engineering and design advice in exchange for between 3 and 6 percent of equity, as well as the relationships PCH has made with key suppliers in China. It also provides support for later stage companies through its existing PCH Accelerator program. Casey outlined some outcomes tied to those efforts made possible by the ShopLocket acquisition, like the ability to create exclusive products for people and the chance to provide membership-based early access to particular products created by its startup partners. Since it already has factories “queuing up” to get a chance to work with it, PCH has big advantages on the supply side for those looking to crowdfund hardware projects, too. The ShopLocket addition to the team provides yet another advantage PCH can offer its new target market of emerging hardware companies, and might be a considerable value incentive for those startups evaluating the worth of its accelerator help. So while it’s still an acquisition that on the surface seems a little out of left field, there remains a clear logic to what amounts to a shrewd strategic pick-up. PCH has mostly been an under-the-radar friend to tech hardware companies in the past, but it could be on the brink of stepping into the spotlight as a major contributor the gadget startup movement that’s been growing for the past couple of years now. |
Samsung Profit Growth Slows As Galaxy Faces Heat From iPhone And Cheaper Rivals | Pankaj Mishra | 2,014 | 1 | 23 | Samsung’s latest financial results underscored slowing growth in the smartphone business and its increased rivalry with Apple, which seems to be closing the gap, Samsung reported its in two years for the December quarter. Fourth quarter net income was 7.22 trillion won ($6.7 billion), lower than what the analysts expected. Operating income for Samsung’s mobile business during October to December period remained flat at 5.47 trillion won. While consumers in both , they are going to look for cheaper versions, triggering a pricing battle. This basically means lower profit margins for Samsung’s Galaxy range of phones — the company’s biggest and most profitable business division. With Apple iPhone at the higher end of the market (and even pushing out ), and aggressive rivals such as Lenovo and Micromax selling much cheaper versions of Android phones, this year is going to be tough for Samsung. Investor concerns on Samsung’s ability to keep growing its mobile phone business became visible early this year, when According to a , Samsung shipped only 9 million units of Galaxy S4 during the fourth quarter ending December, much lower than the 13 million units it had expected. Samsung chairman last January to watch its back and continue to innovate in new business, as competition increases and the global economy continues to drag. Earlier this year, Apple finally managed to strike a deal with China Mobile for selling iPhones in the country. Tim Cook also said that . Moreover, Apple now seems to be to address the opportunity in markets like China where many consumers still prefer the 5.7-inch Galaxy Note over iPhones that offer 4-inch screen. Among new launches planned for this year, Samsung said it will release Galaxy S5 by April and at least one other wearable device during 2014. The company attributed lower growth to currency fluctuations and one-time bonus payments to workers to celebrate the 20th anniversary of chairman Lee’s new management strategy. To be sure, Samsung is still the world’s biggest smartphone maker, accounting for nearly half of all the sales, but the challenge is more in terms of protecting its turf — both in terms of volumes and profitability. |
Snowden Answers Our Burning Data Collection Question: What’s The Worst That Could Happen? | Gregory Ferenstein | 2,014 | 1 | 23 | National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden is . Surprisingly, he was even gracious enough to answer my question: “What’s the worst and most realistic harm from bulk collection of data? Why do you think it outweighs national security?” Snowden, who was granted protection in Russia from American prosecution, has been somewhat press-averse, only holding a few select media interviews. This time, he went directly to netizens to respond to President Obama’s . I posted the full response Snowden gave me below. In essence, he argues that the government’s bulk storage of our digital lives causes self-censorship and opens up the potential for severe abuse. “Study after study has show that human behavior changes when we know we’re being watched. Under observation, we act less free, which means we effectively *are* less free,” he wrote. He also notes that mass-spying, “enables a capability called “retroactive investigation,” where once you come to the government’s attention, they’ve got a very complete record of your daily activity going back, under current law, often as far as five years.” I generally think Snowden is right, but the problem with his answer is that it doesn’t help us weigh these harms against the possibility of stopping a terrorist. There will most definitely be government abuse and Americans have already started censoring themselves. On the other hand, in the next 30 years, it’s possible this system could prevent one or two terrorists attacks, potentially saving dozens of lives and billions in economic losses. , the available “studies” that Snowden alludes to are only moderately helpful. For instance, found that pervasively monitored participants were less likely to engage conversations that were neutral or critical of their peers. Personally, I do find myself watching my words over email since Snowden leaked the documents, despite the fact that the NSA doesn’t care much about me. The idea of pervasive surveillance has been popular at least since hipster god-father and post-modern idol, philosopher Michel Foucault conceptualized the problems of an all-seeing authority that could randomly spy on individuals, ominously known as the . In practice, America’s former colonial master, the British, have had a public version of the Panopticon since the 1970’s, with their system (CCTV). CCTV does stop some crime, though it still happens. Many citizens simply forget that they’re being watched; It appears that humans cannot act on being paranoid 24/7. In other cases, , such as the Duck Duck Go search engine, have seen a spike in traffic. So, Snowden is correct, some people do change their behavior. But, what is the actual impact of this behavior change? We still get to vote (and so do the British). There is certainly no end to criticisms of President Obama or anyone else in our government. Even if we watch our words, I haven’t noticed a difference in our democracy, for better or worse. As to the government abuse of records, retroactively: yes, that’s a serious concern, which President Obama acknowledged in his last speech. Historically, our government likes to maintain hit lists and rogue agents like to abuse their powers for personal gain. It’s probably true that no system will ever be . Here the impacts are much more tangible. In the past, whistleblowers have had a major impact on the course of US history. Daniel Ellsberg’s release of the hastened the military withdrawal from Vietnam and saved many (many) lives. If we’re comparing body counts, it is as likely that the government could shut up a whistleblower who would otherwise stop a corrupt government initiative, as it is the number of those who could be the victims of terrorism. Right now, The NSA debate has been maddeningly theoretical. So, here’s where I think everyone can agree with Snowden and why he is, in fact, a national hero. Americans cannot make a democratically informed decision without more information on the effectiveness of mass spying. As Snowden concludes, “it should be the result of public decision rather than closed conference.” , the less they are convinced the NSA’s programs have been worthwhile. Large organizations, especially hierarchical ones like the federal government, as disturbingly susceptible to “ “, where dissenters are actively shunned and groups converge on an idea that often ends up being stupid ( ). The intelligence community needs a lot more critics, especially ones who are specifically tasked with protecting civil liberties. , under any reasonable scenario of broader oversight, bulk collection of data, as we know it, will change. Since authorities will have to convince a lot more skeptics, the burden of proof will fall more on the NSA, and ultimately limit their reach. If that happens, we can thank one person and one alone: Edward Snowden. Read Snowden’s response in full, below and the rest of his live Q&A . “The worst and happening-right-now harm of bulk collection — which again, is a euphemism for mass surveillance — is two-fold. The first is the chilling effect, which is well-understood. Study after study has show that human behavior changes when we know we’re being watched. Under observation, we act less free, which means we effectively *are* less free. The second, less understood but far more sinister effect of these classified programs, is that they effectively create “permanent records” of our daily activities, even in the absence of any wrongdoing on our part. This enables a capability called “retroactive investigation,” where once you come to the government’s attention, they’ve got a very complete record of your daily activity going back, under current law, often as far as five years. You might not remember where you went to dinner on June 12th 2009, but the government does.
The power these records represent can’t be overstated. In fact, researchers have referred to this sort of data gathering as resulting in “databases of ruin,” where harmful and embarrassing details exist about even the most innocent individuals. The fact that these records are gathered without the government having any reasonable suspicion or probable cause justifying the seizure of data is so divorced from the domain of reason as to be incapable of ever being made lawful at all, and this view was endorsed as recently as today by the federal government’s Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight board. Fundamentally, a society in which the pervasive monitoring of the sum of civil activity becomes routine is turning from the traditions of liberty toward what is an inherently illiberal infrastructure of preemptive investigation, a sort of quantified state where the least of actions are measured for propriety. I don’t seek to pass judgment in favor or against such a state in the short time I have here, only to declare that it is not the one we inherited, and should we as a society embrace it, it should be the result of public decision rather than closed conference.” |
Facebook Hilariously Debunks Princeton Study Saying It Will Lose 80% Of Users | Josh Constine | 2,014 | 1 | 23 | Last week Princeton researchers released a widely covered saying Facebook would lose 80% of its users by 2015-2017. But now have turned the study’s silly “correlation equals causation” methodology of tracking Google search volume against it to show Princeton would lose all of its students by 2021. A Facebook spokesperson says “the report that Princeton put out is utter nonsense.” Indeed, it’s flawed throughout. First, it makes a strained epidemiological analogy comparing Facebook to a “disease” that users eventually “recover” from. Facebook may be a massive drain on our attention that some people get sick of, but that doesn’t mean it actually operates like a virus. The researchers then use Myspace as an example of how users recover from a social network and abandon it as if it happened naturally. They make no mention of how Myspace was in fact killed Facebook. But the critical error in the non-peer-reviewed study is stating that since the volume of searches for “Facebook” began declining in 2012, it must mean there’s an ongoing decline in Facebook usage. Yeah, no. Back in Facebook’s web heyday around 2007, many people did surf to the social network by searching for “Facebook” or “Facebook login.” But then this thing called mobile came along and people started getting to Facebook by opening an app, not searching for a website. So searches for “Facebook” declining doesn’t prove much considering over half of Facebook’s traffic now comes from mobile. Since 2012 Facebook has kept growing to its current 1.19 billion users, and it has never had an overall decline in user count. This isn’t to say Facebook doesn’t have some big, big problems on the horizon. It’s certainly anymore, . It’s admitted a slight in the U.S. It’s seeing increasing competition from mobile-first social apps like and . It will eventually need to weather the medium shift to wearables. Many of its early . Hackers are shaking faith in sharing private information. And mobile phones, where you own your social graph in the form of your friends’ phone numbers, make it easier for people to switch to another social network. Any combination of these could prevent Facebook from growing and cause it to eventually shrink. It’s quite likely that smartphone-carrying Westerners may divide their attention among more apps not owned by Facebook over the next few years. But completely losing 952 million monthly users by 2017 would require cataclysmic disaster. And even if that happens, it’s as likely to be because fewer people search for “Facebook” or that it resembles a “disease” as the Earth running out of air by 2060 — which is exactly what Facebook’s tongue-in-cheek data scientists prove will happen using Princeton’s methodology. As one of our , “maybe Princeton should worry less about who’s googling Facebook and more about who’s googling “ Read the full below (published with permission) from Facebook’s Mike Develin, Lada Adamic, and Sean Taylor. It’s chock full of lols. —- by Mike Develin, Facebook Data Scientist Like many of you, we were intrigued by predicting the imminent demise of Facebook. Of particular interest was the innovative use of Google search data to predict engagement trends, instead of studying the . Using the same robust methodology featured in the paper, we attempted to find out more about this “Princeton University” – and you won’t believe what we found! In keeping with the scientific principle “correlation equals causation,” our research unequivocally demonstrated that Princeton may be in danger of disappearing entirely. Looking at page likes on Facebook, we find the following alarming trend: Now, Facebook isn’t the only repository of human knowledge out there. A search of Google Scholar revealing a plethora of scholarly articles of great scholarliness turned up the following results, showing the percentage of articles matching the query “Princeton” by year: The trend is similarly alarming: since 2009, the percentage of “Princeton” papers in journals has dropped dramatically. Of course, Princeton University is primarily an institution of higher learning – so as long as it has students, it’ll be fine. Unfortunately, in investigating this, we found a strong correlation between the undergraduate enrollment of an institution and its Google Trends index: Sadly, this spells bad news for this Princeton entity, whose Google Trends search scores have been declining for the last several years: This trend suggests that Princeton will have only half its current enrollment by 2018, and by 2021 it will have no students at all, agreeing with the previous graph of scholarly scholarliness. Based on our robust scientific analysis, future generations will only be able to imagine this now-rubble institution that once walked this earth. While we are concerned for Princeton University, we are even more concerned about the fate of the planet — Google Trends for “air” have also been declining steadily, and our projections show that by the year 2060 there will be no air left: As previous researchers [J. Sparks, 2008] have expressed in the past, this will have grievous consequences for the fate of all humanity, not just our academic colleagues in New Jersey. Although this research has not yet been peer-reviewed, every Like for this post counts as a peer review. Start reviewing! P.S. We don’t really think Princeton or the world’s air supply is going anywhere soon. We love Princeton (and air). As data scientists, we wanted to give a fun reminder that not all research is created equal – and some methods of analysis lead to pretty crazy conclusions. —- |
