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An E-Cig That Tells You How Much You’ve Increased Your Life Expectency With Every Puff | Sarah Buhr | 2,014 | 6 | 3 | Forget for just a moment that e-cigarettes contain several of the same toxic substances in regular cigarettes but in higher quantities such as carbon monoxide, heavy metals and substances used in antifreeze to cause cancer. claims to be the first connected e-cig to actually add years to your life each time you puff. It works by hooking the device up to an app on your smartphone which captures your vitals every time you vape, even when your phone is out of sight. The app tracks how often you smoke and how much nicotine is currently in your body. It then shows you how much you’ve been smoking and how much that’s cost you and then gives encouragement to cut down and eventually kick the habit altogether. The app also shows you just how much you’ve increased your life expectancy by number of days by switching to an e-cigarette instead of smoking real cigarettes. Not sure how much you can trust the “science” on that claim, though. The jury’s still out at the FDA on e-cigarettes are. It doesn’t currently consider them a part of tobacco products but has issued a proposal to consider e-cigarettes as such. However, the FDA does consider any e-cigarettes claiming therapeutic effects, such as helping people to quit, under their jurisdiction. A study published in the May issue of the journal found that 20 percent of those using e-cigarettes were able to quit easier than those using regular cigarettes, making them more effective than nicotine patches or gum. Cancer stick or not, that gives some cred to Smokio’s claims. While not an e-cig, bootstrapped pocket mobile device strives to do something similar. A quick gander at their website doesn’t reveal much but it does claim to provide biofeedback for those hoping to quit each time they take a puff. Smokio’s app will also tell you how much you’ve saved by switching to its “smart” cigarette every time you use it. It’s now sold in the U.S. for about $80. |
Watch The TechCrunch Recap Of Apple’s WWDC 2014 Announcements | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 6 | 3 | Apple’s keynote for happened Monday morning, and there was a lot to digest, both for attendees and those watching at home. Apple didn’t announce any new gadgets at this year’s event, but it did upend the world of iOS and make huge changes to OS X on the desktop, which will translate to big shifts both for developers and end users. Myself and new TechCrunch writers Kyle Russell and Sarah Buhr managed to parse the huge pile of information shared by the leaders of the iconic fruit company yesterday and distill it down to a few key points. It’s early days yet, so there’s plenty left to explore regarding these new releases, but for now, check out our look above at which parts of this year’s WWDC bombshell might have the most potential impact. |
Someone Involved With Apple’s New Programming Language Swift Must Be A Firefly Fan | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 6 | 3 | Here’s a little factoid that has pretty much nothing to do with the broader significance of . But it made me smile, and it suggests that when my editor Matthew Panzarino he was right in more ways than one. So if you look at the section of discussing “simple values,” you’ll find a short code example assigning occupations to different variables — Malcolm is a captain, Kaylee is a mechanic, and Jayne is in public relations. Now if you’re the right kind of nerd, you probably recognized those names immediately as characters from the much-loved TV show , created by Joss Whedon and aired ever-so-briefly on Fox more than a decade ago. Malcolm is indeed the show’s captain, Kaylee the mechanic, and the bit about Jayne is . Part of the reason this tickles me is the occasional, usually hidden, influence that a show that lasted for less than one season (it was ) still seems to exert in the tech world. Most notably, it was for the naming of Google Wave ( ), and apparently the whole Wave development process involved lots of references to and other Whedon-related works. Also, you may have noticed that the reference what seems to be . (Which I have not read. Sorry.) Anyway, now you know. And, uh, sorry if I ruined the joke. [ ] |
Announcing Include, TechCrunch’s Diversity Partner Program | Samantha O'Keefe | 2,014 | 6 | 3 | While the tech industry has to be inclusive, Hardly a week passes by without media outlets highlighting concerns about sexism, ageism or “founder profiling” in our industry. The truth is that TechCrunch will not be able to solve the or increase STEM education in inner-city schools. We can’t offer entrepreneurship classes in rural America or require VCs to screen founders without considering their gender. But there are great organizations who can. And we aim to support them. Today we’re excited to announce TechCrunch Include, which is a program designed to help social enterprises (nonprofit and for profit) working to make tech a more inclusive place. The program offers a year’s worth of access to TechCrunch resources — financial as well as media and events. Our mission is to help these enterprises increase their effectiveness on a variety of fronts, including fundraising, volunteers, partnerships and media attention. Participants will receive a number of benefits, including free exhibition space and tickets to Disrupt and Hackathon events, free attendance at all other events, and assistance with media/press strategy. In addition, TechCrunch will commit a total of $50,000 a year (starting in 2015) in direct financial support to select participants. TechCrunch already awarded $50,000 to . Consider this our minimum viable product. As we learn more about how TechCrunch can leverage its strengths, we may add to or modify this list. Of course, we’re open to feedback and suggestions. So who should apply? We’re open to all types of organizations, as long as the mission is related to increasing diversity in tech. You do not need to be based in San Francisco or even the U.S. to apply. In keeping with TC’s love for startups, we’re especially eager to find compelling groups with early traction that will really benefit from Include. until Sunday, June 29 at 11 p.m. PDT. You can view more details about the program on the page. To help us select these organizations, we assembled a fantastic group of advisors who have reputations in their own right for bettering the tech community. Kate Courteau, Director of Non-Profits, Y Combinator , Founder at Lumoid , SoftTech VC Also on the selection committee are TechCrunch Co-Editor , writer and Battlefield Editor Any organization that aims to increase diversity and inclusion in the tech industry. You do not need to be SF or even US-based. can be any size; however preference will be given to those for whom participation in Include could make a significant impact. Organizations will be part of the program for one TechCrunch year. From August 1 2014 to August 1, 2015. The limit is to allow new groups to have the opportunity to benefit from the program. All applicants will be notified by the end of July 2014. Email |
Google Plans To Launch An Easy-To-Use Chrome Plug-In For Email Encryption Soon | Frederic Lardinois | 2,014 | 6 | 3 | Google today that it will soon release a Chrome plug-in that will enable end-to-end encryption for web-based email services. The plug-in is based on the email encryption standard. Google’s plan here is to make encryption easy enough to use to become widespread among mainstream users. Right now, unless you are fairly technical and can get extensions like to work for you, using Gmail — or any other popular email service — with encryption enabled is pretty hard. Because of this, very few people actually encrypt their messages today. While Google announced this project today, however, it isn’t actually launching the plug-in yet. Instead, it is sharing the with the community to test and evaluate it. Given the recent issues around the Heartbleed bug in the , that’s probably the right approach. “Prematurely making End-To-End available could have very serious real world ramifications,” Google rightly says. The plug-in is covered by Google’s , so developers and security researchers who find issues with it can get prizes for finding bugs. Google says that the new plug-in will let “anyone” enable end-to-end email encryption “through their existing web-based email provider.” Chances are then, this plug-in will work with more than just Gmail and cover other popular services as well. Given that the recipients have to somehow decrypt your encrypted email, it wouldn’t make sense to just offer this for Gmail anyway. What exactly the new plug-in looks like and how it will make encryption easier in daily use still remains to be seen, however (we’ll have to compile and test it ourselves first). The kind of public key encryption that Google is using tends to be pretty complex to set up, so Google has quite a challenge ahead of it if it wants to make this a system that even non-technical users can understand. Besides this new extension, Google also today released its first , which looks at how many email providers encrypt messages while they are in transit between the sender and recipient. Currently, Google , about 65 percent of messages from Gmail to other providers are encrypted, compared to only 50 percent of inbound messages from other services to Gmail. You can find the full report, which also names exactly which providers offer this kind of encryption, . |
Star Trek-Like Molecular Food Scanner SCiO Tops $2 Million On Kickstarter | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 6 | 3 | , the Tel Aviv-based startup behind the handheld molecular food scanner dubbed “ ,” has now topped $2 million in crowdfunding via , with 11 days still remaining. SCiO is basically a pocket-sized spectrometer that tells you the chemical makeup of what you eat, including nutritional info like calories, carbs, sugars, and more. More than 10,000 backers have donated to the startup, which also has funding from Khosla Ventures, Dov Moran (Comingo founder, ), and other angel investors. The company also previously raised money through , a hybrid VC-equity crowdfunding platform. , Consumer Physics has $4 million in prior funding. [Update: the company says it’s actually closer to “more than $5 million” but won’t disclose the exact figures.] They’ve been raising the additional funds on Kickstarter for under a month. We first got a hands on with the SCiO scanner , where CEO Dror Sharon was demonstrating a prototype. TechCrunch’s own (see video below). What makes this device interesting to a consumer market is its cost and small size. It’s Star Trek-like technology, basically speaking. Kickstarter backers were paying under $200 for a scanner or DIY “maker’s kit.” With SCiO, users will be able to do things like scan their foods to see the caloric content, the fat or sugars they contained, how ripe a fruit is, and even how pure a cooking oil is or if a pill (yes, it can do non-food items, too) was real or fake. The device itself includes a light source that illuminates the sample and a spectrometer (an optical sensor) that collects the light reflected from the sample, which is what helps it determine the item’s molecular makeup. After scanning the object in question, the device communicates with a mobile app via Bluetooth, which in turn forwards the lookup to a cloud-based service for review. The app then returns the information requested in real-time. In addition to the scanner itself, SCiO is offering a platform for developers who would be able to build custom applications using its technology. For example, suggests the Consumer Physics website, developers could teach the SCiO to monitor the various stages of the brewing process for those who make their own craft beers, or they could teach it to identify various plastics to help with recycling. The company envisions a future where the scanner could be used to measure the properties of a range of items, including things like cosmetics, clothes, flora, soil, jewels and precious stones, leather, rubber, oils, plastics, and more. with the SCiO’s miniaturization, the company has sacrificed sensitivity for size — and to a point, that may be true. Along those lines it’s also worth noting that the scanner is not meant to be a medical device used to prevent allergies, for example. By reaching the $2 million+ point on Kickstarter, the SCiO has now become the fifth most-funded tech campaign in the site’s history, and it still has nearly two weeks left. Among the backers are over 600 developers, hackers and makers, and researchers who have signed up to build their own apps and form factors leveraging the SCiO platform. Having now hit this funding milestone, Consumer Physics says it will offer all first-party developed apps for SCiO to Kickstarter backers for free for life. |
Android Wear Developer Team Talks Building Apps For Moto 360 And LG G Watch | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 6 | 3 | Android Wear is going to be a big part of 2014 this year, and Google helps developers acclimate to the idea of wrist-borne apps. Already, internal developers working on the project are working on software to help them demonstrate and validate concepts for apps for the platform, and they’re using the upcoming and to help them prototype. In a detailing their efforts, Android Wear team members Roman Nurik and Timothy Jordan discuss how they built a walking tour app for Android Wear, using rough mock ups for a Google Glass app that never got built as a starting point. Doing so required thinking about battery conservation, differing notification prioritization, and also working with the constraints of a screen size that maxes out at 140 x 140 (or 160 x 160 on the round Moto 360) resolution. [gallery ids="1011751,1011752,1011753"] The app is simple, basically popping up a notification on your wrist when you’re near a walking tour in the software’s database, and then providing you with simple directions if you choose to undertake a trip. It offers you a number of stops, and a very brief description of the place when you arrive spread across multiple pages. It’s a clever little bit of software, and one that emphasizes Google’s view of how designing for it will be much different from creating experiences either for mobile or desktop. It’s also a clear and present sign that wearable design and development will be a big part of Google’s I/O show this year. Will that be enough for us to finally see wearables take off in a big way? I’m not making any bets just yet. |
Android Likely To Get Touch-Friendly Office Before Windows | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 6 | 3 | #SatyasMicrosoft Earlier today, that the tablet-touch build of Office for Android will land before the touch-ready build for Windows. Yes, this is the real world. Microsoft declined to comment. Keep in mind that Microsoft building an Office suite for Android tablets . This is a timing issue. Of course, Microsoft already offers an app for Android that includes Office capabilities, but Office Mobile — which existed for iOS before Office for iPad was released — is a smaller affair. A full suite of tablet-ready Office apps for Android will be a course correction. In fact, an Android release before the Windows version is only surprising in the context of Microsoft’s larger platform support push due to the dismal lateness of a touch-build of Office for Windows. What happened? Foley ties its tardiness to Windows 9, saying that an early 2015 release for touch-Office-for-Windows release could be reasonable, given that that timeframe is… also is when is expected to hit. The timing isn’t likely coincidental, given Microsoft is believed to be building . Such a SKU would require a version of Windows that doesn’t need the desktop/Win32 environment to run. That’s when the Metro-Style/Windows Store versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint become a necessity, not just a nicety. Waiting that long would I think be surprising to the market. Still, if that Office release is tied to Windows 9, and Office for iPad has already shipped the reasons to wait to release the code for Android fall to zero. |
NSA Chief: Snowden “Probably Not” A Russian Spy | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 6 | 3 | Despite Congressional bloviation, the NSA doesn’t think that Edward Snowden is a foreign spy. NSA Chief Admiral Michael Rogers , or any other country’s intelligence apparatus. “Could he have? Possibly. Do I believe that’s the case? Probably not,” said Rogers. The only surprising element of the Rogers comment is that he said it. There has been a steady drumbeat of intrigue and dreck trying to tie Snowden to Russia, as or other sort of lapdog. Here are a few samples for flavor. Snowden’s : “I have no relationship with the Russian government at all. I’m not supported by the Russian government. I’m not taking money from the Russian government. I’m not a spy.” Senator Feinstein’s : Feinstein was then asked by host David Gregory if she agreed that Snowden might have had Russian support. “He may well have,” she responded, before adding that “we don’t know at this stage.” Rep. Mike Rogers, : Rogers, appearing on NBC’s , raised the possibility that Snowden acted with Russian support. “I believe there’s a reason he ended up in the hands, the loving arms, of an FSB agent in Moscow,” said Rogers, referencing Russia’s main internal-security apparatus. “I don’t think it was a gee-whiz luck event that he ended up in Moscow under the handling of the FSB.” Rep. Michael McCaul’s : MCCAUL: Hey, listen, I don’t think Snowden — Mr. Snowden woke up one day and had the wherewithal to do this all by himself. I think he was helped by others. STEPHANOPOULOS: The Russians? MCCAUL: You know, to say definitively, I can’t — I can’t answer that. But I personally believe that he was cultivated by a foreign power to do what he did. And he — I would submit, again, that he’s not a hero by any stretch. He’s a traitor. He — he lives not very far down the street from where I am right now, enjoying probably less freedoms today here in Russia than he had in the United States of America. STEPHANOPOULOS: That’s a pretty serious charge, sir. Which foreign power do you believe cultivated Edward Snowden? MCCAUL: Again, I can’t give a definitive statement on that. I — but I’ve been given all the evidence, I know Mike Rogers has access to, you know, that I’ve seen that I don’t think he was acting alone. Rep. Mike Rogers, : The NSA contractor is definitely under the influence of Russian officials. We know that he was in China, Hong Kong anyway, and in Russia today. We have seen patterns and activities that lead us to believe that some or all of that information is being worked through by those intelligence services and putting the U.S. at risk. A : Michael Morell, the former deputy CIA director, said he shared Rogers’ concern about what Russian intelligence services may be doing with Snowden. “I don’t have any particular evidence but one of the things I point to when I talk about this is that the disclosures that have been coming recently are very sophisticated in their content and sophisticated in their timing – almost too sophisticated for Mr. Snowden to be deciding on his own. And it seems to me he might be getting some help,” Morell said on “Face the Nation.” Rep. Mike Rogers, : Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he believes there is “good evidence” that the former National Security Agency contractor hasn’t told the truth about his activities in Hong Kong and Moscow – and that Snowden had earlier help from Russian intelligence operatives than he has previously admitted. “I do believe there’s more to this story,” Rogers said. “He is under the influence of Russian intelligence officials today. He’s actually supporting, in an odd way, this very activity of brazen brutality and expansionism of Russia. He needs to understand that.” Oops. — The NSA head said something that I think bears repeating here. Quote, as before, : “Now, I’m not one who’s going to sit here and overhype the threat [or say] that in the name of this threat we have to make dramatic changes and curtail our rights, because if we go down that road, in the end, they’ve won. If we change who we are and what we believe and what we represent in the name of security, they have won. I have always believed that.” |
Sam Altman Names Y Combinator’s New “Board Of Overseers” | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 6 | 3 | Sam Altman, president of Y Combinator, has just posted a blog post announcing the at the world’s most successful accelerator. The list includes Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky, Homejoy’s Adora Cheung, John and Patrick Collison of Stripe, Dropbox’s Drew Houston, longtime partner and co-founder at YC Jessica Livingston, Weebly founder and CEO David Rusenko, Kiko co-founder and Justin.TV CTO Emmett Shear, and Sam Altman himself. All of the members of the board of overseers are former graduates of Y Combinator, with the exception of Jessica Livingston, and will help guide the organization in big decisions, especially in matters that involve the hiring and firing of the president. This is a much lighter touch than a board of directors and is modeled after what universities do. Y Combinator has been going through a number of changes lately, most notably the succession of Sam Altman to the president position after co-founder Paul Graham stepped down . You can check out a copy of the below: I’m delighted to announce the new Board of Overseers for Y Combinator. The members are: Brian Chesky, Adora Cheung, John Collison, Patrick Collison, Drew Houston, Jessica Livingston, David Rusenko, Emmett Shear, and me. I’ve worked with everyone on this list. They are all great and care deeply about YC—we’re very lucky to have them. They’ll help ensure YC thrives for a long time. The Board will be responsible for hiring and firing the YC President, and occasionally helping with strategic direction. Hopefully it doesn’t have to meet very often. |
WWDC Keynote Shows Apple Means Business | Ron Miller | 2,014 | 6 | 3 | Apple’s had a message for cloud service providers. Apple knows it has the devices inside the enterprise, whether iPhone, iPad and even Macs, and it wants more than just the hardware business. It wants everything. And it’s coming for you. That’s right, Apple wants to capture the cloud and provide the services you need to run the device. And we’re not talking just iWork here, either, although that’s clearly part of it. There’s iDrive, the cloud storage service aiming straight for Dropbox (and maybe even Box). , the infrastructure service that appears to want a piece of the infrastructure market controlled by Amazon, Google and Microsoft. CloudKit provides a way to access data and storage services on the back end for iOS applications and if it’s good for the consumer facing apps, chances are it’s good for enterprise apps too. Apple didn’t forget developers meant to replace Objective C, which could ultimately have an impact on enterprise developers. On its face at least, Apple says it should simplify development. Whether that happens in practice, we shall see. And let’s not forget which if enough employees are using Apple products could provide a unified communications platform. That’s another shot across Microsoft’s and Google’s bow, in case you didn’t notice. , who is director and head of mobility at , says there are even more changes under the hood that should appeal to enterprises. “Apple seems to be extending their feature set around security, such as now encrypting all file types and apps and filling in missing enterprise features, such as Out of Office assistant,” Katz wrote to me in an email. “They also have enabled secured sandbox sharing (extensions) that lead to more comfort around putting enterprise data on their hardware.” Further, he sees this as a shot at Microsoft more than anything, especially the handoff feature. “It appears that Apple is trying to differentiate from Microsoft and the need for a single device by showing their continuity/hand-off concept. Work with the best device for the job and hand off to the right device when the need arises,” he wrote. Wayne Rash agrees saying it might not beat Microsoft in the enterprise, but the new enterprise-friendly features certainly enable it to hold its own. Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, though, let’s not forget that just because Apple put all these services and features out there doesn’t mean it’s automatically a slam dunk. Before people make changes — whether at an organizational or personal level — there needs to be a pain point. If developers are happy connecting to AWS, then Apple has to give them incentives to change. If they are satisfied using Lync or Google Hangouts or even Skype, why should they switch to iMessage? This is a legitimate questions and we need to wait and see if Apple can actually execute on these items and deliver Apple-quality services that make people stand up and take notice. Because let’s face it, until now Apple hasn’t done a bang up job of cloud services. As an industry insider told me, perhaps this collection of ideas announced at WWDC is tacit recognition that it’s just really hard to get those mega-hits like iPod, iPad and iPhone, and they need to try a bunch of different things moving forward to succeed. But as this person also pointed out, you have to attack an area that’s ripe for change, which is what Apple did with iPod all those years ago. They didn’t invent the MP3 player, they designed a better MP3 player than everyone else. He wonders if going after Dropbox is the best approach because people like Dropbox and there’s little reason to change. The other big point he made was that it’s not easy to become a service company. It takes a significant investment in operations, and while Apple runs some big data centers, he said they still don’t have the large talent pool that cloud companies need to be successful — and he wonders if Apple is willing to make that investment to make it as a “cloud as a service” provider. As he said, Apple’s high margin hardware success is unique and it’s hard to sustain long-term. Maybe this set of services is simply recognizing (in the same way IBM has recognized) that you can’t live on hardware sales anymore. You need a package of cloud services to make money these days and Apple appears to moving in that direction. When you look across the whole package of what Apple is offering here, it seems to want a piece of the entire cloud across infrastructure, platform and software as a service — and a range of enterprise-friendly features. If Apple can make the necessary investments, make it work across platforms (as any cloud service should) and hire the right personnel, it can succeed. But this isn’t an easy road by any means. If it all works out that way, that’s great for Apple, but whatever happens, it’s clear the company has a plan to move into the enterprise and that means Amazon, Microsoft and Google better watch their backs because Apple wants a piece of their action. But it takes more than wanting. It takes doing and Apple has to make some big changes to succeed. |
You Can Buy 50 Cent’s New Album With Bitcoin | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 6 | 3 | 50 Cent’s new album , but commercially the rapper is trying to take all comers and is even accepting bitcoin as payment for the record. I went through the payment process to verify the fact. Here you go: Why do we care? Mostly that 50 Cent — an artist who has in the past that he is mainstream by definition — would include bitcoin as a payment option is precisely the sort of thing you would look for if the cryptocurrency were picking up wider adoption. 50 left his major label for an indie, and is selling the album online via Shopify, which introduced Bitcoin payments as an . Shopify in turn uses Bitpay as a processor. So, in a sense, 50 Cent is helping Bitpay grow its userbase. And they say technology is boring. It will be interesting to see if 50’s sales will push bitcoin volume up a measurable amount. For now: You can buy 50 Cent's new album using Bitcoin. In other news, he's changing his name to 0.000750807 BTC. — Alexia Bonatsos (@alexia) |
