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Yahoo China Shuts Down Its Web Portal | Catherine Shu | 2,013 | 9 | 1 | , which is operated by Chinese e-commerce and Internet services behemoth Alibaba Group, has closed its Web portal. The site now displays a good-bye message before redirecting visitors to , a news site run by Alibaba Group’s Taobao. The good-bye message says the decision to shutdown Yahoo China’s portal is in accordance with a 2012 agreement made between Alibaba Group and Yahoo and that Yahoo China’s employees will move on to new positions within Alibaba. The closing of Yahoo China’s portal is one of the last steps in Alibaba Group’s decision to gradually take down the Yahoo-branded services it operates and , with users asked to transfer their accounts to Alibaba’s Alimail. In January, , citing an adjustment to its product strategy. Yahoo paid $1 billion for a 40% stake in Alibaba in 2005, before the company grew into the backbone of China’s rapidly expanding e-commerce market. In September, Alibaba closed an initial repurchase of its shares from Yahoo for $7.6 billion. As part of the deal, Yahoo agreed that Alibaba Group can continue to operate Yahoo China’s brand for up to four years. Alibaba Group’s decision to gradually cease operating its Yahoo-branded properties is a reminder of the struggles that major U.S. Internet companies–including Google, eBay and Amazon–have faced in China due to confluence of factors including government censorship, failure to localize effectively and the rapid rise of Chinese companies like Baidu and Tencent. Yahoo’s remaining 24% stake in the Chinese company, which is expected to go public within the next two years, is . |
Japanese E-Commerce Giant Rakuten Confirms Acquisition Of Video Site Viki | Catherine Shu | 2,013 | 9 | 1 | Rakuten has confirmed that it will acquire Viki, a global video streaming platform that crowdsources translated subtitles. The Japanese e-commerce giant, which is expected to sign an agreement to buy Viki tomorrow, did not disclose financial terms, but is . The acquisition of Viki is another strong signal that Rakuten is positioning its $16 billion Internet services ecosystem as a competitor to Amazon and Netflix. Over the past two years, Rakuten has and . Kobo in a bid to take on Amazon’s Kindle series, while Wuaki.tv’s are meant to compete with Amazon’s LOVEFiLM subsidiary and Netflix. Based in Singapore, Viki operates similarly to Hulu.com by offering premium content such as primetime TV shows and movies. Its advantage over other on-demand video services is crowdsourced subtitles from 22 million users in more than 160 languages, which allows Viki’s content providers to quickly enter new markets. In July, . Viki’s existing investors included Andreessen Horowitz and more, having in publicly-disclosed funding. In a statement, Rakuten chairman and CEO Hiroshi Mikitani said, “There are a striking number of synergies and shared philosophies between our two businesses; the Viki model is built on a powerful community, focused on removing the language barriers that have traditionally trapped great content inside geographical borders. Since our foundation, Rakuten’s focus too has been to open up great services, content and goods to a global community. Viki is a perfect complement to Rakuten’s joint philosophies of Empowerment and Shopping IS entertainment.” |
Mega Man’s Creator Turns To Kickstarter To Fuel His New Game (Which Looks A Whole Lot Like Mega Man) | Greg Kumparak | 2,013 | 9 | 1 | It’s becoming almost formulaic at this point: An iconic game designer, backed by a legion of dedicated fans, turns to Kickstarter to allow them to break out on their own. See: ( , ), who raised over $3M for his studio, DoubleFine, or ( ), who raised just shy of $1M to build a spiritural successor to his earlier game, . The latest gaming giant to turn to the crowd is Keiji Inafune, creator of one of gaming’s most classic icons, Mega Man. In news that probably comes to many of his fan’s delight (but presumably not his former bosses), his new game looks and sounds a whole lot Mega Man. In October of 2010, Inafune publicly quit Capcom after a 23-year stretch with the company. “I’m leaving Capcom with the intention of starting my life over,” he wrote on his blog. Two months later, he launched a new development studio called Comcept. Though Inafune never comes out and directly calls his new game a spiritual successor to Mega Man, they’re also not trying too hard (or, really, at all) to hide that it’s about as much of a spiritual successor as could be. I mean, come on — look at this description: You play as Beck, the 9th in a line of powerful robots, and the only one not infected by a mysterious computer virus that has caused mechanized creatures the world over to go berserk. Run, jump, blast, and transform your way through six stages (or more, via stretch goals) you can tackle in any order you choose,using weapons and abilities stolen from your enemies to take down your fellow Mighty Number robots and confront the final evil that threatens the planet! Let’s go through the Mega Man checklist, here. Humanoid robot? Check. Stealing special powers from your enemies? Check. Levels you can go through in any order you want (presumably using gained powers to exploit the specific weakness of each boss)? Cheeeeck! Not that that’s a thing, mind you. Sure — if I were Capcom’s lawyers, I’m sure I’d be all of riled up about this. But I’m not. I’m just a dude who grew up playing Mega Man and has been waiting for a great, modernized Mega Man game since around 1995… [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX1o0so4anc?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360] Not surprisingly, there’s a whole lot of Mega Man/Capcom blood running in the veins of Inafune’s new team. The game’s lead designer, Naoya Tomita, did much of the design for Mega Man 1, 2, 5, and 6. Its lead musician, Manami Matsumae, is the same composer who came up with all of the music and sound effects of the original. is trying to raise $900k on Kickstarter. With over $700k raised in just 24 hours, it’s clear that they’ll smash through that goal without much trouble. The only bummer: no matter how quickly they hit that goal, we won’t be seeing until 2015 at the earliest. They’re only promising that the game will run on the PC, at first, though they pledge to port it elsewhere if they raise enough cash. |
Mozilla Gets On The Web Components Bandwagon With Brick | Frederic Lardinois | 2,013 | 9 | 1 | Web Components will change how you build web apps . At its core, web components let developers create reusable custom HTML tags (think: <datepicker>) for user interface patterns. Building them , but all it takes is some knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript to get going (though knowing something about what “Shadow DOM” is all about surely helps, too). The Web Components is still far from finished, but that isn’t stopping Google and Mozilla from putting their efforts behind it. The problem, of course, is how can you start working with Web Components if most browsers don’t support it yet? That’s where the polyfill concept comes in, as well as Google’s and Mozilla’s less imaginatively named . The polyfill concept has . The idea here is to replicate an API that the browser should have natively in JavaScript or a similar language to ensure that a new technology works across browsers, even if it’s not implemented natively yet (that’s essentially the same concept uses, too). Both Google’s and Mozilla’s projects share the same low-level Web Components polyfills. Google introduced its Polymer framework at I/O earlier this year and it’s clearly a concept Google plans to push forward in the coming months and years. Mozilla, too, has now joined the bandwagon and has actually gone a step further by launching , an x-Tag-based, cross-browser library that “provides new custom HTML tags to abstract away common user-interface patterns into easy-to-use, flexible, and semantic Web Components.” Brick allows developers to use basic interface elements like a , or , or more complex features like , by simply adding links to the Brick stylesheet and JavaScript library to a document and then using the new custom HTML tags like to invoke these new interface elements. Before, Mozilla rightly points out, most of these features would have involved using something like jQuery UI and putting “boilerplate, non-semantic markup into your HTML, as well as explicitly initializing and managing it through JavaScript.” Most of these tags also take plenty of additional attributes . In the long run, Web Components will change how developers build their web apps and make it easier to reuse — — UI components. With both Mozilla and Google actively backing this development, it’s only a matter of time before these polyfills will only be necessary to support legacy browsers, though it’s not always clear when the main browser vendors plan to fully implement it. |
Samsung’s Bizarre Galaxy Gear Smartwatch Gets Detailed Before Official Launch | Chris Velazco | 2,013 | 9 | 1 | Samsung is getting ready to pull the curtain on its curious Galaxy Gear smartwatch (well, among other things) in just a few days, but what’s a major product unveiling these days without a slew of last-minute leaks to ruin the surprise? To that end, recently got what may be the first real glimpse of Samsung’s Galaxy Gear and it’s, well, pretty bizarre. Unlike most of the other smartwatches that have exploded onto the scene these past few years — think the Pebble, the MetaWatch, or even Sony’s family of wrist-worn gadgets, the Galaxy Gear is shaping up to be a real whopper. VB reports the square display plus the bezel that runs around it means the watch itself measures about 3 inches diagonal, and images culled from an internal promotional video depict a device that looks like a Galaxy S4 that got nailed with a shrink ray. So much for subtlety. I’m no watch nerd (I leave that sort of thing to John) but I can’t imagine bigger always equals better when it comes to stuff you wear on your person. In typical Samsung fashion though, the company has apparently packed the thing to the gills with a 4-megapixel camera nestled inside in the Gear’s strap, a WiFi radio, speakers, and a microphone so users can deliver S Voice commands to a connected Samsung smartphone. Perhaps the biggest bummer is that the Galaxy Gear may only be able to run for 10 hours before having to be recharged. That’s just about respectable for modern smartphones (though we should all be demanding more longevity from Samsung and its ilk), but who wants to worry about charging their watch that often? And manufacturer provided battery stats tend to be optimistic too, so that anemic battery could spell trouble for early adopters. Throw in a handful of “pre-loaded Android apps” and an apparently substantial focus on mobile fitness and health tracking, and you’ve got an ambitious device that seems to have an identity crisis. Is it for your average smartphone nerd? Fitness buffs? Both? VentureBeat’s report provides the clearest look at the Galaxy Gear to date, but I’m looking forward to Samsung trying to explain its rationale for why people would actually need something like this. If you’ll allow me to wax personal, the reason I’ve stuck with a device like the Pebble instead of dumping it in favor of a more robust gadget is because it’s focused on doing a small number of things well. Notifications? Taken care of. Changing tracks over Bluetooth while I’m driving? Works like a charm. With the Galaxy Gear, Samsung has added plenty of complexity to the smartwatch formula, which also means there are more bits that just may not live up to people’s expectations. Then again, it’s not like the Korean electronics giant doesn’t have the resources to go out on a limb like this every once in a while. Strange first steps like this one often beget staggering successes down the road — for all we know, Samsung may flex its design and production muscles to become de facto smartwatch maker within a few years. For now though, I’m still not convinced that we’re looking at the full Galaxy Gear picture here, so stay tuned for our coverage of Samsung’s IFA bonanza later this week. |
Fly Or Die: Motorola Moto X | Jordan Crook | 2,013 | 9 | 1 | The Moto X has caused a rift between the TechCrunch Gadgets family. Chris Velazco and I think it’s just fine, whereas Darrell Etherington and John Biggs are rather unimpressed. But why? Well, the Moto X is Motorola’s first real Google phone, with pure Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, customizable back plating, a 4.7-inch 720p display, a 10-megapixel camera, and a dual-core Snapdragon processor running the show. Under the hood, you’ll find 16GB of internal storage and 2GB of RAM. In other words, the specs are right on par for a phone of this price ($199 on-contract) but nothing to write home about. There isn’t one feature of this phone that truly sets it apart or above any other phone, except maybe the customizable back panel, giving the user slightly more cellular flare than was previously available. Pure Android, without any of that TouchWiz, Sense, Motoblur crap is actually quite wonderful, and voice-activated Google Now is a nice touch. But like Siri, it’s not always dependable. It’s hard to come down to a solid conclusion with this guy. Still, whether you’re , ambivalent like myself, bored like John, or like Darrell, the phone itself seems to have a solid build at a fair price. You can also listen to us argue about the Moto X . |
What Google And Uber Have In Store For The Future | Ryan Lawler | 2,013 | 9 | 1 | Last week, I published a piece of speculative fiction about how I saw Google and Uber evolving as companies and taking advantage of new technology 10 years from now. That “ ” got quite a lot of attention, in part because more than a few people got very excited about the prospect of driverless cars and the impact that they can have on the way we think about transportation. Since a lot of people read it as the future is now, and others have said that my ideas about what the world will look like in 10 years might actually be conservative, I thought it might make sense to explain some of my thinking around my outlook for the driverless car. The story was based mostly on Amir Efrati’s story on , as well as the big that was finally announced the week before. The idea was to take those pieces of news and think about how the companies will evolve over time. So here goes. Let’s start with Google. My piece last week presupposes not only that Google has built a fully electric driverless car by 2023, but that it’s actually on its third line of commercial vehicles by that point. Note that in my piece, Google doesn’t announce its plans to manufacture its own vehicles until 2018 or so, five years from now — which I think is a fair amount of time for it to figure out the logistics of autonomous vehicles and get them to the point where they have a five-nines safety rating. You might think that Google wouldn’t want to manufacture the cars itself, as it mostly deals in software. And one could see Google developing autonomous driving software and then licensing it to third-party manufacturers, like Ford or Toyota. But if those manufacturers weren’t interested, it also wouldn’t be completely unprecedented for Google to get into the manufacturing game itself. Just look at its , or its , and you see that the company increasingly has developed an appetite for making things. Things you can touch and feel, and not just the software that powers them. When it comes to cars, I could see Google doing the same thing. It’ll probably want to control its destiny in manufacturing the first car that runs its software. In addition to manufacturing the cars, I believe Google will also build infrastructure to support fully electric vehicles, kind of like Tesla’s supercharger network. But if you have a driverless car, you also need a driverless way to power up. I picture some sort of fully automated Roomba-like dock for cars these PowerUp base stations. As for the types of driverless vehicles that Google would produce — I don’t know why, but I like the idea of Google making autonomous vehicles built around actual utility — like the Google GX10000 two-seat commuter vehicle or the four-seat robo-taxi model. I just don’t think it’ll want to build the traditional five-seat family sedan that appeals to your usual car owner. But that’s just me. So what about Uber in 10 years? For one thing, it’s a public company, according to my report from the future. But that shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. The company is just three years old, and is just printing money. One interesting wrinkle from my story is the idea of Uber as a “transportation and local delivery service” — meaning that somewhere along the way it made at least some of its drivers delivery guys. Of course, there’s no shortage of folks fighting over the local delivery market, including startups like Postmates and Instacart, as well as big Internet players launching services like Google Express and eBay Now. None of them have built the logistics framework that Uber has for routing rides in the last few years, however. That’s why I don’t think it’s crazy to assume that Uber will also be adding delivery services in several markets over the next few years. It’s already experimented with , , and delivery. It seems like only a matter of time before it gets serious about partnering with local merchants and retail chains to power on-demand drop-off of goods and services. Another interesting tidbit about Uber was the future impact that I believe the company will have on traffic and congestion in major cities in the future. I personally haven’t owned a car in at least 10 years, having lived in New York and San Francisco — two cities where the combination of good public transportation and bike friendliness make that doable. But take a look at Uber’s piece on the economics of car ownership, and you see that going car-less and just relying on Uber isn’t such a crazy idea. I think others will, over time, figure out that it’s actually more convenient and less costly to take Uber than to own their own cars. Ten years should do it. One of the critiques of my piece last week was that 2,500 driverless cars isn’t a whole lot when you consider the size of taxi fleets in most cities. Uber would surely want more, right? Well, for one thing, it’s a trial run. But for another — think about the efficiencies that come with cars that don’t take shifts, don’t need to sleep, know the fastest route to pick up the nearest passenger, and can charge themselves in their downtime? I’m guessing that 250 autonomous vehicles could probably do the work of 1,000 cabbies in some cities. One of the big knocks against my piece is that the future might actually come sooner than I expect, that 2023 is actually a pretty conservative estimate for robo-taxis. But then I think about all the legal and regulatory wrangling over services like Uber today, I think about the taxi lobby and the insurance lobby, and I wonder if 2023 might actually be too soon for some of these changes to take place. I don’t doubt that, once the technology is proven and that autonomous vehicles actually prove safer than human-driven cars, there will be states like California that introduce special driverless car lanes on their highways. It only makes sense, right? Get the cars that can be trusted to steer themselves away from those that can’t, and let them go as fast as they can. This would also become an incentive for adoption of the technology, as there are real advantages to driverless cars — fewer accidents on the road, less traffic, etc. That said, it’s one thing for governments to let users have autonomous cars that could be pulled out of autopilot mode and driven by hand. It’s a whole other thing to have cars without drivers scooting people around town. I think that’s a dicier proposition, and one that will probably be held up in regulatory review for a while. I have no doubt that robo-taxis will someday arrive, just maybe not as soon as we think (or hope). |
Verizon, Vodafone Reach Agreement In $130 Billion Verizon Wireless Deal | Eliza Brooke | 2,013 | 9 | 1 | Verizon and Vodafone have reached an agreement on a $130 billion deal that gives Verizon total control of Verizon Wireless, the Wall Street Journal . Verizon has taken Vodafone’s 45% stake in Verizon Wireless, which was founded as a joint venture between the two companies in 2000. Verizon and Vodafone’s boards were set to vote on the deal this weekend, which Reuters is the third largest corporate acquisition ever and one that removes Vodafone from the US market. The terms of the deal are now waiting on board approval and could be announced as early as Monday afternoon, WSJ . News of this deal goes back to April, when it was that Verizon was preparing a $100 billion cash and stock bid. The company, which is the biggest cell phone carrier in the US, already had operational control of Verizon Wireless. On Saturday, Reuters reported that Verizon planned to pay for the purchase with its own stock and a mixture of bonds and bank loans raised with the help of JPMorgan Chase & Co, Morgan Stanley, Barclays Plc, and Bank of American Merrill Lynch. As to Vodafone, top investors were split on wanting to return the cash and dividends and wanting to invest it. A potential sale of its Verizon Wireless stake has been on the table for Vodafone since 2004, when the company was from the US market leader in order to buy AT&T wireless. Cingular ultimately Vodafone and bought AT&T wireless for $41 billion. GigaOM’s Om Malik that Vodafone could make use of that money as it builds its European broadband business. The company acquired Kabel Deutschland for $10.1 billion in May and Cable & Wireless Worldwide for $1.7 billion in April 2012. In early July, Vodafone with Telefonica that gave it access to the Spanish company’s broadband fiber optic network. Upon its exit from the US, Vodafone maintains a strong presence in Europe, its largest market, Africa, Turkey, and India, among others. Verizon made the deal official via . The details of the arrangement were as reported by The Wall Street Journal in its original article. |
Cybersecurity, NSA Spying, And Silicon Valley To Take Center Stage At Disrupt SF | Gregory Ferenstein | 2,013 | 9 | 1 | Strap on a tin foil hat and dust off your VHS tape of because a thrilling, civilized discussion of contemporary cybersecurity is coming to . I’ll be joined onstage by some of the leading security experts to discuss cyber threats from hostile foreign governments, rogue hacker groups, corporate espionage, and complications of the surveillance state. Heather Adkins was head of cybersecurity at Google and is now a veteran in securing one of the most sought-after Internet companies in the world. Kevin Mandia, CEO of Mandiant, made front-page headlines around the world . Within the industry, it’s known that if you have to call Mandia, you have serious problems from the toughest cyber criminals on the net. Ted Schlein of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers knows as much about the business of cyber security –both defense and offense — as anyone in Silicon Valley. Governments have big money to throw at cyber defense and it’s Schlein’s job to identify the most profitable private partners. When the National Security Agency made headlines this summer, media outlets turned to arguably the most knowledgeable journalist on the secret spy organization, James Bamford. Now, imagine all the contentious ethical quandaries and business pressures that come from cybersecurity. We’ll be discussing all of these, sometimes with fierce disagreement, with people who have staked their reputations on being right. This panel kicks off at 11:30 on Tuesday, September 10. General-admission tickets and exhibitor packages are currently available. Buy tickets . |
Five Forces Fueling Frontback’s Fame | Semil Shah | 2,013 | 9 | 1 | TechCrunch . “ !” is an oft-heard or tweeted phrase. After Instagram combined the power of a networked camera, nostalgic filters, and snappy sharing to various networks to create a mobile before selling to Facebook, and after SnapChat created a new behavior with more private photosharing that touched the web (or Facebook), a new iPhone photosharing app is taking over my Twitter feed and, I believe, it’s just a matter of time before it takes over yours, too. By now you may have heard of , the app that combines one shot from the regular iPhone camera with one shot from the front-facing camera to create one image showing what you’re seeing on top with a self-portrait of you at the bottom. It appears Frontback is a project born from Checkthis, a NYC-based company that raised much funding. Frontback sounds simple enough, and yet that may be all that’s needed to quickly grow. A few months ago, Romain Dillet about the app, and since then, investors from Lerer Ventures began using the app a lot (how I noticed it), and then MG Siegler about it on his blog (he’s usually right on the money for new photo apps), and then…I was . Yes, there’s SnapChat, but it took a bit longer for the quality of the front-facing camera on the iPhone to be close to the regular (back) camera. In video discussion I recorded with K9 Ventures’ Manu Kumar, an expert in computer vision and a prolific investor in such startups, he discusses how it’s usually changes in mobile hardware that opens the doors for software developers to build new experiences. (For instance, future mobile phones may include to record and recognize gestures.) Back in 2010, MG wrote a piece on about a talk given by Brian Pokorny, who back then built Daily Booth (which also used the front-facing camera). In the talk, Pokorny talks about how most mobile photosharing apps use the regular camera and focus on “objects,” but the front-facing camera focuses on the cameraman and camerawoman, thereby creating an image which can be immediately engaging for an audience. When I see Frontbacks appear in my Twitter feed or when I’m surfing through the app, the photos shared on the network oftentimes make me feel as if I’m there with the folks I know. Instagram users shared all sorts of images on the network, images taken in the moment, but also images that were saved to the camera roll earlier, images that were lifted from the web or other apps, or even mobile web or phone screenshots. One result of this ability to share any image is that Instagrams often don’t feel intimate or real-time, whereas Frontbacks mostly do. Not to be taken the wrong way, though I’m sure Frontback will have its own Chatroulette moment, the up-and-coming generations not only communicate mostly through images and pictures, they want to be in the shots they’re taking as well. One of my favorite creative and commercial applications of this was the Snoopify app by Snoop Lion, which is a clever app to jazz up your pictures with Snoop stickers, some of which now sell for $99! This is the “soft” part of what makes the app special. I can’t prove it with data, but can only say that when I’m with friends or my family and take a Frontback, I immediately show it to them and they all light up. Just today, a friend who just bought his first iPhone ever and doesn’t really use apps remarked to me, upon seeing an image I created: “that’s clever.” It is indeed clever, and I suspect many users feel the same way. Now as summer ends, and people come back from vacation, or settle into campus, an app like Frontback is positioned to grow quite fast if the stars align (and if it can release an Android version quickly before it’s copied). And for those who bemoan photo apps, I’ll share a quote from Elon Musk earlier this year at : “I actually am not dismissive of things like photosharing apps. There’s a lot of things that provide a small amount of value to a lot of people…Sharing with friends and family is great; if that puts a high value on a company, so be it.” |
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Watch Smartwatch Space For Continued Consolidation As Samsung Gears Up To Kick Off The Race | Darrell Etherington | 2,013 | 9 | 1 | Last week, geek-focused early smartwatch player , lending strong support to earlier speculation that the search giant would enter the watch-based computing fray with a wearable-device follow-up to its ambitious Google Glass project. Consider it the opening bell as the race begins to own consumer wrists, and expect more targets of opportunity to get cleared off the board this coming Wednesday once Samsung gets the ball rolling with what will likely be the first smartwatch entry from a major player. Samsung’s Galaxy Gear appears to be a decent enough lead-off batter for the smartwatch line-up; rumors suggest it’ll have a decent internal processor (1.5GHz dual-core), 1GB of RAM, a 4 -megapixel camera with 720p video capture, a 2.5-inch OLED display and 10 hours of battery life. has offered up screenshots that purportedly show the Android phone for controlling the Gear and its settings, and it looks like a lot of what we’ll see in the Gear in terms of functionality will resemble what we’ve already seen from devices like the Pebble. There’s a decent amount of consumer interest in devices like Pebble, which had sold 275,000 devices to date as of July through pre-orders and Kickstarter, and the Hyetis Crossbow, an absurdly expensive smartwatch from a – which sounds weak until you realize that each of those 300 people are paying $1,200 for their Crossbow. But none of these devices from smaller startups is doing anywhere near the kind of numbers that an Apple or a Samsung would require to make a product sustainable. Others like MetaWatch haven’t revealed just how well they’ve been doing yet, but the Fossil spin-out did have a successful Kickstarter run for its Strata smartwatch. MetaWatch and Pebble (whose creators have been building smartwatch devices since the inPulse) in particular look like choice acquisition targets as OEMs like Samsung and Apple look to bolster their smartwatch expertise ahead of a device launch. Some big companies. like Sony, have a head start in terms of in-house experience. It built a and followed that with the Sony Smartwatch, which is getting a sequel soon. But others including LG and the countless additional OEMs probably investigating this space following all the hype that’s been generated have good reason to be on the lookout for an easy talent acquisition. Hardware startups are difficult in terms of making something sustainable and making something that can scale with demand while keeping costs low for end users. It’s a challenge that convinced MakerBot it was better to partner up with a larger, more experienced company through acquisition, and it could eventually do the same for Pebble and its ilk. The only problem now might be whether it’s too late to join up with anyone who’s looking to build such a device, or whether the bulk of the talent/expertise land grab has already taken place. |
Shutterfly Has Acquired Photo Printing Company R And R Images | Billy Gallagher | 2,013 | 9 | 1 | . Terms of the deal were not disclosed. R and R Images, a private company that was founded in 1986, specializes in digital printing and photo products. Shutterfly focuses on photo books, stationary, wedding invitations, and other personal goods. Shutterfly said the acquisition will “enhance the company’s enterprise and consumer product innovation, design and printing capabilities.” Shutterfly CEO Jeffrey Housenbold also noted: “As Shutterfly continues to grow, we are making additional strategic investments in our manufacturing footprint focused on providing our customers with innovative, high quality personalized products while efficiently scaling and managing our costs. We are excited to combine R&R Images’ product innovation and expertise in premium, flexible printing with Shutterfly’s manufacturing scale and infrastructure to enhance our capabilities and continue delighting our enterprise clients and consumers.” The company announced that it gave an inducement grant to R and R Images’ founder Rod Key. The grant consists of up to 38,492 shares of Shutterfly stock vested over three years as long as Key stays with Shutterfly. At the time of publication, Shutterfly’s stock was at $51.96 per share, making the total shares worth about $2 million. Earlier this year, cloud-based photo and video storage platform ThisLife. We heard for ThisLife, although he company did not disclose details of that acquisition either. |
After Raising $10M, Customer-Funded Naked Wines Launches Investment Bond | Mike Butcher | 2,013 | 9 | 1 | Only this August, wine retailer , the customer-funded online wine retailer, in a third round of investment from a German group of direct wine-selling companies and founder shareholders. The money will be used to expand in the U.S. and Australia from its UK base. Now it’s launching of a new bond for retail investors, The Naked Fine Wine Bond. There have been a few corporate bonds of this type (hotel chocolate, John Lewis and the Jockey club) but not a wine bond so far. The company intends to raise £3 million through the bond. The minimum subscription level will be £1 million and the maximum £5 million. The funds will be invested in independent winemakers over a minimum of three years. Naked Wines says this will allow for the financing of new wines in the next stage of the development and, and of course, grow the Naked Wines Group. Based in Norwich, England, NakedWines.com’s business model allows customers to sponsor independent winemakers in return for about 25% to 50% off a wine’s retail price and exclusive promotions. The site currently has 150,000 Angels (customers who fund winemakers) who have invested over $40 million in 130 winemakers around the world and ships over 10 million bottles of wine each year. Customers subscribe £20 a month to its service to provide the funds to invest in winemakers, in return for lower prices. Earlier this year it announced an annual operating profit of over £1 million following a 57% rise in sales to £34.9 million. Rowan Gormley, Naked Wines’ Founder and and CEO says fine wines “require more time to mature, meaning we also need a longer-term source of funding in order to give the winemakers the financial assistance they need. Doing it this way means the winemakers can focus on what we want them to do – make great wines – rather than spend their time and money selling. Meanwhile investors in the Fine Wine Bond will benefit from an attractive rate of interest along with the opportunity to acquire a premium product competitively priced.” |
Personalized E-commerce Startup Wantful Shuts Down | Sarah Perez | 2,013 | 9 | 6 | , a San Francisco and New York-based gift giving and personalized e-commerce startup founded in 2011 is shutting down after failing to secure follow-on investment. According to founder and CEO , the company had launched a series of well-received products for web, tablet, print and in-store, but did not achieve the kind of “highly accelerated growth” needed to secure the additional capital. One of those additional investments, , was from Nordstrom, which had earlier this year. A Nordstrom spokesperson claims the retailer was “just a small minority investor,” and declined to comment further on Wantful’s shutdown. Poisson agrees that the closure should not be characterized as being directly related to the Nordstrom investment, or lack thereof. “As a startup, we were looking for additional capital. We looked to the venture capital markets, but didn’t have the growth curve required as a post-Series A company.” Nordstrom, he adds, was a great partner, “but you can’t look to a strategic partner to fund the whole business.” Wantful had a number of other high-profile investors, including Polaris Venture Partners, Harrison Metal, Greylock, Forerunner, and angels Arjun Sethi, Dave Morin, Matt Mullenweg, and others. In total, it had raised $5.5 million in . Poisson says that Wantful was looking beyond Nordstrom and the Series A investors, for additional investment. When the company first launched ahead of the holiday shopping season in 2011, it began by offering personalized product recommendations for those you were buying gifts for, after you first provided the site with information about your friend’s gender, tastes and preferences. , the company introduced what it called “phase two” of its vision, introducing both an iPad application and print magazine to the lineup. At this time, Wantful began moving away from gift-giving and toward more personalized e-commerce. That is, instead of just finding gifts for friends and family, users could find items for themselves as well. But this move also put the startup up against a host of competitors, including other e-commerce services and aggregators like Wanelo, Wish, Fancy, Svpply’s Want, Polyvore, and more. In addition to the iPad app which blended both content and commerce, Wantful also tried a approach by sending its most active customers their own personalized, print magazine featuring stories about retailers and products. Today, the Wantful website informs visitors that the company has suspended operations, but customers can reach out via email for support. (Clicking the “OK” button to close the message just feels wrong, though, you know?) Wantful had a number of happy customers, and the service will be missed. Still, it seems inevitable there will be some consolidation in the personalized e-commerce space in the months ahead. Poisson agrees, noting “it’s difficult in the later stages of an e-commerce business to get the kind of growth curves venture capital naturally and rightfully looks for – it’s easy to get a start, to get a toehold – but it’s difficult to really scale that mountain,” he says. Meanwhile, other companies grow quickly out of the gate, like flash sales and daily deals, for example, but those that survive end up having to pivot from those earlier models, as we’ve seen. As for Wantful, the company was trying to build a long term, high value customer relationship, but it didn’t scale as quickly as it needed to. Though Wantful has suspended operations, Poisson notes that they’re “looking at all their available options” before entirely shutting down. The company had 16 employees at the time of closure. Poisson declined to comment on customer base, transactions, or revenue. Below, from CEO John Poisson, detailing the shutdown: |
VC, Startup Survey Addresses Whether Patent Assertions Help Or Hurt, And What To Do If You Get Hit | Contributor | 2,013 | 9 | 6 | You have an idea for a product that is going to change the world. For years you work day and night, and over time, that hard work turns into a company. You have users, revenue and, finally, the business of your dreams. But as you get traction, you also have a patent troll letter. The timing couldn’t be worse. As you find yourself spending more and more time with lawyers and learning patent law, you understand why, “[p]atents are one of the most painful parts of running a startup, and that’s saying something.” This story, adapted from a , is the one that you usually hear about so-called patent “trolls.” But there’s another side to the story that sounds like this: Your company is doing okay. Well, maybe not so okay. And it has some patents that you think might be worth something. You poke around and find out that they are actually really valuable. So you put the patents on the market and end up selling them to an infamous patent troll who is actually great to work with. You earn seven figures from the sale — no dilution — and get back on your feet. And now you are able to say about the money: The “company would have died without it — instead we grew.” The quotes are directly from a with the good people at the New America Foundation’s , which builds on an . While the study looks at a number of things, the question that looms largest is whether, net-net, trolls help or hurt startups. And whether they help or hurt, some of the experiences, they shared with me, and that I include below, can help you inform your own experiences. While the survey is by no means definitive, it does provide a glimpse into how some are experiencing patent assertions and Congress are poised to tackle litigation abuses (through at least ) to deal with the growth of patent trolls who brought an estimated . But the sentiment often in reaction to those who oppose trolls, or patent assertion entities (PAEs), is that they’re not all bad, and, in fact, “make it easier for a failed startup to monetize its patents, providing some insurance for venture capitalists.” Do they, though? I found some evidence that trolls did help: An estimated 5 percent of portfolio companies of responding VCs had monetized their patents (vs. 20 percent of startups, based on VC and startup responses, who had been hit with the demand — see Figure 1). Often the money was helpful, funding a pivot or paying for new hires (N=30). But the folks who took the survey and talked to me about the overall impact on companies and on innovation were negative about it (see Figure 2). One investor, California-based Don Ellson (details changed) about how his companies had both “trolled” and been trolled. And actually, the patents from one of his portfolio companies ended up being used to sue another, which also happened to . According to , for the company that sold to trolls and was trolled, the “benefit of selling patents — their own use of the system — didn’t offset the pain of the lawsuits, particularly when they came… I’d rather there be no patents than the current system.” When I asked 42 VCs what they thought about the positive impact of NPEs on innovation, they were similarly skeptical (see Figure 3): 78 percent strongly disagreed that “the ability of my companies to enforce or monetize their patent through NPEs/trolls helps innovation” and 67 percent strongly agreed that NPEs/’trolls’ are harming innovation in my industry.” These were not folks that were anti-patent. In fact, they generally liked them (Figure 3). I hope lawmakers will consider these complexities and, more importantly, that are included in the report in order to understand what it is like to be a startup facing a patent demand — though it’s not always easy reading. In addition to discussing some of the more popular proposals out there, e.g. abolish software patents (see Figure 4), I also : 1) Fund the PTO so that only truly novel inventions get patents and make low-cost and collaborative access to post-grant review available. 2) Make patent cases about the merits, not who can outlast or outspend the other side. 3) Make patent risks more manageable for startups. 4) Make startups less-attractive targets. But in the meantime, if you get a demand, you need a solution right now. You often hear different tactics like “ ,” ” and , and your lawyer will have no shortage of suggestions. There are also new defense solution ideas and providers popping up every day, such as EFF’s , which allows you to share and get information on demand letters, not to mention and . To really get a feel for what options are out there, and what does and doesn’t work, I asked startups, lawyers, VCs and service providers for advice and information. The report includes a list of and how to engage them, as well as a list of and what experienced counsel inside companies and law firms, as well as public-interest attorneys, think about them. It also contains from those who know what it’s like to face patent suits — including from two investors and two startups. For example, Laura Smith (not her real name), how to pick litigation counsel and what it’s like to win against a patent troll. And Kate Endress, founder and CEO of Ditto.com, discusses the that ultimately worked for her: Work with famous contingent counsel for a piece of her company. Knowledge is power, and my hope with this report is to share with you the wisdom of those who’ve gained it the hard way. |
Scholly Helps Students Find Their Ideal Scholarships On Their Smartphones | Chris Velazco | 2,013 | 9 | 6 | More and more of America’s young people are coming to grips with a nasty truth: college can be incredibly, stupidly expensive. Drexel University student (and member) Christopher Gray knows that all too well, so he and partners Bryson Alef and Nick Pirollo developed a mobile app called to help students easily search for scholarships. Here’s how it works: once you’ve installed the app and fired it up, you’re prompted to divulge a bit of personal (but not identifiable) information to help find scholarships that you fit the criteria for. It’s all very basic stuff — the state you live in, race, GPA, gender, major, and grade are all there, and you’re given a choice between need and merit-based scholarships. There are also what Gray calls miscellaneous factors to be aware of: if you’re an athlete, a vegetarian, or Jewish (among other things), there are specific scholarships you should know about. And just in case you need a little help nailing those pesky application essays, Scholly comes with a handful of examples of successful ones to help get the juices flowing. Of course, not every scholarship out there is completely on the up-and-up, which is why Gray and his partners manually curate the database themselves. All of the scholarships in the app were ones that Gray or his acquaintances had themselves received, or culled from school-sanctioned lists and prominent corporate programs (think Google, McDonald’s, Walmart, and the like). That fastidiousness is a blessing and a curse — scholarships listed in Scholly are known to be legitimate and worth pursuing, but it does mean that not every single scholarship that fits a student’s needs is going to appear there.