Google Awarded Patent For Free Rides To Advertisers’ Locations | Frederic Lardinois | 2,014 | 1 | 23 | Google may soon offer a new service that combines its advertising business with its knowledge about local transport options, taxis and – in the long run – autonomous cars. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office last week granted Google for arranging free (or highly discounted) transportation to an advertiser’s business location. Here’s how it works. Say a Vegas casino really wants your business. Not only could it offer you some free coins, but if it deems the cost worthwhile (using Google’s automated algorithms, of course), it could just offer you a free taxi ride or send an autonomous car to pick you up. Google’s now-patented algorithms would take into account things like a user’s current location, the route and potential forms of transportation (train, personal car, taxi, rental car, or shared vehicle) to an advertiser’s business, as well as the user’s daily agenda and ” the price competing advertisers are willing to pay for the customer to be delivered to alternate locations.” As Google notes, the most difficult part about getting a sale for a brick-and-mortar business can often be getting people to your location. Google says its invention would make getting a potential customer into a business easier for stores that otherwise would have to invest in more expensive locations close to high-traffic areas. In at least one of Google’s examples, this involved using an autonomous car, though low-tech options like giving people coupons for public transport are also part of the patent. Google would use a customer’s preferences, as well as the price an advertiser would be willing to pay, to determine the best offer to a user. Advertisers, of course, could use a number of factors to determine who they want to target. A theme park, the patent notes, could choose to just advertise to “users indicating that they are accompanied by one or more children in order to increase revenue.” Just like Google’s other advertising options, the patent envisions a bidding system where different advertisers get to compete for customers. Those bids, Google says, could be based on a customer’s buying history and other factors. “For example,” the patent’s authors write, “advertisers may bid more to have customers which consistently use the transportation service to make purchases as compared to those who appear to travel without actually having made any purchases.” Users may also have to identify themselves when their car arrives, and advertisers may also bid on having a car pick up customers to take them back to their homes or original pick-up locations. The patent was filed in 2011 and the inventors ( , , , and ) are also responsible for many of Google’s driverless car patents. (via: ) |
TC Cribs: Practice Fusion, Where Keeping Fit And Healthy Is Part Of The Job | Colleen Taylor | 2,014 | 1 | 23 | Welcome back to a brand new episode of , the show that takes you inside the doors of the tech industry’s hottest companies to get a look at what the workaday life there is like. This time we headed over to the Union Square neighborhood of San Francisco to the headquarters of , the web-based electronic medical records company. Practice Fusion is based in a beautiful art deco style building that used to house back in the mid 20th century, so there are a lot of nice older architectural elements mixing in with the more modern tech vibe of the company. It also turns out that Practice Fusion isn’t just concerned with the health of the people whose medical records it helps organize and protect — the company also wants to help its staffers be in the best shape they can be. So Practice Fusion gives each of its employees their own FitBit, and provides some pretty solid incentives to whoever racks up the most activity each month. At the start of my visit, Practice Fusion’s co-founder Matthew Douglass gave me a FitBit to wear for the Cribs tour, so I did my best to clock as many steps as possible (taking the stairs up and down the several floors that the company is spread out over certainly helped.) Check out the video above to see how many calories I burned while exploring Practice Fusion’s fun and very dog-friendly digs. |
Qualcomm Buys Massive Palm, iPaq And Bitfone Patent Portfolio From HP | Matt Burns | 2,014 | 1 | 23 | Is Qualcomm preparing for the revival of the personal digital assistant? The San Diego-based Qualcomm just announced that it has acquired 1,400 patents from HP covering Palm, iPaq and Bitfone patents and pending patents. It’s unclear how many are from each portfolio, but Qualcomm just made a big leap in owning a chunk of patents covering the fundamentals of mobile operating system techniques. The price of the sale was not released. When , the move was widely speculated as a patent grab. HP wanted to bulk up on key patents as the computing world was moving increasingly fast towards mobile devices. Qualcomm is seemingly following the same strategy. Why would Qualcomm want such a massive cache of patents? Beyond the legacy of this portfolio and the importance of any individual patents, it’s all about the numbers. When you’re as large as Qualcomm, your patent armory is like a defense mechanism, not unlike the quills of a porcupine. The more you have, the less likely someone is to cry foul if you’re trying to tip-toe around a patent of theirs — because when you’ve got a monstrous portfolio, chances are strong they’re doing something that violates one of yours. It’s awful, but it’s all part of the game today. HP went on a tear during the last decade, acquire competitors and smaller companies. On the surface, this portfolio is part of that legacy. Compaq released the first iPaq in 2000 and the company was later purchased by HP in 2002. HP then acquired Bitfone in 2006 and Palm in 2010. Don’t expect Qualcomm to revive the TouchPad, though. in February 2013. |
One Year In, Vine’s Battle Has Just Begun | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 1 | 23 | . Celebrating in our own way, we asked Vine’s GM and co-founder about the last year of Vine, and what to expect in the future. He said one thing that really surprised him about Vine was how people collaborated within the app, and how interested people were to “hardware hack” with camera accessories. “One thing that I find particularly interesting, and unique to Vine, is the elaborate collaborations and cameos that continue to spring up on the service,” said Kroll. “Also, early on, we saw people pushing the boundaries of Vine through hardware hacks, like adding a fisheye lens to their phone’s camera or using iPhone tripods for stabilization.” That said, Vine has expedited the growth process with the help of Twitter’s built-in platform, and is now a mature social network. That brings the company to a new phase that isn’t just concerned with growth, but perhaps monetization. When asked what year two holds for Vine, Kroll was all about discovery. “This year, we’re really focused on making it easier to discover those videos and find new accounts,” said Kroll. The six-second video sharing app has had one heck of a year under Twitter’s watchful eye, so we thought it was interesting to take a look back at some of the service’s ups and downs. As you may very well remember, Vine was acquired by Twitter before it ever even launched. When , it only took a day to swing to the But with any instantly popular social media service, Vine grew less than a week after launch. In fact, it got so out of control that a hard-core porn video was , Vine’s main discovery feed for popular videos. The company immediately apologized and explained that was the cause of the accident. As punishment, Apple . To make matters worse, Vine also . But by day seven, Vine had .
Following a whirlwind first week, Vine to keep things kosher, and by March, Vine’s was apparent. So Vine partnered with to launch its own 6-second films competition. Just after the two-month mark, Vine , as well as more integrated sharing on Facebook and Twitter, and by early April, Vine hit . This was all less than six months after being acquired by Twitter, mind you, and less than three months after launching.
On April 30, Vine released its second major update, adding , just as I had . By then, brands, , were anxious to leverage the network. Once summer rolled around, Vine had picked up steam. The team announced , along with the launch of the Android app. It only took for the app to surpass Instagram on Google Play’s social charts. But Instagram . Facebook’s photo-sharing phenom launched , and many thought it would be the end of Vine. But
In fact, Vine had gotten so popular by the summer that photographers had found a way . In July, Vine launched , added helpful features for hard-core viners and stop-animation enthusiasts, and added channels to help with discovery. By summer’s end, Vine had .
Dealing with the pushback of Instagram video, and learning from Instagram’s successes and failures, Vine launched , conceding a bit to Instagram Video’s rules. And just in time for Thanksgiving, Vine launched on Windows Phone. The team spent the rest of the winter focused on growth, launching the app in just after the new year. It was a lively first year, but what lies ahead? Instagram continues to grow, and continues to pose a competitive threat against Twitter’s video service. And to make matters worse, Snapchat surely grabs a chunk of the video pie. Personally, snapvids are some of my favorite because they are so real and uninhibited and the closest to living an experience IRL. And then of course there are existing competitors like Viddy and SocialCam and Cinemagram lagging far behind, alongside a new crop of video sharing startups trying to add music tracks to videos. It’s getting crowded. And it only makes sense. Video is the new frontier. Remember when YouTube came to the internet? And watching video, posting video, sharing video on the internet actually became a relevant thing? We’re on the precipice of a new period in mobile multimedia. The same way Instagram and Facebook and Twitter have asked us to take and upload more photos than we ever have before, apps like Vine and perhaps Instagram and Google and many, many others are heading off to war. The war for our mobile video.
Video has already infiltrated verticals like , , and . And there are even hardware developers looking to leverage our growing addiction to video via mobile. The space is up for grabs. And while Vine has a solid position now under the care of Twitter, the space will only continue to grow more crowded. Instagram Video is different from Vine, in a lot of ways. Instagram caters to a more sporadic, casual video experience than Vine’s more hardcore base of creators. Still, the media weapons of Twitter and Facebook will obviously be battling over user mindshare and splitting engagement. Snapchat is also quite different, with far fewer tools to make professional-looking videos but an added benefit of privacy and ephemerality. Again, Snapchat will continue to grow and steal video-hungry eyes. That could split again if a major player lands a smash-hit in video. Like, oh I don’t know, Google with YouTube. Imagine if Google+ started out as a way to easily shoot and share your own feed of videos on YouTube mobile. Perhaps people would actually be hanging out there. Moving forward, Google is certainly working on personalizing and perfecting YouTube’s channels. But all that said, the future also holds the promise of even more mobile video players, both as consumers and creators. In 2014, Vine could benefit from deeper integration with Twitter. Twitter could add Vine as an option in the media creation section of a draft, where you can take or add photos. An app within an app-type thing. Vine videos could also be formatted differently within the Twitter feed on mobile, to take up more of the screen and grab more attention.
And alongside integration with the growing Twitter network, Vine would also cultivate a strong user base through excellent discovery tools, something they’ve been working on for a while. As social networks like Instagram and Vine mature, they become competitive landscapes for social media celebrities and brands. Getting on the popular page can make or break a user, but at a certain point it’s nearly impossible to get enough momentum to beat a user with a huge following. If Vine can continue to offer new and up-and-coming users to “make it” on the site and grow the following, it will create even more loyal users in the long term. Luckily, Kroll confirmed that this is a focus going into the next year. Right now, Vine appears to have a bit of critical momentum in the creator space. Its limited scope and creative-friendly toolset have made it a place where interesting stuff gets made and posted. Whether that’s enough to fend off old rivals and new entrants remains to be determined, but it should be an interesting year for video services either way.