Dinner Lab Raises $2.1 Million For Its Modern-Day Supper Club | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 6 | 3 | , an exclusive supper club that lets up-and-coming chefs test their recipes by preparing multi-course meals for a private audience, has just raised its first outside funding. The previously bootstrapped New Orleans-based company has scored $2.1 million in a seed round led by Dr. John B. Elstrott, the Chairman of the Board of Whole Foods, alongside other angel investors. The company is similar in some ways to the recently shuttered social dining network, , a Y Combinator-backed company . But while both companies focused on getting people together over classy meals, their business models differed. With Grubwithus, groups of friends and strangers would head off to restaurants and dine under a prix fixe bill. Meanwhile, Dinner Lab is a private, membership-based service, where diners pay $100-$175 per year, depending on the market, for access to a calendar of events. They can then choose to buy tickets to these events, which in fully-scaled markets happen roughly 80 times per year. Meal prices are around $60-$85 per head, and include the tip, taxes, and unlimited drinks. When the company was first starting out, it relied on word-of-mouth buzz. Memberships were initially capped, and dinners were announced the night before, . Today, the service is more broadly available and guests get a few weeks’ notice so they can make arrangements, . Originally, the idea for the company grew out the co-founding team’s desire to find quality food later at night in New Orleans, a city known for its partying and after-hours scene. But while there were plenty of people who signed up for this earlier version of the service, they showed up, well, “completely inebriated,” laughs co-founder Zach Kupperman. “It was a terrible idea.” “But luckily, the concept itself caught on. People loved the experience…and chefs loved the opportunity to get exposure for themselves,” he says. The company was founded in August 2012, and is run by a six-person co-founding team including Kupperman (Chief Business Officer; previously founded , acquired by QuestionPro); Brian Bordainick (CEO, previously of ed-tech startup accelerator ) Francisco Robert (Chief Culinary Officer); Ravi Prakash (CTO, ex-Microsoft); Bryson Aust (CFO); and Jorge “Drew” Barrett (COO). Since launching, Dinner Lab has expanded to nine other cities, including San Francisco, L.A., New York, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Miami, Chicago, Nashville and Austin. The service counts tens of thousands of paying members, and has hosted 800 pop-up dinners to date, which sometimes take place in interesting locations like abandoned warehouses, on helipads, or in motorcycle factories, for instance. The company has also worked with hundreds of chefs who are looking to gain their own followings by connecting with local influencers and foodies. Today, Dinner Lab is helping those chefs better understand how what they’re doing works by surfacing the data from these dinner parties, which chefs can access via an online dashboard that tells them things like how they scored in different areas, how they compare with other chefs in the area, how well they did with the different demographics, and more. With the additional funding, Kupperman says the now 50-person company will look to grow the data team to improve on that side of the business, as well as generally grow and scale the business. There are other potential avenues to explore in the future, if Dinner Lab chooses, thanks to its network of knowledgable foodie customers, breakout chefs and battle-tested recipes, he adds. |
Alibaba Buys 50% Stake In Leading Chinese Soccer Team Guangzhou Evergrande | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 6 | 4 | Alibaba Group chairman Jack Ma announced today at a press conference that the company will buy a 50% stake in Guangzhou Evergrande Football Club, one of China’s top soccer teams. The deal’s value was not disclosed, but it is reportedly worth 1.2 billion yuan ($192 million), according to , the official Chinese state news agency. The investment may be part of an effort by Alibaba to extend its core offerings beyond e-commerce and into online entertainment ahead of its IPO, as it faces more competition from other e-commerce firms like JD.com, which recently . We’ve emailed Alibaba for comment. Other recent investments that can bolster Alibaba’s online entertainment offerings include . As . Japanese companies SoftBank, Rakuten and DeNA each own a baseball team, and several Asian companies sponsor European football clubs. Guangzhou Evergrande is one of China’s leading soccer teams and is headed by Marcello Lippi, the former Italian national team coach. |
WhatsApp Co-Founder Brian Acton Talks About Not Getting “Swallowed By The Borg” At StartX | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 6 | 4 | [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6PbymjXsto] In his first ever, at tonight’s event, co-founder Brian Acton talked about the company’s big “F” word (focus), how people in the U.S. just didn’t get the service when it first launched five years ago, and, of course, its (Acton said that WhatsApp will not be “swallowed by the Borg” after the deal is finalized). He also divulged that WhatsApp will finally offer a voice-calling service this year, which competitors like Line, WeChat, Viber, and KakaoTalk already do. Read on for excerpts from Acton’s talk. “I am a new father and in some ways being a father overshadows it, to be brutally honest. How did I feel? It hasn’t closed yet. I’ll say that when it closes there will be a sense of relief because between announcing and closing there are any number of months. More than anything you are somewhat numb and dumbstruck. There are a flotilla of lawyers around you, 96 hours of being in a conference room with lawyers non-stop. By the end of it, it’s just hazy. You are just numb and trying to grasp it all and I don’t think I really grasp it all just yet. It will hit me in stages. I’m looking forward to it, but also with some apprehension. I think this is pretty well-documented, but [Mark Zuckerberg] spent time with Jan at Esther’s German Bakery on San Antonio Road. It got really real in early February when he put a number in front of us and we were like ‘Oh shit, we got to pay attention to this.'” “Going public is 18 month process, while an acquisition is a 6 month process. Going public means going under so much scrutiny, regulatory approval, auditing, magnified 10 times. Having the stomach to do that isn’t necessarily in my DNA. My DNA is building a product and a service. Mark gave us an opportunity to do that.” “One of the best aspects of the deal is that Jan and Mark have agreed to a model of independence in how Facebook will own and operate WhatsApp. We said it publicly, it’s business as usual. We are not going to on day one start sending data to Facebook. By the way, we don’t have any data. People don’t understand this–we don’t have much beyond a phone number to work with. You sign up with a telephone number and go. You might have a notification name, but there is not a lot of data to share to start with. When people get concerned about data sharing, to start with there’s not a lot of data to share with Facebook. There’s the idea that we go crawling through messages–no. We don’t have the bandwidth to do that. We are 30 engineers, 60 people total. For us to go and skulk around people’s messages in 40 different languages, there’s no value for us. It goes back to the utility concept. In Asia, some sentimental differences manifest. In Line, there is some cute iconography in the product, characters, entities called stickers. It feels very Asian when you use it. What we try to do is build something more universal for a broad base around the world. It’s worked for us in the Middle East, Latin America, South America. It’s hurt us a little bit in Asia, but Hong Kong and Singapore have been the best countries for us in Asia, so it has also helped us there.” “There’s a certain degree of speculation that goes into valuations. In so far as the market supports a valuation, everyone who gets a great one deserves it, but they should also be cautious because that speculation is temporary. I saw Yahoo go from $100 billion to $10 billion. It’s not a long-term measure. Companies that have been built and operated for a long time are the most successful companies.” “I worked several years for free and had the hardest time explaining to people in the United States. If you look at what our products is, it resonated earliest in Europe. WhatsApp provides phone number based messaging and people asked isn’t that what SMS is? Yes, but SMS is expensive, antiquated, and what WhatsApp did was modernize and level that playing field. For example, in Europe, if France wants to talk to Belgium, it’s extraordinary costly because of border and telecom charges. It’s like asking North Carolina to talk to South Carolina. In the U.S. people asked ‘why not just keep using SMS,’ but people in Europe were like ‘I can talk to friends in Switzerland, in Belgium?’ It picked up super fast in Europe and then spread out virally through there. Eventually we figured it out and then it started taking off in the U.S. We do have more competition. Facebook has a messenger product as well, but we are also different. Facebook Messenger is built on the Facebook graph, but we are built on the phone graph, so we are complementary to each other as well.” “I wouldn’t say we have completely excluded an API or platform play. We de-prioritized it. We really focused being the big ‘f’ word for us, building a great consumer experience to start with. We have people knocking on our door to say that we want an API, but with an API can come spam and we are very cautious about introducing a third party into the system. We don’t want people to uninstall WhatsApp because you suddenly start getting messages about low fares to Hawaii or something. We want to put that well into the future. It’s hard because the world is a very diverse place and providing a good messaging service in Africa is very different than providing a good messaging service in the U.S. WeChat and Line provide very diverse services, ranging from the . That gets back to gimmickery. Who wants a Snoop robot to talk to? It’s fun for 30 seconds, and then you are done with it. What we think about is voice. We will build it and plan to roll it out, plus users asked for it and we believe it’s useful. But a hookup service, finding friends nearby, those are not exactly the most useful things in the world.” |
Microsoft Announces This Year’s Imagine Cup Finalists, With Satya Nadella As VIP Judge | Frederic Lardinois | 2,014 | 6 | 4 | For the last 11 years, Microsoft has been running its worldwide student software competition, and every year, it invites the best teams to the world finals. Last year’s event was in St. Petersburg, Russia, for example. This time around, the finals will take in Microsoft’s backyard in Seattle from July 29 to August 2 and the company today announced the 35 teams that have made it into the final round of the competition. In addition, Microsoft announced that the finals judges will include Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, as well as Reddit General Manger Erik Martin and Code.org Co-founder Hadi Partovi. Last year’s winners (plus Dr. Who) In total, over 1.75 million students from more than 190 countries have now participated in the event, which has evolved over the years. Early iterations mostly focused on what Microsoft called the “World Citizenship” challenge, which asked students to write applications related to social good. But now the focus is more on innovation and entrepreneurship. Microsoft has also elevated the games competition quite a bit from earlier iterations and it now sits side-by-side with the innovation and world citizenship categories. As Microsoft’s Imagine Cup lead John Scott Tynes told me this week, one of the major changes this year was the addition of a number of smaller challenges (with cash prizes) early on in the competition that were meant to help students refine the ideas for their projects. Students had to create a video pitch, for example, as well as develop a detailed for their applications and to create user interface mock-ups. The idea here was to get teams started down the path to the regional finals early, though there were no requirements for finalist teams to participate in any of the challenges. In the end, Scott Tynes tells me, almost half of the teams that made it into the semi-finals this year had participated in the earlier challenges, though. As always, the finalists cover a wide array of topics. There are a number of hardware-centric groups, for example, that include a that built a robotic teddy bear that is remote-controlled by a Kinect and a , for example, that was developed by a group of female students from Bahrain. Other projects include an for use by anybody with a smartphone and an app that lets you snap pictures of your food and provides you with . Here is a full list of this year’s finalists: As Scott Tynes also told me, this year’s winners won’t just get a $50,000 cash prize, but in addition, Microsoft will continue to work with these groups to help them develop their projects. The most innovative project, for example, will be automatically accepted into one of Microsoft Ventures’ accelerator programs. The winner of the games competition will be invited to the and events in Seattle to present the winning game, and the World Citizenship winner will get a return trip to Seattle, which will include help from Microsoft engineers and introductions to nonprofit organizations that can help further the project. |
Radio Shack Teams Up With PCH International To Create A Retail Pipeline For Hardware Startups | John Biggs | 2,014 | 6 | 4 | Electronics retailer Radio Shack is teaming up with hardware manufacturer and accelerator PCH International to bring 6 square-foot “Powered by PCH” retail spaces to stores in the United States. This area will feature hardware startups that work directly with PCH’s accelerator, , to bring their products to retail after incubation. The partnership will be called Radio Shack Labs and will reach stores by the end of the year. Makers can submit their products to . “It’s going to have a huge impact in creating more hardware startups in the U.S.,” said PCH International CEO Liam Casey. “When people tell you that bricks and mortar is dead all you have to do is look at Apple retail sales.” The largest risk hardware companies have taken, said Casey, are the financial and inventory requirements placed upon them by retailers. By shipping directly to stores and into this dedicated space, hardware makers will be able to get product in front of customers without major investment or consignment risk. While the Internet is now the de facto source for most electronics, many products benefit from bricks and mortar foot traffic. What does this mean for hardware startups? Quite a bit, actually. One of the hardest things for most makers to do is get their products into retail. By landing in Radio Shack without the traditional risk and payment terms the companies can use PCH Access to bring their products into real stores. “The good thing for Radio Shack is that it’s getting exciting products in the stores,” Casey said. Radio Shack seems excited for the attention. “We didn’t really want an antiquated retail model so that people couldn’t move forward,” said CEO Joe Magnacca. “The big issue is the fact that the inventory investment and the terms retailers usually have aren’t favorable for the entrepreneur. It’s daunting and in many cases it’s not a model that they can enter into.” By giving startups like floor space, the company hopes to breathe new life into the stores and bring back the maker community that has recently shunned big box electronics stores for online retailers. Analysts have been ringing a for the past few quarters, but Magnacca has begun investing heavily in updating and improving stores, as well as creating about 200 special stores featuring specific themes for makers, electronics fans, and mobile electronics shoppers. He hopes that these special PCH areas will further interest the maker set and encourage hardware entrepreneurs to start selling their wares at retail spaces. “We’re providing expertise in terms of packaging and placement,” said Magnacca. “It’s an investment we’re making for the success of real world products.” The “Powered by PCH” areas will roll out in the 2,000 current Radio Shack stores over the next few months. “It’s a win-win-win,” said Magnacca. For small hardware makers, it seems like it just might be. |
CyberX Gets $2M Seed Funding To Bring Better Security To The Industrial Internet | Colleen Taylor | 2,014 | 6 | 4 | , a software security startup that launched last year out of the accelerator, has raised $2 million in seed funding. The round was led by Glilot Capital Partners with participation from Shaul Shani’s Swarth Group, Leon Recanati’s GlenRock, and angel investor Gigi Levy-Weiss. Co-founded by two veterans of the Israeli army’s elite cyber security unit, CyberX has built technology that protects “industrial Internet” networks that serve as the underpinnings for crucial sectors, such as energy, gas and oil, manufacturing, and healthcare. In a phone interview this week, CyberX CEO and co-founder Omer Schneider told me that his company is emerging at a critical time for the industrial Internet space. “In the past, these networks were kept secure by being disconnected from regular networks. But today, industrial Internet networks have to be connected to the wider world through a lot of devices — it’s a world where you cannot disconnect from the entire Internet,” he said. According to Schneider, the new funding will be put toward hiring more staff and reaching more customers, particularly in the United States. At the moment, CyberX is headquartered in Israel, but the company plans to open a Silicon Valley office in the coming months. |
Apple’s New iPhone Ad Stars A Bunch Of Health Gadgets That Are Not An iWatch | Matthew Panzarino | 2,014 | 6 | 4 | Somewhere in my basement I have a Presidential Fitness Award signed by George H.W. Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger. I think I had to do 50 pushups or something to qualify — it’s a good thing that I took the test before smartphones existed, because that really put a crimp in my overall fitness state. But, as they’re essentially sensor packages with computers attached, smartphones have become a fairly versatile fitness tool over the past couple of years. The health sections of the Google Play store and App Store are exploding with options. As a response to the demand, Apple stepped up to the plate on Monday with its to try to standardize and simplify the collection and display of data. And, eventually to help health professionals tap into that data to interpret it. Today, Apple is ramping up the health-related marketing in earnest with a new iPhone ad that begins airing during the Stanley Cup. The ad features a bunch of fitness apps and gadgets, backed by a song called “Chicken Fat” by actor Robert Preston, which was originally composed for a Presidential Fitness program under President Kennedy — a tad before my time. The spot features people in various states of fitness using the iPhone and assorted gadgetry to motivate, track and train. A notes that Apple has been shifting its advertising to internal teams for some iPad spots, but the iPhone ads are still coming out of TWBA\Chiat\Day I spotted the Misfit Shine right at the top of the ad, and there’s a Withings scale, a Zepp Golf sensor and a Wahoo bike sensor in there too. A bunch of apps make an appearance including the companions to the accessories, Nike+ Running, Strong Lifts and Argus — recognizable by its unique honeycomb design. The timing is far from coincidental, with the health news as a large component of the ‘what’s new’ in iOS 8 segment of the keynote. Notably, Apple made no announcements about any smart hardware of its own, like the rumored ‘iWatch’. But it’s still happy to highlight hardware and software that runs on the iPhone now — most of which will undoubtedly be updated over the summer to feed data into the Health app. The ad starts airing this evening, we’ll embed it once it shows up online. Still, no matter how catchy Chicken Fat is, my favorite actor shilling for Presidential Fitness will always be the Austrian Oak. |
NSA-Mocking Easter Egg Found In Google’s New Email Encryption Plug-In | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 6 | 4 | Google recently made waves by introducing the framework for a through a coming plug-in for its Chrome browser. TechCrunch of the problem that Google is taking on, and that it seemed like a worthy task. However, Google left a little easter egg that is more than funny. Here’s the joke ( , ): The “SSL added and removed here” is a dig at the outside of the United States. Here’s the NSA slide on the matter: Can you spot the same text? Google’s inclusion of the text in its email encryption code is ironic in that the NSA was working to get around a popular form of encryption, and so Google used the NSA’s own words in its new tool designed to bolster message security for email users. |
Apple, Google, Microsoft And Others Call On The Senate To Strengthen NSA Reform | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 6 | 4 | At the roughly one-year anniversary of the NSA leaks, , a group backed by a number of notable tech companies, is publishing a letter demanding the Senate strengthen the NSA reform bill that . According to the letter, in the coming weeks, the upper chamber of Congress has the “opportunity to demonstrate leadership and pass a version of the USA Freedom Act that would help restore the confidence of Internet users.” Why a and not merely what passed the House? The letter continues: Unfortunately, the version that just passed the House of Representatives could permit bulk collection of Internet “metadata” (e.g. who you email and who emails you), something that the Administration and Congress said they intended to end. Moreover, while the House bill permits some transparency, it is critical to our customers that the bill allow companies to provide even greater detail about the number and type of government requests they receive for customer information. The letter is signed by the CEOs of AOL (TechCrunch owner), Apple, Dropbox, Yahoo, Twitter, Microsoft, Google, Facebook and LinkedIn. Tomorrow, it will be published, according to the group, in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Politico. The tech leaders are therefore trying to reach general and political audiences with their complaints. The USA FREEDOM Act was rushed through to passage after a long period of purgatory. It passed, but in the process, , because what the proposal had was not what they had supported. Reaction was quickly negative. The final version left room for bulk collection to continue, precisely what the bill had set out to prevent. After voting against the bill, , one of its original co-sponsors, stated that the final version fell “short of the Fourth Amendment protections Americans deserve” and likely “makes it legal for the NSA to continue mass surveillance of U.S. citizens.” Oops. Earlier today Microsoft , describing a number of changes it would like to see in how the government handles surveillance. Included in that list was bulk collection. |
Swift, Apple’s New Programming Language, Has Been In Development For Nearly Four Years | Kyle Russell | 2,014 | 6 | 4 | At its WWDC event on Monday, Apple made waves among the iOS and Mac developer communities with the announcement of designed from the ground up by the company’s developer tools team. The language itself builds upon the compiler, runtime, and libraries that Apple developers use with Objective-C today, which means that those already familiar with the tools for making iOS and Mac apps only need to pick up a bit of syntax before they can start working Swift code into their existing codebases. Heck, one enterprising programmer — breaks included. According to Chris Lattner, director of Apple’s Developer Tools Department, the Swift programming language has only been in development since July 2010. , he writes that the language began as a solo project, with “only a few people knowing of its existence.” Lattner goes on to write that a select few engineers joined him on the project in late 2011, and that it only became a major focus for the Apple Developer Tools team in July 2013. While Apple could have justified the creation of Swift by simply saying, “hey, this is better than Obective-C” (see: ), Lattner claims that his motivations for the project were far bigger in scope: I hope that by making programming more approachable and fun, we’ll appeal to the next generation of programmers and to help redefine how Computer Science is taught. Lattner’s page also hints at the influences behind Swift, which from most outsiders’ perspectives seems to be the long-term replacement for Objective-C, which has been around since 1983. He notes that his team drew from Objective-C, Rust, Haskell, Ruby, Python, C#, CLU, and other languages when designing the syntax and structure of the language, while adding that the interactive “Playgrounds” feature for Swift in Xcode was inspired by Bret Victor’s theories on making programming as well as , an extensible, interactive programming environment that |
After Antitrust Suit, Bazaarvoice Sells PowerReviews To Review Site Viewpoints For $30M | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 6 | 4 | Bazaarvoice just announced that it’s selling PowerReviews for $30 million in cash. The news comes after , followed by an antitrust suit in which the US Department of Justice argued that by bringing together two major consumer review sites in one company, the acquisition would reduce competition. The suit ended with . The companies said today that they’ve finalized their agreement at the aforementioned $30 million price (the Bazaarvoice/PowerReviews acquisition was worth $168 million, but only $31 million of that was in cash). The deal is still subject to approval from the DOJ. In , Bazaarvoice CEO Gene Austin said the company’s business has “evolved significantly” since the acquisition. “Once the sale of PowerReviews is approved and closed, we will be able to put the antitrust litigation behind us and turn our full attention to the large market opportunity ahead of us,” Austin said. “In an era marked by social conversation, our value proposition has never been stronger for brands and retailers facing the challenges of building informative, trusted, and lasting relationships with consumers.” Meanwhile, Viewpoints said it will now be using PowerReviews as the company name. Viewpoints CEO Matt Moog will continue as CEO, and PowerReviews founding CTO Jim Morris will become CTO of the combined organization. You can . |
Grow Your Own Apartment With Just The Wave Of Your Hand | Sarah Buhr | 2,014 | 6 | 4 | MIT’s aims to solve the space issue for many urban renters in New York and San Francisco who often must sacrifice space for cost. A 200 square-foot modular unit expands to a full 840 square-foot apartment with the wave of a hand. Think of it like an apartment in a box that responds to Wii-like hand gestures. While similar to this awesome foldable currently on the market for , CityHome lets you control the layout using hand motions instead having to do the manual labor. It’s not actually a completely built-in modular apartment, but rather a bunch of home components you can reconfigure for whatever you need. We’re not sure exactly how the hand gesture component of the technology works just yet but we have asked for more information and will update as soon as we hear back. CityHome mainly relies on what it calls the RoboWall, a key module of the unit that enables all home reconfiguration. These reconfigurations can include rooms, such as guest bedrooms, a gym, storage space, two separate office spaces plus a meeting room. Want to have a dinner party for up to 14 people? Just wave till the table and chairs come forth. Baking up a storm? Gesture backward on the right components and ! A kitchen complete with fridge, oven and stove-top plates. Transform the living room into the dining room and then the dining room into the bedroom when you are ready to get some zzzz. It’s just a lab prototype for now, but Kent Larson, the MIT Media Labs creative lead for the project, sees this as a viable product he intends to bring to market soon. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8giE7i7CAE&w=560&h=315] |
null | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 6 | 3 | null |
The iPhone-Controlled Visiobike Will Take You For A Ride | John Biggs | 2,014 | 6 | 4 | Zoom zoom! A Croatian company wants to put your butt onto a new kind of bike, a sort of electric/mechanical hybrid that uses battery assist to help you up the hills and includes an automatic transmission system that ensures you rarely have to use the battery. Called the , the $5,303 bike is made of carbon fiber and has a dock for your phone. Special software gives you a speedometer, transmission control and other treats as you scoot around town. It also has a camera in the seat for rear-facing views of traffic behind you in real time and for recording if someone rear-ends you. Created by Marko Matenda, an entrepreneur and bike lover, the bike also has disc brakes, automatic safety lights, and a unique 3 minute recording feature that will show you what happened in an accident. Best of all, if the bike stops suddenly – and I mean really suddenly – a built-in emergency alarm will use your phone to contact the authorities. The feature, needless to say, could be a lifesaver. I met Marko in Zagreb a few years back and he was just finishing up the final touches on a working prototype. Now that he’s ready to start shipping in December, he’s decided to go the crowdfunding route to get the word out. Basically this is a Bugatti of electric bikes, which is pretty crazy. Again, it’s surprisingly expensive so you’re going to have to think long and hard before you drop the $5k+ to pick one of these up. However, it looks like a fascinating move forward for pedal-assist bikes and electric bikes in general. [vimeo https://vimeo.com/96645919] |
Amazon Will Announce A New Device On June 18, Likely Their 3D Eye-Tracking Phone | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 6 | 4 | Back , we broke the word that Amazon was working on a new smartphone …with a bit of a twist. Using multiple cameras to track your eyes and head, it featured a 3D interface that changed according to how you were looking at it, we were told. Amazon has just tweeted about its plans to host a press event on June 18 — and all signs are pointing toward the announcement of just such a device. Join Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos for our launch event. June 18th, Seattle. Request an invite — Amazon.com (@amazon) While the tweet itself makes no mention of the announcement being centered around a new device, the description on the video it links to puts it in no uncertain terms. The first sentence: “Want an invite to our unveiling?” The video itself, meanwhile, features people bobbing their heads back and forth to interact with a device just out of frame, saying things like “It moved with me!”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erUZQ9GK0sE When you click through the link for an invite request and mark that you’re a developer, the form asks you for an example of an “innovative way in which you have used gyroscopes, accelerometers, compass, or other sensors in your app development” and asks whether you’d be interested in “developing apps that utilize a novel type of sensor.” |