But why focus solely on the smartphone? It seems awfully limiting at first — after all, there are comprehensive sites like that are meant solely to help kids find ways to pay for school. According to Gray, it’s all about accessibility, especially considering many of the students who could use those scholarships the most may not have the means to search for them on anything a smartphone. “I come from a low-income background,” Gray said. “We had smartphones but we didn’t have a computer.” Gray, who managed to amass a whopping $1.3 million in scholarships to fund his education, isn’t alone. The Pew Research Center that 21% of teenaged cell phone owners who didn’t use traditional computers to go online instead used their mobile phones for internet access. Considering how we’re right in the middle of a golden age of mobile telephony, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that number grew over the past few years. “You can email yourself the list if you have to go to the library,” Gray added. “You don’t have to waste time trying to find scholarships — you can just apply for them.” That said, the three person team is working on closing the circle and letting would-be scholars apply for those scholarships directly from their phones. It’s hard not to look at Scholly as a labor of love, but Gray is gearing up to turn the app into full-fledged business. The team has worked up a pretty savvy B2B angle here — iOS and Android users can download the app for $0.99 a pop, but Gray said they’re talking with banks and organizations to allow them to buy the app in bulk and make it available to students en masse for free. There’s also talk of potential white-label deals in which partner organizations can throw their own coat of paint over the app for distribution, but Gray wouldn’t confirm how far along those discussions were. |
With 3X The Active Users From A Year Ago, Skout Launches A Feature For Traveling Vagabonds | Kim-Mai Cutler | 2,013 | 9 | 6 | , the app for meeting new people last year, is adding a feature for travelers who want to scope out people in new cities before they land. The Travel feature is a paid premium feature, where Skout users can spend a little bit of virtual currency to meet users in another city. (Normally, you are only connected to users near you.) It’s especially useful if you’re traveling to a place where you don’t know anyone. It also slides into the company’s current virtual goods-oriented model, where users pay for points to send wink bombs or feature their profiles. At about 100 Skout points, “traveling” to another city should cost around 20 cents or fewer. The past year has had some major highs and lows for Skout. After a safety scandal , the company banned minors from the service until they instituted safeguards that they confidently felt separated adults and children. They set up a Trust and Safety board to regularly review the company’s policies and haven’t had a bad incident since then. “It was a really challenging time for the company,” said Christian Wiklund, Skout’s CEO, who has seen the startup through half a decade of existence and . Because of that initial bad publicity, they’ve kept their heads low. Even so, the company has grown its number of monthly active users by three-fold (although they don’t release the raw monthly active user figure). They also facilitated more than 200 million connections between users last year, up fourfold from 54 million connections in 2011. In total, they’re adding about 1.5 million new users every month and their most active locale is Hong Kong. Initially pegged as something of a dating app, Skout broadened its focus out toward helping people meet one another. But in the meantime, newer apps like IAC-backed Tinder that are specifically focused on dating have gained momentum. Tinder has facilitated more than 100 million matches in less than a year after launch. “Dating is a subset of what we do, but we think the opportunity is much bigger than dating,” Wiklund said. |
A User’s Guide To Disrupt SF 2013 | Joey Hinson | 2,013 | 9 | 6 | Disrupt SF kicks off on Monday, September 9th. TechCrunch has put together an incredible array of offerings from our partners to make your Conference experience even better. As always, Disrupt SF will be a busy and boisterous event so use the following guide to get the most out of the show. This year, Disrupt Battlefield Alumnus is the Official Email App of the conference. To get in on their inbox experience, you can create an account . One of the best things post-Disrupt is to thumb through the photos and you can do that thanks for , our official photo sponsor. A widget with event photos can be found . This year we’re working with for the event app. This app provides a wide universe of networking capabilities to the Disrupt SF community. Once signed up, you’ll be able to see who is attending the conference, request to add attendees as contacts, view the agenda, receive updates instantaneously regarding the conference and peruse the list of sponsors. You can or if you’re HTML5-inclined, . We have an amazing group of startups exhibiting in Startup Alley. Take a quick preview of the companies . On this page you’ll find company descriptions, details about when the companies will be exhibiting, and contact information so you set up meetings or get in touch with the teams. A highlight of the conference this year is Hardware Alley, which is sponsored by . You can visit their booth adjacent to the Alley. Our friends at have developed an iPad browser that they’ll be showing off at Disrupt. Use it on Monday and Tuesday at the conference as a way to vote for Startup Alley Audience Choice Award and give Opera a test drive. Volunteers will be circling with said iPads and said browser to make it easy for you to vote. This is how democracy should work. has offered Disruptors, who are first time users of the app, a $25 off code — it’s applied to the first ride. Visit the app or m.uber.com and enter in . If you’re an armchair Disruptor, thanks to you’ll be able to view the conference action from the TechCrunch home page or SF Disrupt event page. : The by LiveFyre pulls in yours, theirs and our live updates about the show. Tweets, Facebook posts, Instagram pics, Vine videos, trending posts and real-time speaker, startup and editorial perspective on the show. Try it out by using #TCDisrupt You can follow and comment on the conference in the Twittersphere using the #TCDisrupt hashtag. has long been a TechCrunch partner. If you purchased a ticket, you used Eventbrite. We love them and we think you will, too. If you haven’t purchased a ticket, ? Special thanks: We’d like to extend a special thanks for for providing rehearsal space to our Battlefield companies. |
Co-Ed Supply Whisks Curated Boxes Of ‘College Essentials’ To Busy Students | Chris Velazco | 2,013 | 9 | 6 | The days are getting shorter and the air is growing colder, which means that students across the country are trodding back to school once more. For a subscription e-commerce startup called , that means it’s time to really get down to business — their forte is curating and shipping much-needed care packages to the country’s college students. I know, I know, the world now has subscription service. And it’s not even the only one out there catering to the needs of our nation’s in-bound college students — and has talked up the strength of its distribution deals with our own Romain Dillet. Was the launch of a close competitor worrying to the Co-Ed Supply team? Of course — especially since Co-Ed actually quietly launched a few weeks earlier. When Co-Ed Supply opened its doors in late July it was more concerned about drumming up interest in person than anything else. The team started with pilot marketing programs at Miami University, Drexel University (go Dragons), and the University of Cincinnati, and planned to line up campus ambassadors at some 15 other schools. Now they’ve got about 30 ambassadors stationed at schools across the country trying to spread the Co-Ed Supply gospel, and the first batch of boxes were shipped to subscribers yesterday. The concept is a basic one — the student (or their caring parents) can select from either the Classic or Deluxe care packages, which costs roughly $20 and $35 per month respectively. The big difference between the two? You get 7-9 goodies in a Classic box, and between 12-15 in the Deluxe package. Simple enough, right? And what’s inside those boxes? A curated selection of what co-founder and CEO Marissa Hu calls “college essentials” — toiletries, diversions, and of course, food. Contrary to the popular notion that college students subsist on a diet of Doritos and cheap beer, Hu says that healthy snacks top the list of things that students have asked for. Co-Ed Supply’s big angle is that it shares consumer information with the brands and companies that provide their supplies. Players like Procter & Gamble, Epic Records, and Dollar Shave Club get access to a slew of young consumers they may not have otherwise reached, and more crucially, they net information about how well-liked their products are amongst the members of Gen Y by way of a follow-up survey. From Hu’s perch, that’s a valuable stream of data that isn’t always accounted for when it comes to those sorts of school-time brand interactions. “When school starts, the brands are going around campus and giving out free samples,” Hu explained. “That sample sort of walks away with the student, and the brand has no data about that student or how to target them.” If everything goes according to plan (which is always a big if), Co-Ed Supply may be able to turn those consumer insights into cold, hard cash. As you’d expect, the lion’s share of Co-Ed Supply’s revenue comes in the form of those recurring subscription fees, but Hu hopes that the sort of consumer feedback those surveys yield is valuable enough to be worth a chunk of a company’s market research budget. Hu says that just about half of Co-Ed’s subscriber base is made up of students ordering boxes for themselves which doesn’t help either — it’s her hope that the people who willingly throw their hat into the ring will also be the ones who are most open about sharing their product perspectives. Now that those first shipments are safely out the door, Hu feels even more vindicated that the team is on the right track. Even with a new competitor to worry about, the plan is to stick with what has been working: building out that personal presence on college campuses through move-in day, homecoming, and beyond. The world may not be big enough for two like-minded startups, and I suspect we’ll soon see which of these companies really has the right stuff. |
Ideal Media Takes A More Hands-On Approach To Combining Recommended Content With Ads | Anthony Ha | 2,013 | 9 | 6 | Here’s another startup trying to turn content recommendation into a business: . Similar in concept to and , Ideal Media works with publishers to add a recommended content unit to their pages. Then it makes money by including sponsored content in the mix. You can see an example in on the OneBigPhoto site (there’s a screenshot below). Director of Sales Matthew Mosk told me via email that Ideal Media is building customized, native integrations, so the look will change from site to site. Mosk added that Ideal Media’s units won’t just work on the web but also on mobile, social media, and tablets, and that it has “a highly targeted channel strategy (automobiles, sports, tech, health, women’s, etc). “But the real differentiator, or at least the one he emphasized, is the fact that the company isn’t just promoting content but helping customers create it, too — the Ideal Media team will offer free content marketing services to its advertisers. Why is that important? Well, Mosk said his company will be able to create content that’s actually interesting and relevant, rather than just being a straightforward ad: Many brands are just realizing that web users are ignoring display ads and becoming aware of the value of a more subtle and nuanced approach, Content Marketing. Also, web users are becoming so savvy that they become super frustrated when they click on a link that they think is a story, but ultimately leads them to a blatant ad (which happens on some Content Discovery Networks). Ideal Media is bridging that gap. (Unfortunately, Mosk wasn’t able to provide me with a sample of Ideal Media’s content-creation skills, so I can’t firsthand whether the content in question is actually better than most ads.) And yes, Mosk said Ideal Media plans to continue offering content creation for free, though it may start charging for more premium content marketing services. Just to compare, I also asked Outbrain if it provides any content marketing services of its own. A spokesperson told me that the company doesn’t write any content, but it did , which allows customers to search for content from publications like the Huffington Post. Current CEO Alex Baron said Holguin was neither a founder nor investor in the company. |
Ask A VC: Trinity Ventures’ Patricia Nakache On The Secret To Zulily’s Success And More | Leena Rao | 2,013 | 9 | 6 | It’s time for another episode of Ask A VC, where we grill VCs in the TCTV studio! This week, Trinity Ventures’ Patricia Nakache joined us to chat about e-commerce, marketplaces and much more. Nakache, who via Trinity has backed a number of e-commerce companies such as Beachmint, ThredUp and others, talked about the secret to Zulily’s (a Trinity-backed company) success. At its last funding round, the flash sales site for moms was valued at We also chatted about the biggest change Nakache has observed in the VC world over the past 14 years. Check out the video above for more. |
Gillmor Gang Live 09.06.13 (TCTV) | Steve Gillmor | 2,013 | 9 | 6 | – Robert Scoble, Keith Teare, John Taschek, Dan Farber, and Steve Gillmor. |
Keaton Row, An E-Commerce Site That Pairs Busy Ladies With Personal Shoppers, Raises $1.6 Million In Seed Funding | Eliza Brooke | 2,013 | 9 | 6 | The personal shopping site has raised $1.6 million in a second round of seed funding led by , an early investor in Fab and Warby Parker, with participation from and . The site, which launched in 2012, previously raised a seed round of $1 million led by Rho Ventures. Keaton Row is an e-commerce site that puts the “person” in personalization. After a quick style quiz to understand taste, needs and body type, the site matches customers with a personal shopper who draws from it’s partner retail sites to make suggestions and create look books for their clients. The stylists, who are paid by Keaton Row on commission, apply to the site at an acceptance rate of about 60-70%. On the consumer side, the site appeals to women who have money but don’t want to shop for themselves, or don’t know how to navigate the massive world of online retail. The personal shoppers, meanwhile, are fashion-savvy people who want to use their taste make a bit of cash. And although diametrically opposed sartorially, both groups are easily scalable. “The Keaton Row customer is a professionally oriented woman. She has money to spend, but doesn’t have time. She isn’t an active reader of Vogue or The Coveteur, so she wants it to be curated and convenient. There’s a higher level of personalization, and authentic personalization,” co-founder and co-CEO Cheryl Han said. Keaton Row is partnered with online retailers like and , meaning shoppers have access to over 10,000 products. With this latest round of funding, Keaton Row plans to build out its user platforms for stylists and customers, grow its retail partnerships, and expand its national presence, which for stylists is currently focused on metropolitan areas like New York and LA. While other e-commerce sites rely on algorithm-based style quizzes and click-throughs for personalization, Keaton Row is one of a few retail sites leveraging an abundance of human fashionistas who can provide the same advice with better customer service. On the men’s side, has developed a similar model. Han and Elenor Mak, her co-founder and CEO, said that many of their customers see their stylists as friends and turn to them for advice on other areas of their life, like shopping for their home, child, or boyfriend. That kind of trusting, personal relationship can be a powerful motivation to keep customers coming back. The shoppers are often most useful when the customer is on a deadline to find a specific item for an event, Han and Mak added. The site’s network of personal shoppers is also an important route to bringing in new customers, as she has an incentive to grow her own client roster. The idea is that the personal shoppers can turn Keaton Row into a part-time business and potentially more, depending on how aggressive they are. The site works with them on analytics to understand their customers better and set goals. They are essentially like digital age Avon saleswomen, so it’s no coincidence that Mak worked at Avon for a few years managing 10,000 of its New York sales reps. Han and Mak said Keaton Row stylists listing that role on their LinkedIn page could be a real launching pad for a career as a stylist, which is a nebulous path. To that end, Keaton Row is building out customer reviews and portfolios to allow shoppers to build a name for themselves. “[The shopper] may be in editorial, working at a magazine, so it’s a way to make a side income. For people who would love to get into fashion, this is a way to establish credibility.” |
CrunchBase Has A New Mobile Site, Is Bigger Than Ever | Eric Eldon | 2,013 | 9 | 6 | We have some updates today from the other side of the TechCrunch office. The growing team at , our free database of tech companies, has a new mobile site available for your browsing pleasure. The site basically didn’t work in mobile before, but the new one is great. Check it out at . The homepage is mainly a search box for that one hot startup you’re trying to look at, with links for trending companies, news and funding below. The top nav bar reveals a few more options like “newly funded.” When you click on a company, you’ll see a chronological list of all the main info you’d want — general info, people, acquisitions, investments, funding and competitors. If there’s a lot of info in any segment, like a long list of executives, just swipe to scroll through. Here’s the kicker. This mobile site is temporary. Our growing team of engineers, designers, community managers and analysts (which we need to hire more of — if you’re interested) has a big overhaul coming next year, and it’ll include a fully responsive site for any mobile device. Stay tuned for that. Since this is iterative news, I also asked the CrunchBase team for some non-vanity stats about how they’re doing so far. Turns out August was its biggest traffic month ever, according to president Matt Kaufman, with 1.7 million monthly uniques, 2.5 million visits, and 6.6 million pageviews. Traffic has been growing well ever since the team got going at the beginning of the year, and with it hitting records this summer, we think it’ll be huge down the road. |
Dots Implements Its First-Ever, In-Game, $ponsor$hip | Jordan Crook | 2,013 | 9 | 6 | betaworks-backed has today announced its very first sponsorship/native advertising deal with GE. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. As part of the sponsorship, Dots is releasing a special update with a new version of gameplay called Gravity Mode. As it turns out, GE has created an entire week’s worth of science-related “holidays” (kind of like , or any other branded holiday). They’re calling it Brilliant Week, and the Dots sponsorship is meant to help promote , on September 8. (FYI, they chose 9/8 because 9.8m/s is the force of gravitational acceleration.) According to co-founder Paul Murphy, Dots has passed up about half a dozen sponsorship opportunities before this one. “We’ve politely (and graciously) filtered those out to narrow it down to brands like GE that enabled us to build functionality that’s accretive to Dots for players, said Murphy. “The player experience is and will always remain our focus.” Murphy claims that there are between 25 million and 30 million Dots games played each day. The game is also available across multiple platforms including Android, iPhone, and iPad. “We think that’s a pretty special opportunity for the right brand, assuming it aligns with Dots,” said Murphy. “For us, as long as we can create something with brands like GE that adds to the experience for our players, we think it’s important to experiment and learn as we grow.” But is it too early? Dots was only launched in May, a few months ago, and has yet to add any sort of native advertising to the platform. The game continues to iterate over time, with things like Zen mode and multiplayer, but this is the first time that a brand is behind it. Will this scare off power users with an aversion to advertising or will they even notice? More importantly, how does Gravity Mode Shuffler work? Well, it’s a bit like Zen Mode in that there’s no time limits; you’re simply trying to connect as many dots into squares as possible. However, if you get stuck, you have the option to press the Gravity Mode Shuffler button, which automatically shuffles and removes certain dots based on gravity the angle of the phone. Clever, right? As you progress, you level up which unlocks level cards. Each of these level cards wins you Dots which are stored permanently in your Dots bank, even after Gravity Mode is long gone. Gravity Mode Shuffler will be available all week. This is hardly the first time we’ve seen mobile games partner with brands to deliver sponsored products. Remember Angry Birds Rio, Rovio’s first foray into animated content? The game matched up with a movie from 20th Century Fox, which inevitably opened up Rovio to a huge Angry Birds franchise, including animated shorts and merchandise. Hasbro also took to create Hasbro branded games, and Kabam has a strategic partnership with Warner Bros to create games around various films, like Lord of the Rings and Fast and the Furious. However, unlike Rovio and Kabam, Dots isn’t necessarily pumping GE-branded content into the game. Instead, GE funded the development of a new form of gameplay with nary a mention of the brand itself within the game. It’s an interesting take on gaming sponsorships, but it’s still questionable how effective this is for the brand itself. |
Cory Booker Is Stepping Down From Waywire’s Board As The Company Seeks A New CEO | Ryan Lawler | 2,013 | 9 | 6 | Newark mayor and Senate candidate Cory Booker is announcing today that he will be stepping down from the board of the company that he founded last year, according to a source familiar with the campaign’s plans. The departure leaves just one of Waywire’s three co-founders at the company, which is still in private beta and in search of a new CEO. The decision to step down from the Waywire board was widely expected, as some political opponents . Booker had previously said he would step down from Waywire’s board if elected, but this accelerates those plans as he moves ahead with his political campaign. Along with his departure from the board, Booker will be donating his shares in the company to charity. Booker’s decision comes at a difficult time for Waywire, which has yet to publicly launch its product. The announcement comes on the heels of Waywire co-founder and CEO last month. Richardson, who had previously held executive positions at Content Next Media and Gilt Groupe, joined TechCrunch parent company AOL, where he will be According to a Waywire spokesperson, the company is very close to bringing on a new CEO who will likely be announced in the coming weeks. That’s good news, especially as the company is in the midst of a pivot from content creation to a platform for video curation. In the meantime, co-founder Sarah Ross has been running day-to-day operations. Other good news for Waywire: the company has secured an extension of its seed round from four new investors, although it’s not yet ready to announce how much was raised or who participated. (Those details will probably come out at the same time that it announces the new CEO.) The company had originally raised $1.75 million from First Round Capital, Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, Lady Gaga’s manager Troy Carter, and other angels. All that said, Waywire has its work cut out for it, as it’s still in private beta 18 months after Booker, Richardson, and Ross founded the company together. That’s partly the result of a change in strategy at Waywire. Originally, the company had hoped to by creating and distributing its own videos and those of its users. But it’s pivoted to become more of a platform for from multiple sources. We’ll see how Waywire fares when it’s ready to launch its product. With a new CEO and new funding, and without the questions about Booker’s involvement, that should happen in the coming months. |
Microsoft Untethers OneNote For iPad From The PC, Now Lets Users Create New Notebooks On The Go | Frederic Lardinois | 2,013 | 9 | 6 | Microsoft’s note-taking app for and got a that finally makes the iPad version a completely stand-alone experience. Until now, you couldn’t create new notebooks from the iPad, so you were always forced to go back to the desktop or web version sooner or later. With today’s update, Microsoft is adding this feature, as well as the ability to finally add, rename and delete sections in existing notebooks on the iPad. As always, notes and new notebooks are saved on SkyDrive and automatically synced between different installs. iPhone users are still tethered to OneNote for the desktop or web, as the phone version of the app did not get any of these new features (though you can, of course, use the app to add new notes or edit existing ones). The new iPhone version, however, Microsoft says, weighs in at half the download size of the previous app. Microsoft always that the main reason for the app’s large size was that the app shipped with support for 29 languages and retina art, but it looks like the company managed to compress the size down to something more manageable than the 250 MB the previous version required (which indeed sounds like quite a lot of a note-taking app) In addition, both version now feature typing improvements for Japanese. In the previous version, it seems, customers reported that typing was very slow for them. Both the iPad and iPhone version of the app now also feature automatic list detection, which is a bit of a godsend if you are like many of us who always tend to write their notes as lists. |
This Week On The TC Gadgets Podcast: Disrupt <3’s Hardware, Nokia Goes To The Mall, And Galaxy Gear | Darrell Etherington | 2,013 | 9 | 6 | starts on Monday, so that’s on all our minds for this week’s TC Gadgets Podcast. Hardware Alley showcases gadget startups on September 11, and if you’re still looking for hardware fixes there have been plenty this week, including , and . We talk about all these things, as well as the Galaxy Note 3 smartphone from Samsung and everyone’s suitably impressed with California, including , , , and myself, .