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Biz Stone’s Jelly Raises Series B Led By Greylock, And Josh Elman Joins The Board | Matthew Panzarino | 2,014 | 1 | 23 | Twitter co-founder Biz Stone has led by Greylock Partners, with Spark Capital participating. The raise comes just under a year after it raised a Series A round from Spark, Jack Dorsey and Greylock, via its Discovery Fund. The app — essentially a human-powered discovery and search parsing engine driven by images — . “Jelly is a small team with modest capital requirements and we intend to keep things that way while growing a global service that changes how we find answers,” said Stone today. “This partnership with Greylock means more time to focus on improving Jelly along with some talented and helpful folks on our Board of Directors.” There’s no word about what the numbers involved were here, but the investment comes on the heels of rumors that , from Stone’s Twitter co-founder Ev Williams. There were no numbers announced at the but we’ve heard a few million. TechCrunch spoke to Greylock Partner Josh Elman, who will join Jelly’s board with this round as well. Elman was previously a product manager at Twitter where he worked with Stone. Elman shared an anecdote with us about his early experiences testing the app. “As I played with the product during the early days, I had a few experiences that had me thankful I had Jelly. Someone on Jelly helped me realize I had a leak in my shower based on a spot on my siding 20 feet below. I was able to help others with planning trips and shopping for the perfect new monitor,” he . “My favorite was when my daughter asked me repeatedly to find an Angry Birds level with “a ding dong and a box”. Several hours later, after much searching and whining, the perfect answer came in on Jelly that helped me be her hero…” Other investors in Jelly include (yes), and , , director and entrepreneur . Spark General Partner is already serving on Jelly’s board. |
Microsoft Rocks Expectations With FQ2 Revenue Of $24.52B, EPS Of $0.78, Surface Top Line Of $893M | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 1 | 23 | Today after the bell Microsoft reported its for the calendar fourth quarter period, including revenue of $24.52 billion and earnings per share of $0.78. The company also reported net income of $6.56 billion on operating income of $7.97 billion. Today’s earnings follow a strong fiscal first quarter for the company. Microsoft reported Surface revenue of $893 million. In the final calendar period of 2013, the company introduced new Surface models, and saw shortages of the product. In the preceding quarter Microsoft had Surface top line of $400 million. So, the company more than doubled its Surface revenue in the quarter, which I think will more than meet expectations. In related news, Nokia this morning reported a disappointing quarter-over-quarter decline in sales of Lumia Windows Phone handset, clouding Microsoft’s larger hardware vision. Still, the company claimed 7.4 million Xboxes sold to “the retail channel.” That combined with the Surface number means that Microsoft is performing well on two of its three main hardware efforts. Critically, Windows OEM revenue for the period only declined 3 percent, a figure that was cushioned by 12 percent more OEM revenue to commercial customers. So, large companies offset weak consumer demand, mostly. Revenue at the company’s Devices and Consumer group grew 13 percent to $11.91 billion. The company’s Commercial group saw its revenue expand 10 percent to $12.67 billion. In total, and we’ll hear more on the call, Microsoft had a strong quarter. As the company looks to crown a new CEO to continue its new business model, the firm can for now be somewhat content that its current operations are in good health. I’ll be digging into the Surface numbers shortly. |
Apple Updates iWork Across Platforms, Brings Password-Protected Sharing To The Web And Mobile | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 1 | 23 | Apple released a number of updates to , across all platforms, including OS X, iOS and iCloud on the web. Improvements include the addition of customizable alignment guides and a vertical ruler on the Mac, a built-in remote feature on iOS (which replaces the standalone app) and, perhaps most importantly in terms of helping those looking to use iWork for iCloud instead of competitors like Google and Microsoft for web-based document editing and collaboration, password-protected sharing of iWork documents, spreadsheets and presentations. The password protection for shared documents is a big step, especially among people who want to use iWork as a serious professional tool for sharing documents and presentations with clients with a degree of assurance that only the desired audience will be able to view them. You can now share the docs via iCloud with a user-assigned password using either Pages 2.1 on iOS, or using the iWork for iCloud beta. It’s also easier to review your shared content on the web, thanks to a new list view of all documents, spreadsheets and presentations that have been shared with you. Other updated features include sorting using multiple columns or rows in Numbers 3.1 on OS X, the addition of new transitions and display options to Keynote, landscape viewing and editing of spreadsheets in Numbers on IOS and keyboard shortcuts object manipulation in the iWork for iCloud beta. |
Four Indicted For Installing Undetectable Card Skimmers Inside Gas Pumps | John Biggs | 2,014 | 1 | 23 | The New York County District Attorney announced that the NYPD arrested four men on March 21, 2013 suspected of using concealed card skimming systems to grab card numbers and PINs from hundreds of victims at gas stations in Texas, Tennessee, and Georgia. The thieves targeted RaceTrac and RaceWay pumps with their tools and nabbed $2.1 million from stolen credit and debit cards. The system they used is similar to skimmers found in gas stations throughout California. Designed to connect in line between the card reader and the pump computer, the skimmer reads PIN input and the magnetic stripe and stores it locally. The thieves could then drive by and pull the data off wirelessly using Bluetooth-equipped phones. The four defendants – Garegin Spartalyan, 40, Aram Martirosian, 34, Hayk Dzhandzhapanyan, 40, and Davit Kudugulyan, 42 – are charged with 426 counts of money laundering, criminal possession of stolen property, and grand larceny. Additional defendants were charged with counts of Money Laundering in the Second Degree or Money Laundering in the Third Degree. “In this case, the defendants are charged with stealing personal identifying information from victims in southern states, used forged bank cards on the East Coast, and withdrew stolen proceeds on the West Coast,” said District Attorney Cyrus Vance. “My Office’s Cybercrime and Identity Theft Bureau also operates across borders, and will continue to track and prosecute identity thieves here in Manhattan and around the world.” has further detail on the scam which involves sticking the devices into gas pumps using a universal key and simply driving by later to gather the numbers. Crooks can then clone the cards they steal and use them to withdraw cash at ATMs. Writes one officer involved in stopping the scam in California: The moral of the story? In short, don’t use your PIN number at a gas pump. Because these tools are so well-hidden there is no way to simply push or tug on the reader to test for tampering (I actually pull card readers at every ATM I use to see if they are affixed poorly or have been tampered with.) Having a credit card number stolen is far preferable to having your bank account cleared out via your PIN.
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How Much Google And Other Tech Companies Spent On D.C. Lobbyists In One Chart | Gregory Ferenstein | 2,014 | 1 | 23 | Tech companies shelled out over $61 million to influence America’s political leaders in 2013, with Google leading the pack at a handsome $14 million. From high-skilled immigration reform to regulation, tech companies have become increasingly forced to preempt limitations imposed by policymakers. The graph below is based on from the House Clerks disclosure database. In some cases, lobbying is a much cheaper and more successful investment than dealing with fines and laws after the fact. Google avoided a massive antitrust fine from the Federal Trade Commission by . In other cases, Google money could have been more productively spent on kale chips for their well-fed employees. Despite years of multi-million dollar, star-studded campaigns, the entire tech sector has yet . So far, the money has been quite good at protecting individual companies on non-salient issues. But, it’s yet to be seen whether the tech sector can influence a national issue, in the same way the National Rifle Association staves off gun control. , the NRA and its affiliates spent less than $3 million, so money alone isn’t the deciding factor in getting one’s way. As 2014 ramps up, expect intensified lobbying over net neutrality, surveillance reform, and immigration. |
Apple Said To Be Working On Apple TV Hardware Update, Native Game Support | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 1 | 23 | Apple is rumored to be working on an Apple TV successor, planned for release in the first half of this year according to . The update would be a set-top box just like its existing model, but with improvements to the new OS and additional content types, the report claims. A separate report out today from says that Apple will introduce native gaming support to the Apple TV, along with direct support for game controllers, which currently only work via connected iOS devices. The Apple TV is already a gaming box in that it supports AirPlay streaming of game content from iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad. Developers can build experiences that employ the Apple TV in specific ways, too, so that they can provide multi-screen gaming experience to users, as is the case with the . And new controllers that are supported under Apple’s MFI program and the new Bluetooth game controller API provided with iOS 7 (like the new which goes on sale today) will work with existing Apple TV devices, likewise through the host iOS device. iLounge claims knowledge of an update that would add game controller support as well as direct game installation on the Apple TV themselves. 9to5Mac, however, suggests only that Apple is building new hardware to replace the current Apple TV, and suggests that a game or app store is a strong possibility for inclusion. 9to5Mac’s own-sourced rumor reporting has a very high rate of accuracy, for what it’s worth. Apple’s existing method for getting games on the Apple TV, i.e. using connected devices and iOS software combined with AirPlay, has a number of advantages for the company in terms of promoting platform buy-in and halo purchases, and with the iOS 7 Bluetooth controller support, the combination of the two effectively becomes a home microconsole, so it’s unclear how much the company would have to gain by building support for Bluetooth HID gaming hardware or game software directly into the Apple TV. A hardware refresh that updates things like streaming performance or other core parts of the Apple TV experience makes more sense in the context of these reports. The current Apple TV last received a significant update in March, 2012, so it’s due for a refresh. Rumors of a dedicated Apple television haven’t borne fruit, and don’t look likely to do so anytime soon, but a refresh of the set-top box as an early 2014 launch makes sense in the overall picture of Apple’s hardware update cycle as a way to keep things fresh, since the company tends to favor fall for major announcements on the iPhone/iPad side of things these days. When contacted by TechCrunch, Apple declined to comment on these reports. |
Opera’s Former CEO Launches Vivaldi, A New Community Site And Email Service | Frederic Lardinois | 2,014 | 1 | 23 | After Jon von Tetzchner left Opera in 2011, things went quiet around the company’s former CEO and Opera itself quickly went into a different direction under its new leadership. As part of that change, the company decided to its community by March 1, 2014. My Opera launched in 2001 as a support forum and a few years later, it morphed into a very active community site, with built-in blogs, photo sharing and other services that were often also integrated in the browser. While it’s mostly been under the radar of the tech press, the service still has close to 10 million users who will now be looking for a new place to call their online home. To give the old My Opera a refuge after the service shuts down, von Tetzchner gathered about 20 former Opera employees to develop a replacement at . The name already hints at its relationship to Opera. As von Tetzchner told me, most meeting rooms and many other things at Opera were always named after composers, so Vivaldi was a logical (and available) choice. “When Opera decided to close the community site,” he told me, “that gave us a very good reason to build a new community site.” Right now, the service is mostly geared to those former My Opera users, with forums, the ability to write blog posts and an email service. It doesn’t currently have all of My Opera’s photo-sharing features and layout tools for the built-in blogs, but then, the team only had a few weeks to build the current iteration of the site. The self-funded service is currently available for free, and as von Tetzchner stressed, he does not want to monetize it through advertising. “We will not be going into the data and using that to provide advertising,” he told me. Instead, he believes the team can find other ways to monetize the service in the long run. The team plans to listen to its users when it comes to developing new features. Tomita Tatsuki, a former Opera employee who previously led Opera’s efforts in Japan and now works on Vivaldi, told me that this may often mean finding the right balance between privacy and functionality. While Vivaldi was designed as a replacement for the old My Opera community, though, von Tetzchner stressed that it is open to all. Given its heritage, the team believes, the service will mostly appeal to a more technical audience and currently, the most active forums are indeed about technology and, especially, browsers. The servers for the service are based in Iceland, which has very strong privacy laws. Another draw for von Tetzchner (who was born in Iceland but now lives just north of Boston) was the fact that the team can host its servers in green data centers that run on renewable energy and barely need air conditioning thanks to Iceland’s climate. Jon von Tetzchner As for Opera, von Tetzchner told me that the company is “moving in a very different direction than what I would’ve liked to see.” A lot of the company’s focus has been on areas that didn’t directly involve the browser and instead on advertising services and acquiring companies like Skyfire. Because of this, he believes, “the browser part has not been getting the same attention as before” and there has been “much less focus on innovation.” He is also not a fan of Opera’s switch from its own Presto engine to Blink, Google’s open-source browser-rendering engine. “We had worked so hard on building this great kernel, but for the last four years, the focus on Presto was reduced. There was not enough investment and then they just decided to throw it away.” Presto, he said, “was great and flexible and easy to maintain,” but all that investment just “went down the drain.” Von Tetzchner had no comment when I asked him if Vivaldi would ever consider building a browser. |