Low-Cost Hardware Merchant Monoprice Now Offers A $1,199 3D Printer | John Biggs | 2,014 | 6 | 4 | Monoprice, everyone’s favorite source for cheap $20-foot HDMI cables and other stuff that you don’t feel like going to Best Buy for, has just announced the availability of a new 3D printer, a that looks to be based on the original MakerBot Replicator. The $1,199 printer comes with two spools of PLA filament and has a 225 x 145 x 150 mm build volume. Like most Monoprice stuff, this printer is decidedly low-key. It’s made of powder-coated metal and has a heated build plate so it can print ABS and PLA. I mention it here only because it looks to be, at the very least, a solid if generic printer that could be nice as a second device in your home workshop or design office. Called Product 11614 (Monoprice rarely stands on ceremony) the device is built to the company’s specifications by a third party. Is it as good as, say, a printer? In all honesty there’s no way to tell yet, but given Monoprice’s Trader Joe’s-style sales tactics I suspect low price/high quality might be at play here. The company recently began selling 3D printer filament for cheap, a move that made it a darling in the 3D printing community. Now that big OEM rebadgers like Monoprice are in on the 3D printing game it’s not much longer before the guys at HP and maybe Dell decide to drop a few models. Excelsior! [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Y3cSCveW9S4] |
Meet The Judges For The TechCrunch Pitch-Off In Austin | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 6 | 4 | Howdy, y’all. As a Texan myself, I’m thrilled to announce the judges for our going down next week at Palm on 6th St. (BTW, tickets to the Austin Meetup are still available but are running out quickly so grab one before it’s too late). We’ve selected about a dozen companies to participate (emails went out this morning), and they will each have exactly 60 seconds to wow a panel of local VCs, as well as our fine Southern audience. First place takes home two tickets to Disrupt SF in September and a demo table in Startup Alley. Second place gets two tickets to Disrupt, and third place gets one ticket. So who will be deciding the fate of our young protagonists? Joshua spends all day worrying about email so that you don’t have to. He is an email marketing pioneer and the Founder of SKYLIST, UnsubCentral and OtherInbox. He has founded or invested in a dozen email startups and you can see his mark on about half of the email messages in your Inbox. Joshua received Computer Science and Information Decision Systems degrees from Carnegie Mellon University and lives in Austin, TX with his wife and three children. Prior to Omniture, Mike was Senior Vice President and General Manager at Ancestry.com, a consumer online content subscription business. He was also a Partner with Europatweb, a venture capital firm where he worked with companies such as Liquidity Services Inc. and Ancestry.com, and a technology investment banker with Robertson Stephens in San Francisco. Mike received an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS in finance from Syracuse University. Prior to LiveOak, Venu was a General Partner at Austin Ventures where he invested in over ten companies producing more than $1 Billion in exit values to date. He was an early investor in and sat on the Board of Directors of LifeSize Communications (acquired by Logitech), Spatial Wireless (acquired by Alcatel-Lucent), Navini Networks (acquired by Cisco Systems), Mavenir Systems (NYSE:MVNR) and Sipera Systems (acquired by Avaya Communications). Prior to joining Austin Ventures, he was with McKinsey & Co. serving clients in the enterprise systems and software markets. He started his professional career as a software developer and engineering lead at Mentor Graphics. Venu received his MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business, MS in Computer Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, and a BS in Electronics and Communications Engineering from Osmania University, India. These are some of the best minds in the industry, and with some of the deepest pockets in Austin tech, and any chance to get to know them is one you should take. That said, the pitch-off isn’t the only reason to come to our TechCrunch Meetup. We’ll have beer, smart folks to talk to, and the opportunity for the community to come together in Austin for one reason: we all love tech. To get a ticket to the Austin Meetup on June 10, just . |
Shut Up And Take My Money For The Cards Against Humanity: Tech Edition | Matt Burns | 2,014 | 6 | 4 | You’ve played , right? The so-called party game for horrible people? Well, and it’s about the best thing ever. It’s just not available for purchase — yet. The premise is of course the same: Use the white cards to complete the sentence on the black cards. But this time around, the theme of the black cards is decidedly tilted to the Silicon Valley crowd with such cards as “It’s not a tech bubble, it’s a [BLANK]” and “Facebook just bought [BLANK].” There’s also, “Silicon Valley is full of [BLANK]” and “It’s hard being [BLANK] in tech.” posted the entire collection and it’s sadly not available for purchase. But you can make your own. Cards Against Humanity has long offered . Just transcribe them onto those. : The Bold Italic made the whole deck available for downloading! . But that’s not good enough, to be honest. This pack, along with the others I’m sure will be generated in the comments below, need their own official expansion pack. Again, if a drone can deliver a six-pack of beer, this pack of amazing playing cards needs to be available for purchase in their official form. |
SportsQuest Wants To Be QuizUp For Sport, With A Few Twists | Mike Butcher | 2,014 | 6 | 4 | is a challenge-style game that was released last September and has created a lot of buzz around its social model. The massive take-up it achieved demonstrated that there was a market for competitive, real-time quiz apps. A few new apps have tried to replicate this, but not many in vertical subjects. , by Cuju Media, is an iOS app that plans to do just that and was actually started before QuizUp came out. With the World Cup around the corner, and with over 3 billion football fans on the planet, SportsQuest is well-timed. SportsQuest is a competitive quiz game for iPhone and iPad that lets sports fans test their knowledge against their friends and the clock. The game features a database of over 26,000 questions in 260 categories covering football and 21 other sports. It also includes a crowd-sourcing feature where players can send in their own questions and receive in-game currency and trophies if their questions are used. It differs from other quiz apps in that, as well as real-time head-to-head gameplay, SportsQuest offers solo games. Co-founder James Duez says “Players can also ‘play ahead’ when their friends are busy, and let them catch-up. Your opponent gets to play against a recording of your game, so to them it feels live.” QuizUp has had some criticism for rewarding persistence a little more than knowledge. Instead, SportsQuest has a leaderboard, and players are rewarded for sports knowledge and speed by recognizing cumulative, highest and average scores. SportsQuest is a also a bit more than a simple quiz. It’s fast-paced with games lasting under a minute. Its in-app currency can be spent on in-game perks that add a strategic dimension and can get you out of a hole. Like some other free-to-play games like Candy Crush, there is a regenerating ticket mechanism so that players can start off with a book of five game tickets that, once used, immediately regenerate for free every 20 minutes. Impatient players can recharge their books immediately by introducing a friend or can pay 69p. The game also offers unlimited passes for an hour, or one-day and seven-day passes. There are many other payment options. You can enroll by email, Facebook or Twitter, but the game does not post on your behalf unless you choose to share individual achievements. Some games (including QuizUp) are quick to embarrass you if you do not do well by posting your failures online, which can be annoying. |
Chic By Choice Is A European Take On RentTheRunway | Mike Butcher | 2,014 | 6 | 4 | has made a splash as a way for women to literally rent high fashion. Now a new startup hopes it can reproduce that success with a similar model, which has a new take on the idea, with the goal of bringing a large variety of luxury rentals to all major markets in Europe. With , you hire designer dresses curated by boutiques and department stores. It tackles selection and distribution differently than Rent The Runway by partnering with merchants and brands. It also provides shipping to most European countries. Its selection offers a variety of styles from a network of boutiques representing brands such as Dior, Jenny Packham, Elie Saab, Dolce & Gabbana, Lanvin, 3.1 Phillip Lim, Etro and Peter Pilotto. Founder Filipa Neto says the startup is now backed with an undisclosed sum by Portugal Ventures and Faber Ventures, both out of Lisbon, Portugal. “Our target is mostly women with purchasing power in their 20’s to their 40’s,” says Neto. “Rentals are a powerful way to market a luxury brand and convert aspirational buyers into actual consumers.” A beta site (launched at the Decoded Fashion London conference) offers 100 dresses, a selection that will grow to 600 dresses in the next six months. |
Profitero Raises $8M From Polaris Partners To Scale E-Commerce Intelligence | Mike Butcher | 2,014 | 6 | 4 | , a SaaS provider of online insights and e-commerce intelligence for retailers and brands, has raised $8 million from Polaris Partners. It will use the funds to double its 40-strong engineering team and expand its presence in North America and abroad. Profitero says it want so be the “Nielsen for online global retailers and brands.” It currently has Staples, Sam’s Club, Waitrose and Ocado as customers, monitoring over 220 million prices in near real-time. The company also appointed Iran Salim, former CEO of MarkMonitor, to its board. |
Hardware Hackers: I Want To See Your Battlefield Applications | Samantha O'Keefe | 2,014 | 6 | 4 | The past few Disrupts have been amazing for fans of hardware. From to , we’ve had some amazing startups appearing on stage alongside the software makers of the world and it’s clear that hardware is where it’s at. That’s why I need you to submit your hardware project to . It’s a great platform, a great way to grab attention, and a great way to jumpstart crowdfunding. Who knows? You might even meet the VC of your dreams. Read on to find out how to make it onto our big stage for the really big show. I’d love to see you in San Francisco or London! You can find more details at the event pages for and . 1. TechCrunch is open to all types of companies, from developer tools to hardware devices, core computing technology to mobile ecommerce apps. We even occasionally 3D print makeup. 2. We give heavy preference to companies that launch for the to the public and press at TechCrunch Disrupt. We consider new products from existing companies to be significant. Companies that have presented at other public launch events are not eligible for Startup Battlefield. 3. The competition will take place in San Francisco and London, but startups from around the globe are welcome to submit their startups for consideration. 4. Startups may apply to either or both Disrupt SF or Disrupt Europe but they may participate in only one. Note: All Submissions are confidential unless otherwise permitted by applicants. We review applications on a rolling basis, so it’s to your advantage to submit as soon as you are ready. Due to strong demand, we are unable to review applications more than once, so please do not submit a draft application before you are ready for final consideration. We are also unable to provide feedback on individual applications. If you’re choosing between launch platforms and need an early decision, please apply and email us at and we’ll priority review your application. |
Mixify Launches Clubcast To Bring Daft Punk To Your House | Jonathan Shieber | 2,014 | 6 | 5 | Daft Punk , but startup company has launched a new service, called and raised initial capital to bring DJs from around the world to your club or event. Mixify began as a live streaming service for electronic dance music in late 2012. The company developed relationships with 15,000 different electronic DJs to stream their sets through the company’s service. Now, with the launch of Clubcast, Mixify is reaching out to venue owners and event promoters to bring an interactive experience to their clubs using any DJ on the Mixify roster. Using Clubcast, venues can stream interactive DJ sets where club goers can watch the DJs perform. Already the company has arranged events with DJs like Tommy Trash, Bassjackers and Firebeatz in locations from Buenos Aires to the Cayman Islands. The company expects to be selling the Clubcast service in 40 markets by August of this year. “Mixify Clubcast is sold on a per-event basis,” says Mixify founder David Moricca. “In many cases we’re doing booking of a big-name DJ as part of the service. it works particularly well for markets where they don’t have the market to support booking for these acts or the access.” Globally, electronic dance music pulls in at least $15 billion, and much of that revenue is generated from electronic dance festivals that continue to gain attendees even as other music festivals have seen their numbers decline. “Live events are a growing part of the music industry,” he says. “And EDM is the fastest growing. Demand for DJs way outstrips supply.” The company’s thesis about the growth of electronic dance music has grabbed the attention of investors like Jamie Olsen of the Australian investment firm CMB Capital; Tim McGee and Richard Mergler of the music distribution and promotion company Ministry of Sound Australia; and Tommy Trash who is also a producer. All told Mixify has raised $1.8 million for its service. “The focus is really on growing Clubcast sales and marketing — particularly on the international level. It’s about them growing the brand and growing the sales pipeline.” Through Mixify’s Australian partners, the company is hoping to expand its customer base in key markets like Singapore and Hong Kong. There’s a profusion of talented DJs in the U.S. and Western Europe, but demand is coming from the Asian markets that the company hopes to penetrate, says Moricca. |
Meet The Judges For The Seattle TC Pitch-Off (And Get Tickets!) | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 6 | 5 | In one week, TechCrunch will . Matt will climb the Space Needle. I’ll sip a latte at the original Starbucks. Maybe we’ll squeeze in a stroll around Pike Place Market. And still, none of it will compare to the magic of the going down on June 12 at 6 p.m. We’ll have good drinks, good conversation, and some awesome startups that will compete in a rapid-fire pitch-off competition to be judged by an amazing audience (yes, ) and… well, judges. Tickets are still available but going quickly, so pick one up . 21+ please. The winners will receive tickets to TechCrunch Disrupt SF, and first place even gets a table in our Startup Alley, which translates into the chance to get into the Battlefield and win the Disrupt Cup and $50,000. So who will decide the fate of these Washingtonian entrepreneurs? Previously, Maiocco was General Counsel and Vice President of Corporate Development at Gomez, Inc. (acquired by Compuware). Earlier, he was Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Klir Technologies, Inc. (acquired by Gomez, Inc.), and worked as a corporate technology attorney with Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP. Maiocco holds a Juris Doctorate, a Master of Planning and a Bachelor of Arts and is an alumnus of the University of Virginia and the University of Washington. He holds 3 patents and serves as a board member, advisor and mentor for several entities in the United States. Previously, Greg served on the boards of Decide (acquired by eBay), ThisLife (acquired by Shutterfly), Rendition Networks (acquired by EMC), Livebid (acquired by Amazon), and AdRevelance (acquired by Media Metrix). Greg also is a member of the investment committee of the W Fund, the venture fund based out of the University of Washington. When not starting or investing in companies, Greg regularly injures himself playing non-contact sports and is unusually obsessed with Game of Thrones and all superhero movies. Julie was named Geek of the year by Geekwire and was a featured speaker at the international WE Day event held in Seattle to inspire youth to action. She is also an adjunct faculty member at the University of Washington where she teaches a course on Entrepreneurship at the Foster School of Business. Prior to joining Madrona, Julie was a senior product manager at Amazon on the Kindle team, where she managed digital marketing and traffic channels for Kindle’s ebook business, both in the US and internationally. Previously David held the roles of Director of Product and Operations at Quantcast. As Director of Product he drove Quantcast Marketer from idea to an audience platform used by over 300+ advertisers across 6 billion actions a month. Prior to Quantcast, David held leadership roles at WebTrends, and Farecast (acquired by Microsoft in 2008). Early in his career, David was the youngest licensed investment advisor in the nation at 17. |
Core Gaming On Tablets Gets A $11.6M Mega-Boost In Super Evil Megacorp’s New Round | Kim-Mai Cutler | 2,014 | 6 | 5 | Just as it seemed like iOS and Android gaming was getting mature and maybe a tad boring, veteran game developer Bo Daly amassed a super evil mega-team of super evil mega-game developers to build a new startup called . They just snagged former EA executive Kristian Segerstrale (pictured below) as their new chief operating officer and picked up $11.6 million in a new round led by General Catalyst. Segerstrale, who left EA after leading its transition to digital, free-to-play gaming, had been working on the board of Clash of Clans-maker Supercell before it sold a little more than half of itself in a $1.53 billion deal to Japanese carrier Softbank and developer Gung-Ho. Before that, Segerstrale was a co-founder of early social game developer Playfish. Super Evil Megacorp is entering the ring at a time where production values for mobile games have gone up enormously. The top-grossing titles are no predominantly longer simple, casual games and Daly, along with several other teams, are betting there’s a market for console-quality titles. As Daly says, the company is trying to bring back the feel of “epic LAN parties” from the 1990s. Oh yeah. “We’re a bunch of engineers who are highly steeped in game design with the technical ability to build very high-production-value triple AAA titles,” he said. They’re teasing a MOBA, or multiplayer online battle arena game, called Vainglory. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBO-SdwNmlU&w=560&h=315] Daly says the size of the round is to give the team plenty of runway to think about the evolution of touchscreen gaming over decades, instead of months. Indeed, the team has quietly spent the past two years building a proprietary game engine technology that enables them to handle an enormous numbers of players in real-time. While the team consists of veterans from Blizzard, Rockstar and Riot, the company has social, free-to-play DNA with Segerstrale and other Supercell alums. Segerstrale, who had been helping out the company from time to time, chose to jump back in the ring because of the market opportunity. “We’ve been used to seeing short session game play on mobile devices for awhile,” he said. “But actually, a lot of gamers want to spend one to two hours every evening actually playing games. Right now, the only places to do that are on consoles and the PC.” With the round, General Catalyst’s Adam Valkin joins the board. Other investors include Raine Ventures, Playdom and Signia Venture Partners co-founder Rick Thompson, CrossCut Ventures’ Clinton Foy, Segerstrale’s Initial Capital and China’s ZhenFund. |
This Is The Face Tracking Tech Powering Amazon’s New 3D Smartphone | Matt Burns | 2,014 | 6 | 5 | Rumor has it – and we’ve confirmed – that Amazon will launch its first smartphone on June 18. The device will be unique in the marketplace thanks to its ability to deliver 3D effects courtesy of four front-mounted IR cameras. What wasn’t known is how Amazon planned to scan our faces to handle the UI elements. TechCrunch has learned that Amazon is using to track the user’s head. The Japanese firm’s technology was modified by an internal team at Amazon to allow its upcoming phone to deliver unique stereoscopic effects from a standard LCD screen. For example, , a user can tilt the smartphone or their head left or right to browse and access hidden side panels. Watch the video (below) Amazon released along with the invitation to its launch event. Our source tells us that sort of motion is exactly how the technology works. , his effect is done by the use of four front-mounted cameras placed at each corner of the device. The Okao face detecting and tracking software derives X, Y, and Z coordinates from the stereo-aligned cameras. The phone’s gyro sensor and accelerometer enables the Okao software to provide a faster response and increased accuracy and power efficiency. The result is a 3D effect currently unique in the marketplace. 3D glasses are not needed and there aren’t limiting 3D factors like on the Nintendo 3DS. According to Omron, the Okao software pack can also recognize faces and facial attributes to estimate a person’s gender, age and ethnicity. It doesn’t sound like Amazon has currently employed any of these additional features at this time. Currently Amazon is focused on head-tracking. Amazon hopes third-party developers will latch onto this system and develop apps that take advantage of this head tracking software. We’re told that the 3D feature is very limited out of the box. At launch, there will be just a couple of added gestures built into the operating system that utilize this system. The phone runs Amazon’s fork of Android, FireOS. It will come with several built-in apps that use these extreme 3D parallax effects. The company has been courting developers for sometime . The phone itself a 720p 4.7-inch screen and be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor with 2GB of RAM. There will be six cameras on the device — four dedicated for the head tracking along with a front-facing camera and a rear-facing 13MP camera. The phone’s price, name and release date is currently unknown although Amazon is likely to reveal all that and more at its June 18th launch event. |
It’s The Security, Stupid! | Danny Crichton | 2,014 | 6 | 5 | On Tuesday, Google of the current state of encryption in email, revealing that some leading providers like Comcast and France’s Orange encrypted nearly none of the email that approached its servers. The news this week seemed to confirm many of our worst fears about the state of security on the Internet (as it does most weeks). In China, this week marked of that government’s crackdown on protesters in Tiananmen Square. Of course, “marking” is a turn-of-phrase, as Chinese citizens were from accessing information about the event or discussing it due to the government’s heavy censorship on the web. , “Chinese Citizens Observe 25-Year Moment Of Silence For Tiananmen Square Massacre.” But lest you think that censorship is only endemic in the Middle Kingdom, an interesting wrinkle also cropped up in Florida this week, where attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union for data related to the use of stingrays, a device that can capture information from cell phones such as location. U.S. Marshals before they could be released, preventing disclosure about this particular practice in the United States. That’s just the highlights of one week of news, in a time when we have had of credit card data in history, as well as with the Heartbleed error in OpenSSL. These are depressing signs, but they are only set to get worse over the short-term as companies scramble to catch up to the challenges of security with today’s Internet. The challenges of technology and culture are going to continue to pummel our hopes for a secure Internet future. Only through completely transforming our mindset do we have a hope to move the needle in the right direction. Unfortunately, technology trends portend even more security vulnerabilities to come. We continue to build increasingly complex interconnectivity into our startups, apps, and products, almost guaranteeing that the kinds of accidental disclosures and leaks we have seen – whether to cyber-hackers or government intelligence collectors – will continue. Why does this interconnectivity matter? One theory comes from a book by Perrow argues that accidents are correlated with two qualities of a socio-technical system: complexity and coupling. As the interactions between discrete elements of a system become more complex, and as those elements become increasingly coupled together, the more emerging properties that a system will be expected to exhibit. Such systems produce “normal accidents,” accidents that are unexceptional given the design of the system. Perrow was mostly arguing against nuclear power plants, but much of his logic resonates in our Internet software as well. We see his thinking in the case a few months ago of . An attacker managed to get through GoDaddy’s security verification process by acquiring the last four digits of Hiroshima’s credit card through PayPal. Once he had control of his GoDaddy accounts, the attacker redirected the domain name that Hiroshima used as his custom email address. With his email under control, the attacker could then log in to other websites using password-reset mechanisms. In short, a complex, tightly-coupled system. A normal accident, or a normal hack as it may be. But interconnectivity is only one half of the challenge to security from our changing technology infrastructure. With our rapid adoption of cloud and mobile technologies, we are returning to the paradigm in which a mainframe computer (this time, a data center) does much of the processing and storing of data that we used to do on our now increasingly thin (literally and metaphorically) clients. The security implication here should be obvious. As more of our data has to travel the web, the opportunities quickly multiply for hackers and governments to undermine protections around those bits. Frankly, an early 1990s laptop is more immune to hacking than a 2014 iPhone or Android. We’ve moved in the wrong direction. These security issues in the cloud have been discussed ad nauseam, but few broach the more fundamental question – is the very concept of cloud-computing the problem rather than the solution to our security? Cloud industry veterans would argue that centralization generally makes security better, since a patch only has to be deployed once to fix all instances. But, the lack of diversity in technologies also means that a single vulnerability can affect nearly everyone. Our concentration on a handful of providers (and a handful of software libraries too!) may be the core problem we have to address. If it was just technology trends that were putting security in the memory hole, we might have a fighting chance to improve our fragile Internet. But culture plays just as much of a role in these issues, if not more so. When it comes to startups, . Don’t plan, push code quickly, receive feedback, and iterate. Do this loop as fast as possible to design a product that will reach product-market fit. As a theory, it decently captures a lot of the best practices that startups should pursue in order to avoid key mistakes (like never shipping a product!). But that culture of break things and iterate is poisonous for security. Securing a system as complicated as a modern software-as-a-service startup takes planning, care and dedication. Some startups obviously do this, especially in highly regulated areas like finance or payments. But few others seem to place security anywhere near the top of priorities. Heck, even encrypting passwords in a database is hard for many startups as repeated leaks can attest (sadly, established companies have had just as many problems). I understand that startups just starting out benefit from security through obscurity. When you only have 10 users, security is probably a distant twinkle in a founder’s dreams. Security leaks are almost validation that success is beginning – that someone somewhere actually spent the time to poke through a startup’s systems and break into its user database table in PostgreSQL. But taking a triage approach to security is not what the world requires today. More broadly, the world is also fighting against the underlying current of the Internet’s culture of openness and transparency. The development of encryption on the web was , coming only with the increasing demands of e-commerce websites, which needed a way to accept payments without having details intercepted. That openness means that there is a tendency to secure systems when there are problems, rather than securing them from the beginning. Maybe it is the security postscript to Donald Knuth’s line that programmers learn early in their careers: “premature optimization is the root of all evil.” Security too often feels like a feature tacked on at the end, and not a starting principle. Finally, lest we heap too much blame on founders already burdened with thousands of demands, we need to note the lack of security consciousness of most venture capitalists and journalists. While it is understandable that a startup’s product, team, and market are the top priorities, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t discuss security at all. Few VC firms do code reviews for instance, and journalists almost never ask about security except for startups with it as their key feature or obvious focus. If the culture around security is going to change, we need to bring that change to the touchpoints of a startup’s development. Between these technology trends and cultural forces, it is a pretty bleak picture for security on the web today. To a degree, it’s a bit unfair to be too critical. Security is damn tough to do right, even by experts. When it comes to flaws and data leaks, the advantage is always for the bad guys – they only have to find one vulnerability, while engineers for the product have to protect the entire codebase. But security can’t be seen as just holes, flaws and injection attacks. Security has to be seen as a constituent part of coding for the web, as important as reliability, speed and ease-of-use. I think the changes needed today are many-fold. First, and absolutely critically, security needs to become standard in computer science curriculums. Most programs have no security requirements, or if it is taught, it is usually included as part of a systems survey class. Given this lack of preparation and background, it shouldn’t be surprising that websites still have obvious vulnerabilities coming . Once those engineers leave school and enter the workforce, few will have to think about security again as those issues are generally handled by dedicated “security engineers” (assuming they exist at all). Startups need to turn that thinking around. Everyone needs to be involved in security, from the front-end programmers designing the client pages to the backend programmers developing APIs. Companies need to put in place not just the culture, but also the incentives to encourage engineers to do their diligence on their own code and the work of others. In addition to culture, companies need to continue to improve their transparency around security issues, and actively seek accountability from the marketplace through responsible disclosure pages and bounties, or using startups like which helps to manage this process. It would be helpful for some sort of industry group or certification around these ethics and standards to be popularized. Finally, the Internet needs to default to encrypted protocols like HTTPS, . There are still very strong concerns behind mandating HTTPS, and it certainly doesn’t solve many of the bugs that cause vulnerabilities. But the number of snoops on the Internet, whether intelligence agencies or cyber-hackers, means that we have to do more to ensure that data is routed around the web securely. That may mean fundamentally changing the way that data centers are structured (to reduce traffic between them, for instance). But the stakes are high, and these changes were needed years ago. These solutions are only a start. Security is hard, and our programming libraries and protocols have not matured to guarantee the security we may naively expect of them. But we all suffer the consequences when we relegate security to the “nice to have” category. Security is a pain killer, not a vitamin. Every one of us has the responsibility to do our part to build a less fragile and more secure Internet. , it’s the security, stupid. Let’s get this one right. |