We invite you to enjoy our every Friday at 3pm Eastern and noon Pacific. And feel free to check out the TechCrunch Gadgets Flipboard magazine right , as well as the .
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Energy Excelerator, The Accelerator For Clean Energy Startups, Receives $30M From The Navy | Eliza Brooke | 2,013 | 9 | 6 | , a Hawaii-based accelerator program for cleantech start-ups, has received an investment of $30 million from the Navy’s Office of Naval Research under the Asia Pacific Technology Education Program. It’s a significant investment in a sector that has struggled to raise money from venture capitalists because of its large capital requirements and low, slow returns for investors. This latest commitment from the Navy triples the funding that Energy Excelerator has operated on in the three years since its founding. The program’s seed funding came from the Department of Energy, said Dawn Lippert, Energy Excelerator’s Senior Manager. Energy Excelerator works with seed- and growth-stage companies building energy solutions that can be applied in Hawaii. Seventeen startups have graduated from the program thus far, half of which were founded in-state. Their products, which span hardware and software, include , an inverter to charge electronic vehicles using DC solar power, and a system to . Hawaii is in many ways the perfect environment for energy start-ups, said Lippert. Electricity costs three to four times more than it does in the continental US, meaning young energy companies can compete economically, and the government is motivated to become less oil dependent. Sun, tides, and three growing seasons provide the resources for alternative energy, while the state’s military bases provide locations to test their systems. “The Department of Defense saw the model and liked it and decided to back it [through the Navy]. The DoD really sees the value of Hawaii as a place to roll out early innovation companies, and they’re hungry for technology that solves energy problems, specifically in Hawaii and Asia Pacific. We actually have been working with the DoD as a strategic customer. All of the different bases provide a good place to demonstrate the technology, so they’ve decided to get on board.” Although some venture capitalists are in the cleantech game, Lippert said that it is particularly difficult for these startups to find funding. In April, the San Jose Mercury News that global clean technology venture investment had dropped 33% from 2011 to 2012, from $9.61 billion to $6.46 billion, and that first quarter figures from this year were down 30% from the fourth quarter of 2012. Those figures come from the research firm . On the announcement of its second class last year, the San Francisco-based cleantech accelerator Greenstart that it was aiming to “make cleantech a little sexier in the investment community.” But as the Mercury News pointed out, the best option for cleantech companies is often to find corporate investors who understand the scope of the space. By operating outside Silicon Valley and instead in an environment with a vested interest in finding energy solutions, Energy Excelerator could be making steps toward helping cleantech start-ups get traction. Thus far, their 17 graduates have gone on to raise over $38 million and find customers in large companies like Toshiba. “Cleantech is struggling in the venture world. A lot of energy companies in clean tech are hungry for this program,” Lippert said. “They’re coming to Hawaii to get into a market, and that’s what we do. Working in this market with a lot of players, and we help them find early customers. In the general world of clean tech and energy, this is a really bright spot.” [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Np5WkJRpC0&w=640&h=360] |
Now UK Nationwide, The £100M Angel CoFund Is Able To Super-Charge Angel Syndicates | Mike Butcher | 2,013 | 9 | 6 | UK startups raising financing have a new route to funds in the shape of a government-backed fund which can super-charge an Angel round with extra cash. The is a UK government-backed £100m fund able to make initial investments of between £100,000 to £1 million into businesses, alongside syndicates of business angels. Launched in November 2011, it was an early backer of Yplan, the events app which this year raised $12 million and PlayJam (a games maker for smart TVs). The fund started out investing in just some parts of the UK, but now it works nationwide. And it’s now had its first exit in its short, two year history. Nonlinear Dynamics, a Newcastle firm that develops specialist software for analysing proteins, has been acquired by Waters Inc, one of largest companies in the analytical instruments industry, listed on the New York Stock Exchange and with a market cap of $8.85bn. The Angel CoFund released information to the effect that it had acquired approximately 5% of the company, whilst also investing in a convertible loan. It had originally invested £383,000, but the exit means its return was £1.086 million, or a 2.84x for the fund and its co-invested Angels. The Angel CoFund usually offers about one third again in funding to the startup which can really super-charge an investment. To date the fund has supported 32 companies, providing £12 million in direct investment alongside £50 million from business angels. The committee that makes the decisions about the investments includes Alan MacKay, CEO of Hermes GPE and a BVCA member and Alistair Arkley Advisory Board member of Seraphim Capital and Hotspur Capital. Other members of the committee are active Angels so we are not talking about inexperienced government officials here. The fund typically works quite quickly with Angel networks around the country, so it is worth startup entrepreneurs making their angel investors aware of the the Angel CoFund if they are not already. Clearly they have the capability to raise the levels of investment in a startup to a more workable level than a smaller Angel round might allow. |
OS X Mavericks Most Likely Arriving In October, Reports Claim, Perhaps Alongside Haswell MacBook Pros | Darrell Etherington | 2,013 | 9 | 6 | Apple’s next-generation operating system for desktops, OS X Mavericks, is already in the hands of developers, but we likely won’t see version 10.9 make its way to consumer devices ahead of October. Some rumors had suggested Apple might ship the OS at its iPhone even next week, or another time during September, but both and are now reporting late October for Mavericks’ arrival. Sources speaking to both publications maintain that Apple had dedicated most of its resources to shipping iOS 7 in time for the launch of its new iPhone hardware next week, and therefore planned the arrival of Mavericks for late October. It’s worth noting that Apple previously said only that , and October still fits the bill, so this looks like it’s in keeping with the original timeframe. Mavericks brings an enhanced Finder, better multimonitor support, a standalone iBooks application, and improved power management to OS X-powered Macs. Developers using the preview claim that the , though some suggest the over the previous release. Either way, some had interpreted its stability as a sign of impending release, but these latest reports suggest users will be waiting a bit longer. A big possibility with Mavericks is that it will release alongside new Mac hardware, of which Apple is thought to have plenty forthcoming. There’s the Mac Pro, which is assembled in the U.S. and features a radical new design that uses external I/O for most of its expandability. Also in the works are new MacBook Pro devices, which will ship with Intel Haswell processors that, combined with Mavericks’ power-saving tricks, could make for machines with very impressive battery life. It stands to reason that Apple would introduce OS X Mavericks alongside new hardware to showcase it, though if you’ve picked up one of the latest , expect those to get a juice boost from 10.9 as well. |
That Was Fast: Nokia Draws Down The $2B In Convertible Bonds Offered By Microsoft Earlier This Week | Ingrid Lunden | 2,013 | 9 | 6 | If we needed some more confirmation of how urgent the financial situation was over at Nokia, we got a glimpse of it today. The company announced that it would be the €1.5 billion ($2 billion) in convertible bonds offered to it by Microsoft earlier this week at the same time as the announcement of its $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia’s mobile phone business. Nokia says it will be using the proceeds towards its acquisition of outstanding NSN shares, “and for general corporate purposes.” They will be issued on September 23. The €1.5 billion, as detailed in the of the deal, was being made available in three tranches of €500 million. Nokia is going all in on these, with the three tranches respectively maturing in five, six and seven years. There has been a lot of speculation about what finally pushed Nokia into making the deal to sell its handset business, and these bonds play into that bigger story. Elop it as a realization that it simply didn’t have the financial resources to meet the challenge of clawing back to the top of the smartphone market against companies like Apple, Google and Samsung with much deeper pockets — lined because they not only overtook Nokia in smartphones, but because they did so with appealing devices that tapped into a key moment just when consumers were starting to buy them in earnest. That certainly is true, but there may have been other forces in play — such as the fact that Nokia simply didn’t have that much money for anything, even to sustain a middling phone business. “I theorize that Nokia was either going to switch to Android or was on the verge of going bankrupt,” mobile pundit Ben Thompson, who went on to note that the €1.5 billion in financing was one indication of the latter. The fact that it will be used to help finance Nokia’s NSN business — Nokia announced it would buy out partner Siemens — is really just a shift of where the resources are going. Regardless of how it’s cut, Nokia needs the money bandage in one place or another. Nokia notes that if it manages to complete the sale of its Devices & Services business, the bonds “will be redeemed and the principal amount and accrued interest netted against the Sale of the D&S Business proceeds.” If the deal falls through, they “will be redeemed at par on their respective maturity dates, unless otherwise redeemed, purchased, converted or cancelled in accordance with their terms.” Nokia notes that Microsoft will not sell any of the bonds or convert them to Nokia shares before the sale closes, and if the sale does not complete, it will be able to sell the first tranche immediately but wait one and two years for the next two tranches. |
Pinterest And Path To Battle Over Letter “P” Logo Trademark | Sarah Perez | 2,013 | 9 | 6 | Are the and logos too similar? Path apparently thinks so. The mobile messaging startup is currently working to prevent Pinterest from acquiring the trademark to the letter “P” as a stylized design ( , and below). The U.S. trademark office allowed Pinterest’s trademark registration on this proposed design mark, but recently Path asked for an extension in order to file an opposition. It’s a bit too early in the process to see where this fight goes, but if Pinterest was granted the trademark to the “P,” it could then potentially prevent Path, and other apps, from using similar designs, explains , who serves as Patent Counsel at InterDigital Communications. This is the kind of battle that happens all the time in the trademark world, as companies struggle to come up with logos that are unique and differentiated from their competitors and industry peers. However, this particular case is interesting because of the increasing similarities between the design styles of both the Pinterest and Path applications, which could contribute to so-called “consumer confusion” and make the trademark issue more significant. As you may recall, in July, , which introduced a new interface and animations. The animations are very similar to those Path popularized – little, round circle icons that pop up when a user taps the screen directing the user to other actions that can then be taken. In Path, users tap the plus “+” button at the bottom of the screen to pop up a series of post types they can make, like “photo,” “music,” “location,” and more. But in Pinterest, the animations only appear when a user presses and holds on a shared pin. Then, you would have to slide your finger over to the action you want to take, like “favorite,” email, or re-pin, for example. (Pinterest, we should note, isn’t the only one to adopt this design style in recent months – Tumblr too introduced a similarly inspired interface .) But the fact that Pinterest adopted a design style that Path had already introduced can help to make the case against Pinterest gaining rights to this trademark. Before the Trademark Office registers a mark, they first examine the mark against prior registrations, and check for a number of factors, including whether the mark could confuse the public, or is deceptive, among many other things. Explains Matthew Mitchell, patent attorney at , the trademark office publishes the registration, allowing the public – individuals or companies – to file an opposition. Objectors can also request an extension up to 30 days – which is what the document (see below) references. Path is asking for an extension, which typically allows an attorney the time to draft the objection, laying out the merits of why a mark should or should not be registered. If Path is able to successfully make its case, that wouldn’t mean it could stop Pinterest from continuing to use its logo, however. “If Path wanted to stop Pinterest from using the logo, they’d have to basically make the case that Path has a trademark to the “P,” and that Pinterest is infringing on it,” says Kravets. Instead, Path is looking here to only stop Pinterest from gaining the design trademark, which it could then use against Path and others if it chose. We reached out to representatives at Path and Pinterest, and will update if they choose to comment. |
HotelQuickly Raises $1.16M Series A To Expand In Asia | Catherine Shu | 2,013 | 9 | 24 | Hotel booking app has raised a series A round of HKD$9 million (about $1.16 million USD). Investors include Boon Hwee Koh, the former chairman of Singtel and Singapore Airlines. The startup says it will use the funding for product development and to expand further through the Asia Pacific region, where it currently operates in 11 countries. Headquartered in Hong Kong, HotelQuickly’s . Like Rocket Internet’s business strategy, HotelQuickly takes an existing model and replicates it in a new market. In this case, the last-minute hotel booking app is modeled after San Francisco-based . Though the two previously operated in different markets, HotelQuickly will face increased competition as HotelTonight, which has raised a total of $36 million since its launch in 2010, expands globally. HotelTonight said that it will use its of $45 million to expand into markets including Asia (one of its latest investors is , which specializes in U.S. and Asian companies). The two companies will not only compete with each other in the region, but also and . |
Europe, Come Build With Us! Here Are The Very First Tickets To The Disrupt Europe Hackathon | Greg Kumparak | 2,013 | 9 | 24 | Hey, Berlin! Come show us what you’ve got. In just over a month, we’re bringing the for the very first time — and with it, one of our big ol’ Hackathons. Our will run overnight from Oct 26-27th. If you’ve never been to one of our Hackathons, here’s what you need to know: once you’re in, you’ve got just shy of 24 hours to build the best, most incredible thing you and your self-selected team can build from the ground up. At the end of the crazy, exhausting, overnight sprint, you’ve got 60 seconds to pitch your team’s hack in a battle for fame, glory, and a bunch of crazy prizes. The top team takes home $5,000 dollars in cash, and the top three teams get to present their projects in front of the massively influential audience at the main Disrupt conference. There will also be a bunch of fantastic prizes from our API sponsors, but we’ll announce those in just a few weeks So, what should build? Something amazing. Something clever. Something that shows just how crazy talented you and your teammates are. Remember: this is a Hackathon. Our judges wont be looking for the thing with the best potential business model — they’re looking for something that makes them stop and say “ ” We’re changing things up a bit this time around. Since it’s our first big event outside of the US in some time, we’re keepin’ the attendee list for this Hackathon a bit smaller than its stateside counterparts. We’ve got a to keep things fair and to help make sure everyone at the event has a great time and, like all of TechCrunch’s upcoming events, our is in full effect here. Oh, and just to sweeten the deal a bit more: even if you don’t take one of the top three spots or win one of the awesome API sponsor prizes, there’s still something great up for grabs. Each of the top 40-or-so teams (with the final number depending on how many teams enter) who present will get tickets to the entirety of the Disrupt Europe conference, normally valued at nearly $1k each. Why? Because we think you’re rad. As long as you’re building something, participating in the Hackathon is free. Interested sponsors, . |
Alibaba Group Acquires Kanbox, A Personal Cloud Storage Service | Catherine Shu | 2,013 | 9 | 24 | Chinese Internet giant has acquired , the personal cloud storage service sometimes referred to as “the Dropbox of China.” This marks Alibaba Group’s first personal cloud storage acquisition as the company focuses on expanding its range of consumer-focused cloud computing products. The acquisition price was undisclosed. Launched in early 2011, Kanbox led by DCM with SIG China participating. Kanbox has more than 15 million users who use the service to upload, download and sync files through their devices. About 20% of users access Kanbox through their mobile devices and Alibaba could use it to build a service similar to Apple’s iCloud, enabling customers to access their content and media across different platforms. This will increase the reach of , which centers on the Alibaba Mobile Operating System (AMOS), and help it market products like , which it launched with Internet TV services provider Wasu Media in June. Alibaba said that it also plans to enable users to back up their mobile data, including contacts and text messages, through Kanbox. Alibaba has focused on expanding its cloud computing products since launching the Alibaba Cloud Computing unit in 2009. “Personal cloud storage will be a fundamental service for mobile users in the future and will serve as an important touch-point to reach a wider user population,” said Florence Shih, an Alibaba Group spokeswoman, in a statement. “We believe this type of service is synergistic with our existing suite of mobile applications and ecosystem.” |
Bitcoin-Infused Accelerator Boost.vc Gains Momentum With The Launch Of Stellar Second Batch | Rip Empson | 2,013 | 9 | 24 | Last summer, Adam Draper and Brayton Williams launched , a 12-week accelerator program for early-stage startups. Taking a familiar approach to business incubation, the San Mateo-based accelerator and investment fund offers a handful of on-site services to its chosen companies, including housing, office space, mentoring and seed funding. To set his accelerator apart in a space that’s become increasingly crowded over the last few years, Draper has looked to take a hands-on approach with Boost.vc. He’s also in the somewhat unique position of being able to leverage his experience as a fourth generation venture capitalist and entrepreneur to give teams access to an active support network of successful entrepreneurs and executives and bring in notable speakers to offer advice on how to navigate the critical early stages of business development. with the accelerator formula by diving into particular verticals in order to offer more targeted support and acceleration to startups focusing on that market. Having been an early supporter and proponent of Bitcoin — such that he was subpoena-ed early last month — Draper decided to start with digital currency, dedicating half of its second batch (seven startups in total) to companies building products and technologies around the emerging Bitcoin ecosystem. In a commitment to helping to establish Bitcoin as the next digital frontier for startups, for each of the Bitcoin companies that graduate from the accelerator. So, in addition to the $15K in seed capital that each of the 17 companies receives (in exchange for a 5 percent equity stake), Boost.vc’s Bitcoin startups will receive an added $50K investment at the end of the program. The fund itself is anchored by Lightspeed, Rothenberg Ventures, The Bitcoin Opportunity Fund and Beluga founder Ben Davenport. Last Friday, these Bitcoin startups were able to tap into their “Start Fund” capital, as the accelerator held its second Demo Day last Friday, in which the 17 startups took the stage to pitch their businesses in front of hundreds of investors. Draper tells us that the first cohort of startups to graduate from Boost.vc is growing slowly, with the seven startups having raised a couple of million in follow-on financing to date. While they haven’t blown the roof off in the funding department, all are alive and well, he says, including, most notably, Bang With Friends. The founders of the infamous “Facebook for casual sex” initially joined the accelerator to develop a much less provocative dating app, and threw the Bang With Friends site up to amuse themselves while working on their other project, only to watch it take off almost overnight. With over 1.3 million users, the founders naturally decided to pursue the idea and see where it would take them, and Draper assures us that, while the company has been quiet, it’s still kicking. The team is also rumored to have raised a round of seed capital and is preparing a big re-branding. They’re not ready to share details yet, but stay tuned for more. The Boost.vc founder also said that , an Austin-based startup from its first batch, has found some promising early traction for its on-demand food delivery service. Putting a spin on the successful GrubHub and Seamless model, Favor is an on-demand, personalized delivery assistant initially focused on the Austin area, but has plans to expand in the coming months. As to Boost.vc’s second batch, each of its 17 startups are in the process of raising follow-on seed rounds, and 5 of the 17 are putting the finishing touches on their fundraising campaigns. One of the startups in the accelerator’s second class, , closed a $300K round of seed funding prior to Demo Day and has already signed on five enterprise clients. The company has found early interest from investors and customers thanks to its tackling a decidedly unsexy yet underserved market — accountants. The startup is building a secure, cloud-based solution for CPA firms that allows them to run more efficient audits, manage audit risk, track progress in realtime, is peer-review compliant and optimized for BYOD usage. Another company that’s seen early investor interest is , a startup and mobile app by the same name, which offers users a simple and easy way to send Bitcoin. The app provides a secure texting and Bitcoin payment network, which can be used to, say, buy or sell on craigslist with strangers while remaining anonymous — and without needing to give away an email address or phone number. Gliph has currently supports over 2,000 Bitcoin wallets within its secure messaging platform. The two other startups that seemed to be attracting a lot of attention from investors were , a 3-D printing vending machine that aims to bring 3-D printing to the masses and , a fast schedule planner and schedule sharing solution for students. But, without further ado (and in no particular order), below you’ll find a round-up of the 17 startups to debut at Boost.vc’s second demo day. Be sure to chime in with your thoughts. There is 36B dollars spend every year on digital content payments, but they use paywalls in order to monetize. Bitwall is creating a new kind of paywall that allows you to pay for one article for 10c, rather than an entire subscription for $20 a month. The company has 10 publishers signed up for their payment method, and their goal is to annihilate paywalls all together. Noah Karesh, the CEO and Founder tells a very compelling story about not being able to find Guatemalan food in Guatemala, until he stumbles across an avocado salesman who welcomes him to his mothers house for dinner. What AirBnB has done for housing and Lyft has done for driving, Feastly is doing for food. The difference between the netscape web browser 15 years ago and the google chrome web browser of today, visually is nothing. Cycle aims to change the way that people interact with their web browser by supplying the best user interface for mobile. Bitbox has done nearly $400k in transactions over its platform. Making it the number 5 Bitcoin exchange in the country. There is no great way to buy large block of Bitcoin over the internet today, Bitbox is changing that. Right now the non-profit software that companies use to manage their donations is really complicated. Commit Change changes all of that . They are already being used by 19 non-profits, and they have only been doing this for 30 days. Roderick Campbell, the CEO and Founder, who has a large background in the non-profit space and understands that the technology is bad, explains that its working because of a very simple value add, “Less time drowning in technology, more time helping people.” This is in reference to the $219B online giving space. There is no brand loyalty in recipe sites today. People just search for google and hope that what pops up is high enough quality to cook. Battr plans to change all of that by focussing their recipe website around the chef. Chef’s list high quality pictures and descriptions and fill out a resume of recipes. Chefs need a place to show off their skills, and Battr is the place to do that. Gneo is launching their new app next week. Their last app already has 250k downloads and has grossed them 125k in revenue over the last 12 months. Productivity is a problem and Gneo is solving it with their focus on prioritization of to-dos. In Sebastian Serrano’s life, the CEO of Bitpagos, the currency has of Argentina has been wiped out three times. On top of that if you currently purchase a room for a night in a hotel in Argentina from the US, 30-50% of the money will be lost due to currency exchange rate and taxes. Bitpagos is changing that. By using Bitcoin, they are allowing hotels in Argentina to retain that 30-50% of the electronic purchase. Arbiter was created because Andy Zinsser and his brother August built an online betting game, and realized that it’s very difficult to build a game when money comes into the picture. Arbiter is an API that takes care of all the difficult technological and regulatory challenges a developer would have to deal with when building a betting game. Just announced being integrated into a game that has 150,000 users. The technology behind doing an audit has not changed in 15 years. Steve Bong and his brother Kevin who has a background in both engineering and accounting decided to do something about it. The space is very compelling. Steven Bong shows a slide of all of the competition in Tax and Book keeping software and how crowded the space is, and then shows the competition in Auditing, and there are only 3 competitors in the space. Audits are about to get sexy. In the Bitcoin world, one of the hot topics these days is something called KYC or Know Your Customer. It’s a process to verify the identity of people who have accounts for banks, or even more so, Bitcoin exchanges. Right now the process for online verification is very manual, comparing documents with passports. Verify BTC has built technology that can verify someones identity in real time. Saving both time and money. You know when you are in college and you have to register for 5 classes, and in order to use the software, you have to be trained when you are a freshman, and it take 2-3 hours to make the perfect schedule, and then you miss something, and you have to restart the process. Courseoff has helped 30,000 student create schedules in 5 minutes with their easy to use interface. But the scheduling of classes is just the beginning. Appfuel built an online game application network. They have taken the friction out of sharing games in their network. This cuts the cost of growing a video game on iOS. It eliminates all the middlemen. Avish Bhama has founded Vaurum to help online brokerage firms gain the ability to trade Bitcoin. Consumers already trust online brokerage brands, and so this would be a huge step in getting Bitcoin to go mainstream. Nick Reed, the Founder of Emailbox, found that the reason that innovation doesn’t really exist in the email space is because, “Email suck for developers.” There is no easy way to build email applications to enhance your email. So Nick built an API that takes care of the complex parts of an email client, in order to make it easier to build customizable applications on top of it. 7 applications have been built using the API including an app that alerts you when someone sends you an angry email. Rob Banagale started with a secure messaging platform, and found that it was the perfect place to integrate Bitcoin. Now Gliph has integrated into the biggest wallet providers, including Coinbase, Bips and Blockchain.info. They have 20,000 users and 2,000 attached wallets, growing every day. 60% of the new users are people who have not used Bitcoin before. Dreambox has dedicated their companies life toward making 3D printing accessible to everyone. Originally that started with a 3D printing vending machine that the Berkeley team built while they were still at school. But one experiment changed all of that. They built a 3d scanner, and in the first day, made $1000. They are building the future of the photograph, trying to capture moments in 3D. |
Yahoo Will Offer ‘Not My Email’ Button To Report Mistaken Deliveries Due To Username Recycling | Matthew Panzarino | 2,013 | 9 | 24 | Yahoo will begin offering a new ‘Not My Email’ button this week that gives owners of newly claimed, previously dormant, user names the ability to ‘return’ messages that were not meant for them. This is part of Yahoo’s ongoing efforts to mitigate any potential harm that may come from its ‘. In order to continue providing tools to prevent these newly minted owners from getting the previous users’ email, Yahoo is doing a few things including the new button. The button, which will be easily accessible from the Yahoo Mail inbox, will allow users to reject mail that isn’t theirs. This will function in a similar manner to the way you can put a ‘not at this address’ message on physical mail that comes to your house by mistake. The program, which allowed people to claim names that were deemed dormant by Yahoo, came under for its potential to be harmful or dangerous to the privacy of the previous owners of the names. After the initial outcry, Yahoo outlined a series of steps it took to prevent issues including a 12-month minimum on dormancy, 30 days of messages to the user to notify them that their account was going to be given away and bouncing emails back to senders to notify them that the account was deactivated and no longer valid. But anecdotal evidence over the intervening weeks that there are users who are receiving the previous occupant’s messages has continued to roll in. Most recently, an cited several first-hand experiences of users getting email not intended for them, including financial information and other personal details. We spoke with Yahoo Senior Director, Platforms Dylan Casey about the issues some users are seeing and he acknowledged that there have been some cases. Yahoo has been monitoring its systems for claims about mistaken deliveries and were able to quickly identify what was going on with some of these accounts. Yahoo discovered that in some cases, the email bounce method was not enough to convince institutions and senders that the email was no longer valid. The signals that Yahoo were giving off to inform senders that they should no longer send any email to this address for the old owner were not being recognized. We’re hearing that the percentage is very, very small, even in light of the sheer number of users of Yahoo’s service. Casey would only tell us that there was a small enough number that he was able to reach out to many of the accounts that reported issues personally to figure out what was going on. The new ‘Not My Email’ button will allow users to train their inboxes, rejecting email even before they’ve read it if they recognize it’s not meant for them from the subject line. Casey says that they’re also doing individual outreach to any users or senders that they can. The risk, Casey says, is mitigated to some degree by the fact that financial institutions rarely send detailed information in emails any more. Most basic security precautions have banks sending links to log in rather than statements, for instance. Yahoo is also continuing to investigate and improve the program. In addition to encouraging senders to (RRVS) protocol — developed with Facebook — it says that it is also reaching out to vendors like eBay, Paypal, Amazon and Walmart to more effectively target email to current users, rather than the previous name-holders. Casey notes that the potential target area of many of the claimed emails is much bigger than average. This is due to the fact that they’re largely ‘initials’ or first-name at Yahoo addresses. This means that people filling out forms for hotels may give a fake name@yahoo answer in a field, resulting in misdirected hotel invoices. Yahoo is providing resources to help old users of email addresses reclaim their accounts if they wish or need to and is taking a number of other steps: Companies recycle usernames all of the time, but email is a uniquely personal thing and becomes a repository for personal and financial information. It’s only reasonable that it should require the utmost care and consideration when ‘freeing’ these identities for others to use. Yahoo appears, at least from the steps mentioned above, to be taking it seriously and the issues don’t seem incredibly wide-spread. In the end this is about more than just Yahoo, but Casey says that he hopes Yahoo’s efforts to both release the names and ensure that users don’t get mis-delivered email will ‘help the internet’ in the long run. The argument is simple: Yahoo is far from the last company who is going to have to deal with ‘user ID fatigue’ in the long run. Twitter already deals with it, and it’s a much younger company. Short or first-name usernames are in high demand and no one wants to be known as Matthew563527bslash6. Google is trying to link real names to online identities but will likely run up against Gmail user fatigue hard soon enough, if it hasn’t already. Yahoo is doing it on a large scale and is probably one of the first to have to plow through some of these issues as it’s an old company by ‘Internet’ standards. But its trials are just the beginning. The new button will roll out before the end of the week and should help users with a direct ‘return to sender, address unknown’ option, but the ‘account fatigue’ and reset questions are just beginning to rear their heads. How this will play out over the next 10 years of the internet will be interesting. |
Amazon Introduces Mayday, A Unique And Amazingly Useful Live Tech Support System For Kindle | John Biggs | 2,013 | 9 | 24 | Live support has always been a dream for major retailers. While chat solutions already exist, today Amazon announced a new support service available on Kindle HD products called Mayday. It is a single-click support solution that lets users work with a remote tech support representative to solve problems with their tablets. The service allows you to see the remote tech support person in a small window on your screen and also displays your screen on the support person’s computer where they can watch what you’re doing online, annotate the screen, and even tap through the interface. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said it’s like “actually very similar to having someone standing next to you” and offering tech support. The service is unique to Amazon, and the company built a full infrastructure to support it at their HQ in Seattle and on board the hardware. By compressing the video signals, they are able to send more data to the devices from tech support and allow tech support to see the data remotely. Amazon’s goal is a 15-second response time, and they will ramp up staffing around major holidays when Kindles are flying fast and furious under the Easter tree. While some may be concerned about privacy, rest assured the support person will not be able to see out of your camera, and you can mute your audio at any time. Bezos equated the experience to going into a store for tech support. “If you went to some physical store location to ask for help for your device, they’re going to see everything,” said Bezos. More important, however, is how many people the service will help. “Are we in charge of our devices or our devices in charge of us? Getting good tech support isn’t easy, but it’s important,” he said. The service will be available on the new Kindle Fire HDX tablets. You can read more about the service at . |