Watch Out Tumblr, Pinterest Now Supports GIFs | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 1 | 23 | Earlier this week, some Pinterest users noticed that the company on its site – the popular, moving images that, until recently, defaulted to static photos when pinned. Today, Pinterest that it’s rolling out support for GIFs to all pinners on the web, with mobile support expected “soon.” According to the company, around 1 million users see a GIF on Pinterest every day, and there are already 10 million GIF images across the site. These pins will retroactively become animated GIFs, it seems. Going forward, when you pin a GIF to Pinterest, a “play” and “pause” button will appear in the lower left-hand corner of the pin itself, Pinterest explains. That mean you’re in charge of determining whether your pin will be animated or not when you post – instead, the play button is visible on the GIFs found in Pinterest’s main feed, category feeds, and search results pages. In other words, Pinterest is keeping the look-and-feel of its site the same as before (meaning, static images), but now you at least have the option of clicking play to see the GIF right on Pinterest, instead of clicking through to the site where it’s hosted. GIFs have been popular on the web for some time, but until now, Tumblr has been the social service known for GIF sharing. With Pinterest’s support, that could change. (Especially with these days.) Meanwhile, Facebook has rolled out , which some suspect may be a precursor to animated GIF support. But while the social network could technically enable GIFs at any time, it may not have wanted to dilute the experience with the busy, and sometimes bothersome, images. Pinterest, however, seems to have found a nice middle ground. |
Twitter Launches Card Analytics To Let Publishers Monitor Impressions, Clicks And More | Josh Constine | 2,014 | 1 | 23 | In a move that could give brands and publishers more insight into what to tweet, today Twitter is rolling out . The dashboard shows impressions, URL clicks, and app installs of a publisher’s tweets and mentions by other users, as well as easy ways to measure favorites, retweets, and follows. If Twitter can teach publishers how to create better content, the service as a whole will become more informative, engaging, and monetizable. Twitter has provided a for all users since June, though many people don’t know it exists. But and will gain access to the new in-depth analytics dashboard over the next few days, and can check out details on how it works on the documentation page. You can check out this video which explains its in more depth than Twitter’s blog post: [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtJg3fy_mJU] Instead of only showing insights on a publisher’s own tweets, the analytics measure the impact of all tweets to a publisher’s site. Twitter tested out the product with BuzzFeed, NBC News, Time Inc., ESPN, MLB, Flipboard, Etsy, Foursquare, and Path, but soon it will be available to anyone using Twitter cards. On the dashboard there are three tabs at the top for URL clicks, install attempts, and retweets. You can select a date range to see details for that time period. A high-level snapshot shows how many links to your site have been tweeted, how many impressions they’ve received, and how many clicks. A Card Types tool lets you compare your metrics against the average Twitter publisher, and provides tips that highlight what’s working best for your account. For example, you might be getting the best click-through rate and much higher rate than other accounts when using the Summary Card, so Twitter will suggest you use more of that one. The Influencers sub-tab helps you determine which other accounts are giving you the biggest boost. If there’s some web celeb who always tweets your links and they drive a ton of traffic, these analytics could inspire you to build an even better relationship them. Analytics For Twitter Cards also provides dedicated stats for your own tweets, and the ability to track how your follower account has increased over time. it even provides demographic breakdowns of location, gender, accounts your followers follow, and their top interests such as “mobile” or “open source”. Meanwhile, the Sources sub-tab shows what interface people tweet about you from, such as TweetDeck, Twitter’s website, or Twitter for iPhone. For now, there doesn’t appear to be a way for users to opt out of having this information shared with the accounts they mention. Two parts of Analytics For Twitter Cards that are sure to grow more important with time deal with app installs. The Devices sub-tab that shows what percentage of users who view your Cards have your app installed, while the App Installs tab shows how many clicks to the app stores your Cards generate. With millions of apps available for download, the app stores are becoming hopelessly cluttered. The only organic way to really gain big traction is to the the top charts, but to do that you need to hit a threshold of installs. Twitter’s App Install Cards, including paid ad App Install Cards, can give developers the boost they need to reach the charts. These new analytics could give them the confidence to spend more on Twitter’s App Install ads. The same paid app discovery business has been , and could be a highlight of future Twitter earnings calls. Until now, Twitter’s most important content creators have to some degree been tweeting in the dark. The analytics dashboard could let them hone their publishing strategy, whether they’re trying to gain widespread mindshare through retweets, drive specific business objectives through URL clicks, or grow their audience for the long-term. And that won’t just help publishers but Twitter itself. The better content it’s filled with, the more informative people will find the service, and the more often they’ll come back and see its ads. |
null | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 1 | 24 | null |
Google’s Search Filters Now Update Dynamically Based On Your Queries | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 1 | 23 | Nope, it’s not just you. Google recently changed the top menu on its search result pages so that it will dynamically adjust based on the topic of your current query, the company tells us. The “More” drop-down menu where options like “Blogs,” “Discussions,” “Patents,” and others were once found, has been replaced by a truncated list of search filters. Meanwhile, the bar at the top that lets you filter by “Web,” “News,” “Images,” “Books,” “Maps,” etc., will also now update based on your queries. This is a minor, but still notable, change impacting Google users who may have previously relied on that “More” menu to better filter their search results. “Patents,” for example, was especially useful for doing research, and it’s gone – even when your query contains the keyword “patent!” That “More” menu no longer has an extensive list of filters, only four. Depending on the search, this could include verticals like “Maps,” “Shopping,” “Books,” “Applications,” “Videos,” or “Flights,” for instance. Meanwhile, the main menu will always be led by “Web” in the first spot, but the other options will rearrange themselves as need be. Above is an example of the Google menu from earlier this year. Below, are some sample searches that show how the menu will now change based on your queries. “We’re always making changes to Search to help you find the most useful things more easily,” a Google spokesperson says, also confirming that the change is a very recent one. “For example, if you search for ‘English to Tagalog’ you’ll see ‘Apps’ that’ll help you with translation as well as ‘Books’ and ‘Shopping’ in case you’re looking to buy a printed or electronic dictionary,” she offers as an example. As for the missing options themselves? While they may no longer be available as a standalone search filter, we understand that content will now be included within the main search results. A recipe search engine is present as well, we’re reminded. For example, try a search for “chicken pot pie,” and then click on “Search Tools.” You’ll then be able to filter your searches by ingredients, cook time, calories, and more. Recipe search is not a new feature in Google – the company has been working on this service . But in light of it’s worth pointing out (eh, Google?). |
Adobe Partners With MakerBot and Shapeways To Bring 3D Printing Support To Photoshop, Adds Perspective Warp Tool & Resets 30-Day Trials | Frederic Lardinois | 2,014 | 1 | 15 | Adobe today the latest update to its subscription-based suite. While the company is updating a variety of its tools, the main announcements are the addition of a tool for making subtle changes to a photo’s perspective and 3D printing support to Photoshop. Other new features include a new pencil tool for , which makes drawing good-looking freehand lines and curves much easier. is getting better EPUB support and simplified (and smarter) hyperlinks. , Adobe’s font tool, is now bringing its fonts to the desktop, too, where users can easily access them from any desktop app and include them in PDF files and print projects. In addition, Adobe has made a variety of changes to make the design workflow easier across its different applications. As part of this update, Adobe is also resetting all of its 30-day trials for Creative Cloud. Anybody who ever signed up for a trial since its launch in May 2012 can now start another free 30-day trial. Given all the recent changes to Creative Cloud, Adobe decided that it was time to give people another chance to try the most recent versions of its applications before committing to a subscription. All of that is great, but the features people will likely talk about most are the changes to Photoshop and especially the addition of 3D printing support to what most people consider an application for photo manipulation. Adobe also sees Photoshop as an ideal intermediary step between designing 3D models and printing them. The tool can take virtually any 3D model in the standard OBJ, STL, 3DS, Collada and KMZ formats and prepare them for printing. This means adding the necessary scaffolding and rafts so the models can actually be printed, for example. It will also look for potential issues with the model, so users don’t waste a lot of time and material trying to print a model that doesn’t actually work. Thanks to a new partnership with , Photoshop can now natively print to that company’s 3D printers. And because of a similar partnership with , users can also easily print their designs on the various materials and color options available on that service. Photoshop will even estimate the price for these prints and provide users with previews based on the color and material that users choose. The whole process, Adobe believes, should be “single-click easy,” and it will add support for other services and printers over time. Besides the MakerBot, Adobe also supports other popular desktop 3D printers and users can always create their own device profiles for devices that are not in Adobe’s library yet. As part of this update, the company is also adding 3D model support to Behance. By default, Behance only displays JPEGs, but Adobe has partnered with to bring embeds for 3D models to Behance. Adobe is clearly very interested in 3D printing, and given its heritage as a company that caters to creative professionals, I wouldn’t be surprised if it continued to invest heavily in this area. Currently, Adobe doesn’t have any 3D modeling tools in its lineup, so maybe it will add this functionality to Photoshop or launch (or acquire) a 3D modeling tool. 3D printing isn’t the only cool addition to Photoshop. Adobe also announced the 3D Perspective Warp feature, which the company first showed during its in May 2013. As Adobe design evangelist Terry White demonstrated during a press preview earlier this week, this feature is especially useful when you are working with composite images that include some assets that were shot from slightly different angles. While Photoshop already has a number of warp tools in its arsenal, none of them work very well for changing the perspective of an image without also turning straight lines into curves. With this tool, you simply draw the general outline of the object that aligns with the perspective. Once Photoshop knows the current perspective, you switch from the markup mode to the warp mode and adjust the perspective. For the most part, Adobe is marketing this as a way to fix older images with lens distortions or for compositing images. I’m pretty sure some enterprising designers will also find ways to use this quite a bit more creatively, too. |
Keepod Unite Wants To Bring PCs to Nairobi’s Poorest Residents | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 1 | 15 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzlVA_EOPGM&w=640&h=360] Israeli startup and , an NGO, have united to launch an important project, , that seeks to bring personal computers to the in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital. The team and will use the funds to distribute 1,500 Keepod devices, a secure operating system that runs from a USB drive, and a total of 50 recycled PCs in Mathare, as well as open community computer hubs. About 500,000 Mathare inhabitants lack basic services such as drinkable water, plumbing, and waste disposal. Why is it important to get PCs to people who don’t even have enough clean water? As Keepod Unite’s campaign page points out, five billion people, or 70% of the world’s population still do not have access to personal computing. This has created a , or an economic gap between people who have access to the Internet and those who don’t. Keepod Mathare “Unless concerted efforts are taken to bridge the digital divide, many developing countries and communities will miss economic opportunities,” the campaign page says. “Keepod envisions a world where all people can use personal computing according to their needs and visions.” Being able to keep their OS on a thumb drive means that users can turn any shared computer into their personal computer, taking all their software and data with they shut it down and leave. The community hubs planned by Keepod Unite will be equipped with Keepod devices, public computers, and Internet access. Local staff will be hired to manage the hubs and support new projects. In addition to giving residents a place to use computers and learn about tech, the hubs will also be used as incubators for local startup initiatives, says Keepod Unite. Keepod Unite’s Indiegogo campaign launched yesterday and has until Feb. 14 to raise its $38,000 goal. Contributions , but for just seven dollars more, supporters get their own Keepod device (and of course, you can give more). |
VCs Investing To Heal U.S. Healthcare | Jonathan Shieber | 2,014 | 1 | 15 | The U.S. healthcare system , but increasingly early stage investors are spending money on new technology companies they believe can help provide a cure. Earlier this week, Greylock Partners, one of the investors behind Facebook and LinkedIn, and the Russian billionaire technology investor Yuri Milner alongside a group of co-investors to back First Opinion – a consumer facing service selling a way to text message doctors anytime of day or night. Greylock and Milner join a growing roster of technology investors focused on healthcare in recent years. The number of companies raising money from investors for the first or second time has skyrocketed since the passage of the , according to data from CrunchBase. In 2010, the year in which President Obama signed the ACA into law, there were only 17 seed- and Series A-stage healthcare-focused software and application development companies which had raised money from investors. By the end of last year, that number jumped to 89 companies tackling problems specifically related to the healthcare industry, according to CrunchBase metrics. Across all categories, investors spent over $1.9 billion in 195 deals with commitments over $2 million, from early stage investment firm Rock Health. Funding was up 39% from 2012 and 119% from 2011, the Rock Health report said.
And there’s plenty of room for the market to grow, according to Google Ventures’ general partner Dr. Krishna Yeshwant. “We’re still at the very beginning of what this is going to look like,” said Dr. Yeshwant. Google Ventures is addressing the nation’s healthcare dilemma with investments in companies like the physicians’ office and network , which raised a later stage $30 million last March. At the opposite end of the spectrum in December 2013 Google invested in the $3 million seed financing of , which sells a service enabling users to video chat with doctors. Unsurprisingly, the explosion in healthcare investments tracks directly back to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, investors said. “The incentives brought forward by the ACA shift what makes sense,” in healthcare, Dr. Yeshwant said. “At the highest level there’s now a forcing function to take advantage of the efficiency technology provides,” said Bill Ericson, a general partner with Mohr Davidow Ventures, who led the firm’s investment in , a service for consumers to message doctors with healthcare questions. Overwhelmingly, Silicon Valley is leading the charge in these innovations, according to CrunchBase.