Tinder Just Replaced The Pick-Up Line With Selfies | Josh Constine | 2,014 | 6 | 5 | “So hey, do you live around here?” could be replaced by silly selfies if takes off. The swiping part of was always fun, akin to spotting potential lovers across the bar. The problem was ending up with a bunch of matches on Tinder or someone making “come hither” eyes at you in real life, but having nothing to say to break the ice. You know where people never have that problem? Snapchat. That’s because you don’t have to “say” anything. Its rapid-fire photo and video capture make communicating visually easier than typing. Why text a friend “home drinking” when you can draw a little martini glass tipped into a photo of your open gullet? And since your snaps disappear rather than living forever like on Facebook or Twitter, you don’t have to worry if you don’t look perfect or act a little over the top. With any luck, Tinder could bring the same care-free communication to its app with Moments. Snap a pic, add overlaid text or drawings, and it becomes visible to all your previous matches for the next 24 hours. If there was any confusion about what to photograph, Moments defaults the camera to front-facing so…SELFIES! Sure, you can also take pics of you with friends to prove you’re not a total outcast, or your high-flying adventures to show off your luxury lifestyle. But I’d bet that there’ll lots of “trying too hard” smirks and deplorable duck faces. I just tried Momenting a pic of my new haircut, and found it immediately less stressful than getting tongue-tied trying to come up with a perfect pick-up line. Choosing whether to complement, insult, go generic, or be weird when chatting on Tinder is the subject of . But more often than not, they all feel forced and somewhat impersonal. If I feel creepy sending these messages, my sympathy goes out to their recipients. Sending selfies instead embraces the inherently shallow brilliance of Tinder. The whole app is based on snap judgements about people’s appearances. It seemed somewhat odd to follow that up with trying to pull your best Shakespeare. Moments puts your dumb mug back front-and-center, but it does lets you embellish it with a few words or a drawing. For guys without the chiseled jaw or dreamy eyes of a movie star, the ability to approach women with a funny photo or doodle could even the playing field. Of course, none of this will work if people don’t actually open the Moments notifications and browse the section. The simplicity of Tinder has been one of its strong suits compared to bloated profile-based dating apps. It feels more like game than a “I’m going to die alone if I don’t stay on this dating site. Moments definitely complicates things, and if the failures of tacked-on social features like Instagram Direct are any indicator, it can tough teaching the old dogs of Tinder a new way to flirt. And Tinder hopes that moments will help it march beyond dating and into fostering other types of relationships. Tinder rocketed to ubiquity by mirroring the best parts of meatspace courtship but ditching the worst. It combines the natural desire to vet by appearance with tech-powered asynchronous two-way approvals to make rejection invisible. Moments could bring two more IRL dating fixtures into the fold: body language and humor. You were a crummy poet anyways. |
Sherlybox Creates A Network Storage System On Your Desk | John Biggs | 2,014 | 6 | 5 | Personal cloud-like storage solutions are all the rage these days, what with the NSA reading our love letters and all, so desktop-based hard drives with some cloud smarts are a great way to get Dropbox-like performance with your own hardware. That’s where comes in. Sherlybox, created by the makers of software solution , is a small hard drive that connects to your network and creates a private cloud. You can share the space with others, upload and download files, and offers invite-only access to your data. The 1TB $199 device ($149 without hard drive), looks a little like a space ship and works mostly like a standard NAS. Rather than requiring a lengthly setup, however, the lets you start up the NAS features with three clicks of a button on the side. It also uses a faster transfer protocol and a standard Raspberry Pi to power the file transfer. The company is looking for $69,000 and has raised $16,000 so far. The plan is to start shipping in January. Sher.ly was a and was one of the more popular projects on stage. It’s an interesting project and could be a nice solution for small business and home office storage. There are obviously other ways to do this – , which works well – but this one is a bit more compact and nicely designed. It will be interesting to see the final unit.
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Google Will Now Warn You When A Site’s Mobile Version Is Broken And Dumb | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 6 | 5 | We’ve all been there. You take out your phone to Google something. You click the first result. It starts loading the page you wanted… bam! You’re kicked to the homepage of the site. More often than not, this is because the site you were trying to visit implemented its “mobile-friendly” version in a dumb way. Rather than adapting responsively or forwarding you to the proper page, the server is just loading the mobile theme, dumping you on the homepage, and calling it a day. There’s no easy fix for this on Google’s end — but starting today, they’re trying to chip away at the problem. They’re : Is it a perfect solution? Nah — but it’s not really within Google’s technical bounds to do anything more (like, say attempt to override the theme on sites it knows are broken. You’d have to — but even that doesn’t always work.) The best it can do is toss up warnings (to both the user and the site’s admins) and hope the decrease in traffic and increase in user complaints are enough to get things fixed. |
AR Startup Daqri Hires Ex-Raytheon Exec Andy Lowery As It Expands Sales To Industrial Clients | Ryan Lawler | 2,014 | 6 | 5 | Augmented reality startup sees a big opportunity for its “4D” technology to be used by . To lead the charge into engineering and manufacturing businesses, the company has hired former Raytheon executive Andy Lowery as president. Daqri was originally founded to provide brands, agencies, and media companies with tools to create new experiences around regular everyday objects. Clients have used the technology to build campaigns that, when viewed through a smartphone or tablet, allows users can see additional media or interact with objects nearby in new ways. But these are exciting times for augmented reality, thanks to an increase in the number of potential new platforms to develop on — like, for example, the Oculus Rift. The company is also learning that its technology can be used in a wide variety of new verticals, including education, healthcare, and industrial sectors. That’s where Lowery comes in. He served as chief engineer and engineering director for Raytheon’s Electronic Warfare Systems business unit, which was responsible for more than $800 million in sales. Prior to that, he worked as a general managers in a division of Tyco Electronics, where he oversaw a commercial electronics product line. At Raytheon, Lowery was also a customer of Daqri’s, which was used in part for education and logistics analysis. In his new role, he’ll be charged with helping to build the company’s practice around industrial sectors that include aerospace, robotics, energy, manufacturing, and transportation. Today, the bulk of Daqri’s revenues are still from the entertainment side of its business, but Lowery sees a number of applications that could increase efficiency in the industrial sector while also improving safety there. Daqri has raised a total of $17 million in funding, including a last summer led by Tarsadia Investments. It’s also grown a lot over the past year, to about 100 employees. But with a huge opportunity in the industrial sector, the company could look to expand a lot faster. And that’s something Lowery is very excited about. |
Triblio Raises $3.4M For A Data-Driven Approach To Content Marketing | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 6 | 5 | , a startup that says it’s bringing “science to the art of content marketing,” is announcing that it has raised $3.4 million in seed funding. Content marketing startups (i.e. the ones that help companies produce blog posts, videos, and other content that can indirectly promote their brand) have announced some big rounds this year — , , and . And if are any indication, there’s an appetite for more data around this content, too. Triblio’s CEO Andre Yee was previously vice president of product development at , and he told me that Triblio is different in a couple of ways. For one thing, he noted that many of these content marketing companies are trying to sell their tools to outfits that market to consumers, while Triblio is more focused on businesses that sell their products to other businesses. Second, he said that unlike the competition, he’s less focused on “the process of production” and more on “the science of content.” “What is my buyer interested in right now?” Yee added. “What conclusions can I draw about their propensity to engage with me? What’s the next piece of content that needs to be served up to them in order to engage them? We provide the intelligence to make that happen.” He said that there are three main pieces to the Triblio platform. First, it looks at users visiting your website or engaging with your company on social media and assigns them a certain persona. For example, a company trying to reach customer service managers can create a that persona in Triblio and identify the common characteristics of customer service managers — then Triblio will determine what stories are popular among those kinds of people and recommend content that’s likely to be relevant to them. Second, there’s “a content development kit” with things like a content calendar and workflow management (so Triblio isn’t ignoring the production process entirely). Third, Triblio tracks the effectiveness of content on your website and on social media. The company just left private beta, and it says its customers include Deltek, Parature, Vocus, and Neustar. As for the funding, it was led by Longworth Venture Partners and Kepha Partners. Kepha’s Eric Hjerpe and Longworth’s Jim Savage are joining Triblio’s board of directors. |
Philips Shows Off How You’ll Be Able To Control Your Hue Lights From Notification Center In iOS 8 | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 6 | 5 | Philips Hue is already a pretty effective and easy way of setting up a connected home lighting system, but it can be even easier thanks to changes Apple made in iOS 8. The update lets third-party developers put “widgets” in the Today view of notification center, which means you can do more than just check the weather and see stock updates (and you can remove those, too, since it’s now fully customizable). Hue already built a concept of how its widget might work in the update coming this fall. Basically, the widget offers you quick access to the “all off” button and a few color scenes, letting you quickly turn your lights to a few preset configurations without opening the app. It’s not quite a home screen hack in the vein of Android, but swiping down from the top of your screen for access to Hue scenes still takes quite a few steps out of the process vs. how it’s currently housed (within the Hue app) on iOS. It’s early days yet for this to be 100 percent representative of what we end up seeing in a shipping version, but it’s great to see developers already getting excited about their expanded permissions and API access in iOS 8. Widgets are available on both and , which means Apple device owners will essentially have a whole new category of software to play with and configure come fall. |
One Year Later, SFO Still Refuses To Meet With Uber, Lyft And Sidecar To Discuss Dispute | Sarah Buhr | 2,014 | 6 | 5 | Uber, Lyft and Sidecar sent a letter to San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee last week asking him to intervene in the ongoing dispute over the right to pick up passengers at the San Francisco International Airport. We’ve reached out a couple of times to the mayor’s office for comment on this. , but one thing is clear — , there’s zero progress toward resolving this issue. All three ride-sharing companies confirmed to TechCrunch that they could not get a meeting with SFO to amend its TNC ( ) permit stipulations. SFO issued cease-and-desist notices last April to those startups for picking up and dropping off passengers at the airport. The notice informed them that any drivers operating on SFO property would be considered trespassing without the proper permit. SFO says it’s only asking Uber, Lyft and Sidecar drivers to follow requirements that are similar to those for cab companies. All three of those startups, however, believe SFO requirements go beyond what their drivers should legally have to provide. Some of the requirements in question ask for real-time tracking and historical data for all Bay Area rideshare drivers when on airport property, regardless of whether the vehicle is engaged in commercial activity by carrying a rider or is at the airport for personal reasons. The problem with that request, according to Sidecar Head of Communications Margaret Ryan, is that it violates both customer and driver privacy. It also presents a major technological problem for TNC drivers. For example, Uber has no way of knowing if its UberX drivers are at the airport to pick up passengers or for personal reasons. However, under SFO stipulations, Uber can still be punished. The TNC permit also asks each driver to carry a $1 million dollar insurance policy on them at all times, whether or not the vehicle has a passenger in it. This is similar to the requirement for regular taxi drivers . However, taxis only use their vehicles for commercial use, whereas rideshare drivers will most likely be using their vehicles for personal use much of the time. Both Lyft and Uber have recently closed the so-called “insurance gap” to . Sidecar, meanwhile, said it would provide the same coverage . Further, the SFO permit will only allow drop-offs for TNC drivers, not drop-off and pick-up, which is allowed for every other taxi driver there. SFO maintains that it has been working collaboratively with the TNCs, that the permit application came about through numerous meetings with the companies both individually and in groups, and that these stipulations are for public safety. They also say they found several TNC drivers in egregious violation of their stipulations and the law, including no proof of insurance, drivers operating without proper registration, and even two drivers operating without a basic drivers license. However, each of the companies we spoke with said they were unable to get a meeting with representatives from the airport. Hence, last week’s letter to the mayor from the CEOs of Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar imploring Mayor Lee to intervene and help them get a meeting with SFO to address these issues. As for the airport’s claim that the requirements are merely to ensure public safety, Uber spokesperson Eva Behrend writes: These permit requirements don’t have a nexus to providing public safety and seem more like airport administrators trying to help a failing taxi industry. Local government shouldn’t be in the business of picking winners and losers, the public does it well and they’re overwhelmingly choosing ridesharing over the antiquated taxi industry. SFO refuses to have a meeting to discuss or even explain their intent with these requirements – a refusal that seems more like it’s intended to protect the taxi industry than help the residents and visitors of San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee’s spokesperson Christine Falvey got back to us we filed this story. TL:DR while the Mayor supports ridesharing in San Francisco, he’s leaving it up to authorities at SFO to deal with the rules they’ve set on their turf. Full response from Mayor’s office here: Mayor Lee has always been a strong supporter of the sharing economy because of the benefit it brings to everyday San Francisco residents. Ridesharing is an innovative transportation alternative for many City residents and SFO customers. The mayor is supportive of SFO’s proactive efforts to permit and regulate rideshare companies to provide access and ensure customer service and public safety. Mayor Lee defers transportation policy decisions about airport transportation issues to his highly respected Airport Director John Martin and the Airport Commission. You can read the letter sent out by all three rideshare companies below: by
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Modio Lets Kids Make 3D Printable Monsters On Their iPads | John Biggs | 2,014 | 6 | 5 | I’ve seen a lot of design programs ostensibly marketed at kids, but none are as cool as . Created by Hilmar Gunnarsson, an Icelandic entrepreneur, the system allows you to build Lego-like creatures that snap together and can be printed in multiple colors. Why is this so cool? Because each part sticks together like magic and you can change sizes, textures, and even colors on the fly. Then you can print in multiple colors on the same plate, print different colors at different times, or just print everything in one color. It’s really cool. Gunnarsson self-funded the entire project and aims to make money by offering downloadable content – monsters and pieces – and allowing users to share and sell their models. “We just launched for the iPad a couple of weeks ago on the iOS app store and the reaction so far from the maker community has been pretty awesome,” said Gunnarsson. “We’re just getting started.” “We created Modio to be easy to use even for a five year old, but still powerful enough so that an adult can have a lot of fun with it. With Modio anybody can make amazing, fully pose-able models and then easily 3D print them,” he said. “The user interface is simple to use and designed for touch devices like the iPad – simply drag and drop the built-in parts to build. The parts snap together just like in reality and then you can play with your model in the app and pose the parts any way you want. The app supports multi-touch fully, so you can move multiple parts around simultaneously and more than one user can even create at the same time. The app can print things in multiple sizes and all of the pieces are flat on the bottom. The joints automatically resize and change when you add parts and the entire system measures the amount of filament that will be used and the speed of the print. In all, it’s a very unique toy-making system for kids and adults. “I’ve been fascinated with 3D printing for a long time,” said Gunnarsson. “I realized however that for 3D printing to really take off you need a lot of content optimized for 3D printing. There are now a lot of printers on the market, but there’s this content gap where people don’t really know what they should make with these devices. At the same time our kids are playing more and more computer games and doing less and less creative things, so we need to get them excited about making cool stuff again.” I saw a number of prints created with the system and they are surprisingly cool, reminiscent of the Hero Factory line of Lego toys. However, because you can resize the models at will, you can make tiny insectoids or giant mech monsters. It’s really fun. In fact, the founder, who has three boys of his own, found out how addictive his app was when one of his son’s school friends came over to play. Instead of hopping on Minecraft, the friend became engrossed in Modio and played with it for hours. The next day he came back… to play with the app some more. Needless to say, Gunnarsson’s son was quite upset. [gallery ids="1012683,1012684,1012686,1012687,1012688,1012689,1012690,1012691"] [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ8X594wWnk] |
Garmin Goes For A Biathlon With The Multifaceted Forerunner 15 | John Biggs | 2,014 | 6 | 5 | time runner, GPS watches are as beloved to me as a nice pair of trainers. I ran my first (and last) marathon with a Garmin watch that looked like a giant candy bar that had melted onto my wrist and have used their watches for years. That’s why I was interested in their latest offering, the Forerunner 15, a small, entry-level watch that looks more like a Timex Ironman than a fully-featured GPS device with built-in training tools. The 15 is also unique in that it offers two modes – a Fitbit-like movement tracker that can count your steps and a full-blown run mode that takes GPS readings as you exert yourself and can play back your runs, your heart rate, and your performance when you get back to the house. In a way it’s the best of both worlds. This Garmin is by no means the top of the line training tool. It doesn’t have Garmin’s virtual trainer, a system that encourages you to run faster and through different routines to improve performance, nor does it support ANT+ connections to treadmills and computers. It also only supports running or walking, not biking or other activities. In short, it’s a dedicated running watch that doesn’t cost much and can replace both your old running watch and your fitness tracker. The Forerunner 15 is surprisingly thin and light. It comes with a docking adapter that allows you to connect it to your computer and you can add a wireless heart rate monitor and foot pod to sense your performance on the road or indoors. Battery life is about 5 hours in running mode – I saw about 3 hours on a charge during my runs – but Garmin claims this thing can hit five weeks in fitness tracking mode. Like Garmin’s , this is an eternity compared to competing trackers. I can’t get more than a week out of my Force, for example, and the Basis watch lasted about three days on a charge. Getting started is easy. You turn it on, enter a bit of personal info, and start running. The system senses compatible heart rate bands and will connect to GPS satellites automatically. Automatic lap systems allow you to see how fast you’re going per mile. You charge it using the dock – there is no direct USB connection – so you can’t plug the watch directly into a computer without the dock. Step tracking on the go worked fine while step tracking on a treadmill – my walking desk – was hit or miss. On the aggregate, however, it was a good indication of how much I walked during the day. Now for the bad news: the GPS latch on is very slow on the 15. Whereas I’ve had some issues with my Nike+ watch picking up GPS satellites within a few long minutes after I started running, the 15 picks up satellites about five to seven minutes into my runs, which reduces the distance travelled in my records. Arguably I am in the middle of urban Brooklyn where the sun rarely shines and a clear view of the sky is often marred by chimneys, water towers, and gibbets from which depend AWOL sailors who strayed too far into pirate waters (not really), so GPS signal lock-in is difficult at best and impossible at worst. That said, you should take special care if you intend to use this unit in a big city. In the country, however, lock-in happened in a minute or so and I was off and running without problems. I suspect the antenna in this watch is far smaller than it is for more expensive models. But, at $169 without heart rate monitor ($199 with) it’s still a good deal. I suspect firmware updates will improve this experience over time. The real tool here is Garmin’s new Connect system. Connect is a web-based tracker for all of your Garmin devices and lets you see your performance, tracks your runs, and even allows you to compete against other Garmin users. It’s a great improvement over previous Garmin solutions, including some inscrutable apps I’ve used with these devices over the years. The system shows maps of your runs, can tell you how many steps you’ve taken in a day, and even allows you to view data from multiple devices. It’s a great platform and a solid improvement over previous versions. [gallery ids="1005677,1005678,1005679"] Again, the Forerunner 15 is Garmin’s entry-level running device. It’s thin (for a GPS device), wearable, and has a great standby battery life. While the GPS lock-on could be better and the running battery life longer, I wouldn’t hesitate switching to this from a non-GPS watch. My longtime favorite, the Nike+ Sportwatch, is now ensconced in my drawer while I try the 15, and I may not return to Nike if this model improves in terms of satellite lock on. That said, it is a very basic sports watch and heavy users might want to consider something higher up the food chain. If you’re looking for a fitness tracker with occasional run information, however, this is your watch. [gallery ids="1005665,1005666,1005667,1005668,1005669,1005670,1005671,1005672"] |