RealNetworks Bets On Cross-Device Video Sharing With RealPlayer Cloud | Anthony Ha | 2,013 | 9 | 24 | RealNetworks is announcing a big expansion beyond its RealPlayer media player today with the launch of a new service called , which is supposed to make it easy for users to access and share their videos from any device. Founder and interim CEO Rob Glaser described this as “the biggest product release we’ve done in a long time.” Glaser role last year, and he said that as he talked to team members, “We had this strong base of users on the PC, but we weren’t focused on the future.” Specifically, he said there was nothing in development for iOS and Android, because the company’s existing business model didn’t apply to mobile. However, Glaser decided that this was an important area to pursue, regardless of business model (more on that in second). He said the team started out by focusing on a few use cases, such as sharing longer videos among friends, but over time they realized this could be a broad platform: “We’ve a found that there’s a lot of problems where there’s resignation, because these problems seem like they’re inherent.” So RealPlayer Cloud isn’t just about mobile. Instead, it’s about being able to view video content on any platform, including the TV (starting with Roku). Glaser said that RealPlayer Cloud combines the company’s existing media player technology with a cloud backend. Taking this approach offers a number of advantages of other cloud video services, Glaser said, for example allowing different aspects of the platform to run in the background, integrating with other services (at least on Android), and making sure videos are viewable across platforms — so you’re not going to have moments where you try to share a video from your iPhone and then discover that your friends with Android can watch it. Sharing is definitely a big emphasis. Glaser and VP of Product and Software Development Jeff Chasen said RealPlayer Cloud should allow for “frictionless” sharing in small groups. People don’t even need to install the app to watch videos — you can email them a link, then the video should be playable on most devices that have a “modern browser.” The content, meanwhile, may largely be user generated, but Glaser said this should work for videos that are downloaded on the PC as well, as long as it isn’t protected by digital rights management. As for making money, RealPlayer Cloud will follow a freemium model, with up to two gigabytes of storage for free. (Glaser noted that Real Networks is actually using more than two gigabytes in those cases, since it’s storing multiple versions of each video.) After that, pricing starts at $4.99 per month. So is this going to be RealPlayer’s future? When I asked, Glaser replied, “We have three kids at home and I love all of them — but only one of them can be the tallest.” In other words, Real Networks , but he said “this is one of the most ambitious projects under development.” |
Amazon Announces The Kindle HDX 7- And 8.9-Inch Tablets With High-Res Screens, 2GHz Processors | John Biggs | 2,013 | 9 | 24 | has upped the Fire tablet ante with two new HDX models in 7- and 8.9-inch sizes with brand-new, high-resolution screens and running an updated Snapdragon 800 quad-core processor at 2GHz. Both models have adaptive screens that change brightness according to the ambient light and a special reading mode that will keep the tablet alive for 17 hours of uninterrupted reading. The new models are considerably thinner than the original models. For example, the 8.9-inch model is 34 percent lighter than the original 8.9 and is far thinner. Alongside these new models, Amazon is launching an updated OS, called Fire OS, with improved enterprise compatibility for email and secure browsing. The devices are far faster than their predecessors, and gaming on the tablet was smooth and the graphics were surprisingly detailed. The 8.9-inch model also has an 8-megapixel rear camera complete with a small photo editing app that allows you to tweak brightness and contrast, retouch portions of the photo and even add meme-like top and bottom headers and “whimsical” “stickers.” Stickers! The new OS supports some surprisingly cool second-screen tools that allow you to buy music you hear on a movie’s audio soundtrack and even see the actors and characters in a movie. Amazon has partnered with a song lyrics provider to display the lyrics for downloaded music, allowing you to fast forward to certain lines in a song or follow the words along with the melody. The new OS will allow you to download Amazon Prime video for offline viewing. Amazon has also added Mayday, a 24/7 customer support solution that allows you to ping Amazon support people. The service is ingenious. Remote support folks appear in a little video window and can annotate your screen with arrows and even touch UI items. You can mute them so they can’t hear your discussion and block them from seeing your screen if something… untoward appears. It is a free solution to family tech-support problems, and as long as you’re online you can access the service at any time. It is, in a word, amazing. The 7-inch model starts at $229 for a 16GB model and $329 for the LTE-enabled WWAN version. The Wi-Fi-only model will ship October 15, and the LTE version will ship on November 14. Pre-orders are . You can the 8.9-inch version for $379 (shipping November 7) and the 4G version, at $479, will be available in December. The Kindle Fire HD also gets a slight processor bump to 1.5GHz. It costs $139. Amazon has completely redesigned the Kindle line in this iteration, adding a glossy back bar to the HDX models and slimming down the HD model. The screen itself is very clear and bright and acceptably readable in direct sunlight thanks to the reactive brightness setting. Amazon is also offering an improved case, called the Origami, that can fold to hold the device upright or in landscape mode. The 8.9-inch model has a unique sliding system that exposes the rear-facing camera and activates the camera app when initiated. More interesting for the business crowd is the native enterprise support in Fire OS, offering hardware encryption, VPN-based browsing, and enterprise email support. Given that the Kindle Fire is already a popular “work” tablet given the price and size, it’s clear that Amazon sees a solid new niche for the platform. Are the new models worth the cost of an update? If you have a user at home who has trouble with their devices, May Day alone could be a godsend. Otherwise, the hardware is nicely updated and very nicely designed. Compared to the original, bulky Kindle Fire, these models exhibit a certain design maturity and far better hardware. Overall these are solid, incremental updates to an already strong platform and should be a big hit with readerly types and those looking for an inexpensive but powerful tablet from a well-known manufacturer. [slideshow] |
Now Processing $1B Annually, Swipely Announces A Partner Network To Support Growth | Alex Wilhelm | 2,013 | 9 | 24 | announced today that the flow of payments through its system has doubled since April, with the firm now processing charges at a yearly run rate of $1 billion. It in April, and a $250 million run rate three months prior. Swipely is notable for its non-traditional location: Providence, Rhode Island. Its CEO calls its home base an advantage, as the talent market is not as constrained as it is in Silicon Valley. And Providence isn’t too far from Boston, he explained, so his company can hire from two major markets. In case you haven’t heard of the firm, Swipely works with retail merchants – think bars, restaurants, and the like – to improve their payment systems. Integrating with their existing point of sales systems, Swipely manages credit card processing, and provides value on top of those transactions in the form of business analytics, reward programs, digital reputation and so forth. For the average business owner who lacks Internet savvy, what Swipely offers at no cost differential (Swipely matches a customer’s current rate structure) can be compelling. According to its release, Swipely has grown its payment volume by at least a 100% compound rate in each of its past four quarters. The company wants to continue its current growth rates, but can’t do so on its own. With a fresh capital injection this May , Swipely is working to grow a network of vendors to pitch its service in addition to expanding its in-house sales team. The Swipely Partner Network was announced today, but has been in operation for some time, having around 50 partners at current tip. Swipely is channeling its inner Microsoft by turning to third-parties and, in a full-throated Redmond accent, “value-added resellers, independent software vendors, marketing consultants, and professional service providers.” Naturally, customers that are brought to Swipely via partners are not as profitable as companies that it bags on its own, but the system should allow the company to continue its processing run-rate incline. Swipely is a company that combines interesting technology and the world of physical retail. It can be a , as other startups have learned. However, assuming normal payment processing rates, Swipely has eight-figure revenue, so it is hardly struggling. The next test for Swipely will be its ability to continue rapid dollar-sum growth quarter over sequential quarter, while maintaining margin health, and reaching profitability. We’re watching. |
Nest Labs’ Next Product To Be A Smoke Detector, Per Reports | Matt Burns | 2,013 | 9 | 24 | The Nest Learning Thermostat is about to get a sibling. . If is correct, the company behind the incredibly popular Learning Thermostat is prepping a smoke detector. Yep, a smoke detector, reportedly called Protect, — which sounds about right for Nest Labs. Co-founder and VP of Engineering Matt Rogers recently told me in an interview (view below) that the company is targeting all the white crap in our homes. The boring, the mundane, the products like the thermostat that were previously unloved and ignored. Nest wants to reinvent them. And with the smoke detector, there is a lot to reinvent. The report is light on details, speculating heavily that the smoke detector could be tied to a subscription account (not likely), link with Learning Thermostat directly (plausible), and hand gestures could silence the alarm (likely). But the lowly smoke detector is ripe for reinventing and Nest is the company to do it. Like the thermostat before it, the smoke detector is a disconnected device but plays a vital role in homes. Yet, it’s a dumb device. If it smells smoke, it yells. But what if you’re out of the house? What if you know you’re going to burn bacon and the smoke detector is located on a 15-foot ceiling? What if you want to check the status of the battery? A connected smoke detector makes a whole lot of sense. Nest Labs declined to comment. |
Elance, SkilledUp & Smarterer Launch New Learning Platform To Let You Learn, Validate & Find Work In One Place | Rip Empson | 2,013 | 9 | 24 | The shift towards career and skills-focused content and models in digital education has begun to gain momentum of late, and last week, it got another boost as Elance, one of the largest online staffing platforms (for freelancers), announced that it would be launching a new “skill assessment platform” that will include access to over 20,000 courses and tests. Fundamentally, aims to connect online education, skill assessments and job search, bringing these key pieces and markets together in one portal. To make this possible, Elance has partnered with two education startups: One being , a hub for online courses that is on a mission to organize the world’s online educational content, curate it and make it easily searchable. In particular, the startup focuses on skill-based learning content — the kind that actually helps people gain marketable, in-demand skills. Everyone knows that the educational system in the U.S. hasn’t changed much in, oh, the last 100 years. And that there’s a lot of inertia within the system, gumming the gears and slowing its transformation. But rather than change for change’s own sake — or because everything technology does is great! — the current system just isn’t working anymore. Drop-out rates are , as is the cost of education and student debt, especially considering the fact that U.S. students are underperforming . But, really, the problem is not just that too many students are failing Math (though that is a problem), it’s that the current system is doing a terrible job of fulfilling one of its core goals: Getting you a job. Google, AT&T and a host of online education organizations have really started to get the ball rolling that will focus on developing standards for career readiness, how to better prepare and evaluate graduates and “help online education providers create courses, tests and certificates meant to supplement the use of a college degree in the hiring process,” . Google followed that up two weeks ago to build MOOC.org — a site where any organization, non-profit, business or individual will be able to post and view courses. The primary goal is to open the doors more broadly to video-based education, but also to provide more career prep and training content. SkilledUp will be providing the content and, by partnering with Elance, will give freelancers access to a curriculum that covers over 500 skill areas and 20K courses, 6K of which will be available for free, including “many openly licensed college-level courses.” The skills-testing, on the other hand, will be provided by . offers a crowdsourced assessments platform and technology that allows job searchers to quickly show off their “skillz” and employers to evaluate those “skillz,” will be providing — you guessed it — the assessments. Through its partnership with Elance, Smarterer will give freelancers access to hundreds of assessments, through which they’ll be able to quickly measure and quantify their professional skills. The startup’s technoloy incorporates adaptive scoring and crowdsourced test design in an attempt to optimize efficiency and accuracy in assessment and, in turn, to improve the traditionally tedious, slow and ego-shrinking hiring process. It’s a relatively advantageous three-way deal, as both Smarterer and SkilledUp now have access to Elance’s more expansive reach, which today includes 800K businesses and 2.8 million freelancers. Enterprises and startups use Elance as a talent pool, where they can quickly assemble teams of developers, graphic designers or writers to work part-time, on a particular project and so on. Meanwhile, it gives those job searchers a way — in theory — to find steady (mostly quality) work, earn a living and get exposed to different companies and employers. In turn Elance, gets access to Smarterer’s assessments and SkilledUp’s content. Great, but why does this matter? For starters, it’s significant that one of the world’s largest contract marketplaces is beginning to offer digital education resources to help its workforce brush up on new skills. “Everyone keeps asking the value of online education and how it’s actually going to become a real business,” Smarterer co-founder and CEO Dave Balter tells me. “I think this is how it starts — once the connective tissue is in place with employment, we’ll see a better educational system, and business, begin to emerge. It’s also really the first alliance to really combine a jobs marketplace, skills-focused learning content and assessments — and one that allows the fast-growing freelance workforce to visit one place to improve their skills, validate them and get paid more for their work. That’s pretty cool. For more, |
null | Natasha Lomas | 2,013 | 9 | 6 | null |
AppleCare+ Now Covers Travelers’ iPhones, iPads, iPods In Any Country Where It’s Offered | Matthew Panzarino | 2,013 | 9 | 24 | Apple made a , around the time that the new iPhones were announced. It now allows you to get your iPhone, iPad, or iPods serviced in any country that offers AppleCare+, not just your home locale. This change means that if you’re traveling with your device, you’re able to get service in another country if you purchased AppleCare+ back at home. Previously, you would have to have that service performed where you purchased the plan if you wanted it to be covered. Note that are available in every country, because many countries don’t carry stock in certain iPhone models. The CDMA iPhone 5, for instance, is not available in Brazil and can’t be replaced there. If there are other rules that govern AppleCare+ in those regions, those will also apply. But, for the most part, travelers will get more options for repair and replacement now. The countries in which the plans now allow you coverage for your iPhone, iPod and iPad include Austria, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Apple recently that AppleCare+ was offered in and raised the service fees from around $39 to $79 per ‘incident’. |
Lending Marketplace Prosper Locks Down $25M From Sequoia, BlackRock | Alex Wilhelm | 2,013 | 9 | 24 | , a peer-to-peer lending platform, announced today that it has raised an additional $25 million. The round was led by Sequoia, a longtime investor in the company, with participation from BlackRock. The $25 million raise might feel oddly timed, as Prosper raised $20 million , a month that also saw it shake up its leadership team, including the installation of a new chief executive officer. Prosper, launched in 2006, had raised prior to today’s new cash infusion. Including the new funds, Prosper has accepted a total of $119.9 million in outside money. According to the company, today’s funding was not raised out of duress, but was instead a component to the new direction it kicked off in earlier this year. The Prosper story is simple: The $20 million and new management team that came this January were bets that its business model had legs, and was worth pursuing. If things went well, more funds would be made available. And following a period of strong growth, Sequoia was willing to hand over more. Loans executed on the Prosper platform totaled $9 million in January this year. In August that figure had risen to $32 million. That is almost a quadrupling in less than a year. On a 12-month run-rate basis, Prosper is seeing loans executed of more than $360 million on its platform. Prosper’s website claims that it has lent a total of $630 million in its life. So the company’s current yearly pace is essentially half its lifetime total. Prosper claims that it intends to use the new $25 million in cash to “accelerate the company’s growth.” That’s generic funding verbiage, but in this case, given the company’s rapid lending rate ramp, it is probably true. As a company, Prosper competes with Lending Club, and to an extent, Kiva. The public’s willingness to take part in services such as Prosper appears to be increasing with time. Where else can you lock in a 9 percent return on your funds? And with little to no tapering of the current Federal QE program in sight, other non-equity returns are not likely to move much, keeping Prosper and Lending Club attractive as potentially lucrative, if unconventional and higher-risk, investments for normal folks. A fair question is how large the total pool of potential capital is that Prosper and Lending Club are currently competing for, and if it is large enough for the pair to sustain growth over the next, say, half decade. I think that as long as the Federal Reserve keeps traditional lending rates low using its overnight rate lever, the pool is deep, indeed. |
Petcube Opens Kickstarter Campaign To Let People Play With Their Pets Remotely | Eliza Brooke | 2,013 | 9 | 24 | If you haven’t gotten your dose of cute cat footage for the day, watch and then listen up. A startup called has launched a Kickstarter today to manufacture a sleek box, tricked out with a laser pointer, wide angle camera lens, speakers and Wi-Fi, that allows people to play with their pets remotely. Pet owners set up the cube in their homes and then use Petcube’s app to speak to their furry friends and drive them crazy with the laser. The goal is to get some of the first Petcubes into animal shelters, which would have public access feeds so that anyone can play with the parentless pups. In fact, anyone can make their feed public for 15-30 minute intervals so that those whose landlords don’t allow pets (cough) can get in on the fun. At 320 backers so far, Petcube has raised $32,679 of a $100,000 goal in less than one day. The Petcube team — Yaroslav Azhnyuk, Andrey Klen, and Alex Neskin — has been working on the project for about a year now and is in the current cohort of hardware accelerator program. After bootstrapping for a year, the startup raised a small round of seed funding from HAXLR8R, SOSVentures, and angel investor Semyon Dukach. At the moment they are speaking with potential manufacturers, with the intention to ship the hardware in May of next year. Azhnyuk said they will definitely have an Android app ready by May, as well. An iOS app is currently in the prototype stage. The apps will be free, and the cube will likely retail for $199. The cubes are silver and quite sleek, but Petcube will also be selling skins to personalize them. Make them furry, for instance. “For us this is just the beginning. We’re seeing it as this thing to connect all of the other pet-related devices,” Azhnyuk said. “For developers we’ll be giving access to the API, which will make it possible to connect others to Petcube.” Petcube has been talking with Sphero, for instance, the maker of the phone-controlled . The only potential issue I see here is when the ball gets stuck under a couch and out of reach. Then you have to watch your pet struggle with it, which is simultaneously sad, hilarious, and anxiety-producing. The laser pointer is most appealing to cats and small- to medium-sized dogs, Azhnyuk said; large dogs don’t tend to go for it, which is a good reason to get other hardware makers in on the action. The jury is out on turtles and fish. There’s also the possibility to gamify what one can only assume will be an already engrossing experience. “For game developers we’ll give them the opportunity to program their interfaces on top of the Petcube gaming experience. You have a new gaming experience when you’re playing with a live being,” Azhnyuk said. “Then you can also overlay [visuals] on top of the gaming experience.” Petcube isn’t the only startup in the long-distance pet love space: last month , a remote treat dispenser, launched an Indiegogo campaign that overshot its fundraising mark by nearly $50,000. With that kind of market validation, the odds seem to be in Petcube’s favor.
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Marissa Mayer Says That She Won’t Read This | Anthony Ha | 2,013 | 9 | 24 | Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer seems to be on a bit of a press tour, and as result, a lot of her comments onstage today at the IAB MIXX conference won’t be a big surprise to folks who have been following her recent and the broader coverage of her time at Yahoo. One thing that did surprise me: Mayer said (a couple of times, in fact) that she doesn’t read what the media writes about her. To explain why, she recalled hearing a quote from Margaret Thatcher about how press, whether it’s good or bad, influences you and “pulls you off center.” In general, Mayer said she tries not to pay attention to “external forces”: “I know who I am … I have a really clear vision of what I want us to be achieving.” Not that she claims to be ignoring the media entirely — in the case of , Mayer said that she didn’t read the profile, but “I did see the photographs.” (She said her upside-down pose was prompted by the photographer, who complained that with the profile’s theme of “leadership coming in unconventional forms,” the standard “First Lady in this chaise lounge” pose wasn’t working.) So … do we actually believe that Mayer doesn’t read her press? Some TechCrunch writers were certainly skeptical when I brought this up, particularly since Mayer seems to be media savvy and, for the most part, doesn’t shy away from the spotlight. I’m more inclined than some of my co-workers to believe her, though I suspect it’s less a blanket “get that article away from me!” rule and more a general guideline. On the subject of her media appearances, interviewer Charlie Rose (yep Charlie Rose) suggested that Mayer does appear to be building a bit of a brand for herself, but she replied, “I’m building the brand for Yahoo.” Not that the entire discussion was about her relationship with the press. Mayer also touched on her transition at Google from managing search to focusing on local, which has been , characterizing it as her own decision: “I didn’t want to be the search girl.” And she reiterated that her focus at Yahoo is on mobile — as for mobile monetization, she compared it to the early days of Google, when everyone was wondering of anyone would make money from search. When Rose asked her what the future looks like, she said, “To me, .” She described herself as having “a career-long love affair with search,” and added, “The ultimate search is one where the query” — i.e. it’s a search that takes into account all your history and preferences. |
Google Earth Meets The Body: BioDigital Gets $4M To Bring Its 3-D, Virtual Anatomy & Health Platform To Every Browser | Rip Empson | 2,013 | 9 | 24 | While the film is extremely compelling, it turns out that there’s actually a better way to learn about and visualize the human body than by watching on repeat. It used to be that students and the anatomically curious had to turn to pictures in textbooks or plastic models (Gasp! I know!) to get a virtual tour of the human body. Well, thankfully, it turns out that some graduate students are learning with a better, more tech-savvy interactive map — as if the human body were being given the Google Earth treatment. A New York-based imaging startup, called , emerged early last year with an ambitious mission and product: Animate, map and display the human body in 3-D through any browser. With traction slowly mounting and the scope for Biodigital’s technology beginning to expand, the startup today announced that it is taking on $4 million in series A financing, led by FirstMark Capital, with participation from NYU Venture Fund and a handful of angel investors. Co-founders Frank Sculli and John Qualter created their free technology by combining advances in CAD, HTML5, WebGL and other cool-acronymed web technologies to push browser-based virtualization forward and perhaps finally replace your dog-eared, dusty old anatomy textbook. Since launching a year ago, “Human,” Biodigital’s fittingly named, 3-D virtual body that displays thousands of medically accurate health conditions and anatomy objects through an interactive web-based platform, has attracted more than 1 million members. Sculli tells us that students in more than 2,500 schools are using it to learn anatomy, and consumers have begun taking tours of the virtual body to investigate and better understand their health and fitness and, of course, how babies are made. Thanks to partnerships with schools and a handful of healthcare providers, hospitals and clinics are beginning to introduce Biodigital’s virtual body into their practices to help patients understand their illnesses, afflictions and maladies. But the big, long-term vision, the Biodigital founder tells us, is to develop a powerful set of APIs that enable developers and engineers to tap into the startup’s imaging technology — using to build new applications and expand on existing ones. Putting its tech in the hands of smart builders and creators, Sculli hopes, could “improve healthcare in crazy ways we’d never have imagined” over the long-term. And, of course, there’s the other benefit of launching APIs, which instant, self-serve business-development tools. The funding, in essence, validates the founding mission of Biodigital, Sculli tells us, considering that the company has in some form been hacking away at this problem (and the use of 3-D tech to simplify health concepts) for about a decade. But, really, the funding validates the problem that has existed for years now — throughout both health and education — that the traditional means of communicating and presenting critical health information do not reflect the huge strides innovation and technology has made on the technical side over that time. With some 80 percent of adults having searched for health information online at some point, the consumer demand for health information is clear, and the demand for better ways to visualize that health information have begun to catch up. After all, , 3-D technology is already changing the face of games and movies and has become familiar to the Average Joe through geo-browsers like Google Earth. As the founders correctly (in my humble opinion) surmise: “Nowhere does this 3-D technology make more sense than in representing the human body.” Once browsers began to natively support this technology, alongside the meteoric rise of cloud and API-based businesses, , the founders had the missing piece. They could not only develop this product for healthcare providers, but use universally available tools and supported web technologies to bring their virtual body explorer to the public. With its new funding, Biodigital finally has the capital backing it needs to expand its team and spread the word about its virtual body, building on the organic growth it’s captured over the last 12 months. Not only that, but it will be able to put the finishing touches on an API that will potentially result in some mind-melting applications and utilizations. The startup’s virtual body , though Biodigital will also be offering a premium (paid) version of its service to both providers and businesses. For more, check out Johnny Biggs’ video demo of the early product and interview with the founders last year, . Or just see the video below: |
Flywheel Launches A Premium WordPress Hosting And Management Service For Designers | Frederic Lardinois | 2,013 | 9 | 24 | , an Omaha, Neb.-based startup, is launching a new WordPress hosting and management service today that was built specifically for web designers, freelancers and agencies. has come a long way from being “just” a blogging tool to being the go-to content management framework for designers and web developers who want to set up a web presence for their clients. But for many of them, managing their servers and fine-tuning them to make WordPress run fast is neither what they want to spend their time on, nor what they specialize in. Also, once they have everything up and running, they still have to get their clients to get a hosting account and transfer their WordPress install, content, plug-ins and themes over to a new server. Flywheel aims to take all of this complexity out of the process. It handles all of the server management for its users and then allows them to easily transfer billing to their clients once the site is up and running. The service also allows its users to collaborate with others by making it easy to grant and revoke access to the hosting account and SFTP server for uploading files. The service, which runs on top of Digital Ocean’s servers, can spin up a new site in about 20 seconds. The service provides all users with a free demo account and doesn’t charge until the site goes live. Free sites, however, are protected with a password. As Flywheel CEO Dusty Davidson told me, the team believes that WordPress has evolved to the point where most of the people who are creating sites with it are not technical and aren’t interested in managing hosting environments themselves. The team handles all of the caching, security hardening and other hosting aspects for its users. The actual WordPress user experience, it’s worth noting, remains unchanged on Flywheel and users can install their own plug-ins and themes and make other modifications as needed. Paid Flywheel start at $15 per month for small sites with fewer than 5,000 visitors and go up from there. The company says its most popular plan is its $30 per month account for sites with up to 25,000 visitors, 10GB of storage and 500GB of bandwidth. All of these include malware monitoring, but unless you opt for the $75 per month enterprise plan, you will have to pay extra for CDN and SSL support. The company also offers bulk pricing for agencies that work on 10 or 25 sites at the same time. |
Senators Demand Answers On NSA Snooping — By The End Of 2014 | Alex Wilhelm | 2,013 | 9 | 24 | This week nine members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to the inspector general of the Intelligence Community, , asking him to conduct a full review of U.S. intelligence operations, and to “make public the findings.” This almost sounds compelling: A bipartisan group of Senators demanding that the intelligence wing of the United States government take a hard look at itself and report its findings to the public. Of course, asking a consummate intelligence insider to vet his own team isn’t exactly exciting. Mr. McCullough III is a former FBI agent, helped draft the intelligence portions of the Patriot Act, and worked in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. So the guy has friends throughout the agencies that he has now been asked to both vet and then publicly discuss. What do you want to wager that this report comes out milquetoast? Here’s what the senators want the inspector general to focus on: That’s actually quite a fine list. While asking the inspector general to grade the law he helped to write and vet the performance of his friends in an unbiased fashion is humorous, the senators’ final request is my favorite: Please proceed to administratively perform reviews of the implementation of Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act and Section 702 of FISA, and submit the reports no later than December 31, 2014. So the report can come out more than a year from now, and . Assuming that the good inspector complies with the request, he has 15 months to produce something that says nothing. Empty attempts at oversight are worse than doing nothing, as they provide cover for parties that otherwise would be easier to excoriate. Ars Technica has a on the situation at hand: “As more and more has come out about the , lawmakers are that they don’t know very much about what exactly is going on.” Yes, and the rest of us don’t know enough either. But asking Mr. McCullough III to educate us next year about what is going on now doesn’t even pass the laugh test. I’m not sure if the good senators understand how anemic their attempt at controlling the intelligence apparatus in fact is, and that alone is depressing. |
Twitter Launches Personalized Recommendation Notifications Based On @Magicrecs Experiment | Matthew Panzarino | 2,013 | 9 | 24 | Twitter has in its twitter apps for Android and iPhone that will deliver personalized recommendations for tweets and accounts to follow. The new notification is based on the long-running experiment, which monitored the people you follow to see who followed and what tweets they were re-tweeting. The new notification will leverage the unique data that Twitter has at its fingertips to recommend you new accounts to follow, and if the @magicrecs experiment is any indication, it will be scary accurate, fast and genuinely useful. I’ve been a follower of the account for some time now, which is run by a special department at Twitter which creates experiments on the platform. Nearly every recommendation of a tweet or user account has been spot on, and I’ve felt no hesitation telling folks about it. It’s so scary good that I learn about new hires at companies within seconds, sometimes even before the official announcements. And i’ve yet to unfollow any accounts that I’ve followed because of it. I’ve felt for some time now that the best way to leverage the @magicrecs magic was to weave it into the fabric of Twitter’s apps themselves, and it appears that Twitter agrees. “We built this feature based on an experimental account, . As its bio notes, “sends instant, personalized recommendations for users and content via direct message”,” says Twitter’s Venu Satuluri, part of the team that built the account. “Over time, we’ve been tweaking the algorithms –– based on engagement and your feedback –– in order to send only the most relevant updates.” The notification will roll out to users of the apps soon and can be switched on and off in Notification Settings using the toggle ‘Recommendations’. This kind of experimentation — which leverages Twitter’s data set around the people you follow and how you interact with the service — is exactly what the company needs to continue to do as it strives for ways to keep users engaged and interacting with the service. Especially as it preps itself for IPO and has to begin to answer hard questions about user retention and growth. As I explained in a piece taking a look at Twitter’s , one of the primary strengths and weaknesses of the service is that it really is only what you make of it. If you follow quality or interesting accounts that provide relevant content, then you’ll get a decent bit of usability out of it. If you follow crap, you’ll get crap. At the time, Twitter’s ‘who to follow’ sections were (and are) still buried in the mobile apps, making it difficult to encourage people to follow new relevant accounts: I make the suggestion to move the who to follow section (especially on mobile) to a more prominent location, or a more organic one. Being able to surface those suggestions subtly in context feels, to me, to be a more effective way of reminding people that there are other people out there producing content that they should see. All he’ll say is “I really like that idea.” That idea was crap, I’m sure Sippey was just being diplomatic. But a programmatic push notification based on @MagicRecs does a lot more than surfacing a quasi-random list of people to follow. It provides personal, intelligent recommendations that valuable and worthwhile. From the same piece: But the best recipe for a good Twitter experience isn’t just ‘your friends’ anymore. Sippey says that Twitter has found that the most successful on-boarindg experiences happen when people partake of a ‘balanced diet’ of follows. “You want to have some humor, you want to have some interests and you want some of your friends. And if we can actually help you craft that well-balanced diet for your home timeline you’ll be a more satisfied user and a happier user.” This new push notification based on a very clever and effective experiment might be the key it needs to help users develop that well-balanced diet.