This flood of capital has pushed some investors like to re-think their strategy, and de-emphasize healthcare software in search of other, larger opportunities. ““The reason we have somewhat shifted focus away from healthcare IT is because there is so much investment going into that space. So we think the problems there are being sufficiently addressed by the full market.” said Brian Singerman, a partner at Founders Fund. The firm’s most recent investment was in Oscar, a new, New York-based insurance company. Yes… an insurance company. |
Spotify Drops Free Web Listening Time Limit Everywhere – A Big Scalability Milestone | Josh Constine | 2,014 | 1 | 15 | Spotify’s advertising engine and paid customer conversion funnel are finally working well enough that all limits on free, ad-supported web listening in all countries. It’s an important milestone for the scalability and sustainability of Spotify’s business that contrasts with other streaming music services like and or shutting down. Previously, Spotify gave free web users unlimited listening for a six-month grace period, but then limited some international free web listeners to . Considering some people like to listen to albums or playlists for hours on end at work, the cap could come up pretty quickly. Now, there are no limits on ad-supported free web listening at all, anywhere. The move matches Spotify’s push to become more accessible across platforms. Last month it opened free ad-supported on-demand listening on tablets. It also launched a that previously cost $10 a month, which a week before the announcement. This free mobile version is limited to shuffling songs rather than allowing on-demand song choice. It’s positioned to beat Pandora Mobile, where if you choose an artist you only hear them 20% of the time but there’s . On Spotify’s free smartphone app, you can choose to hear one specific artist, just not the order of the songs. Today’s announcement also attacks Pandora, but on the web. There, Pandora dropped its listening cap way back in 2011 when it hit web advertising scalability. Now Spotify has acheived the same feat of sales efficiency as it reaches 26 million users and 6 million paying subscribers, so it’s dropped its web limit. Raising also gives it the runway to think about the long-term when its ads organization will keep getting more efficient and conversions to paid customers will generate recurring revenue. [Update 6:45pm: Spotify has always plenty of cash and lots of competition, but the recent $250 million funding and increasingly heated battle for our ears could also have contributed to it dropping the listening limit.] Update 8pm: Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has efficiently confirmed my thinking that Spotify’s business is getting more efficient yes! — Daniel Ek (@eldsjal) All these moves will give Spotify a boost as it faces its biggest challenge yet: gaining traction as mobile platform owners Google and Apple get serious about streaming music. Their control of iOS and Android give them big advantages on mobile, such as built-in install bases that dwarf Spotify’s independent service and threaten to choke it out. There’s also new entrants like that launches later this month, as well to compete with. To win, , with on-demand, radio, contextual, and playlist streaming available across all platforms. And that means dropping as many listening limits as it can. |
Microsoft’s Build Developer Conference Sells Out In A Day | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 1 | 15 | Today Microsoft announced that its taking place in San Francisco this April . Surprised parties: None. It’s becoming cliché to see large platform companies (Apple, Microsoft, Google) hold developer events in this city that quickly run out of seats. The question that now remains is whether Microsoft will, like last year, . The company is currently allowing interested parties to add their names to a waiting list. Given that, I doubt that the company will make any more tickets available to the general public. Don’t read too much into the sell out. Microsoft sold out Build last year as well, and the company has still struggled to attract developer attention at the pace that it wants, and needs. You could say the fact that Microsoft managed to again bust through its ticket stack at north of 2,000 a head a few years in a row indicates it retains a dedicated developer base, but we already knew that via the flow of new apps being built for Windows and Windows Phone. For Microsoft, Build should bring new firmware for both Windows and Windows Phone, and current rumor indicates that Windows 9 could make an appearance in one form or another. TechCrunch will, of course, be in attendance. |
Report: eBay To Launch “The Plaza,” A New Brand-Focused Online Mall For Retail Goods | Leena Rao | 2,014 | 1 | 15 | According to a new report from Macquarie Capital, marketplace giant eBay is set to launch a new vertical this spring called The Plaza on eBay that will focus on direct-to-consumer sales. As Macquarie analyst Ben Schachter notes in a report, details are sparse, but Plaza has been compared to Alibaba’s Tmall. One retailer with knowledge of eBay’s plans said that the site will allow brands to sell direct to consumers using eBay, but in a more controlled area than the traditional eBay marketplace. Basically, brands could use eBay to gain access to the company’s customers without weakening their brand by listing and selling alongside used and auctioned goods. What this could be is a complete redesign of eBay Stores, which is a centralized place for retailers like Toys R Us and others to list items on eBay. But currently the branding isn’t all that different on eBay Stores from the auction marketplace. With a different branding, eBay could attract larger retailers. Alibaba has been successful in accomplishing this with Tmall in China. The reported last week that the online mall currently has over 70,000 digital storefronts, and retailers like Apple, Nike and Gap all have online stores on Tmall. Whether eBay’s own “Tmall for the US” will be successful is another matter. eBay will have to convince brands like Apple or Nike that there is value in selling via eBay, as well as their own e-commerce sites. But in the company’s favor is the fact that the marketplace business has been growing, and the company is also seeing strong adoption of its mobile apps. Mobile as a platform for the mall could be a particularly interesting opportunity. We reached out to eBay, and the company provided us with this response: “eBay partners with brands, designers and retailers – and sellers of all sizes – to help them grow their business. As such, we are always exploring new, innovative ways to help them market directly to eBay’s global audience and connect them to the things they need and love. We don’t comment on industry rumors or speculation.” That’s not a denial, folks. |
Citing The Re-Org, Xbox Exec Exits Microsoft After Nearly A Decade | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 1 | 15 | In the wake of the , a longtime Xbox-group executive is leaving Microsoft, and confirmed by TechCrunch. , a now former corporate vice president at the company, worked at the firm for nearly 10 years. Westlake, in a statement provided to the Times, indicated that the restructuring of the company was the reason behind his departure. In that statement, he said that as “the reorganization has unfolded, it has become clear to me that the organization is moving in a direction that does not fit either my expertise or skill sets.” At Microsoft, the rank of corporate vice president is one echelon below that of executive vice president, the title of Microsoft’s divisional leaders. Terry Myerson, for example, Microsoft’s head of operating systems, is an executive vice president. Westlake’s prior career included an 18-year stint at Universal Television and a short interlude at Gemstar-TV Guide before he landed at Microsoft. As the Times notes, he was in charge of the group that licensed video content for Microsoft. Given that the Xbox team continues to source video content, recently built and released a console that has expanded television capabilities, and is working to create new exclusive content, it isn’t immediately clear why Westlake no longer fit into the larger Microsoft zeitgeist. At the same time, in every large shakeup of a company, people leave. I’ve reached out to Microsoft for comment and will update this post if I hear back. |
OUYA Founding Team Member And VP Of Product Development Departs | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 1 | 15 | One of OUYA’s founding members, Muffi Ghadiali, has left the company, TechCrunch has learned. Ghadiali was instrumental in helping launch the OUYA on Kickstarter and to the consumer market, and has previous experience working for Lab126 (Amazon’s hush-hush projects division, which birthed the Kindle), HP and Synaptics. A source familiar with Ghadiali’s work told us he was instrumental in the creation of OUYA as a viable consumer product, and one of the most experienced CE experts on the team. , including those involved in industrial and product design of the hardware; mechanical, electrical and RF engineering, and firmware development. In his past careers, he was responsible for products such as the HP TouchSmart and Media Center PC devices, which made him particularly well suited to his role at OUYA. At Amazon, he was a product manager for Kindle hardware. OUYA provided the following statement to TechCrunch regarding this change in staffing: We’ve made some recent changes including the departure of Muffi Ghadiali who was invaluable during the launch of OUYA. As is to be expected, OUYA is an ever-changing business, and as we continue to grow our needs shift accordingly. Another side of the story is the reportedly poor performance of the OUYA in the consumer market, however. Early developer sales numbers indicate that on the platform (though we haven’t seen updated figures in a while), and pre-holiday sales with (which were admittedly temporary) don’t bode well for buyer interest in hardware, either. A well-placed source tells TechCrunch that the decision to leave OUYA was Ghadiali’s own, not the company’s. OUYA definitely seems to be occupying rocky waters at the moment, but it also says it’s excited about the next phase of its “business and product development.” We’ll stay tuned to see what’s next, but it’s unfortunate to see key early talent making an exit. |
With A Fresh $9M, Contently Looks To Position Itself At The Front Of The New Content Marketing Movement | Rip Empson | 2,014 | 1 | 15 | When launched out of TechStars startup accelerator in 2011, content farms were quickly becoming the bane of content producers everywhere. Gumming up search engines with low-quality, SEO-optimized linkbait and shoddy content marketing models, these farms were in the process of jumping the shark. Today, thanks to continuing changes in publishing business models and digital advertising, content marketing and native advertising are the buzz du jour. Newsrooms are shrinking, and , freelance marketplaces grown rapidly. As these trends slowly re-shape the publishing industry, New York City-based Contently finds itself well-positioned to take advantage of the new era of brand publishing. Over the last two years, where brands and advertisers can go to connect with freelancers and journalists to commission work on their behalf. The idea is to allow brands and marketers to build content strategies optimized for a new generation of digital-savvy readers, doing so around content — whether it be a blog post, a white paper or a sponsored article — written by real, accredited journalists. In turn, Contently is looking to fight low-quality, hastily-produced linkbait by offering a marketplace for journalists and content producers that compensates them for their work at a much higher rate than will typically be found on the eLances and oDesks of the world. Whereas a writer may be paid $5 to $50 for a blog post listing on eLance, Contently co-founder and Chief Creative Officer Shane Snow says that writers can expect to be paid $275/blog on average on the platform, and can expect to find regular work in the $500 to $1,000 price range. To turn this model into a real business, rather than offering the traditional revenue share with writers in which the platform takes a cut of the price publishers set, Contently licenses the software behind its marketplace to those publishers — along with brands, marketers and agencies. In doing so, Contently’s customers get access to its network of freelancers and journalists, along with workflow and payment tools, and can hire any content producer of their choosing on a project-by-project basis.
These subscription fees for publishers allow them access to Contently’s talent and payment solutions, with pricing based on a sliding scale depending on how deep they want to go. This runs from basic access all the way up to plans that include project management software, which he describes as akin to “Salesforce for publishing,” and integrations with content management systems like WordPress and Tumblr. This costs anywhere from $3,000 to $25,000/month and up for larger companies looking for enterprise-grade content marketing support and on top of that, Contently takes a 15 percent “agent’s fee” from journalists when they’re hired for projects. This means that, if Contently introduces a writer to a client, Snow says, that the startup guarantees they will be paid immediately without the paperwork or net-60 day-style terms and ensure content producers are vetted and treat their writer well. Today, Contently has close to 30,000 journalists on its platform, about 5,000 of which are vetted as “experienced professionals” from major publications and are willing to freelance. The remainder, the CCO says, are on the site to take advantage of its free portfolio tools or are students working to get clips until they qualify for real work. The real goal, he continues, is to empower freelancers and independent journalists by removing the headache of managing all of the work that doesn’t have anything to do with the actual craft. Over the last 18 months as the platform has become more robust, Contently has taken this to range from helping journalists with sales and marketing their own personal brands, getting credit for their work and their name ranked on Google to receiving payments and helping them navigate freelance tax returns. By offering real, accredited journalists working at top publications who are willing to freelance and are well compensated for the work they produce, Contently has been able to attract a growing roster of big brands. The startup now has about 50 enterprise clients who are signed up via its 6 to 12 month contracts, which he boasts “almost always renew,” and clients include Coke, Pepsi, General Electric, Federated Media, American Express and others. Having raised $2 million early on and with its model producing 400 percent revenue growth in 2013 and an expected $20 million in revenue by this fall, Snow says that the company has been actively eschewing the fundraising process. But venture capitalists are excited by content marketing models, Snow says, and the money pouring into the space continues to increase: “For the last year, we’ve had investors cold calling us saying they’re actively looking to invest in content marketing.” While the company has held off on raising, Snow sees an arms race looming. “Market pressure has basically showed that either we need to try to build a huge company now or go home.” Of course, Contently is hardly the only beneficiary of the fevered interest in content marketing, and is itself the beneficiary of the growing popularity and success of sponsored content and stories on sites like Buzzfeed. Buzzfeed, which creates sponsored versions of its posts and listicles for advertisers and marketers, has said that it expects to see revenue increase to $120 million in 2014, . With all of these trends converging around it, Contently today announced that it has raised $9 million in Series B financing from investors that include Sigma Prime, Sigma West, Lightbank, Contour Ventures and David Lerner. The new funding brings its total raised to $11 million and will be put to work expanding its enterprise tools for advertisers and ensuring that journalists have the types of tools that can help them survive and even thrive during the ups-and-downs of the publishing industry’s ongoing evolution. For more, find Photo Credit: Alisa Richter and |