The Platform Wars | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 6 | 5 | keynote this year, : Dropbox, Box, OneDrive and Google Drive for cloud storage; WhatsApp, Snapchat and BBM for messaging; Skype and your cell phone for calls; Google for search; and so on. Hell, Apple even took on Surprising? Not really. The competitive surface area that major technology companies share is inexorably rising. A key distinction, however, divides the warring companies into two classes: broad platform companies and everyone else Companies that have a platform are different from platform companies. The former tend to offer a platform in a specific product sense, while the latter are broader and tend to build hardware, operating systems and software on top of their stacks. Vertical integration, if you will. Companies that are broad enough to warrant the “platform company” moniker are a narrow set, with only four making my cut: Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google. These companies are warring across a hundred fronts, which makes for an interesting market moment. To better define what makes a platform company, we can look at the large tech companies through the perspective of , or the area on top of a platform that a company allows others to use. Platform companies spend more time defining the white space they offer than worrying about the white space offered by others. Non-platform companies, using our definition, think in the opposite fashion. I spoke to Box CEO Aaron Levie about platforms, and he said that the amount of white space offered by large providers varies. For example, he thinks Apple does a good job providing developers with room to maneuver. There is a natural feedback loop with offered white space, according to Levie; if developers feel poorly treated, they can elect to build for other platforms that offer a better value mix. This gives rise to the chance of new platforms, and thus new broad platform companies, to take root. That goes both ways: Incumbent platform companies are massively incentivized to cater to, and pamper, developers. You can see this in action now that we are in the midst of developer conference season, which is when the platform giants take turns pitching to developers. And the growing players, such as Box and Dropbox, that want to be tomorrow’s platform companies are the . Apple’s aggressive product expansion is hardly shocking. Along with the other platform companies, it is building a wider and more diverse set of offerings: If a product, program or service can run on Apple’s platform, it wants to build it in-house. You can see this plainly in the case of cloud storage. Google, Amazon, Microsoft and, now, Apple all offer consumer-facing cloud storage, for example. They can bake it into their web products (Google) or their operating system and productivity apps (Microsoft) or use it to drive their device experience (Apple). Dropbox and Box, which compete in that product vertical, are differentiating themselves by building more tailored services — with certifications and market category-specific offerings — than what the platform companies offer. This isn’t a single use-case scenario: Platform companies are silly things. Google, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon are all hardware companies, and operating system companies, and cloud computing companies, and smartphone app developer support companies, and enterprise-facing SaaS firms to an extent. Amazon is a book-selling company. But so is Apple with iBooks, and Microsoft through its investment in Nook, and Google through the Books app on Android. Amazon sells music. As does Apple with iTunes, Microsoft with Xbox Music, and Google through Google Play Music. Where these firms don’t compete is almost more interesting: Apple, Google and Microsoft do maps, sure, but only two do search. But even that’s not altogether true anymore, you could argue: Siri is , and universal search in OS X Yosemite makes it at least searchy. To combat Siri, Google has Google Now and Microsoft built Cortana. And, Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft each sport their own application marketplaces. The list goes on, and on, and on. As Facebook leads in a trend to , there is a larger trend for mega technology companies to do . What the hell? A fine question. When you control a platform and a diverse customer base, you can do more. It becomes, rather quickly, a scenario in which every platform company do all the things. And when they struggle — , , — it stands out. When you don’t compete on all fronts, you relinquish part of your end-user experience to a competitor, and you cede buy-in for your other services. And as services are increasingly tied together, a crack in your platform armor could lead a user to feel the gravitational tug of a rival platform. If Microsoft hadn’t built OneDrive and then baked it into Windows and Office, it would leave file storage to other players — say, Dropbox or Box. Those companies would then control where files are stored, and . And lo, Office revenues take a hit. Challenging the platform companies is difficult, because they have essentially every advantage: endless cash, massive profits and consumer brand buy-in that new competitors can almost never match — not to mention a platform they can leverage to boost adoption of their own services. Their ascendancy in the Everything Space is why the occasional disrupter to The Established Order is so radically valuable: Facebook, a platform company of a separate sort, bought WhatsApp not only to protect its extant customer base, but also to prevent an incursion into its space by the Big Four — Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft. So if there is a breakout player then damn the cost to buy it, because you have the money as a platform company and are acquiring the “Single Serving Size Of New” that your platform opponents can no longer purchase. You now own The One. When you have your own platform, the incentive to build instead of buy goes up. Related market dynamics are among the reasons why the price for cloud storage is declining. The giants see a breakout player and they can either choose to buy it or kill it. And since Dropbox was likely not too interested in selling (by the time platform companies were probably afraid of it), Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Google built their own products to compete and then began . In the past, a company would shit its pants when Microsoft entered its industry. Microsoft was The Platform Company. Now what was once just Microsoft is a hydra-head of titans, and each has an advantage that almost can’t be matched: Google has insane device volume through Android; Apple has the world’s best eye for design and a brand built of diamond titanium; and Microsoft has an enterprise sales channel and corporate buy-in that is incredibly deep. This means that breakout players will have to fight against not just clones, but deep-pocketed clones that come pre-installed on the largest platforms. Good luck! The final piece here is the pure joy derived from watching the giants steal from each other. Apple’s OS X Yosemite is a great-looking operating system. But in several features — translucence, side widget bar, universal search — there are echoes of Windows Vista, 7 and 8. Will the current platform situation slow innovation? I doubt it. Every wave of technology has seen incumbent players, and their marginal win rate tends to fall to zero if you look out a few decades. It appears that instead of companies building nations, they are now building empires in which they control not just the rules, but also run the stores and control the currency across a huge number of fiefs (products). These resulting empires will prove more durable. The fusion of hardware companies, software companies, enterprise-facing companies and consumer-facing companies is a virulently profitable mix. So, who’s next? |
Developers Can Now Pre-Order The New Kinect For Windows Sensor For $199 | Kyle Russell | 2,014 | 6 | 5 | Today, Microsoft’s Kinect for Windows team that developers can from the Microsoft Store for $199 and receive it in July, “a few months ahead of general availability of sensors and the SDK.” The sensor, which is the same one that’s come with every Xbox One sold so far, is available for pre-order in limited quantities in 22 regions, with prices varying by location. While the Microsoft store page is technically open to non-developers, it’s important to remember that the beta SDK is only going to be available in July. Consumers aren’t going to have access to software built for the new Kinect on Windows until later this year. Mass consumer adoption of Kinect as a desktop peripheral seems like a bit of a fantasy at this point, so it’s good to see Microsoft’s pitch to developers taking a more plausible route. In one of its “scenario” videos, the company envisions the Kinect as a way to build a more engaging retail experience: The release of Kinect for Windows coincides with a very public demotion of the peripheral on the Xbox One. Last month, Microsoft that on June 9 it will release a bundle without the Kinect for $399, a $100 discount off of the original price. Yesterday, the company also revealed that it would let Xbox One developers in exchange for improved graphics performance in their games. |
Netflix Error Blames Verizon For Playback Issues, Verizon Responds With Legal Threats | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 6 | 5 | This one could get messy. Yesterday afternoon, on a message that some Netflix/Verizon customers were seeing which pinned potential video quality issues on Verizon’s network being “crowded.” Verizon, as you might expect, was none too happy to hear about this — and now they’re threatening legal action. The core of Verizon’s complaint: There are tons of points of failure along the road that could cause network slowdown, and if Netflix is going to point the finger at Verizon, it’s up to Netflix to prove it. In a letter from Verizon addressed to Netflix’s legal counsel, Verizon gives Netflix five days to do the following: If Netflix decides to comply with Verizon’s demands, that last one could prove hard to fulfill. Depending on how the error message is triggered (a quick client-side packet test, for example?), it’s feasible that Netflix isn’t actually of who sees it. |
Test Driving The ‘Drone Selfie’ With Photojojo’s New Rental Program (Video) | Colleen Taylor | 2,014 | 6 | 5 | That is, until now. This week , the popular photography newsletter and online store, launched its that lets people “borrow the weirdest, funnest, newest and most rare photo-making stuff on the planet.” It’s a pretty cool program: A flying drone with a GoPro camera attached to it goes for , a Digital Bolex that typically goes for can be rented for , and you can experiment with being a . For now, Photojojo rentals is only in San Francisco, but if it all goes well, it could expand into other areas in the months ahead. TechCrunch TV swung by Photojojo headquarters to get a look at some of the new rental gear and talk to Photojojo founder about the program. Photojojo requires that anyone renting the drone camera take a brief flying lesson, so we headed outside with Gupta (who is an on the “drone selfie”) to take it for a spin. Check that out in the video embedded above. My take on the drone photography trend? It’s definitely exhilarating to try, and surprisingly easy (drones today are ridiculously foolproof to pilot.) But while I was testing it out, I couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like if personal drone cameras become as popular as the old fashioned cameras you hold in your hands. There’s something a bit disquieting about having a flying camera buzzing over your head — it could be a nightmare if every other person out in the park or on the beach were playing with one at the same time. At the moment the FAA hasn’t established regulations for personal drones apart from how far away they must be from airports, with more laws expected to be determined in the next couple of years, determined in large part by public feedback about the technology and its impacts. It will be important for the early users of drone cameras to be especially respectful of others — or risk the kind of that’s occurred with Google Glass. |
Edyn Is A Gardening Monitor That Sends Moisture, Temperature Data Back To The Cloud | Kim-Mai Cutler | 2,014 | 6 | 5 | The Internet of Things is coming to a garden near you. Last fall, made the finals at TechCrunch Disrupt with a soil monitor that continuously sends data on moisture and temperature back to the cloud. It was co-founded by a Princeton grad and soil scientist named , who had worked with hundreds of Kenyan farmers to increase crop yields. He then teamed up with Yves Behar, the famed designer behind Fuseproject and Jawbone, to start a new company when he returned to the U.S. Now nine months later, the company has a first run of production that it’s unveiling on . You can check out the video below.
They’ve made the solar-powered soil monitor much sleeker and thinner. The original was a bulky red box (see the photo below). The price is also a tad higher than what I originally wrote about last fall at $99 for the initial run, said he was targeting back at Disrupt. “The size has come down a lot,” Aramburu said. “We finalized the sensor stack on it and had to get through other big engineering challenges like getting the solar panel and power management systems working correctly. We had to spend a lot of time building the algorithm that actually runs the devices and determines how frequently it needs to connect to the Internet.” Edyn’s soil sensor is a Wifi-connected device that measures ambient temperature, humidity, light intensity and soil electrical conductivity. But they’ve added a connected garden hose that can water your plants automatically for an extra $59. It controls your water system based on data collected by the paired Garden Sensor, changing watering amounts based on the weather. Plus, the paired app is also much more beautiful with a four-part grid that shows data on light, humidity, temperature, soil nutrition and moisture. The app will ping you on changes that require immediate action, and provide continuous advice on what type of organic fertilizer to use, or how to find the optimal amount of sunlight for each plant.
, which is targeting a $100,000 goal, has contribution levels ranging from $1 to $1,000 for a private meal with the team at Berkeley’s famed restaurant Chez Panisse. As for the company itself, it raised north of $1 million after Disrupt from a mix of angels. And Aramburu has much bigger ambitions for where we wants to take Edyn. “Understanding and quantifying the environment is the first step to conserving it and managing it in an impactful way,” he said. |
Dropbox Acquires Stealth Messaging Startup Droptalk | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 6 | 5 | Dropbox has swallowed up another early stage startup, this one a stealthy company called which was developing a tool that allowed you to share links privately with friends via a Chrome extension, to be followed by both iOS and Android applications. None of the products were publicly available, as the company had only just launched its browser add-on into a limited beta. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. What made the company appealing to Dropbox (besides, of course, the name!) was that in addition to its web sharing features, the tool also integrated with your cloud storage, so you could see during a conversation who was updating which files or adding files to a shared folder. Combined with a messaging-like interface and plans to take on mobile messaging with a cloud storage component, it’s easy to see why Droptalk may have had some appeal. Droptalk was founded around a year ago by a team of ex-Facebook and LinkedIn engineers who wanted to change the way people communicated with each other and got work done, the company explains in a blog post announcing their acquisition. The idea, like many others that have come before, was to attack the “work email” problem not by reinventing the inbox, but offering better tools for sharing and communication so you didn’t have to lean on email quite so much. The founding team includes serial entrepreneurs and and CTO . Mathur founded Webaroo and built its SMS-based social messaging platform to over 60 million users over 3 years. He also oversaw the exits of Junglee to Amazon and Snapstick to Rovi. Meanwhile, Bhardwaj brings years of experience, having helped grow Aricent into a $30 billion company, and along with Mathur was instrumental in JustChalo’s recent exit to OpenTable. Prakash also worked at Webaroo, and most recently, LinkedIn. Rounding out the small team of five were , previously of Facebook, and . All are now joining Dropbox as a part of this deal, and Droptalk itself seems to be shutting down, as it’s no longer accepting beta signups. However, we understand that this deal may be more than just an acqui-hire – it could be that there’s some plan to actually integrate some of the technology Droptalk developed into Dropbox’s core product. That would make sense given Dropbox’s prior interest in the companies developing tools for work-related communications. For example, earlier this year, developing a workplace chat solution. Like Droptalk, Zulip also allowed employees to communicate outside of email, and tapped into users’ online storage. However, while Zulip had some small amount of seed investment, Droptalk, on the other hand, was fully bootstrapped. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGL91VhpCgw] Below, the full text of announcing the deal: Droptalk joins Dropbox! We are thrilled to announce that today Droptalk will be joining Dropbox. About a year ago we set out to end the unnecessary friction around communication and collaboration by killing “the work email.” The world deserves a better way to do business and an integrated sharing product, which our team rapidly created is the answer. Armed with bootstrap funding and a team of ex-Facebook and LinkedIn engineers we set out to change the way people not only messaged but how they actually got work done across all their devices. With Droptalk all your communications happened in the browser, tablet or phone, eliminating the need for emails. What’s more is anytime you updated your shared folders in the cloud, everyone else in the conversation could see the updated version and go directly to the document or link right in the very same thread. As part of our transition to Dropbox, we are no longer accepting new beta signups. We would like to thank all the people that took part in our beta and gave us valuable input. We are grateful for your support and we will keep you updated as we join forces with Dropbox to make collaboration easier for everyone. Our team will be joining Dropbox today. We are again thrilled that we have the opportunity to partner with Dropbox and work together to make life simpler for millions of people around the world. Go Dropbox! Best,
Anand Prakash, Ash Bhardwaj, Rakesh Mathur, Manveer Chawla, Nirmesh Mehta |
Intel Bets On Surface Pro 3-Like “2-In-1” Devices | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 6 | 2 | Today at the Computex event in Taiwan, Intel unveiled a reference design ‘2-in-1’ device, raising the profile of tablet-hybrids. The chip maker, increasingly betting on mobile in the face of a immiserated personal computer market, wants to grow its market share in the tablet industry. The idea of a ‘2-in-1’ — hereafter called 2-1 — is simple: Have a tablet that locks into a keyboard natively, allowing for both touch-first, and keyboard-first experiences. Microsoft has been a long promoter of the concept, sinking . Most recently, Microsoft , a device that advanced the concept of a tablet-hybrid, a term I made up to cover devices that attempt both best-in-class tablet and laptop experiences without meaningful sacrifice. The Pro 3, among other useful changes, improved its keyboard and touch-pad, making it a . Intel, a company that is presumably loath to watch the PC market decline, is making a bet that it can advance its tablet efforts and juice PC sales at the same time. Its reference 2-1 design is an attractive device, both thin and light. The company provided TechCrunch with two reference images: Tablet mode: Attached to keyboard: Not bad. Intel of course won’t be making the device itself. OEM partners will build devices that conform to its general specifications. According to a note from Intel, devices “based on” the reference design will be announced over the next few months. The design’s specs appear impressive: Its tablet by itself is thinner than the MacBook Air, and it weighs less than the Surface Pro 3 while sporting a 12.5 inch display. We’ll have to wait on what OEMs will charge for machines based on the design, but the bones are attractive. Think of the 2-1 reference design as something akin to a generational evolution of the Ultrabook, Intel’s alternative to the popular MacBook Air. The new reference design will face the same challenges as Microsoft’s Surface effort: Can the inherent design tradeoffs that come with a detachable keyboard be overcome by the benefits such an arrangement can bring? 2-1 devices compete with not only tablets, but touch-capable laptops as well, making their in-the-middle status quite the straddle. But, provided that Intel has learned from Microsoft’s early efforts — we’ll need hands on time with reference design-based devices before we can fully vet what Intel has concocted — it could nudge the PC market in a new direction. If Intel can make tablet running on x86 chips more popular, it would help both it and Microsoft. It’s worth revisiting the PC market, given that it appears that we are entering into a new normal. The current PC market is expected, for the next few years, level out . A large, if reduced figure. The tablet market, as including 2-1 devices, is seeing its growth rapidly slow. So the space that Intel is looking to grow into is slowing its expansion. But options for Intel in the computing space aren’t that diverse, so to see it pursue the area isn’t surprising. Intel is keen to get onboard the touch train, even though its has so far lagged the market. The company is cognizant of its current deficit, but, as I learned speaking to several of its PC and mobile-facing executives, is a bit more determined to grow its share than chew over the past. Intel shipped around 5 million tablet processors in the first quarter, and is on track to ship 7.5 million in the current quarter, marking growth of around 50% on a sequential quarter basis. Intel is pursuing both tablets that run Windows and Android, of course, meaning that the long WinTel alliance is now as post-pc as the rest of the computing market. At CES this year the company did explore the wearable space, but it remains unclear precisely what the Internet of Things is, if anything, . The key takeaway from the above is that the intersection of touch and type is a place where the incumbent PC powers smell blood. If consumers agree is the new question. |
Hong Kong Incubator NEST Launches An Equity Crowdfunding Platform For Startups | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 6 | 2 | Ask Hong Kong startup founders about the challenges facing their ecosystem and you are likely to hear one answer over and over again: the lack of funding opportunities. Because Hong Kong’s startup industry is so new, companies are still seen as risky investments and many high-worth individuals turn to the property and banking sectors instead. But there is an increasing amount of interest in tech startups and several platforms have stepped up to help connect companies with potential investors. These include , which , which allows investors to trade in startups before they launch. Now , a Hong Kong incubator, has launched , an accredited equity crowdfunding platform for startups, giving founders yet more options when seeking funding. Investable says that within the first day of the site’s launch, more than 100 professional investors sign up. Three investors have already committed $150,000 to startups on the platform, which currently lists 15 companies for its beta launch. One hardware startup called Simple Crossing, which makes wearable tech products for elderly people, has already raised 75% of the total $100,000 that it is seeking. Thirty more companies will be added to Investable soon, with each planning to raise between $100,000 to $5 million. Investors can commit funds in exchange for equity and send a request to startup founders to meet. “Investable allows the founders of a company to raise funds at any stage in their cycle from seed to growth to Series A and we have a minimum USD $10,000 investment amount, but we have no maximum investment amount. The founders set the value when they request to list their startup on Investable, not us. We make sure the valuation has credibility as part of our due diligence, but we don’t set the price. In addition, we provide all the needed paperwork to connect the investor to the startup and vice versa,” Nest founder Simon Squibb explained in an email. In addition to funding, Investable also encourages startups on the platform to look for investors who can also serve as mentors and advisers. Sign-ups on Investable “proved that there is a huge interest in startup investing among high net worth individuals in Asia. All we need is to present the right opportunities, at the right time to the right demographic,” said Nest CIO and Investable head Jennifer Carver in a statement. |
The Coolest iOS 8 Features Apple Didn’t Talk About Today | Kyle Russell | 2,014 | 6 | 2 | Apple gave us a lot to digest at today’s WWDC event, including big announcements about , , and a new programming language called . But even with two hours to present, Apple still couldn’t fit everything in. The company mentions dozens of new features to be released when iOS 8 hits this fall. While some of the features will likely be enjoyed by a fairly limited audience (multi-device support for MFi hearing aids), there are a few features that stand out as things Apple lovers have been craving for some time — or hint at cool possibilities in the future. First up is Wi-Fi Calling, which lets smartphone owners route calls over local wireless connections rather than through potentially flaky cell service. Of course, your cell phone provider has to have the technology in place to support it, which means that right now, only on the feature’s availability. For those concerned with privacy, keeping your information off of Google’s (or Microsoft’s, for that matter) servers just got a bit easier on the iPhone: is now an option as a default search engine in Safari. With recent updates giving the privacy-focused search engine many of , leaving Google’s world is more appealing than ever for those who don’t rely on it for mail and other tools. One new feature that just made its way to iOS from its desktop cousin is battery usage by app. While OS X Mavericks let users see which apps were gulping down power (spoiler: it’s probably Chrome), iOS users have had to guess which apps were taking away their sweet, sweet time between charges. In iOS 8, that information is now available in the same part of the settings menu that shows how you’re using storage on your phone or tablet. Rounding out the bunch is a feature inconspicuously titled “Hey, Siri.” Just like the “OK, Google” command on Android, the feature lets you summon Apple’s virtual assistant without touching your device at all. Unlike on Motorola’s Moto X (the only device that lets you use the command when the screen is off), however, you can’t simply say that command at any time. Your iPhone has to be plugged in to a power source (or tucked in a battery case) in order for Siri to respond to your voice alone. The Moto X can afford to listen at all times thanks to a low-power coprocessor dedicated to the task, so perhaps Apple’s A8 system-on-a-chip will include something similar in the new iPhone and iPad models we expect to hit sometime this fall. |
Too Lazy To Watch The WWDC 2014 Keynote? Check Out This Song Instead | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 6 | 2 | [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVSq2nAnJ6I&w=640&h=360] Are you too pressed for time to ? Or just occupied lovingly stroking your Nexus 7? Don’t worry–musician has got you covered with a catchy song that pithily sums up all of the most important points from the speech, from to Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi’s chainsaw haircut, and Tim Cook’s If “beautiful buttery scrolling” as spoken in Federighi’s dulcet tones and remixed by Mann gets stuck in your head, one of our suggests curing your ear worm . |
Yahoo Wins Another Apple Design Award For News Digest App | Matthew Panzarino | 2,014 | 6 | 2 | Every year, Apple awards a series of apps its coveted Apple Design Award. These apps represent what Apple feels are the best qualities of the platform. Among the big winners in these ADAs is Yahoo’s News Digest app. That marks the second win in so many years for Yahoo. The awards themselves are a slick, aluminum cube without seams that has a glowing Apple logo on the side that lights up when you touch the cube’s sides. It’s very slick, and very Apple. Apple uses a series of criteria including design, launch time, gameplay elements, use of frameworks and the latest hardware and software that Apple has released. It also looks at what it deems ‘a spark of brilliance’, which could include a clever implementation of a feature, for instance. Prize winners receive just about every product Apple makes including a Mac Pro with a cinema display, an iMac, an iPhone, an iPad, a Macbook Air, Macbook Pro and an iPod touch. Apple asked the 200 scholarship winners to stand up to be recognized, and then proceeded to deliver the awards beginning with student apps. The first student winner was , a photo app built by two students who formerly attended WWDC under scholarship and decided they wanted to build something. The next winner is an iPad app called , an app that teaches single digit addition, and it’s built by grad students. The next app is a platformer game , built by a team of four developers and designers. , the daily journalling app from Bloom, gets the next award. This is a popular life logging app that lets you jot down the things you do every day and refer back to them over time. Though Day One is available on iPhone and iPad, Apple awarded the Mac edition. Up next is super-minimal game , which Apple praised for its simplicity and how it renders gestures as strokes on-screen. Praise was also levied on the app’s sound effects, which are cute. Next up was , which was introduced last year. This marks two years in a row that Yahoo has won an Apple Design Award, after its win for Yahoo Weather last year. There is some significance attached to this, as one of CEO Marisa Mayer’s primary goals at Yahoo was to acquire mobile talent to revamp the company’s app offerings on all platforms. Among Mayer’s moves was to bring in talent via hiring and acquisitions, as well as to unify mobile teams with the other engineers on Yahoo’s various apps in a ‘mobile first’ strategy. Another ADA win is a big kudo for Yahoo and Mayer’s strategy. One of the cleverest and most fun games on iOS, , was awarded next. The app, which has famously been cloned by 2048 and many others, features great character design and an addictive gameplay mode. Apple alluded to the clones of the app by saying that it had been ‘broadly imitated’. was awarded next, also for its Mac app. It’s used to create animated gif files that take the place of videos. Next is a hybrid book/game called , which Apple praises for the way that it blends the printed page and gameplay. An app which we’ve covered here on TechCrunch, , also snagged an ADA. The app lets you build stories on the iPad with both images and video — and features some of the better layout controls we’ve seen on the platform. Storehouse just and others to build out a platform. And next up was , a star map app with nice ambient music and a minimal interface. And the final winner was from UsTwo, a fantastic, immersive game that offers a wonderful puzzle experience with great music and art. It’s a pretty fantastic app, worth checking out. And that wraps up Apple’s ADA’s for the year — and its signaling for the kinds of apps it likes to see and will award with features and App Store love.