Image Credit: /Flickr CC |
[UPDATED] China Reportedly Lifts Ban On Facebook In The Shanghai Free-Trade Zone, But Continues Crackdown On Internet Freedom | Catherine Shu | 2,013 | 9 | 23 | The People’s Daily, a newspaper run by the Communist Party of China, has denying that Facebook and other sites will be made available in the Shanghai Free-Trade Zone. The that the Chinese government will allow access to some banned Web sites in the Shanghai Free-Trade Zone, including Facebook, Twitter and The New York Times, citing anonymous government sources.] We have emailed the three companies to ask for confirmation. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg during her recent trip, but said she was there to promote the Chinese edition of “Lean In.” It’s unknown if the meeting was related to the lifting of the ban on Facebook in the free-trade zone. Facebook and Twitter have been barred in mainland China since 2009, but many people still use VPNs and proxy servers to break through the Great Firewall of China, as the Golden Shield Project, the government’s Internet censorship program is nicknamed, and access the sites. that the Fortune Global Forum 2013 conference, , had VPNs set up, as do many top hotels and office towers owned by Hong Kong companies. The after publishing articles criticizing the family wealth of former Chinese premier Wen Jiabao (which also prompted ). First announced in July 2013, the Shanghai Free-Trade Zone was set up by the Chinese government as a way to see how economic and financial reforms might work in the rest of the country. The SCMP also reported that the zone’s authority will begin accepting bids from foreign companies for licenses to provide Internet services within the area. The Free-Trade Zone is currently 28.78 square kilometers, but will eventually cover all of Pudong district, which currently has a population of about 5 million. This means that they will compete with China’s three main carriers, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, all of which are state owned. The decision to open access to Facebook, Twitter and the New York Times site was reportedly endorsed by Premier Li Keqiang and is part of an effort to spur interest from foreign investors in the Shanghai Free-Trade Zone by making it more attractive for expats. It does not signify, however, a liberalization in the Chinese government’s attitude toward social media. The Communist Party is currently engaging in . In recent months, it has , a Chinese-American entrepreneur who frequently posted political content to his 12 million followers on Sina Weibo, and about the dangers of social media. |
FormaFina, A Fab For The New Rich Of South America, Raises $1.4M | Eliza Brooke | 2,013 | 9 | 23 | For those who haven’t yet heard of , think of it as the Fab of South America. The e-commerce startup, which sells curated, limited-run collections of decor products in Argentina and Brazil, has raised a seed round of $1.4 million to anchor itself in the Brazilian market. FormaFina’s investors include Redpoint eVentures — a Silicon Valley fund dedicated solely to Brazilian startups — IG Angels, El Paso Advisors, Start Capital, 500 Startups, and Plug&Play. Several angel investors also participated in the round, including baby.com.br co-founder In Hsieh and Hans Hickler, formerly the head of DHL US. With its limited-stock campaigns, FormaFina is capitalizing on exclusivity as a growing status symbol among the new rich of Argentina and Brazil, particularly women. This is in contrast to like Gucci and Hermes handbags, which are instantly recognizable and pricey but relatively ubiquitous. The site typically runs 10-15 campaigns at once, each lasting 7-10 days with about 10 products per campaign. FormaFina’s goods are significantly cheaper than offline alternatives that are subject to sky-high real estate and import taxes, but that’s not something they play up, said CEO and founder Nima Pourshasb. Hickler helped set FormaFina up with a courier service with big discounts on standard rates, which keeps costs low. Items range in price from $20 to $5,000, with an average ticket price of $200. Gross margins are at 30 percent now, but Pourshasb said he thinks they can increase that to 40-50 percent by the end of the year. FormaFina is aiming to make a dent in the South American curated e-commerce space while it is still relatively unpopulated. In addition to attending trade shows and reading design blogs, the site’s curators are looking to similar sites abroad for cues. “They look at what other curators around the world are doing, and they review what Fab does. We have a lot of respect for what they’re doing. They look at Fancy very closely,” Pourshasb said. While One Kings Lane and Fab don’t ship to South America, Fancy has worldwide. Fancy’s site is also available in 33 languages — Portuguese and Spanish being two — with an option to request the addition of others. Although that makes it a viable competitor to FormaFina, the latter has the advantage of being South American first. That said, Pourshasb said that he has always thought of FormaFina as a global company. “We’re interested in starting with Latin America and going into Colombia and Mexico,” he said. “There’s a huge demand in those markets. Our plan would be to look into going into one other market, not before Q2 of 2014.” They are aware of the risks of expanding too quickly, though, as Fab has done. Logistics of international shipping can be tricky, Pourshasb explained, and managing different markets at one time can prove distracting. FormaFina plans to have an iOS app out for Q1 of next year to accommodate the 20% of users who are shopping on mobile. |
Confirmed: Cella Irvine Is No Longer CEO At Vibrant Media | Anthony Ha | 2,013 | 9 | 23 | Cella Irvine has stepped down as CEO of ad tech company Vibrant Media, according to a source with knowledge of the company. I emailed and called Vibrant earlier this evening, but I haven’t heard back yet. (I did manage to speak to someone at Vibrant for a few seconds, but they immediately transferred me to a spokesperson who didn’t pick up.) ( Vibrant just confirmed the news. You can see the full statement below.) Irvine the company in October 2011. She previously served as the CEO at the New York Times’ About Group (The Times later ) and as Chief Administrative Officer at ad agency Digitas. When Irvine took on the role, she was replacing co-founder Doug Stevenson, who had stepped down. According to last fall, Vibrant has been profitable for several years with revenue of more than $100 million. My source told that revenue has actually fallen below $100 million, though it has held relatively steady after the initial dip. The board has apparently been frustrated by the lack of growth and perhaps the fact that Vibrant hasn’t gone public (which ). Is that actually Irvine’s fault? Maybe not. These could be the inherent difficulties facing an ad company that isn’t exactly young anymore (Vibrant, which remains best-known for those online in-text ads that appear when you mouse over certain words, was founded in 2000). And the company seemed to be pretty active while Irvine was in charge, acquiring and also launching a number of new ad units, . A Vibrant spokesperson just sent me the following statement: Yes, we can confirm that Cella Irvine is leaving Vibrant. Craig Gooding will be leading a newly created Office of the Chairman. Vibrant’s founder and chairman, Craig invented Vibrant’s signature in-text technology and has managed the company through explosive growth in recent years. He knows the business exceptionally well and is very well positioned to continue to lead the new management team. I’ve also heard from another source that Vibrant is not conducting a search for a new CEO, at least not yet. |
Surface 2: Repeat Or Redemption? | Alex Wilhelm | 2,013 | 9 | 23 | The inimitable and I took to the TechCrunch TV screens to dig into the new Surface hardware that Microsoft announced today. Chris and I are both long-time Surface owners and users, so we speak with a bit of experience and fondness. The hardware, we surmise, is great, but we remain a bit unsure about the software that Microsoft has compiled for its tablet hybrids. Can the Windows Store provide enough application density and depth to allow for the Surface 2 to avoid the sins of its predecessor, the Surface RT? That remains an open question. For more on the new Microsoft hardware, . And if you want a behind-the-scenes talk with the creators of Surface, I . |
Digital Health Startups Get The Same Toys As Everyone Else | Contributor | 2,013 | 9 | 23 | Until this summer, a significant subset of U.S.-based healthcare entrepreneurs were unable to legally use one of the most fundamental, integral, and efficiency-boosting development tools out there: Amazon Web Services (AWS). Cue the sweaty palms and standing arm hairs of any developer reading this. That’s because any healthcare startup that electronically transmits an individuals’ health information needs to comply with a set of laws from the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ( ). These laws, enacted in 1996, require that certain health information be protected by a set of privacy procedures and security safeguards for electronic transfer. Fair enough. The trouble was that Amazon Web Services was unwilling to abide by the set of procedures needed to engage with companies that a required to be HIPAA compliant. There is a common contract called a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) that goes along with HIPAA compliance, and Amazon wouldn’t touch it. The issue wasn’t that AWS (or any other big-name vendors) had privacy or security issues. Just the opposite: a gorilla like Amazon is quite secure, above and beyond others. They’ve got no other choice. But in order to be able to sign a BAA, there are some procedures you’ve got to implement, and Amazon didn’t want to. Things like agreeing to report a data breach, and promising that you wouldn’t further disclose protected health information were tough to stomach. But it’s not just Amazon. The same reluctance was true of so many other vendors and services that health care entrepreneurs are so eager to use (like HubScout, Survey Monkey, and BugSnag, to name a few). The easy solution for them was simply to opt out altogether, leaving thousands of healthcare startups out to dry. Again, fair enough, and completely understandable. But over the last few years, as the technical and operational bits and pieces of a startup have been increasingly outsourced to efficiency-creating vendors, the digital health sector has been disadvantaged. But today, September 23rd, 2013, a refresh on HIPAA officially goes live by way of a new piece of legislation called the . Among other things, like encouraging electronic medical record adoption, the new HITECH rules radically expand the definition of who needs to comply with a subset of the HIPAA rules. This changes the game, and because of it, many of the tools that have been off limits for certain health care entrepreneurs will now be fully accessible. You see, there is a nuance in the HITECH rule: Let’s say you’re a vendor and the last thing on earth you want is to have protected health information anywhere near your service. You’d think that excuses you from becoming compliant, but it doesn’t. After the HITECH rule, if any customer sends this information through a vendor (whether they endorse it or not), and the vendor’s servers store this information, they’re subject to the HIPAA Security Rule. There is no mitigation of liability for an entity that refuses to enter into the requisite agreements that govern this relationship (again, called a BAA). In fact, a failure to enter these agreements becomes a violation on its own. Amazon sufficiently prepared for this moment, and as of June 18th, 2013, AWS started signing BAAs. Just last week, Survey Monkey announced by email that they’re now supporting HIPAA and will sign BAAs for customers on a Platinum plan. And here is a vendor trying to capitalize on the fact that other vendors might not be privy to these new changes. The dominos are falling, and more will follow suit. After today, thousands of vendors might determine that they’re not currently compliant with HIPAA but need to be. If you’re a vendor, this probably sounds horrible: the U.S. government jamming regulations down your throat. And yes, it is annoying. But healthcare entrepreneurs sit on the other side of the table, and after you dig into the details, needing to sign a BAA and comply with the associated regulations is more like a bee sting than a broken leg. It hurts a bit at first, might swell up and itch, but then you rub on the hydrocortisone cream and a week later you’re feeling just fine. So if you think you might be in a position of having to comply, here is the letter of the law, straight from the horse’s mouth. A Business Associate needs to comply with 45 CFR 164.308, 164.310, 164.312 and 164.316. As you browse through these, you might find that you do a lot of this already, and if you don’t, a number of them are smart practices for any company, not just those who need to comply with HIPAA. And if you have any questions, reach out to a health care legal firm like Many of them are happy to have introductory conversations for no cost. If you do need to comply, and have to start signing BAAs, keep in mind that by putting up with a bit of red tape, you’ll be helping to accelerate innovation in the digital health ecosystem. And as hundreds of entrepreneurs plug away at solving the countless problems in health care, this will ultimately benefit numerous people (and patients) across the country. |
Up Close And Personal With Microsoft’s Surface 2 And Surface Pro 2 | Chris Velazco | 2,013 | 9 | 23 | Now that the dust from Microsoft’s Surface event has settled, we’re left with two new tablets and one grand vision for the holidays — with three Surfaces now on the market, Microsoft has carved out a seemingly strong position for itself as people began to plan for some big purchases. But really, how solid are Microsoft’s hardware plans? Alex went over most of the details during his , but here’s another take on the company’s new Surface tabletsjust for the sake of completeness. Oh, and if you’ve got about an hour to kill, you can watch the full event unfold .
I have a habit of backing the wrong horses — the only phone I ever waited in line for was the Palm Pre, and the only tablet I ever waited in line for was the original Surface RT. The big issue seems to be that I’m a sucker for interesting hardware, and the Surface series is nothing if not interesting. The Surface 2 easily clears the bar set by its predecessor, though that may not be saying a whole lot. Let’s consider the innards. My old RT seemed to groan under the weight of certain apps and services, but the Surface 2 seems better equipped to deal with the ol’ daily routine thanks to the inclusion of an NVIDIA Tegra 4 chipset (and 2GB of RAM) — it seemed plenty snapped as I fired up apps and swiped through websites. Battery life has gotten a boost as well, though the original was generally pretty trusty when it came to longevity, too. And let’s not forget the screen. The increased color accuracy and bump in screen resolution (1080p vs 768p) means that the Surface 2’s display is a far cry over the panel Microsoft went with the last time. Sound quality has apparently been improved as well thanks to the inclusion of Dolby Digital sound, though it was nigh impossible to really get a feel for those aural nuances in a room full of loud, clamoring journalists. There are little things, too. Though the weight difference between the original Surface and the Surface 2 is basically negligible (4 grams, if you’re splitting hairs), this new model feels remarkably more svelte and portable. The new color scheme is also pretty fetching; the Surface Pros retain their dark magnesium chassis, but the RT model is clad in a matte, smudge-resistant gray that serves as a neat little visual differentiator. It looks feels great. And yet I still can’t help but think the Surface 2 suffers from the same issue its older brother did: The hardware itself is respectable, impressive even, but Windows RT still doesn’t feel like it’s up to snuff from a consumer standpoint. There’s no denying that Windows 8.1 RT has patched some considerable holes and added some much-needed functionality to the mix, and the number of apps available in the Windows Store continues to swell — there are now more than 100,000 of them waiting to be downloaded. Still, running a version of Windows that can’t run the same apps or perform the way full-blown Windows devices do can be a hard proposition to grok for your average holiday buyer. Regardless, this new version is a clear improvement over the model that came before, and with a price tag starting at $449, the Surface 2 just may give the iPad a run for its money (unless you wanted one of those fancy keyboard covers). I’m not convinced that RT is going to be around for the long haul, but I hope Microsoft manages to surprise me.
Your mileage may vary, but I can’t help but think of the Surface Pro 2 as the real eyecatcher of the day. Yes, it looks functionally identical (by which I mean dark and chunky) to the model that came before it. Yes, the improvements may seem incremental. That said, all these changes add up in such a way that the Pro 2 seems like an awfully compelling piece of kit. Inside the Pro 2 is a 1.6GHz Intel Core i5 chip, and you’ve got your choice of RAM and storage configurations (the priciest model tops out with 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD). It’s always tricky to get a feel for performance out in the field — and on apparently non-final hardware no less — but the Pro 2 easily kept up with me as I fired up apps with reckless abandon and indulged in a little midday Portal 2. Surface GM Panay said that the Pro 2 is more powerful than 95 percent of laptops on the market, and I’m looking forward to really putting this thing through its paces once the final models hit store shelves. And then there’s the battery. Let’s face it: the Surface Pro was downright wimpy when it came to battery life, a major strike against the more robust tablet. This time around, we’re told that the Surface Pro 2 lasts between 60 and 75 percent longer than the model that preceded it — going off the results we saw in our review, that should net users somewhere between six and eight hours. Maybe not up to par with some of the more competitive ultrabooks out there, but it’s a damn sight better than what we’re used to with the older model. Throw in a 10.6-inch 1080p screen that’s tuned for color accuracy like the Surface 2 and you’ve got quite a mobile companion. Well, sort of. With all that said, the form factor still presents some issues. No matter how clever Microsoft has been with its new two-stage kickstand design (and it’s really rather useful), propping a tablet on your lap and pecking away on a touchscreen is a tricky proposition for mobile workhorses. I don’t know that I’d necessarily choose the Surface Pro 2 over a more traditional notebook, but it’s definitely worth a second look if you’re shopping for your next portable PC. |
Digital Chocolate, Which Nurtured Some Of Gaming’s Best Talent, Sells Its Barcelona Studio To Ubisoft | Kim-Mai Cutler | 2,013 | 9 | 23 | , the long-troubled gaming company from original EA founder Trip Hawkins, has sold its 46-person Barcelona studio to France’s Ubisoft. The sale comes just months after the company closed down its Helsinki office. Ubisoft confirmed the acquisition to us and Digital Chocolate has yet to respond to immediate requests for comment. Ubisoft is picking up all of Digital Chocolate Spain’s technologies and brands, but they’re not acquiring any of the company’s other studios. The company , with layoffs and Hawkins stepping down in 2012 to . It’s another tough chapter for the 10-year-old company, which to date in four separate venture rounds. Somewhat Ironically, even though Digital Chocolate had trouble finding its footing on emerging gaming platforms like Facebook and iOS, the company has nurtured some of the industry’s best talent. Former Digital Chocolate Helsinki head Ilkka Paananen, for example, went on to co-found and run one of the world’s most lucrative iOS gaming companies, Supercell. He’s called his time at Digital Chocolate . Other Digital Chocolate alums have scattered across the industry to senior positions at companies like Flurry or Angry Birds-maker Rovio. From what I understand, the company had a difficult time grappling with and balancing between emerging gaming platforms. Digital Chocolate lacks any titles on the iPhone’s top 500 grossing charts in the U.S., . Then it only has two titles that are among the top 500 games on the Facebook platform by monthly active users, Not only that, because of the company’s geographically distributed nature, it had a hard time coordinating title development between studios that were scattered across the world in places like Mexicali, Helsinki, Barcelona and St. Petersburg. (Some of those offices were shuttered last year too.) Many gaming companies in the industry are distributed too, but it seems like individual offices weren’t given enough creative license to design and build titles on their own. |
Facebook Partners With PayPal, Stripe, Braintree To Autofill Billing Info In Mobile Commerce Apps | Josh Constine | 2,013 | 9 | 23 | Facebook wants to put an end to typing billing details on the small screen, help developers and payment processors earn more money, and prove that its app install ads make money for e-commerce companies. So today it’s rolling out of “Autofill With Facebook” in partnership with PayPal, Stripe, and Braintree to two e-commerce apps, JackThreads and Mosaic, with more to come. It’s important to understand this feature is a partnership with payment providers and is additive, not necessarily competitive, at least for now. One day Facebook could try to conquer more of the payments flow by processing payments itself. But currently, if a developer uses Braintree, Autofill With Facebook layers on top of it, and Braintree still earns its processing fee. These three partners could become two shortly, as we’ve reported that . The “early test” feature as Facebook calls it will appear in the (photo book-buying) and (hip clothing) iOS apps for some users starting today, and for those who have payment info stored on Facebook by the end the week. You can . Previously was only available in early beta to a small percentage of JackThreads users. Developers can for access later, but won’t be able to use the feature until they get approval. : Facebook tells me that while PayPal has committed to joining the test and supporting Autofill With Facebook, it hasn’t actually built out its integration yet. JackThreads and Mosaic both run on Braintree, and Stripe has built its integration for some apps that will launch the feature soon. Here’s how the feature works for users. E-commerce app shoppers browse items and add them to their carts like they normally do. Then something different happens if they’ve previously stored billing info with Facebook when they bought a Facebook Gift, Credits or in-game purchase on desktop. When these people go to checkout and are asked to fill in their billing info, such as credit-card number, billing address, and shipping address, a “Check Out Faster With Facebook” message and blue “Autofill Your Info” button slides down from the top of the screen. When tapped, users are shuttled into their Facebook for iOS app where they can look over their payment details and select a shipping address. They click “OK” and on the backend, Facebook and the app developer’s payment processor do a “handshake” so the credit card and other info is securely transferred. On the front end, the user only sees the last four digits of their credit card number for security. The user is then whisked back to the commerce app where they see their payment info pre-populated in the fields. They can then confirm their purchase without ever having had to type anything. Some people are sure to think Facebook passing your credit card info around is creepy, but in fact the social network has a relatively solid track record for data security. It’s had a and , but no wide-scale hacks of user passwords like and have. If you’re concerned with Facebook taking over the world, though, this test could certainly be a pre-cursor to it knowing more about what you buy. Then again, if you own Facebook stock, maybe that’s a good thing. For users, this makes converting on mobile much quicker and simpler. That means they’re more likely to go through with a purchase before they get distracted or second-guess themselves. E-commerce app developers earn more money thanks to more conversions. As for payment processors, they get to handle more payment volume and earn more fees. For Facebook, this is part of . When you make an auto-filled purchase, Facebook knows who you are, how much you spent, and in what app. That’s critical to it proving the return on investment of its app install ads. If JackThreads hits you with a $1 Facebook ad to download its app, and Facebook sees that you clicked and five minutes later spent $25 at JackThreads, it can convince the e-commerce app developer it’s a good use of spend and they should buy more campaigns. When I asked Facebook payments product manager Deb Liu about working together with PayPal and other payment processors, she explained “We’re all trying to solve the same problem: helping devs monetize and convert. The more conversions, the more payment volume that goes through Braintree, Stripe, or PayPal [and they make their fee that way].” And Liu said Facebook is now looking to identify and fix other issues with e-commerce: “Mobile is where the conversion gap is, where our customers are going in the future. It’s really important to make this an amazing mobile product. That said, we don’t rule out ever doing this on desktop some day.” Perhaps Facebook is looking to work as an identity and data layer on top of other payment processors forever. Alternatively… Once FB has everyone's billing info it will crush these "partners":Facebook Partners To Autofill Billing Info In Apps — Nalin Mittal (@nalin) As Appbistro co-founder Nalin Mittal notes, working with payment processors could be a stopgap solution for Facebook. Right now, it doesn’t have that large of a catalogue of credit card numbers, especially compared to Amazon, Apple, or PayPal. It’s working on that, though, by pushing its Gifts ecommerce store and in-game payments. Eventually if Facebook was able to collect enough credit card numbers that it could support Autofill With Facebook for decent chunk of users, it might replace payment processors like PayPal, Stripe, and Braintree with its own payment processing system. Facebook is already equipping developers with tools to host the backend of their apps with its acquisition Parse, and add social login and sharing features via its SDKs. Handling payment processing for them on the backend the way Stripe does could be a convenient service to offer. That might mean buying its way into payment processing rather than building out the technology, sales team, and fraud protection itself. |
Betaworks And Tim Ferriss Among First Using General Solicitation To Ask Crowds For Investment | Josh Constine | 2,013 | 9 | 23 | It’s day one of the new rules allowing companies to openly advertise that they’re fundraising, and is wasting no time. It’s just emailed asking its thousands of Openbeta testers to through AngelList Syndicates. It’s not the only one diving head-first into general solicitation, indicating the new rules will have a profound effect on startups. Some people I’ve talked to a bit suspicious of Ferriss’ chops as a startup picker, but he has advised Uber and Evernote, plus invested somewhat early in Facebook and Twitter. In an effort to avoid duping people and properly disclose risk, Ferriss tells readers that startup investing is a gamble, they should be comfortable losing what they invest, and do to investing right they should slowly build a portfolio. He also explain that investors will have to prove they’re accredited (net work of over $1 million) when they register with AngelList. Then he does something I expect we’re going to see a lot of beside general solicitation: proving value-add. Ferriss includes a section to help Shyp gain users, recruit employees, get press, and strategize expansion: Can’t invest right now? No worries. If relevant, I’d love for your to consider any of the below actions. Shyp and I would really appreciate it! – Apply to be a Shyp Hero (Heroes are Shyp’s drivers). – Apply for a job on Shyp’s core team. – Interview the co-founders of Shyp: Kevin, Josh, and Jack. They’re clever gents. Just email: founders at shyp dot com. -Tell Shyp which city you live inso they can launch there before others! To get space in funding rounds, syndicate operators may need to demonstrate they can provide more than just money and advice. If Ferriss can help Shyp with the projects listed above, he may be able to convince other startups to let him run syndicates for them. But back to betaworks, “a company that builds companies”. Previously it took venture capital from big firms and invested it in a slew of companies that it helped build and operate as well, including Digg, Chartbeat, bit.ly, and Dots. Now it’s going to take capital from people in its Openbeta community of beta testers. I’ve copied the email asking for investment below as I think it’s a fascinating early example of something that might become quite common. You can also read more about their strategy on their blog. One of the questions it’s hoping to answer with the test is “Could users be more helpful to early-stage companies than venture investors are?” Really, that’s the question General Solicitation as a whole poises. What I’ve gathered, a sentiment mirrored by , is that the best VCs aren’t in danger of being displaced. Nothing beats the deep experience, mentorship, connections, and clout a top-tier firm or angel can bring. But the bottom-of-the-barrel venture capitalists could find it much harder to find deals. If one person or a firm can’t provide value beyond their money, why not take that money from an army of crowdsourced investors? It will take a few years for the impact of general solicitation to play out for startups, but with the popularity of general solicitation and AngelList Syndicates fresh out the gate, it’s clear that fundraising is entering a whole new era. Hey Openbeta – Earlier this year we kicked off to create a more open line of communication between betaworks and our community. In a very short period of time, it has become a place where thousands of people can try the early products we build and invest in, join us for events at the betaworks studio — and today, for the first time, invest alongside us in the companies we fall in love with. We believe we’re better at what we do — building and operating companies — because of our open ecosystem, so we’ve decided to take it a step further. Starting today, we’re proud to announce that we’ll start syndicating seed investments for our Openbeta users and community. While this announcement comes on an important day for crowdfunding (with the lifting of the ban on general solicitation), it’s something we’ve been thinking about for a long time. We think that in the next few months, as the crowdfunding regulations are fully implemented, this new funding environment will be hugely positive for startups and how they approach raising capital. Unfortunately, because the laws are still unclear, we can’t yet discuss the specific investment we’re syndicating, but we’re excited to be doing this and to partner with AngelList to do it. To invest in our syndicates, you must: Be an Member (you’re already done!) Be an accredited AngelList investor. Ultimately, we’d like to include a broader group, but existing regulations limit startup investing to accredited investors. We hope that as crowdfunding regulations progress, we will be able to include the entire Openbeta community, both accredited and non-accredited investors alike. Stay tuned :-) These new regulations combined with our announcement today marks a significant change for the technology industry, particularly for startups and venture capital. We’re happy being smack in the middle of it and we’re thrilled that you’ve chosen to join us in this journey. You can read more about our thought process in the full blog post , and if you have any additional questions you can reach out to me directly at [redacted] – |
Apple Froze App Store Rankings On Friday, And Odd Behavior Continues | Sarah Perez | 2,013 | 9 | 23 | In the last three years, the only times Apple has ever frozen its App Store rankings has been over the holidays. So it’s interesting to note that the company actually froze rankings for a total of eight hours on Friday, and things still aren’t quite back to normal in terms of the store’s usual behavior and ranking results. The change to the App Store could possibly indicate either an intentional freeze on Apple’s part or even bandwidth concerns or other bugs and glitches. The iOS App Store didn’t change between 10 a.m. and around 6 p.m. EST on Friday, essentially missing the expected update intervals at 12 and 3 p.m. EST. Meanwhile, the 5:50 p.m. ET change was minor, making it difficult to determine at the time whether it was the resumption of normal activity or just a temporary blip. Though the store has now seen activity resume over the weekend and into Monday, the changes in app rankings now being observed are still unexpected, with historically highly ranked apps dropping 10 spots instead of one, while other previously ranked top 20 apps are unable to achieve ranks higher than 40, in other cases. The changes, of course, come at a time when Apple has just released new devices with the iPhone 5s and 5c, whose launches also coincided with an update to Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS 7. With smartphone sales topping analyst expectations at through the launch weekend, it has not been smooth sailing for Apple with the debut of its new hardware and software. For example, Apple’s servers , as users rushed to set up their new iPhones and . We’ve also heard reports of Apple engineers being called in over the weekend, forced to work non-stop for over 24 hours as issues arose. But in addition to bandwidth concerns, there’s the possibility that Apple chose to freeze the App Store rankings out of caution to keep rankings from fluctuating during the big rush. Mobile app marketing startup , which sent out an advisory message to clients after spotting the freeze and provided us with more details on these changes, speculates that Apple could have also been heading off an anticipated app marketing rush, similar to what happens around the holiday season. The speculation is that the company could have frozen rankings in order to prevent manipulation – or even the appearance of manipulation – of the App Store charts. Alternately, it could have also been related to a push of new App Store algorithm testing or the finalization of other changes to its algorithms, which we reported on . The company then began to update app positions every three hours on the consumer-facing App Store, in efforts to prevent publishers from using automated means to game the charts, as the slowdown would give Apple time to identify and correct for short download bursts. Still, Fiksu notes that even though overloaded servers have been common in previous Apple launch events, the high demand has not before affected app rankings in such a way. But the firm says that it’s just too early to tell if the changes are a temporary, volume-based incident or are the first steps involving a more systematic change on Apple’s part. We’re keeping an eye on the situation with the App Store, and will update if we hear more, or if things ever go back to normal – or whatever the “new” normal of the iOS 7 App Store may be. : 9/27/13 mid-day: Fiksu reports today they believe this to be a glitch caused by the large volume of devices hitting Apple servers, which led Apple to turn off processes that were not mission critical, including app store updating processes. When they then turned these processes back on again, the glitch was introduced, causing the blips Fiksu saw after the freeze. This seems to have now corrected itself. |