Spam-Fighting Startup Impermium Joins Google, Discontinues Third-Party Services | Kim-Mai Cutler | 2,014 | 1 | 15 | , a cybersecurity startup that was backed by top funds like Accel and Greylock, is joining Google. They had raised $9 million in funding from Highland Capital Partners, the Social+Capital Partnership, AOL Ventures, Charles River Ventures, Freestyle, Greylock and angels like Matt Ocko. We are trying to figure out whether this was an acquisition, an acqui-hire or whether Impermium’s employees are just joining Google. Google has not returned a request for comment, although vice president of Google+ Bradley Horowitz posted a status update earlier today that said, “Google’s spam and abuse teams are industry-leading and world-class. Impermium should fit right in.” The company had been building a risk-evaluation platform that would improve account management by identifying fraudulent registrations, compromised logins, and risky transactions. Impermium sent out a message to its customers saying that it will shut down offering services to third-party websites. But we hear that the team will still be working on the same core problems and technology over at Google. : When we founded Impermium three years ago, our mission was to help rid the web of spam, fraud, and abuse. As sites gain in popularity, criminals and miscreants are never far behind, and Impermium has worked hard to defend some of the largest and fastest-growing sites. By joining Google, our team will merge with some of the best abuse fighters in the world. With our combined talents we’ll be able to further our mission and help make the Internet a safer place. We’re excited about the possibilities. We’d like to extend a special thank you to all of our customers and partners. Your support and feedback were invaluable, and we’re glad to have been a part of your growth. We’d also like to thank our invaluable investors, advisors, and supporters, including Accel Partners, AOL Ventures, Charles River Ventures, Data Collective, Freestyle Capital, Greylock Partners, Highland Capital Partners, Morado Ventures, and the Social+Capital Partnership. |
Foundation: Nest’s Tony Fadell on the Power of Focus | Contributor | 2,014 | 1 | 15 | As part of our annual Google Ventures CEO Summit, Nest founder and CEO Tony Fadell and I filmed a live episode in November in front of a few hundred startup founders in the GV portfolio. Tony told stories about his entrepreneurial roots as a kid selling eggs door to door, his experiences at Apple, angel investing and what the future looks like for the connected home. Tony is a remarkable leader, and the news that is a testament that leadership, as well as to his excellent team focus his team. Tony’s advice on how to stay focused: I learned the power of ‘no.’ No is really important. Entrepreneurs are told to say ‘yes, yes, more, more.’ To help you focus, to help you really understand what you’re doing, you have to say no a lot. When you say yes to everything, you get distracted. When you say no, you have to get the one thing you’re doing really right. |
Revamped Polaroid Camera App Polamatic Makes You Nostalgic For Your Awful Instant Photos | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 1 | 15 | Hoping to capitalize on our collective nostalgia for the Polaroid brand, San Francisco-based indie app developer Dana Shakiba of , a self-confessed “Polaroid enthusiast,” set out to launch a mobile photo app, , that would reintroduce the idea of the classic white-bordered instant photo to a younger generation of smartphone users. Today, the company has rolled out the first update to its iOS app since 2012, which has now been completely rebuilt from scratch, adding new borders, filters, and text features. I know what you’re thinking: we already have Instagram, right? Sure. But that hasn’t stopped a bunch of other startups from launching photo-filtering apps of their own – some even building businesses around their creations like Aviary has done with its photo-filtering developer SDK. Polamatic at least has this element of fun to it – you’re kind of screwing up your pictures on purpose, and somehow this feels like an artistic endeavor. Shakiba says that getting Polaroid’s blessing to create this app was a difficult process back in the day. “I literally was rejected by the marketing and legal teams of Polaroid numerous times before being able to secure a meeting with the President of Polaroid, Scott Hardy. He loved our ideas and the app itself,” Shakiba tells us. Today, the company sells the app for $0.99, and as an authorized Polaroid licensee, has a revenue share agreement in place with the company on the sales of its products, which are developed in close partnership with Polaroid. The app was first released on iOS back in May 2012, where it hadn’t been updated since December that year. Now, that changes. With the largest amount of work went into creating the Polaroid filter presents. The app cleverly tries to mirror the experience of using a real Polaroid camera itself, which as you may recall (or so your parents have told you, kids!), was kind of unpredictable. You never quite knew how the image would develop. In the app, which comes with 36 filter presets that attempt to capture the soft glow of the Polaroid film, there are those that include random emulsion streaks and textures that simulate the impact of dirty rollers in an actual camera. In addition, the company gathered up a huge collection of Polaroid pictures and scanned in those with the most unusual borders to offer Polamatic users something beyond just the generic white frame found in competing apps. These give the Polaroid photos a sense of “realness” to them, with their textured, colored, smudged, wrinkled and bent frames. The app also lets you add multiple layers of text to your images using a number of editing tools and fonts. The final product can be posted to social networks – including Instagram – or saved to your Camera Roll in high-resolution (2282×2771 px). Polamatic arrived on Android this past summer with a release that was more like iOS’s version 3.0, Shakiba notes. He says the revamped 4.0 update will arrive on Android next month. In the meantime, iOS users can grab the new . Sadly, the new app is still missing a “shake to develop” option. |
Google Play Movies & TV Comes To iOS To Compete Head-To-Head Against iTunes Store | Romain Dillet | 2,014 | 1 | 15 | Google just released a new app in the iOS App Store, and it’s a significant one when it comes to the company’s content strategy — the awkwardly named is an iTunes Store competitor for movies and TV shows. You can watch your Google media content directly from your iPhone or iPad. But, just like the Kindle app, you won’t be able to buy or rent your content directly from the app — you’ll have to use the browser. With today’s release, Google is using a strategy that was very efficient in Amazon’s case with the Kindle — if you want to make people switch to your content ecosystem, release your app on every major platform. The company has an advantage over Apple. If you own an Android phone and an iPad, you can watch your Google Play movies on both devices thanks to the new app. The app is pretty straightforward. You can browse your content and watch a movie or a TV show directly on your iPhone or iPad. There is a Chromecast button as well to stream your video to your TV. Yet, Google is a bit behind in the content game. It doesn’t have the same thorough deals in place. For example, you can only buy or rent TV shows in the U.S., Japan and the U.K. So if Google Play Movies & TV is available in your country, it could be a nice alternative to the iTunes Store, Amazon Instant Video and other minor players. Apple still has two key advantages over Google on iOS. The iTunes app is already installed on your iOS device when you first launch it, and Apple rejects apps with an integrated content store. That’s why you can’t buy books from the Kindle app on iOS — it’s one of the iOS SDK rules. In other words, users will have to browse from Safari or another device. It’s not the best experience possible, but it works — Apple keeps the best user experience for its own store. |
Academic Research Platform Sciencescape Raises $2.5M, Partners With Educational Publisher Elsevier | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 1 | 15 | Canadian startup has just closed a $2.5 million round of funding, and is considering extending it into a $3 million round since it was oversubscribed, co-founder Sam Molyneux revealed on stage today at the Extreme Startups 4th cohort demo day in Toronto. Molyneux was giving an update on his company’s progress, which was a member of the last graduating class of the Canadian accelerator. The round isn’t the only progress the startup has made, as Molyneux also revealed that Sciencescape has now partnered with Elsevier, the global educational publishing giant that snapped up Like Mendeley, Sciencescape hopes to become a social connection point for academics, researchers and students to work together on real academic progress. Sciencescape’s platform employs natural language processing and sophisticated content identification algorithms to essentially become a series of curated feeds of papers and studies that can then be more easily perused and followed by academics actually doing the work. This helps make the huge mountain of academic research going through journals and other sources much more manageable, according to what founder Molyneux told me at Extreme’s demo day last year. The partnership with Elsevier provides access to 11 million full-text articles through Sciencescape directly, which is a great boon to anyone using its platform since they don’t require any subscription to any outside journals or databases to get at that content. And as Elsevier has proven hungry for this kind of acquisition target in the past, it’s worth keeping an eye on that to see if they might not want to swallow up even more of the burgeoning academic tech market. Research-oriented startups working in academic markets have become a hot investment target lately, with from Benchmark, Bill Gates and other investors midway through last year. Sciencescape raising this much this early as a Canadian startup is just further proof that investors are very excited about this area. |
COO Henrique De Castro Is Leaving Yahoo | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 1 | 15 | Yahoo’s Chief Operating Officer Henrique De Castro is departing the company, . His departure date is tomorrow, January 16. in 2012, a few months after Marissa Mayer took over as CEO. However, last fall suggested that De Castro was under increasing pressure from Mayer to deliver better ad numbers. The Adweek story and suggested that the relationship between the two executives had become strained and that De Castro was likely to depart soon. In , Yahoo managed to beat analyst estimates, but its revenue was essentially flat, with display ad revenue down. Here’s the brief statement about De Castro’s departure in the filing: Henrique de Castro, Chief Operating Officer of Yahoo! Inc. (the “Company”), will be leaving the Company effective January 16, 2014. Mr. de Castro will receive the severance benefits provided for in his Employment Offer Letter, dated October 15, 2012, Severance Agreement, dated February 28, 2013, and equity award agreements. As De Castro’s included a stock bonus of $20 million, as well as performance-based stock options and a base salary of $50,000 a month. |
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Even President Obama Thinks That Facebook Isn’t Cool Anymore | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 1 | 15 | Ask anyone under the age of 30 if they Facebook. Chances are, the answer will be no. The once dominant social network has most certainly fallen from its hyper-exclusive, hyper-popular beginnings to become the place where moms and uncles post their political opinions and baby pictures. (At least, I think. I haven’t been on Facebook in forever.) In fact, Facebook has lost so much of its cool factor that even President Obama knows it. As it turns out, the Atlantic’s associate editor covering tech Robinson Meyer happened to be , of all places, during a meeting the President was having to learn more about 18-34 year olds. The goal was to get more people in this demographic to sign up for coverage under the Affordable Care Act. For Meyer, the goal was to overhear the president say something relevant to his beat and — as it so happens — President Obama gave him a gem. “It seems like they don’t use Facebook anymore,” said President Obama. Meyer tries to get to the bottom of the President’s use of “they.” Perhaps it was the age group he was researching, between 18 and 34, or maybe it was the all-encompassing, third-person singular, gender-neutral pronoun, muses Meyer. But we know who “they” is. It’s the cool crowd of teenagers and twenty-somethings that make social services popular to begin with. Meyer’s eavesdropped interview also revealed that the president knows what Snapchat and Instagram are, though his interest and/or enthusiasm toward the up-and-coming social powerhouses is unclear. What is clear is that Facebook has lost its swagger. Since Facebook bought Onavo, which was one of very few services that could provide empirical data into this downward spiral, there is only one other service that can offer insight into the competitive landscape of Facebook and other social players. According to App Annie, Facebook was ranked in the 50’s in downloads on the U.S. iTunes store. Meanwhile, Snapchat was ranked in the teens and even single digits. In August, some sort of algorithm change suddenly bumped Facebook into the teens as well. (App Annie told TechCrunch that it had “observed changes in the iOS App Store rankings around August” but refused to clarify whether Apple was the sole source of this shift for Facebook.) Even at the current rank of 14th overall and 3rd in social, Facebook is still ranked lower than Snapchat (6th) and Instagram (11th). Instagram (arguably the coolest part of Facebook) is still ranked lower than Snapchat in Photo and Video categories. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily paint a picture of a Facebook in trouble. The company is home to over 1 billion users, with the third most popular website on the internet behind Google and YouTube. Plus, this data actually proves that Facebook and Facebook Messenger are often downloaded by people when they buy new phones, showing the apps are still necessities. But the cool kids are gone. Facebook is no longer where we flirt with college classmates and spend hours posting photos. That use-case became nearly impossible when Facebook stopped being exclusively for college students and opened up to everyone. Inevitably, younger cousins and aunts and uncles and parents got on the platform. It started feeling more like a family reunion photo site than a hot social network. And then, the generation that was champing at the bit to get on Facebook realized that their parents were champing at the bit, too. Instead of being a network full of 14- to 22-year olds, it became a network of 12- to 50-year olds. Nowadays to the cool young kids, it’s an address book, with an email function, and perhaps the option to stalk if the person of interest doesn’t have Instagram. It’s a skeleton for all the other social apps we use, so signing up is easier and finding friends isn’t a repetitive process each time you download a new app. Will Oremus . You can either have “everyone” or the cool kids, but you can’t have both. Facebook has chosen everyone, and it makes sense — their business model depends on ubiquity. If you have everyone’s social data, you can sell ads about anything and convert. And up until recently, Facebook’s been wildly successful with this. When Instagram posed a threat with 30 million super engaged and young users, Facebook instantly neutralized that threat with a cool $1 billion. After a shaky IPO, Facebook’s ad business is . But now up-and-comer Snapchat is posing a threat. Facebook first tried to fight it with a clone called Poke, which flopped, and then offered $3 billion to buy the app. Snapchat, unlike other social competitors, is not reliant on Facebook at all, instead opting to use the Address Book for friend finding. Meanwhile, we’re seeing Instagram users rain down hellfire on Instagram ads as the once hip and cool photo-sharing app gets swallowed up, now a cog in the Facebook corporate machine. With every day that passes, Facebook starts to look less and less like an Apple and more and more like a Dell. Luckily, there’s still no Apple on the horizon. While younger, hotter social networks spring up and solve problems, no one but Google has tried to make an all-encompassing social network to compete with Facebook. And we all know how that worked out. Zuck is aware of all this. He that Facebook is losing steam with teens, but that he’s more concerned with Facebook being useful than cool. And it still is useful. The company will continue to see downloads, as it’s now necessary to have Facebook if you want to use other social apps. Facebook will continue to make money on ads (now that it knows everything about us) and Messenger will remain a truly popular tool among text-obsessed teens. But things have changed. Obama even said so. The cool kids are officially on the hunt for something else, and it’s only a matter of time before another Evan Spiegel pops up, too stubborn to take cash from Zuck, but this time with an all-purpose social network. And being young and VC-funded, this social network won’t show ads for years. And, being different from the incumbent, it will become wildly attractive to teenagers and twenty-somethings. But that’s way in the future. Right? |
AOL Calls Patch Spin Out A “Pivot” | Ingrid Lunden | 2,014 | 1 | 15 | for AOL’s struggling hyperlocal effort , but a segue into a new life where AOL is no longer the sole owner. Today the company is spinning it off into a joint venture with technology holding company , with AOL retaining a minority stake. The news was sent out to AOL employees (TechCrunch is owned by AOL) in an internal memo from CEO Tim Armstrong, who described the move in classic startup terminology, “pivot.” The memo is below. If you are asking yourself who Hale Global is, it’s not exactly a player in the consumer tech world, but it has bought and reorganised at least two other companies. In 2009, it , subsequently selling it to . More recently, it’s been focused on a company called QL2 that provides software that tracks and analyses real-time pricing data on the web. These are perhaps less pertinent facts, though, than those around Hale’s managing director, Bobby Figueroa. Before joining Hale, Figueroa held roles as VP of Product Development at Yahoo for advertising products, Head of Product Marketing for Google’s advertising products, and at Microsoft. At Patch, he can have a crack at using some of that earlier experience to turn the operation around. Patch, which AOL acquired in 2009, has been long on aspirations but very short on financial returns over the course of its life. The idea was that AOL would use the platform to develop a chain of hyperlocal news sites, which would then help it tap into local advertising (and national advertising aiming for local audiences) alongside that content. But it was never profitable, and is estimated to have cost AOL between $200 million and $300 million to run. Last year, after winning a proxy battle in 2012 that was partly tied to the financial problems with Patch, Armstrong made a commitment to turn Patch around. While there may have been efforts to improve the content, what we tended to hear about more were cost cutting efforts to right-size it: drastic layoffs of 40% of staff, closing and consolidating some of the local blogs, and with one particularly bad dismissal that didn’t help morale or public perception (the firing of creative director Abel Lenz was made in front of other employees, but of course, it ). Despite whatever downsizing may have taken place, Patch is still large — some 900 local sites, according to the AOL sent out — possibly too unwieldy to steer into better waters as it is today. But on top of that, it’s seeing decent traffic of 16 million people monthly according to figures from comScore. So now, the plan going forward will be to focus on a few changes to convert some of that traffic into revenues: new technology for community participation; more mobile-first and social experiences; better advertising tools; and more geo-targeting for ad products, according to AOL’s announcement. Seems like a very logical set of goals, so I’m not quite sure why AOL didn’t try to focus on them itself earlier — or why, if they did, Hale is likely to execute on them better than AOL has. In any case, AOL seems to be in the midst of some early spring cleaning. Just yesterday it for a price believed to be between $5 million and $10 million. The Patch/Hale transaction is expected to close in Q1 of this year, and financial terms have not been disclosed. AOLers,
AOL has a strong track record of improving, pivoting, and partnering – that’s what successful companies and start-ups do. AOL’s return to growth has been built by making smart investments and by calibrating our investments while moving through opportunities. We pivoted our ads business to programmatic, we pivoted our content business to powerful brands, and we pivoted our video production to becoming a video platform. Today we are pivoting another area of our business: local. The local digital space will reach $152B by 2017, driven by a $21B growth in local digital revenue over the next three years and we have invested in local with Patch. The goal for Patch has always been simple – to be a local platform for information and commerce in towns and to serve communities in a meaningful and human way. After extensive discussions over the last several months with many companies interested in the local media business and local platform business, today we are announcing a joint venture partnership with Hale Global. Hale Global is a private company that has a successful track record of investing and growing technology assets, and we believe they are very well positioned to nurture and grow Patch. Hale has made investments in local commerce and platforms, and they have a strong team of leaders and technical expertise. Hale’s CEO, Charlie Hale, is a strong believer in the power of local, local platforms, and local storytelling. Bud Rosenthal and Charlie Hale will be detailing Patch’s go-forward plan and next steps with the Patch team today. AOL has delivered on our commitment to our investors and put Patch in a position to be successful. We are retaining a meaningful minority interest in the joint venture, and we stand to benefit from Patch’s pivot to platform excellence. While Patch pivots, it is important to remember that it serves millions of consumers throughout hundreds of towns in America and partners with some of the largest and smallest businesses that serve those communities. Hale will help Patch improve, and we will be partners with Hale in the next phase of the journey – TA More to come. |
Microsoft: Some Employee Email Accounts Were Compromised By The Syrian Electronic Army | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 1 | 15 | After its social properties were compromised, Microsoft today indicated that a “small number” of its employee’s Outlook accounts were hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army as well. The online group had previously tweeted out screenshots of emails purportedly from Microsoft staffers. As , those published screenshots “mainly discuss[ed] the latest compromises of several Microsoft-owned Twitter accounts.” Included among the was an email from to . Luckily for the two their disclosed dialogue was pedestrian. It is unclear the extent of the security breach, and if emails were taken from the accounts or in other ways stored that could prove embarrassing for Microsoft. To have your social accounts’ security snapped is par for the course in our current age. To have your email systems broken into is another game, especially if you are the company that built the system, and if you’re selling it to companies around the world. Microsoft provided a statement to The Verge stating that a “social engineering cyberattack method known as phishing resulted in a small number of Microsoft employee social media and email accounts being impacted” in the incident. The accounts in question have been “reset” according to the company. No customer information was compromised, it claims. That’s fine, but what the SEA could have found inside the inboxes of key Microsoft employees could be damaging, or embarrassing, or both. That’s not to say that the employees in question are more salacious than average, but more that we all speak more freely when in private than public. If the SEA delved during its incursion, it might have uncovered a number of internal plans and methods. Should those leak to the media, Microsoft could lose control of its own news cycles for some time to come. |
Platform Payments, OEMs, And The Future Of Windows Phone Hardware | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 1 | 15 | Microsoft has a huge amount of cash and a small quantity of mobile market share. If current rumors hold water, the company may be looking to again use its oceans of currency to bolster its smartphone platform. According (reporting on notes from ), Microsoft may deploy billions in 2014 to a variety of OEMs, including Samsung and Sony, to undergird their support of Windows Phone. The idea squares with we have been consistently hearing that Sony and others are prepping Windows Phone hardware for this calendar year. Recall Microsoft’s payments to Nokia, in which Redmond sent to Espoo. That money was actually a strong investment for the company, as Nokia’s Windows Phone hardware quickly became the best in the market. Nokia was so successful in the Windows Phone game that it drove everyone else out of the ring. It’s long been my view that Nokia’s dominance in Windows Phone and the software tools that it applied to the platform were at least part of the pressure that led Microsoft to bid more than $7 billion for its hardware assets. But for now it’s enough to say that there is firm and recent historical precedent for such a move by Microsoft. When Microsoft purchased Nokia’s hardware business, it was simple to presume that it would focus on first-party construction of Windows Phone hardware and let third-party work wither. Microsoft said that wasn’t the case. I wondered if they were saying that with a wink. If the company does intend to directly bankroll the creation of Windows Phone handsets by other companies, Microsoft most assuredly wasn’t winking, and I was far too cynical. Why in Sam Hill would Microsoft bankroll competition to the asset it just spent billions picking up? Good question. The move makes sense if Microsoft is working to expand the total sum of sold Windows Phone handsets, regardless of who makes them. While Microsoft wants to sell Lumia handsets in increasing quantity, it would prefer to sell those same handsets alongside a bloc of devices from partners. Microsoft will sell more Windows Phone handsets long-term if partners also sell in the short-term, driving near-term unit volume and thus attracting more developer attention. So while Microsoft could, perhaps, retard unit volume growth of its first-party hardware by paying to have more intra-platform competition, the longer term here is more valuable than short-run revenue. Considering Windows Phone as a mere hardware project, as we have been doing, is too narrow. Just as Windows 8.x is a conduit for Microsoft services, so too is Windows Phone a conduit for Microsoft services. In that context, Windows Phone becomes the tip of Microsoft’s “devices and services” spear. The wrinkle to the above is that Microsoft is widely expected to unite its Windows RT and Windows Phone platforms. This actually makes the hardware question simpler: Microsoft builds Surface hardware and works with OEMs. So, doing the same thing with Windows Phone when we regard that platform as soon-to-be Windows Lite is hardly surprising. I don’t think that it’s a stretch to state that Bing does better on Windows 8.x than it does on Windows 7. That holds for Windows Phone, across services. So the other side to Microsoft funding hardware competition is that it is, at the same time, buying market share for its services in the mobile world. And that is almost certainly worth more to it than short-term hardware revenues. With tens of billions of dollars currently sitting overseas earning less interest than the rate of inflation, Microsoft deploying some of it to OEMs that could bolster its device volume in their native markets is a pretty simple decision. — Windows Phone is too small. Its market share remains below the level required for it to attract the developer support that it needs. The number I hear more than any other is 10 percent global market share. Microsoft likely can’t get there on its own — even with owning the Lumia line inside the next three years. That’s too late. So it needs help. And when you need to, buying friends is a quick strategy to having a posse. |
This Week On The TechCrunch Droidcast: The Google Play Edition Moto G Arrives While Our Host Departs | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 1 | 15 | We’re freshly back from CES, so visions of new Android-powered devices swirl in our heads. While in Vegas we subjected the new , so we talk about that, the new and the logic and value of Google’s Play Edition device program to solve the mystery of the . There’s also some bittersweet news, as Droidcast host supreme Chris Velazco formally announces his departure – he’s moving on from TechCrunch to , where he’ll probably be even more engaged with all things Android and mobile. He’ll be back for frequent visits, so Droidcast listeners needn’t worry, but expect a lot more self-indulgent monologuing from yours truly, along with a more varied lineup of guests.