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Hands On With Apple’s CarPlay In The Ferrari FF | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 6 | 2 | Something I will never have is a Ferrari FF, a four-seater supercar that costs more than my life and all my worldly possessions combined are worth. But the car is notable not just for its beautiful matte paint job, super high price tag and precision engineering – it’ll also be among the first cars to ship with Apple’s CarPlay in-vehicle infotainment system built-in. I got the chance to sit in the passenger seat and check out the system in action, and it genuinely seems like a dream come true. Let me explain: Back in February of last year I wrote an article arguing that the best . Apple’s CarPlay basically is that dream delivered, albeit with some clever tweaks to make it more suitable to in-car use, including Siri-powered voice commands and control via both touchscreen and existing hardware dash knobs and buttons. The demo above gives a pretty thorough walkthrough. The first cars shipping with this will go on sale soon, and the aftermarket option from Pioneer (which I also got to check out at the show, and which is in many ways equally impressive) is set to launch in a few weeks. |
Hang Local Helps You Hang Out More With Friends IRL | Sarah Buhr | 2,014 | 6 | 2 | creator Allen Romero is a self-proclaimed “social mother fucker” whose main goal is to get people off their phones and connect them in the real world. Ironically, he created an app for that. It’s likely that at least half a dozen of your friends are down to grab a bite to eat or head out into the city for a fun night at the same time you are. You just don’t know it. Romero looked for a social solution to help everyone connect on the fly, but was surprised no one had created an app to do this yet. There are quite a few apps out there that currently let you broadcast what you are up to (Twitter, Facebook, etc.), but there aren’t many that let your friends know when you’re available to hang in the near future. Foursquare’s actually does have a feature built in for this, but it’s not clear how many use that feature — or how many people even know about it; I don’t think it’s an intuitive part of the app. Though Swarm, unlike Hang Local, does offer location-sharing so you can at least know how close your friends are in proximity to you. An ex-Google engineer, Romero says he first thought up the currently web-based-only Hang Local after spending long hours on the Google bus every day, only to get home late and find no one was around to grab a bite or hang out. “It was depressing,” he says. “I’m a pretty social guy and most nights I didn’t know who was just chilling at home but available to do something and I’d end up eating out alone and it sucked.” Of course you can just group text people or post directly to Facebook that you’re available at the moment. But according to Allen, that doesn’t really solve anything. “Friends might know I’m available if they see my post or text and I still don’t know if they are.” He says he’d be texting a friend or two, people he was used to texting, but if they didn’t answer or already had plans, he’d end up all by himself again. Hang Local actually lets you and your friends select when you’re available to hang and what activities you would like to do. You simply use the Facebook login to connect and then it gives you a list of people you are connected to who are using the social graph. You can also search for specific friends at the top of the screen to connect to. Once selected, you can then break friends out into “buddies,” as Hang Local refers to them, or as “favorite buddies.” So if you just want to invite your very best buds to hang and not let anyone else know of your plans, you can do that. With just a couple thousand users on the app, Hang Local is still in the very early stages. And it’s still just an army of one. Romero is (also ironically) the sole programmer, founder and CEO, still hanging by himself in an effort to get everyone else to hang. But Romero is quite serious in his belief that his app has the potential to take on juggernauts like Yelp and Swarm. Though the monetization plan seems a bit murky at the moment, Romero gets a big grin and goes off on that, as well. Something about Groupon meets Yelp meets Foursquare. He’s also confirmed a location-based feature as well as an iOS version of the app that will be coming out within the next couple of weeks. |
iOS 7 Changed iOS, But iOS 8 Changes Computing | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 6 | 2 | Apple showed off a lot of new stuff today, so much so that it’s actually hard to process. But from a macro perspective, one thing is clear: iOS 8 actually represents much more of a shift than did iOS 7 last year, despite the fact that the visual changes in iOS 7 threw users and Apple-watchers for a loop. As a result, iOS 8 faces fewer barriers in terms of broad acceptance and usage – the UI is by now familiar, and the massively changed new features and developer access permissions will be much easier to adapt to since they weren’t delivered alongside a startling new look and feel. But where the metaphorical plates of iOS’s programming pillars meet, there’s a tectonic shift that could change entirely the way people think about their mobile devices – and computers in general, for that matter. The mobile shift is going to be tremendous because of the new freedom afforded developers with the Extensions paradigm, which allows them to build hooks between apps that approximate desktop-level flexibility while keeping the simplicity of the mobile UX for the consumer. And notification widgets make a whole new playground for devs to explore (software in the Notification tray will become more than just add-on features for standalone apps, just you watch). Opening up the keyboard to third-party providers for system-wide installation is also a huge step for a company that has traditionally shied away from such things. But Continuity is the component to watch in all of this, and the reason we may not be thinking about the silos of mobile and desktop so distinctly from now on. It’s open to third-party devs, in addition to being built into Apple’s own native apps and services. It can work either by pairing devices that share a Wi-Fi network, or based on proximity of devices using Bluetooth cues (and in Bluetooth range). Combined with other Continuity features, like SMS and phone calling on the desktop, it makes for an experience that blends mobile and desktop seamlessly where it makes sense, while avoiding a weird and unnecessary forced melding of the two (which is arguably what Microsoft managed with Windows 8). iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite will change the way you use your smartphone, and it’ll do so in non-trivial ways. That’s more than can be said for any mobile OS update in recent memory, and something that we’ll be feeling of the impact from not only this fall, but likely for years to come. |
Apple’s WWDC Delivers Developer Fanservice | Matthew Panzarino | 2,014 | 6 | 2 | Apple’s WWDC keynote this morning laid out some welcome consumer-facing features coming to iOS and OS X. But the biggest announcements by far were the ones in which Apple delivered developers a wish list of items that nailed every major pain point in the ecosystem. This afternoon, Apple expanded on its offerings for developers, and every developer I’ve spoken to this far has been ecstatic about the amount of issues Apple is fixing with this round of updates. During its morning keynote, Apple introduced a called Swift. It promises to be a simpler, more focused language that helps people build apps in a more interactive fashion. A new feature called the Playground gives a live view of the effects that your code will have on your app in real time. The company also says that it’s updating the WWDC app on the App Store to a version built using Swift, as proof that it is a “real” language, ready for use. Apple is also expanding its back-end support by integrating its , TestFlight, right into the tools that its developers are offered. TestFlight will allow developers to of its apps. That’s 1,000 individual users, not an important distinction that any developer who has ever beta tested its apps will appreciate. Previously, a developer could only provision 100 devices across all users. This extended beta testing suite will lead to better, more bug-free apps. Gone, as well, is the fiddly handling of individual profiles, as all that is needed is a user’s Apple ID. Simple and understandable — everything Apple’s previous solutions for beta testing were not. And Apple is providing it completely free. iTunes Connect, the tool that Apple offers to developers to keep track of the apps they have on the store, has also been revamped with a cleaner design. In addition, it now offers expanded analytics that let developers track downloads of apps, retention (how long people keep using their apps) and even how many visits there have been to a developer’s app page. Notably, Google’s developer console has been providing far deeper analytics and beta testing options for developers on Android. Android developers have enjoyed built-in translation features and a real understanding — via numbers — of how people are downloading, using and retaining their apps. Today’s announcements show Apple’s acknowledgement of these competing tools and bring much of Apple’s backend in line with the best suites out there from its competitors. “The introduction of Swift is great for the future of the platform, but the best offerings are the new analytics and beta distribution tools. Both have been major pain points since the App Store was released,” says Justin Williams of Second Gear. “Being able to track how many views your app has received in the App Store has been a must-have for years. I’m glad it’s finally coming.” In addition, Apple has also said that it will introduce a full crash-reporting suite that developers can use to track crashes in their apps. This comes standard and will replace many third-party options from companies that have built a business off of tracking fatal errors in apps. That goes for beta testing, as well. Apple’s gift of TestFlight to developers throws a bit of a kink in the future of third-party options like HockeyApp or Crashlytics’ new (also free) beta testing suite. But the testing situation has been so bad for so long that developers are reacting positively to this. “Not much was announced so we’re not exactly sure how it will work, but the new 1,000-user limitation with unlimited devices per user is a great start,” says HockeyApp co-founder Michael Simmons. “HockeyApp’s mission is to be the best app development platform, period, so we support OS X, iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. In addition to beta distribution, we also provide analytics and live crash reporting.” “Apple’s solution or at least what they’ve announced so far, which was very minimal,” says Simmons, “seems to just be an improvement to beta testing and while they did announce live crash reporting they said it wasn’t coming until later next year.” Apple has also expanded its photos and camera tools for developers. You can set shutter speed, white balance and ISO and even lens position and bracketed exposure right in the iOS. iOS developers can also use Apple’s CPU to process images. Giving developers granular control over the way that the iPhone’s camera shoots images is a long-standing request for those who build photo apps. Photography apps are some of the most popular on iOS, and Apple has made the iPhone one of the most popular cameras in history. There are also a couple of new tweaks in layout tools like better landscape support and support for adaptive UI that point toward Apple wanting developers to test out larger screen sizes for iOS devices. Though it doesn’t explicitly foretell bigger iPhones on the way, it doesn’t do anything to dispel those rumors. Though details are still somewhat light, Apple has also expanded support for iCloud storage to developers, offering up to 1 petabyte of storage — enough for about 10 billion photos — to developers creating apps, for free. Because iCloud users don’t need any additional credentials to start using storage, onboarding is theoretically easy, and doesn’t require developers to use transparent services like AWS or Dropbox. Apple’s pitch on iCloud is simple: We have tons of iCloud users, and every one of those could be yours. Overall, this year’s WWDC conference keynotes have painted a strong picture of Apple listening to developers and delivering on their biggest pain points. Nearly every major announcement was dedicated to making aspects of development easier. Apple also introduced some nice improvements to the App Store, including better search and video screenshots. “I’m most excited about Apple’s changes to the App Store. Having the tools to build better apps is great, but building apps isn’t the point,” says developer David Barnard of Contrast. “The point is to entertain and empower iOS users. And it doesn’t matter how great an app is if no one downloads it or work on the app isn’t financially viable. With over a million apps in the App Store, the iOS 8 changes inherently can’t be a panacea for apps, but Apple is taking a big step toward an App Store that better highlights great apps and empowers conscientious developers.” On top of that, Apple has developed a new programming language, in secret, that will enable millions more people to jump into app development. It’s not that there were any major issues (depending on who you ask) with Objective-C, but Swift is cleaner, simpler and more friendly. Among those developers are the host of school-age WWDC scholarship attendees, the youngest of which Apple CEO Tim Cook said was 13. With Swift, and all of its announcements today, Apple is being proactive about courting the next generation of developers. |
Apple iOS 8 SDK Gives Developers Access To Faster 3D Graphics, Touch ID And More | Frederic Lardinois | 2,014 | 6 | 2 | With the launch of iOS 8, Apple today released a number of new developer tools for its mobile operating system. The new iOS SDK, which Apple CEO Tim Cook called “the biggest release since the launch of the App Store,” includes over and changes. One thing developers will love about this release — besides the new — is something Apple calls “Metal.” This gives more direct access to the graphics and compute hardware on Apple’s A7 processors. The company says it dramatically reduces overhead and features more efficient multithreading to bring console-level graphics to the iPhone and iPad. According to Apple, this new feature allows for a 10x performance gain compared to iOS 7 in draw call speed. Other new features for game developers include SceneKit for those who want to build casual games in 2D and 3D, as well as enhancements to the existing SpriteKit framework, which now includes field forces and per-pixel physics, as well as inverse kinematics. As expected, Apple today launched a health app for iOS and with it, it also , which gives developers a way to securely exchange data between their apps and Apple’s new Health app. The other headline-grabbing parts of this SDK release include , a new framework for building smart home devices and connecting them to iOS, and CloudKit, a new cloud storage system for developers that is effectively free and features a massive amount of free storage and transfer. You can read more about HomeKit . CloudKit puts Apple in the cloud-based, back-end market, but unlike most services, Apple can afford to give developers access to a huge amount of online storage and backend for free. It comes with free cloud storage up to a petabyte, 10TB of database storage and 5TB of daily asset transfer. For most developers, this quota should be enough to easily service all of their users. Among the other features Apple highlighted today is extensibility through app extensions, which allows different apps to “project” their interfaces into other apps. This is handled through a sandbox to ensure safety. With this, you can link your photo-editing app to Mail, for example, and then easily move between Mail and the photo-editing app. This also gives Safari access to extensions. Apple’s Craig Federighi, for example, demoed translations through Bing Translate right in Safari. Third-party apps now also finally get the ability to define their own widgets in the notification center. These widgets can now also be interactive. Touch ID, Apple’s method for authenticating users with their fingerprints, is also now, which gives third-party apps the ability to give you access to the data you store in those apps. Developers get new features for accessing iOS’s photo features through PhotoKit, the same framework Apple used to build its own Photos app. It features support for non-destructive edits and the ability to read and write to the Photos library. Also new for developers of photo apps is a new Camera API, which provides developers of photography apps with more control over focus, white balance and exposure. Both the iOS 8 beta and SDK are now available for registered developers at . |
Apple Gets More Explicit About Bitcoin Apps | Matthew Panzarino | 2,014 | 6 | 2 | Late last year, a series of app removals hit bitcoin wallets, causing folks in the industry to panic over Apple’s stance on the “virtual currency.” When that happened, I wrote a piece about exactly how Apple felt about bitcoin, as the company wasn’t talking publicly. In the piece, I : Bitcoin is not illegal, but it is also not legally recognized by governments as a currency. This gray area is what is leading Apple to reject Bitcoin-transaction apps. Apple is simply taking the safest, most protective path by disallowing transaction functionality in App Store apps — for now. As to how Apple might handle Bitcoin transactions in apps in the future, look to how it handles gambling apps, also covered in the App Store rules. For states or countries that allow gambling — like Nevada or the UK — Apple allows apps to use geo-fencing to restrict activities to those regions. A similar system could be put in place to allow Bitcoin transactions in places where it has been deemed ‘legal’ by a government entity. Now, Apple has under its App Store Review guidelines that specifically mentions bitcoin. 11.17 Apps may facilitate transmission of approved virtual currencies provided that they do so in compliance with all state and federal laws for the territories in which the app functions. This section explicitly spells out Apple’s attitude toward virtual currencies. It’s exactly what we published last year: They’ll accept apps that handle bitcoin transmission as long as they comply with all state and federal laws. Does this mean Apple will start accepting bitcoin apps that transmit currency in the App Store immediately? Probably not, unless there have been rulings declaring the currency “legal” in a given region. If there is no ruling, I wouldn’t count on it. Still, it’s likely that some folks, like Gliph, will test those to get that functionality into the App Store soon. Note that bitcoin apps that don’t facilitate transfer of currency are currently fine in the App Store. And it’s certainly encouraging to see Apple being definite about its stance in the App Store rules. |
Inside Jobs: What Exactly Does It Mean To Be A ‘Solutions Architect’? | Colleen Taylor | 2,014 | 6 | 2 | Some jobs have names that make it pretty easy to understand what they do: Airplane pilot, waitress, doctor, shoe salesman. But in today’s tech industry, there are a lot of job titles that are far from self-explanatory. In this episode of , I sat down with , who has one of those mysterious-sounding jobs as a “Solutions Architect” at enterprise storage company Box. Once you find out what he does, though, the fancy title makes more sense. He talks to Box’s paying customers, hears their feedback about the service, and helps design customized “solutions” to the problems they have. Making Fortune 500 clients happy isn’t always easy, so being a Solutions Architect at Box often means long hours on the phone and in meetings. Through it all, though, O’Leary’s known on his team for keeping things fun. Whether by taking business calls with a bright yellow phone headset, drinking what calls ‘ ‘, or inserting a wacky cat photo into a company presentation, O’Leary definitely doesn’t fit the humorless mold of who you might expect to be heading up customer relations at an enterprise software firm. He explained his work style to me like this:
“I want to make sure that we’re not only doing good work here, but we’re having a lot of fun while we do it. Yes, that means that when I’m on a call with a customer I’m going to get shot in the face with a NERF dart, and that’s okay. That’s part of Box, that’s part of who we are, and that’s part of what we do.” Go inside Dan O’Leary’s job by watching the video above. Producing, shooting, editing, sound, and lighting for Inside Jobs is done by . Production coordination and creative direction is done by . Original logo design by . Motion graphics and graphic design by . |
Missed The WWDC 2014 Keynote? Here’s The Complete Video | Matt Burns | 2,014 | 6 | 2 | The entire WWDC 2014 keynote for your viewing pleasure. Watch Apple’s executives roll out the latest and greatest from Cupertino — and even call one of Apple’s newest employee, Dr. Dre. The keynote address kicks off with a video tribute to app developers. Tim Cook first strolls out at the 5:06 mark to greet the crowd and casually lampoons Android throughout the presentation. But today’s dog and pony show was mostly led by Craig Federighi, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, who did a fine job, even earning the nickname “Superman” from Cook towards the end of the presentation. Of course instead of watching the video, you could get all the news from our comprehensive coverage . |
Home Deco Site Houzz Raises $150M At A $2.3B Post-Money Valuation | Ingrid Lunden | 2,014 | 6 | 2 | Looks like home-remodelling and design site is upsizing. Filings that the startup made at the end of May in Delaware, uncovered by the folks at , indicate that it is raising a Series D round of $150 million, at a post-money valuation of just over $2.3 billion on a fully-diluted basis. What’s striking is that the documents show that in its last round, in January 2013 when it raised , Houzz was valued at up to $325 million — rising over seven times in the last 17 months. That’s valuation growth not unlike the rapid rise we’ve seen in the real estate market in . The full document is embedded below. The basic details indicate that this fourth round has 2,002,039 shares issued with the price per share at $74.9236, working out to just under $150 million for the Series D. As a point of comparison, the price per share in the Series C was $13.3438. The fully-diluted number of shares is 31,000,000. It appears that the deal is closed already, according to Justin Byers, the director of business intelligence at VCExperts. “Once these are filed, the deal should be done,” he says. “These filings are changing/updating their structure as to what they authorize to issue for shares.” There could, however, still be more to come in the round. What the documents do not tell us is who is behind the investment, nor how it will be used. We’ve reached out to Houzz for details on that front, but a spokesperson says Houzz has nothing to share at this time. On the investment side, Byers points out that in the document neither the Series C or Series D investors are specified as getting a board of director spot. “This could be a good indication of an inside round.” He suggests as an option, given that it was an investor in a previous round and it has something of a on inside rounds. (But, again, we don’t know this for certain.) Other investors in the Series C were (NEA) and , who led the round, as well as Comcast Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Yammer founder David Sacks — who says he first came across the site as a user, not an investor. also included Sequoia, as well as Gary Ginsberg, Amos Wilnai, Don Katz, Oren Zeev, Jeff Fluhr, Oren Dobronsky and Mike Chalfen. As for where the money may go, there are a couple of areas that could be tapped. For starters, Houzz, founded in 2009 by Alon Cohen and Adi Tatarko, currently has a couple of revenue streams: sales of items in its home decor storefront, and premium accounts for decorating and design professionals. So there may be more investment in building that out with more features and attracting more users with marketing and so on. And there is investment in global growth. Earlier this year, the site — which says some 35% of its users come from outside of the U.S. — took its first official international steps with offices in the UK, Germany and Austria and plans also for Asia Pacific expansion. That effort is being led by Oliver Jung, who once had a similar role at Airbnb. In January, Houzz reported 16 million monthly users — a number that is probably on the rise, given the investment numbers we’re seeing today. [scribd id=227700549 key=key-R2k0FWMv0i4uHY7DV7fe mode=scroll] |
All The News From WWDC 2014 | Matt Burns | 2,014 | 6 | 2 | OS X and iOS world at its 2014 Worldwide Developers Conference, lifting the curtain on OS X Yosemite, iOS 8 and more, including the ability to allow iPhones to make calls through a Mac. What follows is TechCrunch’s complete coverage of the announcements including hands-on reports with the upcoming OS X and iOS features. |
Google+ Stories, Automated Travelogues Built With Your Own Photos And Videos, Arrives On iOS | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 6 | 2 | In the middle of Apple’s big announcement, which includes a revamped iOS Photos application among , Google quietly rolled out an update to its own iOS “photos” application, also known as Google+. The company has now released Google+ Stories for iOS, the new multimedia, scrapbooking-like feature which automatically combines your photos, videos and places you visit into a travelogue. The feature was , and was already available on Android with an iOS release scheduled to hit “soon.” Interesting that Google (or Apple?) decided to roll out the change during the WWDC keynote and resulting flurry of press coverage. Google+ Stories works alongside Google+’s auto-upload feature, which automatically uploads the photos and videos from your iPhone’s Camera Roll to Google’s social network. With Stories, the idea is to form some sort of narrative out of all those photos, and do so without you having to take the time to build content collections yourself. Instead, Google+ Stories will find your best shots algorithmically, then combine that with location data in order to create distinct collections of photos, video, and text. Google will automatically remove duplicate photos, blurry ones, and other bad images so they’re not included in your Stories. When viewed, these Stories launch multimedia experiences that take over your browser like a slideshow on steroids, with support for animations, transitions, captions and interstitials. Like your auto-uploaded photos themselves, your Stories are private by default, letting you make edits, add or remove content, and change the captions before choosing to share them. When new Stories have been created for you, you’ll be notified by a push notification. The updated Google+ iOS app offering the Stories feature is live . |
Marin Software Buys Social Retargeting Co. Perfect Audience For $23M | Ingrid Lunden | 2,014 | 6 | 2 | Ad tech company , which went , has made its first acquisition: it’s acquired , a specialist in display and social network retargeting, for $22.8 million, with $5.4 million of that in cash and the rest in common stock. The deal closed officially today. Marin Software already offers a platform for advertisers to run campaigns across a range of platforms, but its speciality has been largely in search market. What Perfect Audience gives Marin is a much stronger offering in the area of retargeting services specifically for social and display advertising — effectively following users on to sites like Facebook, who have visited sites but not “converted” into buyers, with ads on the social network. Marin Software’s CMO, Matt Ackley, tells me that while Perfect Audience — founded in 2012 and with companies like American Apparel, bebe, Eventbrite, New Relic, 99 designs, and Rackspace among its customers — will remain as a separate platform for now it will eventually be integrated into Marin Software’s wider offering. The move comes at an interesting time in the advertising business. ZenithOptimedia projects that by 2015 revenues from display ads — boosted by ad tech — will overtake that of search. Marin Software is trying to capitalise on that trend — rather than capitulate to it. “Obviously search is more mature and has been around for a while and other channels are growing faster right now,” admits Ackley, “but we also think it’s poised to move into what we consider the next phase audience. Audience is the new ‘keyword’.” What does that mean? Well, now it’s no longer just about what words people search on, but who is doing the searching. Indeed, Google’s moves to integrate Google+ sign-ins — the less-known side of the G+ social network that people like to joke about no one using — into searches and across the rest of its products speaks to how it is able to follow people as they move from one place to another, which it then anonymises to use as more informed search marketing. “We think that compbined with social and display, this is going to reaccelerate search,” Ackley says. As part of the deal, co-founder and CEO Brad Flora is joining Marin Software, and the company has set aside $2.7 million of equity retention grants to Perfect Audience employees who stay on. |
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Apple Introduces CloudKit, An ‘Effectively Free’ Toolkit For Making Cloud Apps | Kyle Russell | 2,014 | 6 | 2 | While Apple has a reputation for building beautiful hardware and powerful software, recent forays into the cloud, including MobileMe, iCloud, and Siri, have been found wanting by many. At today’s WWDC event, Apple demonstrated that it’s making significant headway on the cloud front with the announcement of , advanced photo storage and syncing, and most importantly for developers, CloudKit. CloudKit is a new, “effectively free” developer framework that lets app creators tap into Apple’s iCloud so that they can more easily work cloud components into their mobile apps. In the past this has been a huge pain point for developers, forcing many of them to turn to third-party solutions like Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform or Amazon Web Services. By calling on different aspects of the CloudKit API, developers will be able to quickly drop in support for features like CloudKit authentication, search, and notification, things that previously would have required building on top of the aforementioned services from Apple’s competitors. While the above data caps are quite generous, offering more than enough free storage and data delivery for most developers on the App Store, it should be noted that Apple has not announced CloudKit pricing for those who go beyond those limits. |
Apple Opens Up Touch ID To All Apps | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,014 | 6 | 2 | If you ever thought that the future creeps up on you slowly — and then all at once — behold Touch ID for all apps. Announced today as a side feature of , the Touch ID recognition you’ve come to know and love in the 5s will now extend beyond helping you more quickly unlock your iPhone and download apps from iTunes to helping you more quickly log into apps like (the demo). The Touch ID API will be available in beta today, so that developers who want to use the iPhone’s fingerprint sensor in order to authenticate users — or add an extra layer of security like in the Mint example — can start building on it. The science fiction thinking on this is that you’ll eventually use Touch ID to open your door (with Apple’s ) or buy stuff on Amazon. Apple’s senior vice president of software insisted that with the Touch ID API, the fingerprint data would remain stored on your iPhone, not relayed to third-party developers. For all Apple’s posturing, this is actually one of its minute design details that does have the potential to change everything. Last night a friend of mine lost her phone, and when she went to the “Lost and Found” to pick it up, the person at the counter started asking her a series of questions to prove the phone was hers. In response, she simply said, “Touch ID” and proceeded to unlock the phone with the tip of her finger.