Gmail’s Ongoing Email Slowdown Nearing Resolution | Sarah Perez | 2,013 | 9 | 23 | Good news! Today you can blame your non-responsiveness to all those important emails you’ve been ignoring on Google itself. The company’s online email service Gmail has been experiencing issues leading to delayed emails and attachments failing to download, the company confirmed. Earlier this morning, Google said an estimated 0.24 percent of its Gmail user base was affected by these problems, but in an update released later this afternoon, the delays were said to being affecting “less than 50 percent of Gmail users.” Given the wording of that announcement, it sounded like, at first, things were getting worse instead of better. Gmail has some 425 million users, to a public announcement detailing the size of its user base, which was revealed last summer at its Google I/O developer conference. Google has been regular updates regarding the situation throughout the day, the first appearing at 10:25 a.m. ET and noting that it was then starting to investigate reports of an issue with Gmail. This was followed by an update over an hour later that informed customers that delays were involved and some attachments were failing to load. Updates released at 12:43 p.m., 1:45 p.m., 2:05 p.m., and 2:45 p.m. ET so far only said that the team is continuing to investigate the problem and will update when there’s more information available. At 3:00 p.m. ET, the company added that the service has been restored for some users, and it expects full resolution within an hour, but this time frame may change. Google did not say which percentage of the “less than 50 percent” of users has had service restored. We reached out to Google via email for comment on what may have caused this issue, and other details, but you know… |
SEC Allows General Solicitation, Effective Today: What Changed And What To Watch Out For | Ansel Halliburton | 2,013 | 9 | 23 | Today, the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission’s final rules allowing general solicitation went into effect. In the fundraising context, general solicitation means publicly advertising the fact that you’re raising money. Previously, this was a big no-no. The most important securities regulations for startups is Regulation D, or Reg D. In a nutshell, Reg D provides exemptions from the general rule that all securities have to be registered with the SEC. Registration is a complex and expensive process that would in itself sink many small companies, so Reg D is a big deal. Blowing Reg D exemptions keeps securities lawyers up at night. The most useful of the exemptions Reg D provides is Rule 506, which doesn’t have a dollar-amount cap. However, Rule 506 has two catches. First, companies can only raise funds from an unlimited number of accredited investors plus up to 35 non-accredited investors. For individuals, an is someone with a net worth over a million dollars, or who makes $200K per year (or $300K with a spouse). The second catch was that companies couldn’t advertise the fact that they were raising money. The practical effect of these two catches was that (1) startups could only raise money from rich people, and (2) networks of investors were really important. As of today, the ban on advertising the fact that you’re fundraising goes away, but this, too, comes with a few catches. Under the new rules, if you advertise your offering, you have a heightened duty to make sure you only take money from accredited investors. Companies already had to be careful about this under the old rules, but the new rules are more stringent and the SEC’s staff has promised more vigilance. Does this mean attendees will have to bring their tax returns to get in to demo days? Hopefully not, but we’ll see. At a recent public meeting, the SEC staff didn’t have great answers. As AngelList CEO and COO Naval Ravikant and Kevin Laws , the SEC’s new rules use lawyers’ favorite weasel word: “reasonable.” Specifically, companies raising money have to take “reasonable steps” to make sure they don’t take money from unaccredited investors. A new part of gives a few specific examples of what the SEC would consider reasonable, including looking at the potential investor’s tax filings or getting a verification letter from the investor’s lawyer, accountant, or SEC-registered broker-dealer or investment adviser. There has been a lot of over these verification requirements. Yes, this will impose some costs on the process, but it’s not the end of the world. AngelList is taking an interesting step and turning this into opportunity by providing verification services. The SEC describes its approach to verification as “principles-based,” so these are not the only possible reasonable verification steps. Other angel investor groups could get into verification, as well, to help their members. General solicitation is optional. If you’ve raised money under the old rules and are comfortable with them, you can stick to what you know and play it safe. If you do, the heightened verification rules don’t apply. I expect many entrepreneurs will play it safe and sit out general solicitation, at least for now, and let someone else take the first SEC enforcement bullet. |
Google Will Start Blocking Most Netscape Plug-In API Plug-Ins In January 2014, Will Whitelist Silverlight, Unity & Others | Frederic Lardinois | 2,013 | 9 | 23 | The name “ ” (NPAPI) sounds like a relic from another age of browsers, but Chrome, Mozilla and other browsers still support this architecture for writing browser plug-ins today. But its time is quickly coming to an end. Mozilla will block NPAPI plugins and Google today that Chrome will start blocking webpage-instantiated NPAPI plugins by default in January 2014. The Chrome team plans to completely drop NPAPI support from the browser by the end of 2014. Starting today, Google also won’t accept any new apps or extensions that contain NPAPI-based plug-ins in its Web Store. As Google notes, NPAPI-based plugins were the first to bring video and audio support to browsers. Today’s web, the company argues, doesn’t need this 90s architecture. NPAPI, Google says, “has become a leading cause of hangs, crashes, security incidents, and code complexity.” Moving forward, Google security engineer Justin Schuh writes in today’s announcement, the company’s “goal is to evolve the standards-based web platform to cover the use cases once served by NPAPI.” Google argues that most users won’t notice this change. Currently, only six NPAPI plug-ins are being used by more than 5 percent of Chrome users. These are Microsoft’s Silverlight, Unity, Google Earth, Java, Google Talk and Facebook Video (though Java has already been blocked by the Chrome team for security reasons). These plug-ins will be put on a temporary whitelist and end users and enterprise admins will also be able to whitelist other plug-ins as needed. Developers who currently have apps or extensions that use NPAPI can still update them until May 2014. After that, they will be removed from the Web Store home page and search results and in September 2014, they’ll be unpublished. For developers who need an alternative to NPAPI, Google recommends switching to , , and . |
Flipboard’s Mike McCue Confirms $50M Raise, Says Windows 8 App, More International Versions Coming By End Of Year | Ingrid Lunden | 2,013 | 9 | 23 | , the mobile-first “social” magazine that lets people tag, assemble and then share collections of stories from around the web, has now raised another $50 million at an $800 million valuation led by Suhail Rizvi, with Goldman Sachs close behind and existing investors like Insight Venture Partners, Index Ventures and Kleiner Perkins also participating (KPCP has confirmed its investment directly with us as well). The news was first reported earlier today by , and it has now been confirmed to us by Mike McCue, CEO and co-founder of the company, who also gave us some insight into how the company is doing today — “an awesome day,” as he put it — and what it plans to do tomorrow. But first a little backstory. Prior to today’s news, we had heard that Flipboard was actually raising money at an eye-popping $1 billion valuation. Fast foward to today and $800 million is some degree less than that. McCue says that the $1 billion figure being bandied about was no more than a careless whisper. “There were a lot of rumors about us raising money in the last year,” he says. “They weren’t accurate. We just decided several months ago to put together financing at $800 million.” He notes that one of its earliest investors, Code Advisors, played an important role in pulling the deal together. McCue calls $50 million “a solid number for us” that it will use in a few key areas: more international expansion, finalizing a Windows 8 app, and monetization by way of hiring out more sales people and turning on some new features. “$50 million is exactly the right number for us” to do all that, he says, with the Windows 8 app and more international moves coming by the end of this year. Flipboard, he says, is on a roll these days. Since launching its , which gave individuals, publications and brands the ability to create their own shareable magazines, the company’s growth pattern has changed. McCue says that Flipboard today is adding at least 200,000 new users per day, “sometimes 250,000 or 300,000.” In total there are now some 3.5 million magazines on Flipboard, everything from magazines on travelling in Barcelona (made by an enthusiast) to magazines on what the future will look like (created by Cisco). McCue says that “hundreds of thousands of readers are getting millions of pageflips” in the new format. All of that, he says, has given the company a lot of momentum and is what made them feel “it was time to do another round of funding” to tap into that growth. And that growth is happening outside the U.S. Flipboard is already localized in a number of markets, such as China, where it launched a native language app as far back as . Now it will be taking that up another gear. “That is what we want to do more of, not just in terms of local languages but also local curation,” McCue tells me. First stop will be India, where “we are just starting out now and have a lot of work. Then we will continue to invest in Asia, specifically China and Japan,” he says. In Europe, “the UK is very high on the list,” and I don’t think he said that just because he was talking to me (I live in London), but because it is also such a natural extension for Flipboard’s U.S. content and it taps into a population that is extremely mobile-friendly. Flipboard already has content partnerships with the BBC, the Telegraph, the Guardian and Wired UK “who are all doing exceptionally well on Flipboard. That is a good start.” The Windows 8 launch, meanwhile, has been , but it looks like it is finally becoming a reality. Why so long between announcing and releasing? “We wanted to make sure that the app for Windows 8 looked awesome, and it does look amazing now, but we need to make sure that we can polish it and make it even better.” Seems like with the Surface line now getting a major refresh the time to strike the iron is now. Although Flipboard now has a sizeable number of users reading the web versions of the content being created on the platform, McCue says that mobile is still “by far the primary component” in terms of traffic. So a lot of its monetization efforts to date are focused on mobile. McCue declined to give me a revenue figure but noted that monetization has been “very good” so far. “We have some of the world’s best brands advertising on Flipboard, such as Gucci and Louis Vuitton,” he boasts. The trick that Flipboard has pulled off is that they’re encouraging a lot of engagement — the magic word today — between readers and those that are advertising on the platform. They’re doing this by way of the basic building blocks of the service. “When you tap on the ad, it will take you to a brand magazine. With version 2.0, these brands are curating magazines,” he says, thereby giving me and you more opportunities to stare at bags that we may never be able to afford to buy, but may do one day anyway. Other brands that have created magazines include Delta advertising its red-eye flights via a sleep-popsci magazine; and Cisco’s Futurist feed. McCue notes that this is now “generating revenue for all of our publisher partners,” and currently Flipboard both sells ads on behalf of publishers, and publishers sometimes sell these themselves. He doesn’t say whether that is profitable, but here is both a disclosure and an example of how this works: TechCrunch is a publishing partner of Flipboard’s, and our magazine does very well on there. AOL sells ads within Flipboard on our behalf, and this generates more revenue than our in-house mobile efforts. “Financing will let us scale out our sales team and drive out more revenue,” he notes. There will soon be more money levers to turn on. Look, for example, at the paywall gates that Flipboard has for the Financial Times and the New York Times. “We’re the only company in the world that enables that for the FT right now,” he notes. “You can become a subscriber directly from Flipboard. Over time you will see us doing more with premium content. You will see us do more there next year.” Into this comes Suhail Rizvi, who McCue says he got to know through Twitter and describes as having a great combination of expertise on both traditional and new media. As you may know, Rizvi also has large investments in Square and Facebook, along with Twitter and now Flipboard, and so I asked McCue if that might serve as a door into further monetizing partnerships with any and all of them. No comment, but a little laugh from McCue on that question, so another area to watch as Flipboard continues to spin ahead. |
null | Andrew Keen | 2,013 | 9 | 24 | null |
Valve Introduces SteamOS, A Linux-Based Platform To Bring Steam To Your Living Room | Romain Dillet | 2,013 | 9 | 23 | Valve just announced the first part of its living room strategy with , a free Linux-based operating system that takes the ‘Big Picture’ feature one step further. In addition to playing your game collection, SteamOS allows you to watch movies and listen to music. The company has yet to announce a hardware partner for SteamOS, but this could certainly be the operating system behind the rumored Steam Box computer. OEMs will be able to use SteamOS to build gaming computers, as Valve states multiple times that it’s an open platform. When it comes to gaming, SteamOS will work particularly well for audio performances and reducing input latency. Yet, only Linux games will work on SteamOS. While many games are now available on Linux, it still has a long way to go compared to Mac OS and especially Windows. That’s why you will be able to run Steam on your Windows or Mac computers in another room and then stream your games to your living room using SteamOS. Latency shouldn’t be an issue, as everything happens on your local network. The feature now makes even more sense as the living room is the perfect place to let your kids play video games. Everyone will be able to have a separate profile and play the same games, just like you would on your Xbox. SteamOS could certainly replace your gaming console, but it could replace your Roku or Apple TV as well for movies, TV and music. Valve didn’t announce a content partner but did say they are “working with many of the media services you know and love.” Services such as Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu Plus and HBO Go should make their way to the platform. While many of these services are only available in a few countries, SteamOS will be available for everyone in the world. We just don’t know when or what devices will run SteamOS. The second announcement is set for Wednesday. The company has yet to announce a release date for SteamOS. And while it isn’t the long-anticipated Steam Box, Valve plans to make other announcements in the coming days. On Steam’s website, users can find a with three icons that represent three different announcements for the living room — SteamOS is only the first one. |
AngelList Beefs Up Syndicates With New Backers Model, Lets Accelerators Raise Funding Too | Kim-Mai Cutler | 2,013 | 9 | 23 | With the loosening of the SEC’s restrictions around general solicitation or public fundraising by startups, is launching a suite of products that could extend its influence (and its revenue model) in the tech ecosystem today. Much has been made of for startups. Regular angels can essentially raise a venture fund on the fly, bring in a group of friends who are accredited investors and provide a startup with an early round of reasonable size. Then the lead angel takes carry from the deal. This is competitive to the role that more traditional venture firms might play in first-round financing. Since the program was launched last month, more than $1.7 million has been raised through syndicates on AngelList (and the number is now higher with a few more deals in the works). Today, AngelList is taking that program a step further with “Backers,” a way that angels can round up financing commitments in their network ahead of investing in companies. It could give angels even more leverage to pledge hundreds of thousands of dollars in seed-stage capital when they take meetings with companies. Here’s a hypothetical example: an angel can step forward and say they typically invest $25,000 (see the slide below). Then the 10 other angels they typically co-invest with can also pledge a similar amount, giving their syndicate more than 10 times the angel’s original financing power. With syndicates, the lead setting up the deal takes a 5 to 15 percent carry of the investment’s returns. Then the group of investors pays a 5 percent carry to AngelList. “This creates a very clean signal,” said AngelList co-founder Naval Ravikant. “You’re putting in money at the same valuation as the lead. They’re only being paid in carry and they have skin in the game.” With syndicates, follow-on investors are basically betting on a lead angel’s judgment in a specific company. But with backers, they’re betting on the lead angel’s overall investment judgment. AngelList will launch a syndicates leaderboard soon that will show how much angels are able to pool together from their network for a startup and how much carry they typically ask for. This could make the seed and Series A market for financing much more competitive and transparent. Ravikant shied away from pointing out any firms or investors that might lose out in this environment, saying, “Anyone whose value-add is not commensurate with what they’re charging or offering is going to find it tougher.” While some of the AngelList syndicates have raised between $200,000 and $600,000 for their companies so far, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine that AngelList could facilitate much larger deals in a few years’ time. AngelList is also putting out a host of other products today ( in funding from 116 investors, including Google Ventures and Atlas Ventures). Accelerators will now be able to raise funding on the platform, provided it goes to all companies in their program so that there’s no problem of adverse selection. AngelPad, for example, has raised more than $1 million on the platform for 12 companies. AngelList has attracted 145 accelerators to its platform. They’re also launching public fundraising on the site today, too, although Ravikant warns startups to be cautious about going down this track. He says that general solicitation is a distinct legal track. It could create more onerous legal requirements for startups, because they have to do more work to make sure their investors are actually accredited. With the , about 1,800 companies on the platform will be able to raise publicly. In total, all of these products today create a host of new revenue streams for the company. AngelList said it will charge a 10 percent carry fee for whatever an investment returns if the deal is done directly online through its platform. With backers and syndicates, they’ll charge a slightly lower 5 percent carry. |
BlackBerry Signs Letter Of Intent To Go Private For $9 Per Share In Deal Valued At $4.7 Billion | Alex Wilhelm | 2,013 | 9 | 23 | Today a $9 per share offer for its outstanding stock, a deal worth around $4.7 billion. The $9 per share price is a slight premium over its current stock price, which traded at $8.23 before it was halted pending the news. BlackBerry had declined more than 5 percent on the day. Fairfax Financial, which offered the $9 per share deal, already owns about 10 percent of the company’s stock. BlackBerry’s board has approved the transaction, and a letter of intent has been signed. This feels like a pretty much done deal. However, the board is open to rival offers provided that they are “alternatives superior to the present proposal from the Fairfax consortium.” Fairfax will pursue funding for the deal from, according to the release, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and BMO Capital. There is a kill fee of $0.30 per share if BlackBerry backs out and accepts a different bid. BlackBerry had about $2.8 billion in cash and equivalents at the end of its most recent quarter. That, paired with whatever value its intellectual property might retain, means that the value of its business operations is vanishingly small. The $9 per-share price for BlackBerry is less than a 10 percent premium on its closing price, calculated on a very, very bad day for the company’s stock. Expect some investors to be less than enthused to see the company exit for so little. It’s hard to not view this as the end of BlackBerry as we have known it. Fairfax, to its credit, is putting a brave face on the matter, stating that the deal will “open an exciting new private chapter for BlackBerry, its customers, carriers and employees.” So, it claims to not have plans to break the company into small pieces and vend it off in chunks. Even more, Fairfax intends to “continue the execution of a long-term strategy in a private company with a focus on delivering superior and secure enterprise solutions to BlackBerry customers.” If that is true, and Fairfax has a real plan to turn the company around, and perhaps transmorgify it back into a firm that pushes technology forward instead of reacting to its change in a ham-fisted fashion, more power to it. BlackBerry appears set to join Dell in the hopefully healing purgatory of life as a formerly public and now private firm. |
Backed By First Round’s Dorm Room Fund, Addy Is A Location-Sharing Service That Goes Beyond Addresses | Anthony Ha | 2,013 | 9 | 23 | Khaled Naim, CEO of startup , is hoping to create a new way for people to share their location. What’s wrong with plain old addresses? Well, they usually get the job done, at least if you live in an urban or suburban area in the United States. But even then, I’m guessing that you’ve had moments where they don’t quite work — say, when you’ve had to explain to someone, “Okay, the address is on Street X, but you actually need to park on Street Y, and the entrance is on Street Z.” Or maybe you’re having a barbecue on the beach and have to tell everyone that they’ll have to find you between Entrance A and Entrance B. Naim said he grew up in Dubai, and that those kinds of landmark-based directions are “how people communicate locations there” — not just in Dubai but also in developing countries in the Middle East and elsewhere. And it’s even a challenge at Stanford (where Naim is a graduate of the business school), since many buildings are located on roads that aren’t accessible to cars. To address (sorry, I couldn’t help myself), this problem, Addy makes it easy for businesses and individuals to share their location with a simple URL. Each URL includes a pin on a map, as well as room for additional directions/instructions, plus options for sharing. You can already drop and share pins in Google and iOS Maps, Naim acknowledged, but it requires a “roundabout” process, and he argued that, unlike Addy, those maps aren’t really designed for those kinds of directions. Plus, Naim hopes that by turning Addy into the place everyone goes when they want to share their location, he can take advantage of “a really strong network effect.” Here are some examples that Naim sent: ; another for ; and . The company is pursuing a two-pronged approach to growth. It’s promoting its tools as a way for businesses, particularly those in emerging markets, to share their location with customers. And today it’s launching a version for consumers to share their locations with friends (Naim said most of the beta testers of the consumer product are actually in the United States). Addy participated in StartX (an incubator for the Stanford community) and has raised $300,000 in funding from First Round Capital’s Dorm Room Fund and various angel investors. |
Famo.us Finally Rolls Into (Very) Private Beta, Hires A Founder Of Facebook’s Dev Platform As VP Of Engineering | Greg Kumparak | 2,013 | 9 | 15 | Back at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2012, announced a Javascript framework for building super complex yet still super-smooth HTML5 apps. They promised to let developers build rich, 3D, Iron-Man-esque interfaces running in the browser at 40 frames per second, no plug-ins required. Almost exactly a year later, Famo.us is finally ready to let in a few of the 57,000 developers that signed up for beta access. Emphasis on “few”. In the coming weeks, the company says they’ll be selecting around 40 developers (less than a tenth of one percent of their overall signups) from their beta pool to take up residence in their San Francisco office, helping Famo.us to stress test their framework before its wider release. Those 40 developers will get full, unobfuscated access to Famo.us’ source code, technical support from the folks who built the framework itself, and a bit of office space to boot. As we’ve , Famo.us pulls off quite a bit of platform-by-platform trickery to allow web apps to utilize a device’s GPU (graphical processing unit) in a way that web apps generally can’t. During our chat, Famo.us showed me examples of their framework being used in a way I’d never seen it used for before: super complex web apps running at buttery speeds. Before today, nearly everything I’d seen come out of Famo.us were crazy, theoretical, 3D interfaces — like the oh-so-Minority-Report periodic table demo that sits on their homepage. Remember Yahoo’s super-gorgeous new Weather app? For one of their internal demos, Famo.us built a pixel-for-pixel replica of that app… in HTML5. They’d managed to mimic everything from the popout menus, to the parallax scrolling, to the beautiful background blurring effects, and it all ran so smoothly that I would’ve guessed it wasn’t running natively on the device. Unfortunately, they denied my (dozen or so) requests to get it on video, worried that Yahoo’s legal team might bring down the hammer. I hope they eventually get to release it, if only so I can properly tear apart the source. The lil’ mockup over to the right was the most I could get out of them. Famo.us also mentioned that they now plan to completely open source their framework. They’d previously said they were “hopeful” that they could open it up, but weren’t ready to commit to opening up everything. Founder Steve Newcomb now says that they expect to be able to release the full, unobfuscated source for both the framework itself and all of the pre-built “widgets” they provide (think infinite scroll views, menu styles, or pull-to-refresh functionality) for use in Famo.us apps. While the company has been fairly quiet over the past few months, it doesn’t seem they’ve been resting on their laurels. In , they announced that they’d integrated a full physics engine into the framework, allowing elements of a user interface to simulate things like mass, gravity, and drag. At the same time, they promised that the framework would be completely free to developers upon release, thanks to a few “huge hardware vendors” taking interest. Speaking of huge hardware vendors, the company confirmed to me something that I’d previously heard but had been unable to positively verify: when the company raised a Series A of $4M lead by Javelin Venture Partners. They declined to say just how much Samsung threw into the mix, but did say that the company was a “minority investor”. Also of note: Famo.us recently hired Dave Fetterman, one of Facebook’s early engineers and one of the founding engineers on Facebook’s development platform, as their own VP of Engineering. Fetterman left Facebook at the end of last year, shortly after the company decided to shift their focus away from HTML5 and towards native apps. After 4 months as an advisor to the company, Famo.us convinced him to hop on board full time. Steve Newcomb also mentioned on more than one occasion that he sees the company becoming the “Unity3D for Apps” (as opposed to games) moving forward. When I pressed for more information on that analogy, he mentioned that they’re working on a Unity-esque development environment for Famo.us apps, but didn’t seem to have more details to share right now. So, how will Famo.us make money? Their plan is two fold: on one side, they’ll build (and help build) interfaces for some of the aforementioned “huge hardware vendors”. On the other, they’ll provide enterprise add-on services that are directly compatible with the features of their framework. If a big company uses one of Famo.us’ pre-built infinite scroll-views, for example, Famo.us might upsell them on a drop-in solution for monitoring and A/B testing. [ ] [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzBC20B5dsk?feature=player_embedded] |
Google’s Bet On Native Client Brings Chrome And Google+ Photos Closer Together | Frederic Lardinois | 2,013 | 9 | 15 | Google is betting big on photos on Google+. Indeed, most of the innovation on the company’s social network so far has been around photos, including the . Last week, Google stepped up its efforts and a set of new photo-editing tools, including the ability to fine-tune Google+’s Auto Enhance feature, apply new filters and selectively adjust parts of an image. Just like the rest of the Google+ photo tools, these new features are a step ahead of the competition, but there’s also an issue: they only work in Chrome (and in the native iOS and Android Google+ apps). The reason for that is simple: the new tools use Google’s own technology that no other browser vendor has adopted. The tools themselves are based on the technology the company from Nik Software, the makers of the popular photo-manipulation app Snapseed. Snapseed never existed on the web, so the easiest way to port these features to the web, Google’s engineers must have decided, was to go the Native Client route. As you’ve probably heard a thousand times now, it’s virtually impossible to build great photo apps that can rival the likes of Photoshop in HTML5. That’s where Native Client comes it. This technology allows developers to execute native code in a sandbox in the browser. It can execute C and C++ code at native speeds and with the ability to, for example, render 2D and 3D graphics, run on multiple threads and access your computer’s memory directly. All of that gives it a massive speed bump over more traditional HTML5 apps (Native Client apps basically run at the same speed as they would in a desktop app, after all) and makes tools like the new Google+ photos editing features as fast as they are. Native Client works in Chrome on Windows, Linux, Mac and Chrome OS, but other browser vendors are not supporting it. Mozilla, for example, is trying to get JavaScript to the point where it runs almost as fast as a native app (something they are getting very close to thanks to the project). Microsoft, on the other hand, is betting on hardware acceleration (and ) in IE11 to make web apps run faster in its browser. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Lm4aKZ0NpFM As Google’s own documentation for Native Client , this technology offers an easy migration path to bring existing desktop applications to the web. Until now, it’s mostly been the domain of game developers — who already write most of their code in C or C++ — but now it looks like Google is also getting on this bandwagon itself. We know that the company is working on a port of QuickOffice to the browser, for example, and some of its document preview web apps already use Native Client in Chrome, too. All of this, of course, leaves Firefox, Opera and IE users with just one choice: don’t use Google+ photos (or live with the fact that you can’t edit them) or switch to Chrome (or, as somebody will surely point out in the comments: don’t use Google+ because it’s dead or something). Photos, however, are quickly becoming the focal point of Google+, so keeping a large chunk of web users out just doesn’t feel quite right. We all want a faster web and better web apps. Google’s rationale behind developing Chrome has always been its drive to improve the web. Sadly, with Native Client it is only improving the web for Chrome users. |
Dubb Wants To Expand Your Address Book By Connecting You With Friends Of Friends | Eliza Brooke | 2,013 | 9 | 15 | For anyone who’s had to text a friend for another friend’s phone number — so, all of us — is an app that lets users request contact information from those in their extended friend network, who can in turn choose to accept, deny, or only allow certain addresses and numbers through. Dubb will be available in beta October 1, and founder Neven Zeremski said he aims to raise a seed round of $500k by the end of that month. As is the case for many apps, Dubb rose out of a personal pain, specifically the mass movement away from the Blackberry. “During the rise of BBM a lot of people stopped taking down phone numbers and just took PINs,” Zeremski said. “Those are irrelevant, and everyone has moved onto iPhones and Androids. I’m no longer connected to them.” Hence an app that allows you to see who is in your extended friend network and contact those people without actually having their information. It’s a souped-up address book that also allows users to search their network by company or workplace, making it a less professionally focused competitor to LinkedIn. Like LinkedIn, Dubb will follow a freemium model in which users can pay $4.99 a month to view a second level of potential contacts, their friends’ friends’ friends. Those who are especially concerned about their own privacy (but want access to others through the app) can opt to remain invisible in the network for the same price. Zeremski said that in addition to online marketing, he is hoping to build Dubb’s user base through ground awareness, especially on college campuses where freshmen feverishly swap digits every fall. Later versions of the app will include searchable contact tagging. For another writer on this site, one might tag “TechCrunch; Writer; Blog; Tech; Mobile.” The goal for version 3.0 is to enable in-app messaging, which would position it as a competitor to Viber or WhatsApp. Dubb could certainly be useful and would encourage users to expand their friend group just by virtue of having access to each other’s contact information. On numerous occasions I’ve wanted to text someone about something funny and not done so because I couldn’t be bothered to get her number. But like any networking app, Dubb is only as good as its universality, so we’ll be looking to see how the app fares in beta and beyond. |