Intro music by Direct . |
Wandoujia, One Of China’s Leading App Stores, Lands $120M In New Funding Led By SoftBank | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 1 | 12 | , one of China’s largest mobile app distribution platforms with 300 million users, announced today that it has raised $120 million in funding led by . Other investors participating in this round include existing Wandoujia investors and . In a statement, Wandoujia CEO Junyu Wang said that the funding will be used “to accelerate our growth and more openly serve developers and the entire ecosystem by developing technology and innovation in mobile search.” The size of Wandoujia’s latest round makes it the latest piece of high-profile news to emerge from China’s increasingly lucrative app ecosystem, which , a Beijing-based mobile game developer and publisher. In July, Android app marketplace , the largest acquisition by a Chinese Internet company so far. There are more than 200 app stores in China because Google Play isn’t widely available there. Wandoujia has taken several steps to differentiate from its many competitors. For example, the company started with a desktop manager for Android, not a mobile app, and it focused on building an app search engine instead of an app store. Wandoujia says it is “the first mobile gateway in China to integrate content across multiple verticals: apps, games, videos, music, and more.” Top Internet companies that have distributed apps and other content through Wandoujia include , , and . Wandoujia, which was founded in 2009 by ex-Googler Wang, launched its first international product, desktop Android manager , in 2012, and also publishes the monthly . In a statement, DCM general partner Hurst Lin said: “When DCM first came into contact with Wandoujia in 2011, it stood out from the mass of app stores because of its unique app search model. Since last year, Wandoujia has entered into additional mobile content verticals with its search product. We believe that Wandoujia, with its record of achievements and persistent strength in products and technology, has an opportunity to become the leader of the mobile internet industry.” |
Subscription Billing Startup ChargeBee Raises $800k From Accel Partners | Pankaj Mishra | 2,014 | 1 | 12 | , a Chennai-based startup that helps companies manage their subscription billings, has raised around $800,000 in a Series A funding from Accel Partners. This brings ChargeBee’s total funding to $1.17 million, including the $370K it had raised in seed funding during October 2012. This new funding will be used to beef up ChargeBee’s sales teams in the U.S. and also hire more engineers to work on next versions of the startup’s core product. Subscription billing startups such as ChargeBee, and , leverage SaaS model to help customers implement a billing system fast by automating most of the back-end processes of invoice generation and payments collection. Krish Subramanian, co-founder of ChargeBee said the startup offers more choices compared with other rivals. “ChargeBee differentiates as the most extensible billing solution available including and the option to use ,” said Subramanian. ChargeBee now has around 500 paying customers from 10 countries including Australia, US, UK and Canada. Currently, the startup processes average monthly transactions worth $1.6 million. By end of this year, ChargeBee wants to achieve $20 million in monthly transactions. Co-founded by former employees Krish, KP Saravanan, Thiyagarajan T and Rajaraman S, ChargeBee started in 2011. inspired the ChargeBee founders to look at building a startup that offers better services, at cheaper rates. “Our start at $49 for startups and we do have a “bootstrapper” plan wherein customers use ChargeBee for free till they reach 10 customer billing a month,” said Krish. Accel India has to date invested in around 17 startups in India at the seed stage from its $150 million+ Accel III fund. |
Why Commercial Drones Won’t Deliver Tacos Anytime Soon | Frederic Lardinois | 2,014 | 1 | 12 | Amazon scored one of the greatest tech PR coups in recent history when it got CBS to put its quadcopter-powered delivery service . Sadly, CBS pretty much ignored that this was a pretty unrealistic proposal for the time being, not in the least because commercial drone flights will remain illegal in the U.S. for the next few years. If journalists aren’t even allowed to use a standard quadcopter to take images , having autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) deliver the latest Stephen King tome to your door is obviously still a while out, too. With the hype around Amazon’s drone dying down, let’s take a look at what’s holding commercial drones back and what we can expect once they take flight. The technology for drones is here, no doubt, but government regulation isn’t and there are good reasons why the FAA is taking things slow. By 2015, the FAA is to create rules for integrating unmanned planes, quadcopters and other flying contraptions into the regular airspace. That’s quite a challenge. For a human to start flying around in a small Cessna, it takes an average of 60 hours of instructions and a written and practical exam before they are allowed to start puttering around in U.S. airspace. And that’s just for the most basic of pilots’ licenses. Even today, pilots mostly use old-fashioned radio to talk to each other and air traffic control (ATC). Controllers can watch them through radar or, if the plane is equipped for this, by using GPS and digital transmissions to get even more accurate readings. Pilots generally don’t see all of this information, though – it’s ATC that relays the info that’s relevant to them. Even in this system, some older general aviation aircraft are permitted to fly without radio. How are pilots supposed to talk to ATC? How could ATC talk to drones? How would the drones talk to ATC? Who gets to pilot these drones and what license do they need? What about autonomous ones? Now imagine all of these drones flying around in this airspace, too. That sounds like a recipe for disaster. Regular pilots scan the sky for other planes whenever possible, but how are they going to spot a small drone, especially during stressful times like take-offs and landings? What happens when a drone suddenly goes haywire and starts doing its own thing and heads for the arrival path to JFK? The FAA still needs to figure all this out, though none of these issues are insurmountable. They just take some better tech and a regulatory framework. The FAA could create special routes for drones, set height limits and ban them from the area around some airports to keep them away from regular air traffic, for example. Drone manufacturers can already add smart seek and avoid technology to their UAVs to keep them away from other planes. Getting commercial drones flying is still years away, though. The FAA only just selected where different groups will experiment with ways to integrate drones with regular air traffic. These sites are currently set to operate until 2017, and given the FAA’s penchant for running late, I wouldn’t be surprised if this whole process took a few more years. The military clearly has procedures set up for how it uses drones, but we are talking about highly trained specialists here and even they have a rather . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTpKJuTAbq8 What we’ll see is quadcopters or that can be used to survey or build sites autonomously (which is already possible today). Later, we may see drones from UPS, FedEx, and other delivery and cargo services. They will likely use them to cheaply ferry shipments from their hubs to smaller airports (on routers where they currently use small turboprop planes). Today, photographers are happily using remote-controlled planes and quadcopters. None of them can do it legally in the U.S. and the FAA isn’t shying away from . I doubt a photographer with a drone who is taking real estate pictures is much of a threat to regular aviation, especially given that anybody who doesn’t charge for these photos can happily do so. Still, this market will immediately boom once the FAA allows for this kind of usage. But what about those tacos? Once the government gets its act together and creates rules for commercial drones, all of these Amazon-style delivery services may be able to finally take off, too. There is no need to recount . My feeling is that those are mostly technical problems that can be overcome (better sensors and maps to avoid trees, power lines, children and dogs, QR codes in people’s gardens as landing sites, improved battery life and who knows what else). Long before that, though, we’ll see the more basic use cases described above and maybe even a few we haven’t quite envisioned yet. And who knows, maybe by 2020, we’ll see a drone-based pizza delivery service. Image credit: and |
Tina Fey Mocks Michael Bay’s CES Bomb At The Golden Globes | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 1 | 12 | CES has made it to the big time! Or the Golden Globes, at least. Consumer electronics have become increasingly easier to sell since the first CES was held in 1967 and there’s been a lot of discussion about how relevant the event still is to the tech industry and the world at large, even for top hardware makers. As “It’s as if the big guys are now just going through the motions. And they are.” But it appears that companies may have inadvertently stumbled upon the secret of keeping the yearly event interesting: celebrity meltdowns. It’s after a teleprompter malfunction during Samsung’s presentation — an eternity in Internet time, even for viral content — but people are still talking about the incident. And videos of Bay’s mishap made the social media rounds again after Tina Fey mocked it during the Golden Globes tonight.
Fey’s parody was only a few seconds long and she didn’t actually run off the stage or even mention CES, but . Michael Bay deserves some sympathy, just because you are a world-famous director doesn’t mean you’re good at public speaking. But at least Bay has Optimus Prime (and tons of cash) to console him. While most of the biggest WTF moments in CES history (like 2013’s ) probably had PR people screaming afterward, they did keep the event from becoming predictable and boring — which is important for all the smaller hardware companies which in Vegas every year. |
NBCUniversal Invests In Mobile Video News Service NowThis News | Leena Rao | 2,014 | 1 | 12 | NBCUniversal News Group is announcing a minority investment in , a New York-based startup that’s looking to reinvent video journalism for the Facebook and smartphone era. As part of the investment, the two companies will co-produce original short-form news videos to be distributed across mobile and social platforms. The brainchild of Huffington Post co-founder Kenneth Lerer (who also serves as Chairman of BuzzFeed), former Huffington Post CEO Eric Hippeau, and Bedrocket founder and CEO Brian Bedol, NowThis News is reinventing video news for the social and mobile worlds. Part of this is making news accessible to newer platforms like Facebook, Vine, YouTube, Snapchat and others. Specifically, the teams will co-produce content for TODAY, MSNBC, NBC News and CNBC on topics relating to pop culture, political, and business news. These videos are posted on social platforms as well as on NowThis News’ mobile app. In fact, NBC Universal’s staff will be sent to NowThis News studio to co-produce videos, which will then be distributed across NBC properties and NowThis News. There will 30-40 co-produced videos published a week, we’re told. The startup has a team of journalists who have held senior positions at ABC News, CNN, Washington Post and The Huffington Post and previously raised $10 million in from Lerer Ventures, SoftBank and others. The reports that NBC took a 10 percent stake in NowThis News. “We know that news consumption among younger audiences continues to grow, but in order to reach that audience, we need to continue to create video for the platforms they use most. NowThis News does exactly that — delivering relevant news stories for the mobile and social platforms that resonate with this audience,” said Patricia Fili-Krushel, Chairman of the NBCUniversal News Group, in a release. “We’re excited to incorporate this relationship into our overall strategy — to innovate inside and outside the company — positioning the News Group for future success.” “Short term content is an area we have to play in,” she tells us in a phone conversation this evening. “In the same way you get text alerts, you need video news alerts.” There are other emerging ways in which media properties can integrate advertising into these new news formats, she adds. Kenneth Lerer, NowThis News’s Co-Founder and Manager Director of Lerer Ventures said, “By working together, the NBCUniversal News Group and NowThis News can learn from each other and build a great digital news experience that’s a win-win for the new news consumer who wants all video, all the time, built for social and mobile. This partnership allows us to showcase our shared vision of combining the world’s strongest news brands with NowThis News to super serve consumers.” In a conversation with TechCrunch, Lerer told us that most news sites weren’t producing real short-form video, which needed to be done. “It seems obvious that instead of just going to a mobile app, you also need to go where your user is.” He tells us that the company will also be debuting new Twitter and Facebook products in the near future. For NBC, NowThis News can teach the media company around producing short form video for social formats, he says. For NBC, this is the second investment in a non-traditional news platform this year. NBC Universal the technology news site recently founded by former AllThingsD founders Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. “We plan to be aggressive in expanding brand into new areas,” Fili-Krushel tells us. “There are these new avenues where people are consuming news and that’s where we have to go.” |
The Best Of CES 2014 | Contributor | 2,014 | 1 | 12 | Another has come and gone and, after every CES, there is the inevitable reckoning. We went expecting very little in the way of amazing new products and we were pleasantly surprised. In fact, there was so much cool stuff on and off the show floor that we should have been embarrassed for doubting the creativity and skill of the makers, manufacturers, and builders who flock to Vegas every year. The big guys might be boring but it’s the little guys – like early mammals scuttling under the dinosaurs – that make the biggest impact. Here are our personal picks for Best of CES 2014 and, knowing the industry, we’ll be revisiting these amazing products this year as things slowly reach the market. Thanks to all those who took part in our and please keep in touch if you’ve created something cool and we didn’t spot you at CES. We’re always looking for a few good hardware startups. See you next year! [kickstarter url=http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/4422853/onewheel-the-self-balancing-electric-skateboard width=640] The coolest thing I saw at CES was the — a self-balancing, one-wheeled, motorized skateboard. Made by a mechanical engineer who had previously worked at IDEO, the Onewheel was developed over the last couple of years to give a hoverboard-like feel to personal transportation. It works kind of like a Segway, in that you lean forward to move and lean backward to slow down, and steer with your body weight. With speed up to 12 miles an hour and a battery that lasts up to 6 miles on a single charge, Onewheel is built mostly for getting around urban areas. But hey, it beats walking. -Ryan Lawler My favorite gadget at CES was the Urb-E electric scooter. The company promises that Urb-E is the most compact electronic vehicle in the world, as it folds up to the size of a small roller-board suitcase. The idea behind the scooter, which can run for 20 miles on one charge at around 15mph, is to get commuters through the last leg of their trip. But setting aside utility, the Urb-E is simply fun to ride around on. I can still feel the wind in my hair. -Jordan Crook My favorite things at CES were mostly under-the-hood improvements, or around tech that pushes the boundaries on stuff I already use regularly. That’s why mobile processor improvements, which make smartphone-based photography even more convenient and effective, take the cake. Another favorite was , which continues to put out amazing new lenses, and which is also making the concept of a DSLR lens which is fully customizable to an end user via software an accessible reality. -Darrell Etherington For me, the definite highlight of CES was a demonstration of the new VR prototype. When I tried Oculus out a year ago, my excitement came from the product’s potential, not the experience itself. Now, with the addition of new technology, as well as game demos that take advantage of that technology, it really did feel like I suddenly found myself inside the game world. I had that I didn’t care how goofy I looked leaning forward and backward in those big goggles. -Anthony Ha This year was my first at CES and although I’ve been following it for years, it’s never the same as experiencing it in person. That in itself was pretty cool, but ironically, one of my favorite things at the event was not on the showroom floor. It was high above the Convention Center in a room at the Hilton, where I was given a demo of the Meta Pro, a new augmented reality headset that they will be shipping later this year. The Meta Pro essentially looks like a pair of souped-up sunglasses; what they do is provide the user with a three-dimensional interactive video experience that instantly responds to gestures — something that up to now has not been possible (other augmented reality and 3-D experiences are less accurate or do not work in real time; this does both in a piece of hardware that is only getting more streamlined over time), all while overlayed on top of what you normally see in front of you. For the demo I had, Meta had created a little app that lets you sculpt a small vase with your fingers, and then print it out with a 3-d printer (vase pictured here). Sounds fanciful, but really the possibilities for this tech — on both the consumer and enterprise front — are vast. It’s no surprise that Meta’s founders told me that they spent most of the show holed up in the room taking meetings with OEMs, tech and media companies and investors that wanted to see the magic for themselves. And here’s an interesting little detail: it’s all being developed and made in the USA. -Ingrid Lunden CES, you can keep your curvy TVs, wearable doodads, and smart refridgerators. Just give me that new Oculus Rift prototype. still isn’t ready to ship their long-awaited virtual reality headset to the masses, but their latest prototype (dubbed “Crystal Cove”) moves things one big ol’ step closer. While previous builds of the Rift tracked the of your head, it was clueless about its position. It could detect when you looked up or down, or left or right — but if you’d lean forward or back, the Rift would have no idea. The illusion of being in a virtual world would shatter, and the disconnect would confuse the heck out of your inner ear. With the addition of an external camera and an array of LEDs built into the headset, Crystal Cove brings position tracking into the mix. Oh, and it uses a bunch of clever software tricks to eliminate the motion sickness that some people experience. Oh! And it has a much higher resolution display. Give. it. to. me. You can find video of our own Anthony Ha . -Greg Kumparak
My favorite part of CES wasn’t part of CES. It was our own , a three day competition that pitted 14 amazing companies against each other on our own stage. We brought in some great judges, offered a $50,000 prize, and generally blew everyone away with the quality of our entrants. Want a better wearable? . How about an amazing bike light? . How about a drone that fits in your pocket? . In short, we made our own mini-CES inside CES. Could we have done this outside of CES and outside of Vegas? Absolutely. However, CES for all its faults brings out just about everyone in the hardware industry. It’s worth it if only as a magnet for talent and amazing products. That’s why I came to Vegas and that’s why I’ll keep coming back. -John Biggs |
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