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Apple Launches Swift, A New Programming Language For Writing iOS And OS X Apps | Frederic Lardinois | 2,014 | 6 | 2 | At its today, Apple surprised all of the developers in the audience by launching a new programming language called . This new language seems to be poised to replace Objective-C as the main programming language on Apple’s platforms. Swift will use the same LLVM compiler and runtime as Apple’s Objective-C implementation, so Swift and Objective-C code can live side-by-side in the same application. The language provides access to all of the Cocoa and Cocoa Touch features developers are currently used to from Objective-C. It should feel familiar to those who are already used to Objective-C, Apple says, and is meant to “unify the procedural and object-oriented portions of the language.” It does diverge from Objective-C in more than just the syntax, though; it also features variable types like and optional types. It also includes operators that aren’t found in Objective-C, which allow you to perform remainder operations on floating-point numbers, for example. Here are some of the highlights of the language according to Apple: In addition, Apple notes how the language was designed for safety, with variables that have to be initialized before use, arrays and integers that are checked for overflow and automatic memory management. Swift support, of course, will be deeply integrated into Apple’s . It will feature an interactive “Playground” that allows you to edit your code and watch how your changes influence your app in real-time. Xcode’s debugging console now also supports Swift syntax natively. According to Apple, Swift will provide a number of significant speed advantages to developers. A complex object sort, for example, will run 3.9x faster than an implementation of the same algorithm in Python. That’s also faster than Objective-C, which is 2.8x faster than the Python version. We will obviously need to take a closer look at this new programming language and how it relates to other languages. Apple is making the documentation available today, both as an and on its developer site. |
This Glove Makes You Beethoven | Sarah Buhr | 2,014 | 6 | 20 | “Have you ever seen the Matrix?” Thad Starner excitedly asks me over the phone. “There’s that scene where they need to fly a helicopter and Trinity just says, “hang on” and then uploads the instructions to her brain. That’s the future of what I’m doing.” What started as a wearable experiment for the could possibly make anyone a master at guitar, piano, Braille or even dance steps at superhuman speed. All you have to do to play like Beethoven, Starner tells me, is slip on this glove he’s made called the Mobile Music Touch and it’s just bzzz, bzzz bzzz… bzzz bzzz…bzzz bzzz buh bzzz bzzz bzzz. Pretty soon you’re playing Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” like a pro. Starner, by the way, is a current technical lead on Google Glass. He’s actually been wearing some kind of computer on his head for over 20 years. In fact, he built a wearable computer with a mounted display back in 1993. He’s also heavily involved in AI and techniques in human computer interaction (HCI) using wearable tech. His glove is like one of those fingerless leather gloves you’d see at the gym for weight lifting, but with a robotic box of wires fixed at the back containing a Bluetooth radio and microcontroller. This means you can hook it up to your laptop or mobile device and start to play a song. Mobile Music Touch has been something of a study in for Starner for the past couple of years. That repetitive buzz from the device infuses a kind of muscle memory that, in theory, can really cut your time for learning things like playing the piano. But it has a much wider potential for teaching not just patterns but also language. He lists off a series of other applications like sign language and Braille. He’s also studied the effects the glove might have on those with spinal cord injuries. “We looked at those with fractured spines between the fourth and seventh vertebrae and found that using the glove actually helped them gain some sensation back in their hands.” This was over the course of a year and without other rehabilitation efforts, according to Starner. The remarkable thing is that those studied in the injury actually pick up skills faster if they don’t think about it. It’s an idea called Passive Haptic Learning (PHL). If you’ve ever been a dancer or played guitar you know you’re better when you just move to the rhythm instead of thinking about what you are doing. Starner says it’s kinda like that. The PHL activities associated with Starner’s glove allows an individual to learn one skill through their sense of touch while performing another, unrelated activity. “And do you think a baseball player improves his pitch if you just show him a video of what he’s doing wrong?” he asks. Maybe? “Who knows? I don’t know…but what if he had something that could teach him how to throw right while he’s throwing?” Rad. We’re far off from learning to immediately fly a helicopter, according to Starner. And of course you don’t suddenly become Beethoven just by putting on the glove. But the research does indicate you can master skills at a much faster pace and with more precision than just trying to do it on your own. |
Tech Founders Talk About Why The New ‘Entrepreneur Barbie’ Matters | Colleen Taylor | 2,014 | 6 | 20 | The impact of Barbie on young girls’ self-image and aspirations has been a controversial topic for decades. But this week, Mattel, the toy company that makes Barbie, took a small step in a positive direction with the official launch of as its latest “career of the year” doll for 2014. In a lot of ways, on the surface Entrepreneur Barbie looks a lot like, well, regular Barbie: She’s packaged in a pink box, with drastically unrealistic physical proportions, a glossy smile, and perpetually pointed toes. What sets her apart is that she comes with all the trappings of running a modern business, including a tiny toy smartphone, tablet, and briefcase. (With Barbie, the accessories .) Really, though, I suppose the most important thing is she’s got the backstory of being an entrepreneur. When young girls play with Barbie, they’re really just using their imaginations and telling stories — so this gives them a framework to play with Barbie as a business builder, not, say, a . While in recent years show that Barbie dolls are not as hot a toy as they used to be, they still have a real impact on what some young girls idolize. The launch of Entrepreneur Barbie is another role model of sorts that young girls can see in the business world. It’s a small move, but, as TechCrunch co-editor Alexia Tsotsis wrote , every little bit helps. So, why is this a TechCrunch story? For starters, the dearth of female entrepreneurs is a real issue in the technology industry. Also, Mattel enlisted a group of female founders, many of whom are in tech, to honor this week as a “ ” alongside the launch of the new doll. So TechCrunch TV talked to a few of these women to find out why they got involved and what the new Barbie could mean to the next generation of female founders. Check that out in the video above.
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Google and Nest Acquire Dropcam For $555 Million | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 6 | 20 | Remember those rumors that Google was looking to acquire the plug-and-play security camera company, Dropcam? Yep. It just happened. Just months after being acquired themselves, the now Google-owned Nest has just announced that they’ve acquired Dropcam. We’re digging for more details on the deal now, but have confirmed that the final sale price was $555 million in cash. Wondering what the heck a Dropcam is? They make a few different things, but their namesake device is a WiFi-enabled security camera ($149 or $199, depending on video quality) that requires little-to-no-effort to maintain. You plug it in, get it up on your WiFi, and you’re set. If you just want to be able to check in on your cameras remotely, that’s free; if you want Dropcam to keep an archive of recorded footage on their servers, that’ll cost you anywhere from $10 to $30 a month (depending on how long you want archives kept). In a blog post on the acquisition, Dropcam founder Greg Duffy explains the move: Nest and Dropcam are kindred spirits. Both were born out of frustration with outdated, complicated products that do the opposite of making life better. After numerous conversations with Nest Founders Tony and Matt, it was clear that we shared a similar vision. If privacy advocates were bothered by the idea of Google buying a , this acquisition will probably send them up the wall. Right off the bat, Nest founder Matt Rogers started working to sooth the inevitable concerns in his initial : Like Nest customer data, Dropcam will come under Nest’s privacy policy, which explains that data won’t be shared with anyone (including Google) without a customer’s permission. Nest has a paid-for business model and ads are not part of our strategy. In acquiring Dropcam, we’ll apply that same policy to Dropcam too. According to Crunchbase, Dropcam had raised just shy of $48M to date. |
NSA Reform Gathers Momentum In Congress After Late-Night Vote | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 6 | 20 | After a somewhat desultory year of little to no change, reform of the United States surveillance state appears to have finally found momentum. Recently the USA FREEDOM Act was , and two funding amendments that would have cut monies for forced backdoors and certain government searches . Last night, however, the House to the military funding bill that did what the two failed amendments had attempted. At once, a large House majority had taken an unambiguous stand against certain parts of the government’s surveillance activities. It’s up to the Senate to act now, but at a minimum, those looking to reform the National Security Agency (NSA) aren’t losing every skirmish. Where do we go from here? Co-sponsors of the House amendment that passed are pledging more action. In a collection of statements provided to TechCrunch, said that the “amendment is a worthwhile step forward and will make a meaningful difference, but our work is not done.” had a similar comment, saying that the passage of the amendment, and the USA FREEDOM Act are “positive, but not final, steps in our efforts to reform the administration’s surveillance authorities and protect Americans’ civil liberties.” In the upper chamber, the current pace of change isn’t enough for some. The Hill , , from Sens. , , and called on the President to end the collection of the phone records of American citizens. In their view, the President has the authority to do so, without the need for congress to pass new legislation. As you certainly recall, two of those three Senators were part of a that published excoriating the USA FREEDOM Act’s passage in the house, saying that “nearly all of the essential reforms either watered down or removed.” Momentum in the House, and stridently vocal calls in the Senate for stronger reform? Knock on wood. |
SpaceX Is About To Fire Another Massive Rocket Into Space — Watch Live! (Update: Mission Aborted) | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 6 | 20 | It’s Friday, with about 2 hours left in the West Coast work day. Are you working? Like working? Probably not. So let’s watch freaking rockets get shot into space instead! After a bunch of delays, SpaceX is scheduled to launch six satellites into the skies for ORBCOMM, a company that helps companies use satellites for everything from asset monitoring to wireless communication. And since we live in such wonderful times, you get to watch things get shot into space . Live! You don’t even have to wear pants! Incredible. , which, annoyingly, I can’t embed. Launch has been pushed back about an hour, with takeoff currently set for just after 4:00 PM Pacific. They’re having some last second technical difficulties, so there’s a non-trivial chance today’s mission will get scrapped — but they’re currently convinced they’ll get things patched up in time. They had pressure issues they couldn’t resolve in time for launch. (Interesting side note: This isn’t the first time ORBCOMM has launched with SpaceX — at the end of 2012, the launch of one of their prototype satellites ended up in a bad orbit when one of the nine engines on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket failed. The end result? After about 50 hours of floating around in (the wrong part of) space, it all spiraled back down to earth. All in all, the lost cost ORBCOMM [or at least their insurance plan] around $10 million bucks.) |
Apple’s iWatch Could Be The Next Big Sports Fashion Accessory | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 6 | 20 | Sports sells gatorade, and sports sells sneakers, and sports sells clothing and hats and TV trays and bottle openers and anything that has enough surface area to hold a logo. But can sports sell the concept of the smartwatch? That’s what Apple might find out beginning in October, the rumored launch date of the iWatch, according to a . The blog’s sources say Apple is working with professional athletes to test the fitness tracking features of the upcoming device, and it’s only logical that if they’re helping inform product design, Apple should tap them for promotion, too. The stars working with Apple include Kobe Bryant, Dustin Brown of the LA Kings, and other unnamed stars from top U.S. pro sports organizations. 9to5Mac also says that the iWatch is being developed as a fashion piece, to ship in two different designs, with an announcement in October and a ship date soon after. The report echoes one , which said it would include fitness tracking and be unveiled in October, too. Building wearables so far has proven a challenge, at least in terms of making something that sells with the kind of volume that makes them worthwhile for a company like Apple. The top-selling smartwatches to date are the Samsung Gear line, and 2 million total smartwatch devices were sold last year according to Strategy Analytics, of which 1.2 million were Android powered. Apple, by contrast, is shooting for first year sales of between 50 and 60 million units for its device alone, according to reports from media outlets including WSJ and Reuters. To sell the devices, turning to the age-old marketing machine that is professional sports is a logical path. Apple is said to be packing a heap of sensors into this device (10 to be exact) and working with Nike on the fitness features. Traditionally, if you create something that has a ‘performance’ or activity angle, turning to pro athletes for a marketing push delivers huge dividends – Gatorade, and every other sports drink on the market, likely wouldn’t exist without the influence of celebrity endorsements. Apple hasn’t leaned too heavily on the celebrity angle for promoting its past products, at least not directly. Instead, it has used a comprehensive media strategy of helping Apple products find their way naturally into films, TV shows and celebrity pockets, along with a few select endorsements via television ads and media spots. But it has acquired a company recently that could help with this kind of market positioning: Beats. Beats doesn’t really make sports accessories – but you’d be forgiven for thinking they do. Their advertising campaign around the World Cup is one example of how well they’ve been able to tie their headphones to athletes and athletics. Nevermind the fact that Beats on- and over-ear headphones are pretty much the opposite of what you want on your head while you’re running five miles or training for a triathlon. They share the same basic design as earmuffs, which are made to keep heat in your head. True, Beats makes wireless earbuds, too with the Powerbeats line but they’ve managed to give the whole brand sports cache. There is no evidence that a smartwatch will pack people into stores, Apple-made or not. But there’s plenty of evidence to suggest an Apple-built sports and fitness/fashion accessory will sell and sell well. Apple wouldn’t be the only company trying to use , but it might be the one with the best angle yet. |
Satellogic Aims To Launch A Constellation Of Small Imaging Satellites Around Earth | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 6 | 20 | is an Argentinian startup that it just had its third successful satellite launch. The company was founded by CEO , who previously founded Core Security Technologies and came up with the vision for Satellogic while attending in 2010. Describing existing satellite technology as “archaic,” Kargieman said he wants to launch a network of hundreds of satellites in Low Earth orbit that will allow customers to get “an image of any place on Earth in high resolution and in real time.” That’s an ambitious vision, and Satellogic certainly has quite a bit to do before then. This satellite, dubbed Tita, is the first one that the company has launched with high resolution imaging capabilities, Kargieman said. However, the plan is to “freeze” the design of the satellites soon and get more ambitious about launching them, with 10 to 15 launches on the timeline for 2015. Kargieman added that with existing satellites, it takes usually about three days to get two consecutive photos of the same spot on Earth, while with Satellogic satellites (which are built with newer electronics technology and are the size of “a desktop computer hard drive”) customers will supposedly be able to get an image in five minutes. Asked about the privacy implications, Kargieman said the satellites will, for example, be able to photograph cars but not individual license plates, so it shouldn’t be too intrusive. So what will the satellites actually be monitoring? Kargieman said they’ll give customers a window on many of the processes related to what he described as “the biggest challenges that we’re going to face in the next 10 or 20 years” — food production and security, energy production and distribution, and natural resource production. Google seems interested in satellite images too, having recently . “I was very happy to see that,” Kargieman said. “The new space revolution, I think, will come from small startups and companies from different parts of the spectrum.” The company says that it has raised $4.5 million million from Kargieman and undisclosed angel investors. Oh, and you can see a video of the Tita satellite being prepared for launch below. I was hoping to get a video of the launch itself but apparently we’d need to get approval from the Russian Ministry of Defense, so, uh, hopefully you enjoy this one, as well as the promotional video below. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWrfmORvlJg&w=560&h=315] |
Gillmor Gang Live 06.20.14 | Steve Gillmor | 2,014 | 6 | 20 | – Kevin Marks, Robert Scoble, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor. |
Hack Yo | Sarah Buhr | 2,014 | 6 | 20 | Turns out the app that has totally changed my life and in the US App Store this week comes with a few simple tricks to make it to No time for individual yo-ing? No problem! Here’s how to send a mass “Yo” to everyone you “Yo.” 1. Just scroll to the bottom of your friends list and hit the “+” icon.
2. Now type in “YOALL.” This adds an action to “Yo” everyone at once.
3. Now click on “YOALL” just like you would an individual.
Congrats. You’ve just mass “Yo’d.” Russian roulette, Yo style. Show some rando friend you love them by setting up a random action in the app. 1. Just like with “YOALL,” click on the “+” icon and type “YORANDOM.”
2. Click on the “YORANDOM” block and Yo will choose a random friend to “Yo.” Don’t want to miss out on a single goal in the World Cup? Add “WORLDCUP” the same way and get a “Yo” on every goal. Getting too many “Yo’s” from the World Cup now…or even just one annoying person?
Block or delete by scrolling to that person on your friends list and, just like you would on an uggo on Tinder, swipe left. The app then gives you the option to cancel, block or delete that person from your list.
One other fun trick – send a “Yo-Yo” by double tapping anyone’s name on your list. Got other hacks? Please do share in the comments below. |
CrunchWeek: Amazon’s Fire Phone, Facebook’s Slingshot, And Yo | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 6 | 20 | This week, , and sat around the round table to dig into the week’s news: Should we buy Amazon’s ? Is Slingshot ? And, of course, . Just Yo. We shoot CrunchWeek every week as a roundup of the biggest stories that have broken recently. So put on a checked shirt, and let’s get into it. |
Yo? No. | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 6 | 20 | Growing up – and excuse me for dating myself here a bit – kids were into Swatch watches, jean jackets, stirrup pants, and jelly bracelets. My sister grew up collecting something called “ ,” which I never understood. Today, kids are more technically oriented. They obsess over iPad-connected toys like , and the never-ending game that is . They also like apps, and have the power to move markets – turning otherwise silly one-off’s like “Flappy Bird” into international viral sensations. Adults are now participating in these faddish App Store trends, too. Stupid apps, like “ ” (yes, it is what you think), have even spent time at the top of the App Store charts. Another case in point: the sheer ridiculousness that is the talk of the web crowd: “ .” I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with those who see a in the rise of Yo. is a fad. Nothing more. Sure, it’s a conversation starter: Did you hear of this app that does almost nothing and ? This is the stupidest thing ever! [Proceeds to download and look.] ? Ugh, I need to move to a deserted island until this “bubble” is over! Andreessen, in case you didn’t see his latest , thinks Yo could represent a modern take on “one-bit communication” and is reminiscent of the global “missed call” phenomenon. (That is, how people in third-world countries and other developing markets regularly ring someone and hang up as a type of communication.) Seemingly he misses the point that the signal is not often “yo,” it’s “I’m out of minutes; I don’t have money; here is my message.” Sometimes, the missed call is a request for a return call. But often, it’s just without having to spend. People say: I’ve arrived, I’m late, or whatever else has been pre-arranged and discussed. It is not, however, a “Yo” – as in an app that runs on first-world smartphones where data plans offer unlimited gigabytes of communication to giggly users who pay hundreds per month for data to power digital toys. Phones where getting someone’s attention is as simple as a text, iMessage, Facebook message, Snapchat, WhatsApp, tweet, or even – you know – a phone call you can afford. No, “Yo” is not the next big thing. It is the next “Flappy Bird.” It’s an “ .” It’s water cooler chatter. A Happy Meal toy. . A momentary distraction as we tire of Facebook. Today, we Yo, tomorrow we throw. It’s disposable. It’s an app that will be much-discussed, maybe even mimicked ( ), then tossed when the next weird and crazy app comes along. And that’s just fine. After all, no one ever said all apps have to be Facebook-level success stories or find There’s room for apps that are one-hit wonders. “Call Me Maybe,” Yo. And we could have all just enjoyed yo’ing for a while, but . Party poopers. Still, if you chose to set this particular app aside, you might have been feeling like you’re missing out. And sure, today you are, but you won’t in the long-term. Yo? No. |
U.S. Government To Ban Drones In National Parks | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 6 | 20 | So, you bought a drone. What are you going to do with it first? Snap some real estate photos of your house? Take a ? Crash it into a tree then try to convince the manufacturer it came like that? If your answer is “Take it to a national park”, you might want to reconsider. That’s not allowed anymore. The US Government’s National Park Service has just issued an order banning unmanned aircrafts from being launched, landed, or operated in any of the 58 US national parks. Grand Canyon? More like… Grand… Cantdrone. The NPS cites safety concerns for park visitors and wildlife, and myriad “noise and nuisance complaints” — in other words, no one wants to hear a drone buzzing around after climbing 5,000 feet up Half Dome. This order is considered temporary (albeit with no set expiration date) until the NPS gets a chance to figure out exactly they’re banning (“model aircrafts”, for example, are still okay if the park approves), what use cases are okay, and until the public has had a chance to comment on the matter. But for now, consider’em banned. Meanwhile, the NPS can still grant case-by-case exceptions for drones being used for research, search and rescue, and fighting fires. |
Analytics Startup Heap Brings Its “Capture Everything” Approach To iOS Apps | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 6 | 20 | , a startup aiming to bring a more comprehensive and flexible approach to analytics, is moving into mobile. The company first announced its iOS integration about a year ago, but at the time it was an invite-only product in beta testing. More recently, the company has removed the beta label and opened the product to any developer. Founder Matin Movassate contrasted the experience of using Heap with the process at Facebook, where . If he had a data-related question, he had to ask an engineer to write the necessary code, then it would take weeks for the data to “trickle in”, and then he’d have to work with a data analyst to actually get a report that answered his questions. (Movassate said there are similar experiences when using most analytics products.) “A lot of times you end up working with the data you have, instead of getting the right data,” he added. Heap, on the other hand, automatically collects data on every action taken by a user (on iOS that includes taps, swipes, form submissions, views, and more) and it then allows customers to pull the data they need without writing any code. You can see the automated event capture in the image above. Movassate said this approach also makes the data more usable by non-technical team members, like salespeople and marketers: “We found that when an organization adopts Heap, they all use it, instead of it being bottlenecked in IT.” On iOS, the big challenge was collecting this data without significantly taxing the CPU or the cell network, but Movassate said he succeeded. He said it’s too early to identify any iOS customers, but he would reveal that Heap has 1,000 customers sending in data (including Airbnb, Salesforce.com, Blue Bottle Coffee, and the Onion), and that an increasing number of them are using the iOS capabilities, too. The company last year. |
This Week On The TC Gadgets Podcast: Amazon Fire Phone, Ink & Slide, And Slingshot | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 6 | 20 | The podcast is packed this week, with six of us talking over each other about some of the most exciting news of the week. If you didn’t hear, Amazon launched its own smartphone called the , complete with special shopping features and 3D effects. Adobe, meanwhile, introduced the , a digital pen and ruler for artists and designers. And in true Facebook fashion, the social network launched a new app called . Oh, and . We discuss all this and more on this week’s episode of the featuring , , , , , and . Have a good Friday, everybody!