How Bluetooth LE And Crowdfunding Are Accelerating The Connected Hardware Boom | Natasha Lomas | 2,013 | 9 | 15 | It’s one trend that’s been hard to miss, being mostly clipped and/or strapped in plain sight. To spell it out, hardware startups — and the devices they’re making — are having a moment, thanks in major part to crowdfunding websites providing the funding bridge between a promising prototype and the cost of manufacturing a shipping product. Fuelled by crowdfunding, hardware startups are hard at work extending the capabilities of mobile devices – the phones and tablets that have otherwise become boringly alike – and building out the long anticipated Internet of Things in the process. In case you haven’t noticed, this network of connected objects is beginning to materialise around us, piece by Bluetooth-connected piece. Startup accelerators are also increasingly getting in on the connected hardware action, with a number of dedicated hardware hothouses cropping up, such as recent entrant in the Netherlands (in the midst of accepting applications for its first cohort). High-profile accelerators such as have also been taking more of an interest in the hard stuff – with the likes of coming out of their program in recent years. Blogging about the rise of hardware YC’s Paul Graham suggested a confluence of factors are combining to make it easier to kick-start a hardware business: There is no one single force driving this trend. Hardware on crowdfunding sites. The spread of makes it possible to build new things and even them. have improved. Wireless connectivity of various types can now be taken for granted. It’s getting more straightforward to get things manufactured. Arduinos, 3D printing, laser cutters, and more accessible CNC milling are making hardware easier to prototype. Retailers are less of a bottleneck as customers increasingly buy online. One question I can answer is why hardware is suddenly cool. It always was cool. Physical things are great. They just haven’t been as great a way to start a business as software. But that rule may not be permanent. It’s not even that old; it only dates from about 1990. Maybe the advantage of software will turn out to have been temporary. Hackers love to build hardware, and customers love to buy it. So if the ease of shipping hardware even approached the ease of shipping software, we’d see a lot more hardware startups. I would add that hardware can be much easier to conceptualise than software. Add in the tangibility of actually getting a physical thing in your hand in exchange for your hard-earned and convincing buyers to part with money isn’t such a hard sell as software can be (being still somewhat dogged by the notion that bits & bytes should be free). The latest Silicon Valley accelerator to be bitten by the hardware bug is . One out of every three to four of its intake over the next 12 to 18 months will be a hardware startup, Tandem’s Doug Renert tells TechCrunch – injecting an additional strand of physicality to its ‘muscle capital’ approach. The latter involves six to 12 months of in-house mentoring before graduates head off to raise outside capital — and hopefully keep on growing. “Our plan is, at least for the next year, we’ll basically do one out of three to four companies in the hardware space now. That are tackling what we feel is disruptive – or have a disruptive business in a very large market,” he says. Tandem’s new dedicated hardware arm will sit alongside its software program, although it is bringing in some additional expertise to staff out the hardware side. “We’ve brought in folks who can help on everything from the marketing, from the video to the [crowdfunding] campaign. All the way to the product design and the development, when it comes to the embedded software and the [connected] devices and so forth,” says Renert. “Six months ago we didn’t really have the capabilities.” Tandem typically invests $200,000 apiece in six mobile startups at a time — and will soon be ramping up to six companies per quarter. Previously that effectively boiled down to app makers – graduates of past programs include , , and — but up to a third of each intake going forward will be making some kind of device, in addition to building an app. Why is hardware hot right now? The hype around wearables and the quantified self/health tracking movement is certainly encouraging more device makers to get busy. But on an underlying technology level, it’s the next-gen low-power flavour of Bluetooth – (or BLE) – that gets the credit as the enabler of this connected device boom. BLE is allowing a new wave of physically minded startups to build devices that can fly for long enough to become disruptors. Older generations of Bluetooth were just too thirsty on the battery for that. BLE is a very different beast – one that allows makers to build interesting devices that can keep communicating for up to a year on a single charge (in some cases). And that’s a game changer. Add in ubiquitous smartphone ownership and it’s a perfect storm. Tandem got interested in hardware after noticing what was happening around this new flavour of Bluetooth and getting excited about its potential, according to Renert. “The Bluetooth LE communication protocol that allows these devices to be built for the first time, opens up all sorts of opportunities that weren’t there before,” he says. Renert doesn’t limit the category to wearable devices; recognising that’s just a small portion of the stuff that falls under the IoT umbrella – whether it’s and or and . “A lot of the market has been referring to wearables as a hot trend but we view that as too narrow honestly. Because with these tiny devices that you don’t have to charge you can really attach it to anything you own,” he says. “Whether it’s a consumer product or something in the enterprise for that matter which should be connected to the Internet, and communicate with the web and open up all sorts of other possibilities.” Tandem’s first ‘experimental’ hardware startup was — which is making a Bluetooth tag to help consumers keep track of their valuables. Tandem worked with Tile to prepare its crowdfunding campaign – which then went on to raise via – in addition to the $200,000 injected by the accelerator. “It was an amazing success – they raised over $2.6 million from 50,000 early customers, and have continued pre-selling the product since that day and have actually reached much higher numbers since then,” says Renert. (Tile has in fact doubled its backers to more than 100,000 people placing pre-orders since the campaign closed on July 24.) Despite all the hype and heat around hardware right now, Renert reckons there are still plenty of investors who haven’t yet got comfortable with backing hardware. Indeed, Tandem was tentative at first — hence it viewed Tile as an experimental foray into a strange new world. “We haven’t seen too much dedication to the space. People are still trying to figure it out, and get comfortable with it. And even we were doing that if you rewind six months ago. We weren’t sure about it; we started slowly with some experiments…. But we felt it could be mapped to disruption and fortunately the Tile experiment proved out,” says Renert, adding: “Now we’re stepping on the gas.” The approach Tandem used with Tile will be the same one it applies to all its hardware startups going forward. The accelerator model combines its initial standard funding injection of $200,000 (plus the six to 12 months of in-house mentoring) with a crowdfunding campaign aimed at raising enough capital to carry device manufacturing costs. It’s calling this crowdfund-leveraging model ‘lean hardware’. “There’s a lot of difference in terms of how you execute on [hardware vs software]… but not a lot of difference in terms of how much money or time you need in order to prove product market fit, which is a huge, huge development,” he says. “It used to be that a hardware startup was much more expensive to startup and launch but with Tile… we did our typical $200,000 in the company and brought them in for six months and they were able to accomplish everything they have so far only on that initial investment. “Now they’ll probably soon raise more but it wasn’t necessary to have more capital or time to get to playing for that.” So, in other words: the crowdfunding opportunity has effectively dissolved that hardware vs software startup difference as far as this accelerator is concerned – at least for now. Notably Tile used the open source Selfstarter option for its crowdfunding campaign – rather than opting for the two main crowdfunding platforms: Kickstarter and Indiegogo. “We haven’t had to rely on just one of the existing crowdfunding communities and platforms and be completely dependent on them,” notes Renert. “Tile was able to manage its campaign on its own. Remain completely independent, leverage Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to get the word out and that turned out to be very effective. So that’s another key tool we’re building at Tandem — the know-how to build and run those campaigns.” Although Tandem is betting on hardware right now, it’s not convinced the current conducive winds helping to accelerate hardware startups are going to be sustained forever — or even for all that long. Renert is under no illusions that crowdfunding fatigue will set in at some point, for instance. And also recognises that Tandem’s lean hardware formula will require tweaking to keep it fresh. “The market will continue to evolve quickly there, so we’ll have to be cognizant that what works today won’t work potentially a month or two from now so you’re always going to have to be adjusting to stay ahead of the curve. It’s not something that we can learn quickly and not be able to get better at,” he says. “I don’t think this is going to be a five-year trend – I don’t think there’s going to be a window for five years. There’s going to be a huge wave of this for the next 12 to 18 months and at some point there’s going to be saturation – the consumer is going to get a little fatigued about all this stuff getting promoted to them. So we want to really strike now – and we think this next 12 to 18 months is the time to build those next brands in this category.” As more and more startups crowd in to the hardware space, and crowdfunding loses its sheen – after enough consumers get burnt with bad product, shipping delays and failed and/or scam campaigns – the end result will be that hardware gets harder to startup again. Or at least that hardware startups have to try a lot harder to win consumers’ trust, says Renert. “You’ll have to show the credibility of your team and the viability of delivering your product and I think the bar will get higher and higher to do that before consumers will invest in you,” he says. “There still will be room for a product that excites consumers, and that they’re willing to bet on, but their bar’s going to be higher – and building the confidence that that team can deliver on it [will be essential].” In the near term, Tandem has two more hardware startups in its immediate pipeline, following in Tile’s footsteps – one targeting entertainment, and another in the personal safety space. The aim is to launch crowdfunding campaigns for each this fall, before Thanksgiving. “We’ve now turned out attention to a couple of other lean hardware startups who are entering the program and we’re building out a lean hardware arm within Tandem to support these businesses,” he says. It took Tandem “a little over three months” to work with Tile to launch their crowdfunding campaign, honing the story and creating the video to tell it, as well as getting the prototype to a position where they were comfortable they could build it, according to Renert. “That was probably about three and half months out of 10 of the program,” he says. So, while there’s no getting away from the fact that it takes (on average) longer to ship a hardware product than a piece of software, the ability to both “prove product market fit” — via a crowdfunding campaign — and buy time to build the product by booking pre-orders, means the difference between starting a hardware vs a software business is not as great as once it was. “From day one to actual shipping of the product, yes it takes longer, but from day one to proving the product’s market fit does not have to take any longer which is the beauty of the model now,” Renert adds. “To get to the point where you’ve designed it and promoted it and if you have market demand you can take another six months to actually build and ship the produce. And that’s what Tile did. They shared that they wouldn’t have their product until the first quarter of 2014 so that the backers – the customers who came in – were excited about the product, pre-ordered one but gave the team time to deliver on their commitment.” How long this window of opportunity for hardware will stay open remains to be seen. But right now, it’s never been easier to build that connected thing you’ve always dreamt about making. |
What Games Are: The Marketing Squeeze | Tadhg Kelly | 2,013 | 9 | 15 | The official number that most people cite is $1.80. That’s the average cost to acquire a user in the mobile space, in July. Rumor increasingly has it that the real cost is higher depending on who and where you’re targeting. That may mean $3, maybe even $4, per user in raw advertising spend just to get their install. And who knows whether they are quality users or not. At those prices the free-to-play model starts to look shaky. It means, for instance, that the player who buys a small pack of coins at $2 (which is the level at which a lot of players only ever transact) is no longer break-even. Not even close when you factor in a platform’s 30 percent cut. While the free-to-play model has often looked to the more serious purchaser to drive profits (the much-sought “ “), the idea that most initial sales are made at a steep loss in the hope of up-selling customers is pretty scary when 97 percent of players already never pay a dime. Unlike the sales and star-driven world of movies, television is very meat-and-potatoes. It’s all about numbers-and-traffic for most TV studios, a minefield where pilots come and go, most series live or die with each season, and the instinct of free channels is often to cut and run. There is huge pressure to make mainstream hits that everyone will understand (even though they often don’t work) and massive resistance to anything that looks risky. In games it’s similar. While the console and PC high-end often seems a lot like movie-land, social/mobile is like TV. You want high retention, high engagement, high lifetime value, high virality and high revenue per daily active user. Set against this you want low user acquisition and development costs. You want content tailored to solve that problem, meaning mainstream and fast-following. That’s why everyone wants endless runners one season, and when they’re perceived as dead, everyone wants the next wave. Ideally what any developer in that mindset wants is to stumble into the next wave idea as cheaply as possible before anyone else, and then be able to exploit it as fast as possible. It’s all about working very hard to ensure that good numbers stay up and bad numbers stay down on a day-by-day cycle. Keep the inputs low and the outputs high and you’re on the gravy train. This isn’t the business approach that leads to a or a , but to a , a or any one of a number of Bingo games. It tends to attract most investor interest because it’s perceived to potentially be predictable. However it’s never that simple. In a sense it’s self-defeating because of basic crowded-market effects. Sure, there’s a cool point where it’s all stories like “ ” or “ ” but they dry up. In reality some studios get good at figuring out how to leverage one success into another, where others do not. Leader start to emerge and create a downward pressure. It’s as simple as this: Successful studios either gain a huge amount of quality marketing that makes their game the thing-to-have, or they blast available channels with robo-marketing to the point that their game appears to be the only choice for most users. Occasionally they even do both. Like the TV industry, getting good at stealing the attention of the market in one way or another and then leveraging it is key. You build franchises, networks of players, use one success to fuel another and so it goes. Unfortunately this process also sucks oxygen out of the market. The skyrocketing cost of user acquisition, for example is largely driven by big competitors trying to maintain chart positions. They are sufficiently financed to drop $100,000 in a day on a campaign and have a big enough audience that the loss-leading $2 users convert into enough whales to justify the expense. They also gain organic growth as a net effect, further ensuring their success. In the more press-happy end of things the model is not dissimilar but the means are. Rather than naked user acquisition the model tends to become about turning on influencers and telling them a that they want to relay. The world of previews and promos, interviews and causes often features a comparatively small number of celebrities actively engaged in spreading gospels. It can be hard to get noticed against this wall of folks who already made it. (It must be said that this effect doesn’t really apply in the mobile/social space yet, as there is just generally around those markets.) The sense of a squeeze between the monied and the celebrated tends to become more apparent when a new platform runs out of low-hanging fruit. For example in the touch gaming space there’s been a noticeable decline in startling innovations this year. There’s a sense that touch is somewhat full and the core drawing, tilting and tapping verbs are heavily explored (this is the main reason why I think Apple needs to make iJoypads). Conversely the squeeze tends to recede when new platforms come to town, when platform amnesia is in the air and existing powers haven’t had the time to establish themselves anew. One of the great aspects of Sony’s push in PlayStation 4, for example, is its drive to get indies onto that system. It won’t last (not to be pessimistic, but historically this tends to be the case) but it is giving some game makers hope. The reward for those who figure all this out and execute well looks a little like . The law states that the value of a network relates not to how many nodes are in it, but rather how many connections. A network of 5 nodes has 10 possible connections, for instance, whereas a network of 500 nodes has 124,750 possible connections. It’s an exponential thingy. A player population is effectively a network with many connections, sometimes looser, others tighter. Its real value is in these connections and whether they lead to strong tribes or flash-in-the pan novelty conversations that fade. As you might expect, building stronger connections tends to be a longer-term and more significant investment like EVE Online. Whereas others look a lot like Draw Something or Dots, or as permanent marketing overload such as all those faceless Bingo clones. Whether mechanical (as in some social games) or cultural (as in gamers), it’s that network that ultimately translates into revenue. To the outsider success in games looks like magic. To the insider it looks like engineering. Both are half-wrong. It’s never as simple as dreams and talent, but also never as repeatable as features and functions. Talent matters, but so does timing. Data matters, but so does creativity. Resources matter, but so does the platform life cycle. So do the variety of marketing conditions. That runaway success? Those top-25 developers earning 50% of all App Store revenue? That top 10 on Facebook that doesn’t really move? Mostly they’re examples of studios that managed to sail on a rising tide before everyone else. Whereas the people trying to do it now are in red-ocean territory, churning a lot and watching costs and a lack of press interest drain their investment away. However the biggest mistake is to conclude that the gaming sector is screwed. If you’d asked anyone what the picture on Facebook would be today given where it was 2 years ago, nobody (myself included) would have said that Zynga would be displaced. It had a 9x advantage over its nearest competitor. Today, however, King is running that table. Likely nobody would dare say at this moment that Supercell or Rovio could be unhorsed given where they are, but again this is not true. Great gaming companies often rise and seem to dominate, but they rarely do so for more than 3 years. Those that do manage to hang on usually do so because they’re offering a vastly deeper experience, a key technology or have built an unusually loyal tribe (Valve or Blizzard, for example). Mostly what tends to happen is that either platforms get disrupted or pivoted, or successful companies tend to start believing their own mythology a little too strongly and forget how they got to where they were. Cracks always emerge. |
Pebble’s Eric Migicovsky Is Uninterested In A Potential Acquisition | Jordan Crook | 2,013 | 9 | 15 | When it comes to competition, has plenty to be concerned about. In an interview onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2013, founder seemed unconcerned about from Apple and Samsung, claiming that Motorola and Sony have offered smartwatch products for quite some time. However, speaking backstage, Migicovsky went a bit more in-depth with the latest products from Samsung and the idea of a forthcoming Apple iWatch, stating that Pebble would be pretty uninterested in the idea of an acquisition by the competition, should it be offered. “In the Samsung Galaxy Gear presentation on stage, Samsung was really heavy on features for the watch but skirted how people actually use it every day,” said Migicovsky. “I use my watch on a daily basis, looking at upcoming weather forecast, with an app for Evernote, and an app on the phone to customize the watch with drag-and-drop functions that auto syncs to the watch.” According to Migicovsky, Pebble is fortunate to have been working on wearable computing for years in the background, constantly iterating, as wearables heat up in general. “We’re in a great position because we get to figure out what works first,” said Migicovsky. That said, Migicovsky didn’t seem interested in the idea of an acquisition. For the record, Migicovsky claims that Pebble has never had an acquisition offer by Samsung or Apple or anyone else for that matter, but hypothetically speaking, it’s not something that piques his interest. “We’re staying laser focused on the task of creating a platform that people can build on top of to communicate with wearables, and we won’t do anything that causes a distraction from that goal.” But that doesn’t mean that there’s no new hardware in the pipeline. For now, Pebble is working on building the ecosystem around the product, like the companies building special bands or the developers building apps. Eventually, though, Migicovsky hinted that Pebble is looking at the other materials people wear on their wrists, perhaps hinting at a luxury model down the road. After all, the Pebble is a sports watch. |
For Mobile Developers, iOS 7 Is Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts | Semil Shah | 2,013 | 9 | 15 | TechCrunch Leading up to last week’s Apple event and the unveiling of the iPhone 5s, the Internet may have led you to believe that “ .” The reality for , however, is more nuanced. When it comes to the first choice developers have for starting in mobile, Apple still leads the competition, as mobile expert asserts these advancements place iOS roughly 18-24 months ahead of Android. (If you haven’t read from early August 2012 by Cheney, please do – he called much of this months ago.) And while the runaway growth of Android has decreased the time hot iOS apps are released on Android — Instagram released Android right before their Series B, but more recently Snapchat already had an Android client by the time of their Series A — for small technology startups iOS remains the platform of choice upon which to build new mobile experiences. The advancements in mobile hardware and corresponding OS improvements often present new opportunities for software developers to exploit, such as Instagram using software to improve image resolution leading up to the iPhone 4, or more recently, helping rise in popularity now that the front-facing camera has improved in the iPhone 5. We’ve all read about the new iPhone 5s by now, but what about its specific hardware improvements and how they could create new opportunities for iOS developers? From my informal conversations, startup developers are not moving to Android anytime soon, despite what you may have read, and the intermingling of these advancements in iOS 7 could make for an even more innovative future for . On the iPhone 5s, an improved camera helps folks take better photos in low lit areas with a wider aperture and features like True Tone that don’t even appear on some DSLRs. These continuous improvements to pictures, including video capture and playback, keep most Android handsets in the rearview mirror (though some objects in the mirror may be closer than they seem). The new camera also keeps Apple on a path of devouring more of the point-and-shoot market dollars. In terms of what developers can do with the next iterations of the iPhone camera, I’m for depth-sensing cameras, which can determine distances between objects, and potentially even better software to recognize objects themselves. As the first five years of the iPhone have demonstrated, there is no greater communication currency than images on our mobile devices, and camera-related apps remain some of the most popular apps on all of iOS. It is for digital imaging, and when it comes to mobile and the rate of pictures captured and shared, the scale is accelerating. To date, most quantified-self endeavors involve an external piece of hardware that captures data from wrists and sends that data to our phones or computers via USB uploads, Wi-Fi data transfers, or other methods. Now with the new M7, the iPhone comes with a separate “coprocessor” that doesn’t draw energy and power from the main chip while capturing more fine-grained, precise data about a user’s movements by triangulating position from the following sensors: accelerometer, gryoscope, and compass. iOS apps like or before it convinced an early-adopter set to give up precious battery life in order to get valuable location , but people remain concerned about battery limits, which may be a few years away from the fundamental in battery tech (from ions to electrons) many are waiting for. Now with the M7, iOS developers can write apps that can read the data written to the M7 and build new mobile experiences on top of that. Furthermore, the M7 can inform the OS itself to be more intelligent about location and, in turn, make the OS and other apps behave more contextually. It will be interesting to see how the fidelity of M7 stacks up against the potential (for instance, in a popular app like ), and what the effect of all of this could be on the fitness wearables moving forward. Moreover, now that everyone expects Apple to ship a smartwatch at some point, many wonder if the M7 could also be inside a watch (and other wearables) to communicate relevant data to another nearby interface. This processor is two times faster than what has been put inside a mobile phone to date, delivering a 2x on CPU as well as a 2x on GPU and leveling the processing requirements of Mac apps with iPhone. So, there’s faster compute power, but also more power for resource-intensive applications, especially the graphical demands of games, the category which happens to dominate the iOS App Store successes. While resource-intensive apps may place an extra strain on the battery, the effects of the A7 may be slower to trickle out as most apps will be written to 32-bit specifications. Reading the documentation leads me to believe much of the advancement helps Apple build more of a into mobile gaming and a future where games are played on many screens. This is the most mainstream, sci-fi advancement in the iPhone hardware and software. In talking with iOS developers over the last week, they’re very excited about the possibility of Fingerprint helping to unlock more downloads, where users don’t get hung up on remembering and entering yet another password. Beyond this, I expect Fingerprint to help with oauth and in-app logins. I also expect the protocol to be opened up to other apps to help tie biometric identity to each iTunes account, which should grease the wheels for easier in-app purchases (which also require iTunes passwords, and net Apple 30 percent tolls) and potentially regular app-commerce on the whole. Much has been about the effect of iBeacon on NFC, so I won’t go into that here, other than to say that iBeacon’s ability to allow devices and their applications to be positioned indoors could unleash a new wave of entirely new consumer experiences. iBeacon enables iOS users to share information over short distances by harnessing a low-energy state of Bluetooth without the need for cellular data or Wi-Fi networks. This creates new possibilities indoors, where signal strength varies for users. This means iOS users could, for example, initiate, split, or receive payments among friends or stores through iBeacon, or share documents and images. Users could receive information indoors related to retail experiences based on their micro-location, receive better indoor navigation, and even “check in and out.” Imagine that, mobile check-ins may come back in style because they could be passive without destroying battery life. From a commercial point of view, with companies like successfully providing real-world analytics to retailers by using Wi-Fi signals to identify unique IDs, Beacon creates another level of quantitative data for retailers (such as the type focuses on), and could be one of the first steps for other connected devices to begin to pry open a market for the Internet of Things. In catching up on all the technical documentation, news, and analysis from this week, it became apparent to me that most of the headlines covered all the specs but missed the forest for the trees. With iOS 7, the trees present a world of iOS interconnectedness beyond just iPhones. When all the new advancements of iOS are taken under consideration together, Apple’s mobile future hints at a world where all iOS devices and their apps freely and efficiently communicate with one another on an intra-OS level that are not yet possible across a fragmented Android handset and OS landscape. So when it comes to early-stage technology startups, iOS 7 again pushes the boundaries of what type of applications developers can build and put into the wild, where devices become more aware of context, where users can touch more than type, where new location-based opportunities and data emerge, and where other mobile devices (like watches) could effortlessly communicate with our mobile computers. The future of these new mobile experiences is exciting, and I can’t wait to see what developers cook up. |
NSA Allegedly Spies On International Credit Card Transactions | Mike Butcher | 2,013 | 9 | 15 | Germany’s Der Spiegel newspaper – increasingly joining the NSA revelations train – that the intelligence agency is interested in international credit card transactions and may have found a way to monitor payments processed by companies including Visa. Spiegel alleges it has even set up its own financial database to track money flows. The paper says that in 2011, the NSA possessed 180 million records via its “Follow the Money” branch dubbed ‘Tracfin’, according to information acquired by former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden. The vast majority of information is from credit card transactions. It also alleges that the NSA targets the transactions of customers of large credit card companies like Visa for surveillance in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. However, Visa denies this is happening. Tracfin’s data bank – says Spiegel – also contains data from the SWIFT network, used by banks to send transaction information securely, possibly attained by watching printer traffic from numerous banks. However, the document Spiegel has seen reveals that even intelligence agency employees are concerned about spying on this kind of information, which is full of “rich personal information”. I bet it does. |
Apple’s M7 Motion Sensing Coprocessor Is The Wizard Behind The Curtain For The iPhone 5s | Darrell Etherington | 2,013 | 9 | 15 | Apple has a new trick up its sleeve with the iPhone 5s that was talked about on stage during its recent reveal event, but the impact of which won’t be felt until much later when it gets fully taken advantage of by third-party developers. Specifically, I’m talking about the that now takes the load of tracking motion and distance covered, requiring much less battery draw and enabling some neat new tricks with tremendous felt impact. The M7 is already a boon to the iPhone 5s without any third-party app support – it makes the iPhone more intelligent in terms of when to activate certain features and when to slow things down and conserve battery life by checking less frequently for open networks, for instance. Because it’s already more efficient than using the main A-series processor for these tasks, and because changing these behaviours can themselves also save battery, the M7 already stretches the built-in battery to its upper limits, meaning you’ll get more talk time than you would otherwise out of a device that’s packing one. Besides offering ways for Apple to make power management and efficiency more intelligent on the new iPhone 5s, the M7 is also available for third-party developers to take advantage of, too. This means big, immediately apparent benefits for the health and activity tracker market, since apps like Move or the Nike+ software demoed during the presentation will be able to more efficiently capture data from the iPhone’s sensors. The M7 means that everyone will be able to carry a sensor similar to a Fitbit or equivalent in their pocket without having to cart around a separate device, which doesn’t require syncing via Bluetooth or worrying about losing something that’s generally tiny, plus there’s no additional wristwear required. And the M7’s CoreMotion API is open to all developers, so it’s essentially like carrying around a very powerful motion tracking gizmo in your pocket which is limited in function only by what developers can dream up for it. So in the future, we’ll likely see gesture-controlled games (imagine the iPhone acting as a gesture controller for a title broadcast to Apple TV via AirPlay), as well as all kinds of fitness trackers and apps that can use CoreMotion to limit battery drain or change functionality entirely depending on where and when they’re being used, as detected by motion cues. An app might offer very different modes while in transit, for instance, vs. when it’s stationary in the home. Apple’s iPhone 5s is an interesting upgrade in that much of what’s changed takes the form of truly innovative engineering advances, with tech like the fingerprint sensor, camera and M7 that are each, in and of themselves, impressive feats of technical acumen. That means, especially in the case of the M7, the general consumer might not even realize how much of a generational shift this is until they get their hands on one, and new software experiences released over the hardware’s lifetime will gradually reveal even more about what’s changed. |
TechCrunch Droidcast Episode 6: Nokia’s Experimentation, Sony’s Kitchen Lunacy, And Android At Disrupt | Chris Velazco | 2,013 | 9 | 15 | Darrell and I pride ourselves on making the TechCrunch Droidcast a Wednesday staple, but alas, we just couldn’t find the time at Disrupt to record the show. I know, I’m sorry. To make up for it, we roused ourselves early this morning to record a slightly special weekend edition of the show. Topics on the agenda? Darrell and I weigh in on Nokia’s experimentation phase with Android, Sony’s bizarre desire to break into the culinary tablet space, and the newly acquired HTC One that Darrell has been fawning over for the past few days. And of course, we would be remiss if we didn’t talk about some of the neat Android-centric projects and startups that appeared at Disrupt SF 2013, so expect some chatter on the and virtualization startup to boot. Strap in folks, it’s gonna be a weird one. We invite you to enjoy every Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. Eastern and 2:30 p.m. Pacific (well, almost every Wednesday), in addition to our at 3 p.m. Eastern and noon Pacific on Fridays. Subscribe to the . Intro music by .