We invite you to enjoy our every Friday at 3 p.m. Eastern and noon Pacific. And feel free to check out the TechCrunch Gadgets Flipboard magazine right .
You can subscribe to the .
Intro Music by . |
Amazon Courts Fire Phone Developers With $15,000 In “Amazon Coins” | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 6 | 20 | When Microsoft needed to convince developers to build mobile apps for its Windows Phone 8 platform, it took a familiar path: to do so. Amazon, however, is going a different route – at least, for now. Instead of outright paying developers to update their apps to work with its newly launched smartphone, , Amazon is offering up to $15,000 in “Amazon Coins” which developers can give away to their users. The idea here is that in today’s crowded app marketplace, acquiring new users and keeping current users engaged can be very expensive. According to , it currently costs app marketers $1.24 to get users to download and install an application on iOS, and $1.31 on Android. Those numbers don’t directly correlate to Amazon’s Appstore, but they give you the general idea of the costs involved in this industry. With $15,000 available in “Coins” which can be distributed to users to get them to download a paid app or purchase in-app goods, participating developers gain access to a good chunk of change to help them with their marketing efforts. Of course, there are more than a few caveats. The $15,000 is the cap per developer. Amazon is actually giving away 500,000 Amazon Coins (a $5,000 value) per app, with a maximum of three apps per developer. Developers can then create their campaigns in the Promotions Console to actively court their potential customers. In addition, in order to qualify, developers can’t just submit a new app – or update their Fire tablet app – to support the new phone’s screen size. They actually have to dive in and use some of the features that Amazon introduced this week from competitors like Apple, Samsung and Google. For example, all game developers who want to take advantage of this promotion will have to use the , which is what allows users to move their heads to perform specific on-screen actions. Amazon also says it’s not enough for game developers to simply swap out gestures or gyro functionality for head tracking. They actually have to create an “in-game experience” using the new technology to qualify. Non-game apps will also need to use the SDK, or , and all apps must implement an to display contextual information to users when the app is in the front of the Carousel. Developers have to get their apps submitted by July 18 to be included in the Appstore when the phone ships on July 25, Amazon notes. Whether or not developers will go the extra mile for a phone that analysts are already predicting will struggle to compete remains to be seen, however. An analyst at JP Morgan predicts that Amazon will only sell 2-3 million units this year, which, , means Apple (on track for 83.8 million iPhones this year) would sell Despite the whirlwind of the Fire Phone received this week, Amazon introduced the newcomer with traditional pricing and payment options. The phone is only available through or can be bought unlocked for $649 – a price point that will only see very devoted Amazon consumers buying in. Meanwhile, many were hoping Amazon would do something completely shocking, like giving the phone away for free or bundled with a Prime subscription. But as a colleague here joked, “even Bezos has limits on burning stacks of money.” That being said, . It may be early, and it may not ship in vast quantities this year, but it’s a big step in an interesting direction for the company: a phone that you’ll be able to point at anything, and then have it appear. The same day. Even groceries. Even television. Maybe dropped off . If Amazon chooses to put its full weight behind its smartphone and offer it at a reduced cost, or even with subsidized data, the phone’s potential looks much more promising. |
So I Flew In An “Uber For Tiny Planes” | Sarah Buhr | 2,014 | 6 | 20 | The first line of the email in my box read, “This is UberX for small planes.” Yet another mystery startup in my inbox. Yay! (not really). But the idea of skipping the traffic to Tahoe was attractive enough to bite on this one. So four days later I found myself 2,000 feet high in a tiny plane with founder and licensed pilot Matt Voska as the company’s first ever Bay Area customer. So what was it like? I’ll get into that in a bit. First let me explain how this all works. Say you want to go up to wine country with a friend or two for the weekend. So you go to the search option on the site to find someone flying up to Sonoma. Lucky for you, a Flytenow pilot has posted that he is headed up that very way. Unfortunately, I was not so happily bestowed with such fortune: In fact, there didn’t seem to be any flights I could go to anywhere. No way to search for a certain day or for a more amenable price, either. Thankfully I had that initial email with which to contact this “Uber for planes” organization. Voska emailed me back the next morning and plans were set. What’s supposed to happen is you go to the site and see a list of pilots’ upcoming adventures. Then you, the flight “enthusiast” (as Voska prefers to call a passenger) book and pay to go to there. Turns out it’s actually more “Zimride for planes” than “Uber for planes.” Voska actually started the company not from a love of flying (which he definitely has a passion for) but because solo flights on his then student budget were expensive. Voska realized getting others to hop aboard and pay for the gas was a much easier way to fuel his pricey hobby. Gas for a short flight, for instance, could be around $100. That was hard to justify on his then student budget. So he put college on hold and moved himself from Boston to the Bay Area. Voska developed his love of traveling into the blue when an uncle first took him up on his private plane at the age of 10, by 17 Voska had his license and now, at age 20, he aims to baptize the rest of us into the joys of affordably accessing the friendly skies in private planes. Back to my nascent Flytenow voyage…did I mention my fear of flying? It’s not bad, really. It’s just that little thought in the back of my head every time I board a plane that I am putting my life in some other person’s hands and this could be my last day on Earth and there’s nothing I can do about it. But mostly it’s a thought kept way back there and barely recognized – until I found myself in a tiny plane. Fatal crashes by private plane are than they are for commercial airliners. A little turbulence around the side of Mount Diablo over in the East Bay and I was doing some heavy lamaze. To add to the fun, Voska handed me the wheel for a good minute. All fear factor aside about putting your life in some 20-year-old’s hands that you don’t really know at all but says they have a license and would like to take you with them way up thousands of miles into the wide open sky in a tiny vehicle… is this whole operation even legal? Flytenow believes . Under current FAA regulation private pilots can’t accept payment for taking passengers on previously unscheduled flights. The way Flytenow works around this is getting passengers to pay them and not the pilots. Pilots do receive money for the flight, but it’s simply for splitting the cost of gas and maintenance on a flight the pilot was already going to take anyway. Think of it like getting a ride with someone and paying some gas for the lift. Current acting legal advisor for Flytenow, agrees with the team’s interpretation of the law. Winton is a current aviation legal expert and former attorney for the FAA and U.S. Department of Justice. As Voska told me, he’s already submitted all the legal paperwork to the FAA so they should be already aware of his intentions. Former CEO of SurfAir, and the godfather of subscription aviation services also agreed Voska’s plan probably meets the intent of the law. He had his own battles to face in an industry that is not very open to change. “The regulation is always a challenge and every time you create something new in an industry that is not used to change is good,” said Eyerly. Mike Flint, Warren Buffet’s former pilot, attempted something similar to Voska at one point. His Indiegogo campaign helped him launch back in 2012. The idea was to create a destination-based flight-training program, which would allow clients to earn flight hours towards a pilot’s license while they traveled. He even took the likes of Miss California around Silicon Valley. But his attempt, like dozens of others, was soon shut down. We landed safely, and actually I calmed down after those few turbulent minutes. I even briefly (briefly) entertained the idea of getting a license. Being way up like that makes you feel that way, I guess. And honestly, I could do it again. Voska tells me it’s just $120 to Monterey and back or $250 round trip to Tahoe. But before I can plan on either of those scenarios, the site needs a few more (one, even) flights posted so I can book something… Here’s a brief bit of our adventure in the air:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIx3ZsTGkD0&w=560&h=315] |
Autopilot Launches CoPilot Sales Automation Tool | Frederic Lardinois | 2,014 | 6 | 20 | Any startup worth its salt these days built a mailing list from before it even launched, but what do you do after that? How do you identify the best leads from all of those random people who signed up for your service? Fresh off its , marketing automation service today announced the launch of its , which aims to make it easy for companies to find and engage their prospects with the help of automated email flows While it uses much of the same technology as Autopilot, CoPilot is geared towards salespeople and not marketers, says CEO and co-founder Michael Sharkey, who founded the company together with his brothers Peter and Chris. He argues that the worlds of marketing and sales technologies are starting to converge. Right now, “in one corner marketing has marketing automation, in another corner sales has CRM,” he said. “But there is this third corner where sales development representatives live and that’s who CoPilot focuses on.” The service aims to remove all of the manual tasks that sales development teams often spend much of their days on and automatically engages prospective clients through automated outbound campaigns. Ideally, thanks to automating most of the prospecting steps, the first time a sales person actually has a conversation with a potential client, it’ll be about getting a deal done, Sharkey tells me. Those campaigns can be tweaked based on a client’s behavior, and CoPilot automates follow-ups based on the recipient’s actions. The service also provides sales teams with a real-time feed of a prospect’s actions from within the email. Unsurprisingly, CoPilot is integrated with Autopilot’s , which allows companies to verify their email lists using social profiles. The service also allows companies to import their existing lists using CSV files. The team tells me the service is also integrated with Salesforce Sync, and the plan is to add more solutions and data providers directly over time, so users won’t need to rely on CSV files. CoPilot is now available for sign-up, with , which allows a company to send up to 5,000 monthly emails. |
null | Kyle Russell | 2,014 | 6 | 2 | null |
Microsoft Does Us A Solid By Accidentally Confirming That The Surface Mini Is Real | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 6 | 20 | Microsoft declined to comment. Earlier today, a manual published to help users dig into their new Surface Pro 3 devices of the currently Super Secret Surface Mini. Oops. Surprised? Don’t be. Microsoft had originally planned to debut the Surface Mini alongside the Surface Pro 3. I’ve heard from people with knowledge of the matter that the decision was made , making the mistakes funny, if not particularly surprising. Keep in mind that Microsoft also slipped up — perhaps the accident wasn’t of an accident — and before its official announcement. Today, of course, marks the first day of general availability for the Pro 3. Hence the user guide. Does this mean the Surface Mini will go on sale in the future? No. But it does underscore how far along the device got before it hit the weeds. Is a smaller Surface a good idea? There has been success by some — the Dell Venue Pro 8 comes to mind — in selling smaller Windows-based tablet devices. However, given the Surface line’s focus on keyboards, and docs, and the ability to do more than consume content, the smaller form factor is slightly hard to parse. Just for fun: |
New House Majority Leader Opposes Net Neutrality, Just Like His Predecessor | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 6 | 20 | Yesterday, Rep. Kevin McCarthy . Outgoing Rep. Eric Cantor, who held the position previously, unexpectedly lost his primary earlier this month, and announced that he would resign his post in his party’s leadership shortly afterwards. Why should you care about the new House Majority? He’s been held up in the media recently as a friend of the technology industry, someone with an ear to the issues that impact the industry. Several of his positions, however, appear to be in direct contrast with current Valley sentiment Politico’s headline from this week is telling: “ . Here’s The Hill earlier this week as well: “ .” There is . Following the vote, , a technology organization built to facilitate discussion between this country’s technology and political capitals, released a welcoming statement regarding Rep. McCarthy’s new job that is worth reading. TechNet Microsoft, Intel, Google, Apple, and a host of other technology companies, as members. Here’s , from TechNet CEO Linda Moore: Few members of Congress have as deep an understanding and appreciation for the economic impact and social change created by technology as Leader McCarthy. With his California roots and longstanding relationships inside the technology community, he knows what public policies make the innovation economy thrive. TechNet and our member companies congratulate Leader McCarthy on his election and look forward to working together on issues important to our country. And, here’s a comment from the Andy Halataei, its senior vice president of government relations: Kevin McCarthy understands our industry and he understands how our industry works. He has been proactive in reaching out to us to hear both what we think and to give us a sense of how the House is going to address our priorities with regard to job creation and growing the economy. In his new role he’ll come in with that fundamental understanding and knowledge base of what the tech community needs to grow jobs here. The House has already passed a solid patent litigation reform bill. We have some remaining priorities as an industry that we want to see and we’re hopeful Congress will move on them. The benefit of having Mr. McCarthy in the majority leader post is that when you go in to talk to him about economic issues or how to expand job creation, particularly in the tech sector, he already understands the fundamental premise of where you are coming from. Neither is effusive, but hardly sharp-elbowed either. Backing the claim that Rep. McCarthy “gets” tech are his frequent visits to the area. That lends credence to the idea that the new majority leader is at least willing to listen to the Valley’s views on matters. However, as , “[t]he good-natured California Republican and expected majority leader hasn’t devised many tech-related bills or even hammered away on the industry’s core issues.” Given that, I’d be a bit more reticent than I might be to call his victory a win for tech. Where does he land on the issues? The good Representative this year with other House GOP leadership . The key excerpt: “We are writing to respectfully urge you to halt your consideration of any plan to impose antiquated regulation on the Internet, and to warn that implementation of such a plan will needlessly inhibit the creation of American private sector jobs, limit economic freedom and innovation, and threaten to derail one of our economy’s most vibrant sectors. At a time when technology businesses need certainty to innovate, this is not the time for the FCC to engage in a counterproductive effort to even further regulate the Internet.” Late last year the House GOP at least contemplated tying the “blocking” of net neutrality , and another recent piece of legislation would . In short I’m having a mildly difficult time parsing the narrative that Rep. McCarthy is so vividly pro-tech, when at a minimum on this issue he is in opposition to much of the Valley. A so extensive that I won’t even bother to list them all signed a letter in favor of net neutrality, including the usual suspects like Dropbox, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Lyft, LinkedIn, Zynga and Yahoo, to name a few. McCarthy also yesterday’s amendment in the house banning the government from demanding backdoor access to technology products, and requiring the use of a warrant before accessing the communications of American citizens under certain legal purview. McCarthy’s office did not respond to a request for comment on this article. |
This Waterproof Kindle Paperwhite Is Humanity’s Greatest Achievement | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 6 | 20 | Sometimes a device comes so close to being perfect that you’d be forgiven for not realizing that with just a single tweak, it can become, in actual fact, perfect. The , as an e-reader that Amazon has crafted so well that you pretty much never need look beyond for anything better. But while a regular book ends up with wrinkly pages after being caught in a surprise downpour on the beach, the Paperwhite fizzles – unless you get the Kindle Paperwhite. The Waterfi version is shipped in the original Kindle packaging without any outward appearance of having been modified. It looks and feels like a Kindle, albeit a slightly heavier version, and interacting with its touchscreen is the same as you’d find with an unmodified version. But because of Waterfi’s special treatment process, its Kindle Paperwhite is completely waterproof – submersible to above 200 feet in either fresh or salt water, for any length of time. That means it isn’t just splash resistant, though it is that too – you could literally go scuba diving and sit on the ocean floor (in more shallow waters) and read if you had a hankering to do so. Or you could read in the bath; or at the swim-up bar at your favorite Caribbean all-inclusive resort; or in the inflatable kiddie pool you set up in your backyard to escape the summer heat. I showered with mine, and I was able to read pretty well so long as I didn’t hold it directly under the spray from the shower head, which triggers touch responses. I also put it in a bowl of water completely submerged and left it for three whole days, after which it came out working good as new. I’m convinced you could store this Kindle underwater for a month and you’d still have some reading time thanks to the long-lasting battery – imagine clearing up drawer space by storing Kindles in your toilet tank, so it’s ready right when you need it. There are good arguments for making any and all electronics waterproof, but the Kindle Paperwhite, that travel and beach companion, is perhaps the number one candidate I can think of right now. For the Wi-Fi version (without ads) it’ll cost you $239.99, or $299.99 for the 3G-capable edition, so that means you’re paying $120 over and above the current price at the low end, but it really is like giving your Kindle superpowers, and it’s hard to put a dollar value on the added convenience of that. |
T-Mobile Stops Counting Data Used With Spotify, Pandora, And Certain Other Music Services | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 6 | 18 | T-Mobile pulled something of a “One More Thing!” this evening, with a bit of a surprise announcement tacked onto the end of . T-Mobile will no longer count data used on the “top music streaming services” (including Pandora, iTunes Radio, iHeartRadio, Slacker, Spotify, Samsung’s Milk service, and Rhapsody) against your data cap. As it stands, most of T-Mobile’s plans give you an allotment of data (1GB, 3GB, or 5GB) which will work at full speed. Go past that allotment, and your download/stream speeds tank down to 3G speeds. With this change, any data used on one of the aforementioned “top music streaming services” won’t count toward your cap. And if you’re already past your cap for the month? Data pulled from these services will continue to come down at the higher speed anyway. It’s certainly a good thing for any T-Mobile customers who might find themselves regularly blowing past their data caps, but… it’s a bit strange, from a net neutrality standpoint. By picking and choosing whose data does/doesn’t count, T-Mobile is — deliberately or not — giving certain streaming services a boost. Since they’re focusing on “top services”, it’s potentially a rich-gets-richer sort of thing. Note, for example, the absence of Rdio from the list; with a simple act of omission, it becomes that much harder for Rdio (or, more importantly, any up-and-coming streaming service that may enter the market) to pull in any of T-Mobile’s 50 million customers. Evil? Nah. Illegal? Nope! It’s just something to consider as the ever-expanding Internet goes through its regulatory growing pains. During the announcement, T-Mobile’s John Legere assured the audience that their initial picks for streaming services wasn’t any sort of competitive/business move. Rather, it was a matter of technical implementation. They’ve got to manually configure the network to whitelist each service’s myriad data sources, so they picked just eight to start. The goal, Legere says, is to include “every music streaming service” in the program; moving forward, they’ll invite customers to vote on which services get added next. |
Court Rules That Non-Relevant Files Seized Under A Warrant Cannot Be Held Indefinitely | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 6 | 18 | Say the government gets a warrant for some of your data. They come to your house, image your computers, and then hold that data — even the data that isn’t pertinent to their warrant — for several years. That’s not okay, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled. This is a good ruling, as it limits the ability of the government to hold files that are not party to its situational legal authority. The ruling — worth reading in its — dismisses several governmental claims relating to why it should hold the data, including that it “must be allowed to make the mirror image copies as a matter of practical necessity and, according to the Government’s investigators, those mirror images were ‘the government’s property.'” The court disagreed. The government maintained that it must be allowed to search the “mirror images in its possession because the evidence no longer existed” the computer in question. Nope, according to the court. The government also argued that it would be “entirely impractical” to destroy non-relevant files. Denied. The court maintained that holding the data that was non-pursuant to its original warrant was an “unauthorized seizure” and that the “retention of [the] documents was unreasonable.” The Washington Post had : In [The case], the Second Circuit makes clear that the government’s right to overseize is temporary, and that it has no right to continue to retain the non-responsive files indefinitely. The court doesn’t say exactly when the government has to destroy, delete, or return its copy of the non-responsive files. But the Second Circuit does make clear that the government has such a duty: Continued retention of the files is a Fourth Amendment “seizure,” the Court holds, and eventually the retention goes on for so long that the retention is unreasonable. Put simply, individuals have a right to the deletion or return of non-responsive computer files. This is a hugely important case. I agree. The average citizen now has, at the minimum, legal precedent for higher protection of their digital effects. Down with general warrants! Down with bulk collection — even if it is one hard drive at a time! |
T-Mobile Will Give Potential Subscribers A Free One Week “Test Drive” On An iPhone 5S | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 6 | 18 | This evening at Seattle’s Paramount Theater, T-Mobile announced another change in the way they’ll do things moving forward. Their latest move? Free trials, meant to convince potential subscribers that T-Mobile’s network is up to snuff. In a new program that they call “Test Drive”, T-Mobile is offering free trials to potential customers, offering them an iPhone 5S and 7 days of unlimited service to give their network a spin. Starting on June 23rd, anyone interested in giving T-Mo a spin can sign up for a test drive online. A few days later, an iPhone 5S is dropped off at your house, complete with a week’s worth of unlimited data/text/web service. And when your week is up? If you’re unconvinced that T-Mobile is for you, you just drop the iPhone off at any T-Mobile store and you’re done. “But wait!” you say. “What keeps me from just running off with the iPhone?” There is, of course, at least one small catch: they put a $700 hold on your credit card until the device is returned and, if you beat the thing up, they’ll charge you $100. At the event, T-Mobile also announced that they’ve expanded their Wideband LTE Network to 16 markets, bumping the download speed in those areas up to a theoretical max of 150 Mbps on phones that play friendly with T-Mobile’s LTE network. Meanwhile, the Voice-over-LTE network that they started testing in Seattle back in May has been rolled out to 15 networks, with plans for it to go nationwide by the end of the year. This is the fifth announcement in a string of changes that T-Mobile has dubbed their “Uncarrier” series. The other “Uncarrier” changes so far? In March of 2013, T-Mobile their use of 2-year contracts. In July, they debuted a program that would let people upgrade their devices up to twice a year — then in October, they killed off the crazy fees associated with sending texts or using data while travelling internationally. Finally, back in January of this year, T-Mobile started covering the early termination fees of anyone willing to switch from another carrier. |
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