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iPad App mem:o Is A Simple Data Visualization Tool For Design Lovers | Catherine Shu | 2,013 | 9 | 12 | Technology makes it easy to turn the minutiae of our daily lives into useful data sets, but sometimes it feels bleak seeing every experience or memory broken down into pie charts and bar graphs. is a unique visualization tool that takes life-logging beyond spreadsheets by transforming data into striking images influenced by Dutch graphic design. The and includes two boards, with the option of adding more boards via an in-app purchase. Developers Caroline Oh and Young Sang Cho, the duo behind studio , say the app’s look was inspired by the bold shapes and playful colors of graphic design influenced by (Typography Workshop), a masters program run by the ArtEZ Institute of the Arts in the Netherlands. mem:o uses a font called that was created by Swiss designer to be especially legible. But mem:o isn’t targeted at design nerds only. The app stands apart because of its streamlined functionality and the easy-to-understand charts it creates. “With personal data, you are generally looking to pick up on habits and trends, rather than execute complex calculations. Our goal for mem:o was to allow the user to easily see these kinds of relationships without getting lost in extraneous complexity,” Oh and Cho told me in an email.
To create a chart, all you need to do is chose a color palette from seven options and start entering your data. Each chart gives you the option of adding a unit (dollars, hours, minutes, miles, yards or feet), the date and time for each entry, as well as tags and a brief text note. You can see your data sets in board or calendar views. I found the latter option especially helpful for tracking my daily calories, exercise and weight, and seeing at a glance how the three things are related, but mem:o’s developers hope its users will enjoy finding unexpected correlations between their personal data. The app’s home screen was designed to be “somewhat chaotic,” with unrelated boards juxtaposed. “Before we had mem:o, this is how we often encountered our notes and numbers as we jotted in notebooks,” said the duo. “These kinds of ‘accidents’ should have a presence in the digital world as well.” Before creating mem:o, Oh and Cho collaborated on the design and software development of several large-scale interactive museum exhibits. Based in New York City, multidisciplinary designer and educator Oh is the co-founder of , a studio that is currently developing a Web and tablet platform for recording oral histories. Young is a software developer, designer and animator, as well as a director of Seoul-based studio . After working together on projects that displayed static content, Oh and Cho said they wanted to create an open-ended tool that could be used in different ways and had an interface design that was different from iOS defaults. The two thought about developing a note or list-making app, but realized playing with quantitative values would give them more design possibilities. mem:o was created to break away from standard formats of visualizing data, such as the aforementioned pie charts and bar graphs, and their association with office cubicles and PowerPoint presentations. Oh and Cho are planning several additions to the self-funded app, including an expanded color palette and export options such as PDF files, but say they will make sure none of these new features take away from mem:o’s simplicity. An upcoming iPhone app will offer complementary features instead of being a shrunken down version of the iPad app. |
The Eye Tribe’s Strategy Is Larger Than Their $99 Eye Tracking Hardware Unit | Jay Donovan | 2,013 | 9 | 12 | is an aftermarket eye tracker currently available for Windows-based tablets and computers and serves many functions from gaming to reading. Built to work with any Windows 7 or 8 device with a USB 3 interface, The Eye Tribe Tracker allows users to navigate, interact and actuate software running on the device, purely by tracking eye movement or by a combination of eye tracking and touch. The first iteration of this device comes with a Windows SDK so developers can begin to learn how to code Windows apps that use the device. Android and iOS versions of the kit are planned to follow in early 2014. when they opened up on September 6th. However, I had a chance to speak with company partner Sebastian Sztuk — an engineer by trade and maker of most of the company’s prototypes — at . He showed me a pretty cool demo and let me know that the company’s strategy is actually larger than the external unit we tested. If this external Tracker — which is mainly focused on developers — is Horizon 1 for their company strategy, Horizon 2 is consumer focused and has sights set on direct hardware integration. In fact, the company is in negotiations to come out with their own tablet with built in eye-tracking software and hardware and then ultimately a spec so any hardware maker can integrate. A prototype of that vision is shown below (created for Android OS and running on an existing Samsung tablet). I’ll admit, just thinking about using The Eye Tribe Tracker brings thoughts of eye strain to mind. However in speaking with Sebastian, he declared that after a brief, one time calibration, their technology is really just tracking the things your eyes are already doing anyway as you interact with the tablet. So I guess there’s not much to dislike here. The concept was obviously compelling to some other people at Disrupt because the company took home the Big Data Startup of the Year awarded by SAP, worth over $40,000 is goods and services from the software giant. |
Outgoing Turner CEO Phil Kent Sees Big Opportunities For The Company’s Media Camp Incubator | Anthony Ha | 2,013 | 9 | 12 | Before the five startups taking part in this year’s San Francisco took the stage at Demo Day, the gathered investors, journalists, and tech/media industry folk were addressed by Turner Broadcasting CEO Phil Kent, who predicted big things for the startup accelerator. Apparently this was the first time Kent has attended a demo day — which isn’t as bad as it sounds, since this is only the second one in San Francisco, and only . Kent said he’s “very proud” of the accelerator — the monetary investment from Turner is relatively small, but he pointed to the “time and talent of our executives” who are made available. Kent added that he’d like to see Media Camp become “a much bigger institutionalized activity within our company.” That might mean investing more money, or it might mean continuing to expand geographically. (Media Camp has gone from being a Turner-only effort in San Francisco to a joint initiative between Turner and Warner Bros. — both companies are owned by Time Warner — in both SF and Los Angeles.) On the other hand, Kent also acknowledged that it’s “easy for me to say,” since he recently . In his words: “I fired myself a couple weeks ago.” The idea that the mentorship, not the money, was what Turner really brought to the table was illustrated in the presentations themselves, where each startup was introduced by one of their mentors within Turner. We actually back in June, but here’s a refresher, with some updates from demo day: |
Microsoft Adds IMAP Support To Outlook.com To Entice Mac Users, Developers | Alex Wilhelm | 2,013 | 9 | 12 | Today that it has added IMAP support to its Outlook.com webmail product. Outlook.com has over 400 million active users according to Microsoft, making it not only one of the most popular webmail services around. Why IMAP? Demand, likely, and the fact that Microsoft wants developers to take a keener interest in its little email program. In a blog post announcing the move, Microsoft noted that “some devices and apps that haven’t made the upgrade to [Exchange Active Sync]” and that “IMAP is widely supported on feature phones and other email clients such as those on a Mac.” So, it built it in. Outlook.com is a viable Gmail alternative, though one that I fault for lacking a single feature (Priority Inbox, which I cannot live without), but it’s still worth noting that Microsoft managed to build a product that people tend to honestly dig. That’s in contrast to the Hotmail dog days. Outlook.com also supports OAuth, which allows for simple integration into other apps. It isn’t clear how many applications and things of that sort are currently integrated with Outlook.com, though the potential could be sizable given its massive user base. Outlook.com did fine on its own — 1 million users in its first day of life, — but it was when Microsoft folded the entire Hotmail user base into its roles that it became titanic in size. Finally, a note on something social. I first heard that IMAP support was coming to Outlook.com the same way as a great number of other folks today, on Reddit. The Outlook.com team held another Reddit question session today (an “AMA” in nerd parlance) that was, in fact, great. Answering questions honestly is always refreshing. If you want a look at how to Reddit properly, . |
Twitter’s New “Verified” Filter Lets Celebs Hob-Nob In Peace | Josh Constine | 2,013 | 9 | 12 | Life is hard for famous people. You’re trying to @ reply with your celebrity friends on Twitter, but the conversation gets drowned out by rabid fans and spammers mentioning you. So Twitter’s begun rolling out to people with verified profiles two new filters for the Connect tab. Filtered, which attempts to cut down spam, and Verified, which only shows interactions with other verified profiles. Twitter earlier today and you can see them below in this screenshot, though. Keeping celebrities active and happy on Twitter is a big business for the company, which just filed its . Celebrities and their tweets are a big draw for users, who visit Twitter to absorb the latest updates from the actors, athletes, musicians, and other famous folk they love. Twitter capitalizes on that engagement with ad views, so the more celebs enjoy Twitter, the more money it makes. |
Facebook Sunsets Credits, Transitions To Local Currencies To Boost International Payments | Josh Constine | 2,013 | 9 | 12 | Facebook launched its virtual currency Credits in June 2011 to simplify payments. In reality, Credits caused headaches for international payments due to fluctuating exchange rates. But last night, the sun set on Credits and Facebook completed its transition to . It will help developers and Facebook make more money, smooth payments, and solidify Facebook as an international app platform. The logic behind Credits looked good on paper. Facebook wanted to start earning a 30% cut on purchases made in games played on its website like Apple and Google earn on iOS and Android in-app sales, so it needed a standardized payments system. But rather than have people buy things in their local currency, Facebook launched Credits — an intermediary virtual currency that cost $0.10 each that could then be spent on virtual goods or game-specific currency. If it sounds like a bit of a rigmarole, it was, but there were some benefits. First, users didn’t have to transact with game companies directly. They could rely on Facebook’s security and brand name rather than sending money straight to small developer shops they might not have heard of. Credits also leveled the playing field between developers. Rather than say buying proprietary virtual currency from Zynga that you could only use in its games, you’d buy Credits that were more liquid and could be used in any game. The idea was that this would help small developers get more paying players and prevent users from getting their money stuck in specific games. This worked pretty well when Facebook’s developer and user base was more concentrated in the United States, but since 2011 Facebook has seen huge growth overseas in both categories. That meant serious problems for pricing goods within games. Let’s say you price a virtual cow for 20 Credits. In the US that comes out to a nice, round $2. But that’s 63.29 Thai bhat. If the exchange rate changes, so do the actual prices of all your goods when they’re sold internationally. This caused confusion for users who thought the devs were hiking prices or putting things on sale, which may have caused purchase hesitation and conversion rate decreases. And since developers had to set the same price for the whole world, a 30 Credit power-up might seem moderately priced in the UK, but too expensive for a gamer in Vietnam. In the end, the international payment problems outweighed the pros of Credits. Facebook’s payments team leader Deb Liu tells me “Most users were actually spending in one game or a couple of games. Local currency payments were benefiting [developers] more than using Credits.” So Facebook that it would be transitioning from Credits to local currency payments. This lets developers price their goods dynamically in different regions around the world. When users see something they want to buy in a game, they just click “Buy” and Facebook lets them pay with a credit card, PayPal, mobile payment system like Zong, gift card, or other method. Liu says “We put a bunch of work in to speed up the call back and reduce latency and make it faster to render the payment flow, and make the purchase.” That means games run faster, and payments go through faster. And don’t worry, if you had previously bought Credits, they’ve been converted into balance you can spend from. Overall, local currency payments have some big advantages: And since Facebook earns a 30% cut on each of these purchases, the more people buy in third-party games, the more it earns. Perhaps the only downside to the switch was asking developers to do extra work to transition. Facebook had extolled the virtues of Credits for years, then seemed to suddenly flip-flop. Facebook’s already known as a bit of an unstable platform to build on, where viral channels and features change quickly, and killing off Credits only exacerbates that perception. Still, the move was necessary if Facebook wanted to keep growing its payments revenue, which hit . Long-term, local currency payments could also pave the way for something really big: the ability to buy real things around the Internet through Facebook. Last month Facebook began a test with ecommerce app JackThreads where you could ‘ . Essentially, you’d authenticate with your Facebook email address and password, and the social network would auto-fill your credit card and billing information to speed up the purchase process. Your payment would still be processed through PayPal or whatever processor a third-party ecommerce app chose, but Facebook would help mobile reduce typing. In exchange, it got to see if your purchase stemmed from a click on an ad on Facebook, which helps it prove return on investment to advertisers and get them to buy bigger campaigns. Credits made some sense for games, but if Facebook wants to get into real commerce, local currency is the way to go. And with CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying Facebook’s mission is now to , and most of its user growth is coming from places like Brazil and India, the sunset of Credits could mean a new dawn for Facebook commerce around the world. |
Free Massive Online Education Provider, Coursera, Begins To Find A Path To Profits | Rip Empson | 2,013 | 9 | 12 | Online education providers may very well disrupt establishment, but first, these for-profit companies need to find a way to finance the mammoth technical infrastructure needed to support millions of students. It’s a challenge that all mission-based businesses wrestle with, and why many have wondered whether Massively Open Online Course (MOOC) providers will ever become big business — or be around in five years — let alone “transform higher education,” as they’ve so often promised. Today, one of the biggest MOOC providers on the web, Coursera, showed skeptics that it has indeed found a way to monetize free educational content and may just be on the road to riches. In a blog post this afternoon, Coursera announced for paid certifications, which verify that students passed (an otherwise free) online college course. For those unfamiliar, Coursera partners with top-tier universities — more than 83 institutions on board — to make their classes and lectures available online, for anyone in the world to consume. The company with millions of dollars in backing from big names, and ever since its buzzy debut has been dogged by questions over whether or not MOOCs will ever be able to make enough money to justify $65 million-worth of venture capital. In July, Coursera (bringing its total to $65 million), saying that it would use its new capital to develop mobile apps and increase its presence internationally (among other things). Of course, with so much capital and so many investors now on board, Coursera’s road to monetization and profitability became that much steeper. The news today is reason enough for optimism, especially considering how quickly it has been able to turn a new feature into $1 million in revenue. back in January — a program that has been designed to allow students to earn “Verified Certificates” for a small fee. Through Signature Track, students are able to verify the work they complete on Coursera, with the idea being to supplement the value of the work students do on the platform. While this represented Coursera’s first step (really, tiptoe) into credentialing and doesn’t include credit toward a degree program, it give students something tangible to prove that they’ve completed the course and know the material. While $1 million every nine months wouldn’t pay back their total $65 million in investment, there’s every reason to believe that there are many more students who would pay for this service. First, beyond being nine months old, Signature Track really hasn’t been aggressively promoted. Second, Coursera is quickly , both in the U.S. and around the world. Third, and perhaps most importantly, tech companies are that would weight these types of certificates as . While this Alliance is still very much in the nascent stages of development, if MOOC providers like Coursera and Udacity are able to come together with the Googles and Apples of the world to develop some kind of standard, it could have big implications for higher education. In the future, we could see these platforms (and others that are sure to launch in the interim, , for example) allow students to mix and match classes from MOOC and traditional universities, with MOOC providers offering some kind of paid certificate to its students. There are, of course, many very valid concerns that need to be discussed as MOOCs, tech companies, startups and schools themselves rush to integrate technology and tear down the ivory walls around traditional higher education. Questions like these are becoming increasingly important to ponder: Are MOOCs best used as a platform for continuing education — to re-train, brush up on subjects and for general edification purposes — or as a viable alternative (or even replacement) for the traditional college degree? For now, it’s the former, but as Coursera and others plow more time, resources and capital into their Signature Track-style programs, the more they will compete with campuses, institutions themselves — and the diploma. This is a great thing for education in the long run, as long as Coursera and MOOC providers aren’t just content with the bar set by traditional education, but look to push that bar higher. That’s what we want to pay for, and that’s what will shape the next big education technology business — not just a digital version of the same old thing. |
null | Mahesh Sharma | 2,013 | 9 | 23 | null |
CodeBender.CC Makes It Crazy Easy To Program Your Arduino Board From Your Browser | John Biggs | 2,013 | 9 | 12 | The official IDE is a dour piece of software designed for uploading code to the ubiquitous and super-cool micro controller. It is a standalone, non-networked app that isn’t very pretty to look at. But what if you want to share code and upload programs right from your browser? That’s where comes in. CodeBender is a browser-based IDE that supports uploading to nearly any Arduino board. You can use the program to copy sample code, browse code uploaded by other users, and even store private snippets. Because it is collaborative you can clone bits of code and use it in your own projects and there is even a curated list of cool snippets. Founded by Vasilis Georgitzikis and Alexandros Baltas, the site came out of , a European seed fund. ” It all started by my frustration as a computer engineer who was used to advanced development tools, only to lose them when I moved to coding for Arduino, and my frustration as an Arduino instructor on various hackerspaces around the world, when I spent 2.5 hours of each 3 hour workshop just to install the damned thing,” said Georgitzikis. “We’ve also developed a technology that allows our users to program and control a network-enabled Arduino (i.e. Arduino Ethernet) through the network, straight through the browser using pure HTML5 technologies (i.e. WebSockets), which enables remote programming of IoT devices,” he said. The system handles compilation and error reporting and ensures that the code you upload to your Arduino won’t break your project. Unlike sites like , this system doesn’t just simulate projects it allows for full control of your Arduino hardware right from the browser. Maybe this system will finally enable me to dig out my Arduino boards and actually do something. |
Give Microsoft Your iPad, And They’ll (All But) Give You A Surface | Alex Wilhelm | 2,013 | 9 | 12 | Happy Post-Disrupt Day, super troopers. I trust you are rehydrated and back at work. A pity. While we were watching Zuckerberg for misbehaving while others managed to with the PayPal water, Microsoft and released a : Trade in your iPad, get mad store credit. The gist is that if you have an iPad 2, 3, or 4 that is “gently” used, Microsoft will give you $200 in store credit. And once you jettison that tablet, you’ll want another, right? Guess what? Microsoft wants to sell you one of its own. This is the case because Microsoft has far too many Surface 1.0 models in stock. The promotion lasts for about a month. This means that we won’t see a new Surface until likely after October 27, when the trade-in campaign ends. The title of this post is minor exaggeration – however, as the cost of a new Surface RT tablet hybrid is $349, and the least possible price for your Apple tablet is $200, the delta ‘twixt the two is small. Therefore, get rid of that old, soggy iPad and move to the Surface. It will make Redmond happy. In reality, you probably have several tablets. If you want a new toy, you now have an option. Keep in mind, though, that Microsoft has sent out public invites to its Big Shiny New Surface Event, so whatever you get now is about to be made passé |
Google Creative Lab Launches Coder To Turn Raspberry Pi Into A Basic Web Development Platform | Frederic Lardinois | 2,013 | 9 | 12 | , a new project that’s coming out of Google’s Creative Lab, is an open source tool that allows you to easily turn a Raspberry Pi into a basic web server with a web-based development environment. The tool, which was developed by Googler Jason Striegel, designer Jeff Baxter and a small team in New York, is meant to be an environment for educators and parents to teach kids “the basics of building for the web.” Setting Coder up should only take 10 minutes. The project, the team argues, gives learners a private platform for building a web program. For those who already know to code, though, it’s also a nifty platform to play and provides a cheap sandboxed environment for experimenting with new ideas. To get started, all you need to do is download the onto an SD card, insert it into the Pi and point your browser to coder.local. The tool includes a web-based code editor and everything else you need to start building HTML, CSS and JavaScript-based applications. The team says it first wanted to turn Coder into an even more complete package but then decided to just release it because the team believes that “the sooner this gets into the open source and maker communities, the more we’ll learn about how it might be used.” |
The Sixense STEM Brings Your Hands And Feet Into Virtual Reality | Greg Kumparak | 2,013 | 9 | 12 | Oh, you thought virtual reality headsets like the Oculus Rift were cool? The folks at Sixense are trying to take it to a whole new level, with a set of motion tracking controllers that bring your hands and feet into the game (and improves the Rift itself, while it’s at it.) Called the STEM, the system’s basestation emits a 16-foot electromagnetic field that can sense the position and orientation of up to five swappable sensors — enough to track both hands, both feet, and your head all at the same time. The STEM is a modular system, allowing you to use each of the 5 sensors as you see fit. Want a controller in each hand? Drop a couple sensors into the included controller shells. Squeeze a trigger on the controllers, and your on-screen hands close (allowing you to pick up and throw objects). Want to just track your arms, no controller necessary? Take the sensors out of the controller, drop them into one of the included clip-on adapters, and strap’em to your arms. Now, you don’t something like the Oculus Rift to use STEM; as shown a few minutes into the video above, it works just fine on games running on any standard monitor. The Rift is just an obvious (and rather awesome) compliment. In fact, the STEM actually makes the Rift better. You see, as cool as the Rift is, it has one particularly sticky flaw (at least, in its current, developer-focused form) that you’d only really notice once you’ve used it: it can’t do positional tracking. Once you’ve got the Rift on and you’re in a game, you can use it to look up, or down, or left, or right, but move your head forward or back, and… nothing happens. If you’re standing at a balcony, for example, you could only look down at the railing — you can’t stick your head out over the edge, peering down at whatever baddies may be lurking down below. When you’ve found yourself staring directly into a virtual world and every nod and turn of your real-world head is tied to your head in-game, it’s the little things like that that can instantly shatter any sense of immersion. Strap a STEM sensor onto the Rift, though, and you’ve got your positional tracking. Stick your neck out, and your in-game head moves accordingly. It takes my one disappointment with the otherwise awesome Rift and tosses it out the window. (In the video above, the “sensor” comes in the form of one of Sixense’s older prototype controllers more or less duct-taped to my head. In its final form, the company tells me it’ll be a whole lot less goofy). To be honest, the positional head tracking with the Rift is the main thing I’m excited about here. Despite a generation of things like the Kinect and the PS Move, I’m as of yet unconvinced that waving my hands about to play a game is fun after a few minutes. While quite the mind-blowing experience, climbing that virtual ladder in the video above felt more frustrating than fun. I convinced that positional tracking is something the Rift needs, though — and after using the Rift/STEM combo for a few minutes, I’m absolutely certain. Positional tracking is something that Oculus has they’re working on building into the eventual consumer release of the Rift, though they’ve yet to explain how they’ll get it done. Sixense declined to comment whether or not they were working with Oculus on any future products, but did say that they were sure their efforts wouldn’t conflict with each other. Their biggest challenge, of course, will be getting enough developer support to make the STEM a worthwhile purchase. They’ve made it as easy as possible here, with support for the Source engine and the Unity engine ready to go. But there’s more to pulling this off than just tacking support into existing games; you’d really need to design the game with such things in mind for it to feel like anything more than a fancy hack. Sixense launched a Kickstarter this morning, aiming to raise at least $250k. They broke through that goal within 5 hours. |
Twitter Is Going Public, Files S-1 With SEC | Alex Wilhelm | 2,013 | 9 | 12 | Today that it has filed an S-1 with the SEC and is therefore on the road to going public. This is an important moment for Twitter, and for tech, as it shows that the IPO window is open. Here’s Twitter on its filing: We’ve confidentially submitted an S-1 to the SEC for a planned IPO. This Tweet does not constitute an offer of any securities for sale. — Twitter (@Twitter) Count to 10 and let’s hope the damn thing leaks right away. We don’t know much, but expect Twitter to go public at a valuation of roughly between $15 billion and $20 billion, roughly. Its last private money came in at around a $10 billion valuation, and those investors will want a return on their funds. Goldman Sachs is of the offering. Facebook’s IPO, for comparison, valued the social giant at around $100 billion on the day of its flotation. The irony here is that Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg at Disrupt that it should not be afraid of going public. Twitter did not decide to go public on the back of Zuck’s axiom, but it is nicely pat that it announced this news the day after his comments. Facebook’s public offering was marred with trading errors and a slipping stock price, and the company lost tens of billions of value before it recovered. Facebook is currently trading at fresh highs, helping to set the stage for Twitter: Whatever the Facebook IPO hangover was, it is no more. Twitter’s public offering has been a very long time in coming, and contains inside of it oodles of institutional pressure: With hundreds of millions of invested capital under its belt, Twitter has a number of investors that want their money back. It has been well-managed, sure, but cash has a certain feel to it. The IPO will be a zoo. But it will be a fun zoo, and that is all that matters. The NASDAQ and the NYSE are at war a bit on who gets to host more tech offerings, but I think that we’ll be seeing the NASDAQ scoop up this deal. Now, what are Twitter’s revenue and profit figures? We’ll actually get to know soon, though the fact they are does imply that Twitter had less than $1 billion in revenue in 2012. So, there’s that. |
Facebook Tests Silent Auto-Play For User Videos In Mobile Feed, Foreshadowing Video Ads | Josh Constine | 2,013 | 9 | 12 | In a test that could make News Feed more engaging and pave the way for video ads, Facebook’s mobile feed will start in-line when they’re scrolled over for a small subset of US iOS and Android users. Videos play silently until tapped to full-screen, which feels slick. Facebook is expected to soon launch a new video ad unit, which might draw on this test’s feedback. For now, though, auto-play is only for videos uploaded to Facebook by users to their profile or verified Page, or by bands and musicians. Brands will have to wait. Links to YouTube and other off-Facebook video sources that currently appear embedded in the feed won’t auto-play. The feature only works for videos uploaded to Facebook directly, or via apps like Instagram and others that save an instance of the video to your profile. I got to play around with a demo version of the auto-play videos in the feed, and they felt smooth and natural. It reminded me of the newspapers from the Harry Potter films, where people in photos move and wave back at the reader. As you flick up to reveal more of your feed and you come across a video, it springs into motion in-line, but with no sound. Videos loaded without much delay even on a wireless signal and played steadily while being moved around in the feed. As you scroll past and a video slips off-screen, it automatically stops playing to avoid slowing down your device or wasting data.
Though the effect looks a little bit like videos in the Instagram feed, those play with sound enabled automatically. They also require you to pick a cover frame, whereas Facebook just uses the first frame of the video. The Facebook format might encourage users to upload videos where audio is a bonus but not essential. Though the videos play silently in-line, you can tell they have sound by a little audio levels indicator in the bottom right corner. Once you tap on a video, it expands to full-screen and the audio starts playing as long as you have your device’s sound turned up. Tap out to return to the feed and keep browsing. Only a small percentage of iOS and Android users in the US will be in the test and see videos auto-play. In an atypical move, you can opt out of the test if you’re in it and don’t like it by clicking the little arrow in the top right of a video post to stop all videos from auto-playing from then on. The test seems like a big improvement on Facebook’s current video playback system, where users have to actively click to load and start a video. Though that only takes an extra second or two, it’s a time investment and barrier to watching videos. Auto-play could get videos more views, and therefore more likes and comments, which could encourage more people to upload videos or share them to Facebook from Instagram. That in turn could get more people spending more time on the feed, which Facebook monetizes with ads. Nothing is changing about the video capture experience in Facebook, which hasn’t been updated in a long, long time. There’s still no filters, stabilization, clip recording, or editing capabilities. I’d bet Facebook addresses that in a future app update to bring itself more in line with modern video apps. You can see how the videos look as they auto-play in the feed, get scrolled around, and are opened and closed in this clip. While auto-play isn’t available to videos from brands in this test, Facebook says “Over time, we’ll continue to explore how to bring this to marketers in the future.” Facebook is planning a new, more heavy-handed video ad unit, but has pushed back the launch until October to make sure the user experience is good and won’t shock people or piss them off. AdAge says the video ads will appear in the web and mobile feed (today’s test is just for mobile), users will see up to three video ads a day, and Facebook will charge between $1 million and $2.4 million for a day’s distribution of a 15-second spot. A lot could change based on the feedback from this test, but there’s a chance Facebook might use a similar slient-until-clicked format for the video ads. That might be a nice balance between the needs of marketers and users. Many people have been complaining in anticipation of the arrival of auto-play videos. Some find them distracting, and worry video ads will seriously degrade the feed browsing experience. If Facebook can find the right design for video ads, it could capture huge amounts of TV ad spend without making you feel like you have to watch commercials to see your friends’ photos. |
A Photographer’s Take On The iPhone 5S Camera | Matthew Panzarino | 2,013 | 9 | 12 | The iPhone 5S announcement this week was punctuated with a lot of specs and buzzwords. Much of it centered around the new Touch ID fingerprint scanner and the 64-bit processor. But the most intriguing to me was the camera advancements. Apple has been putting a major focus on the camera in the iPhone for a couple of years now. A recent Apple ad touted that more people take pictures with the iPhone than any other camera. And a while back the iPhone became the number one camera on the photo sharing site Flickr and it has never lost its crown. Despite the proliferation of point-and-shoot cameras with impressive technology and ever-cheaper DSLRs, the smartphone is and will probably remain the primary camera for a lot of people. Unfortunately, cameras from many other phone companies like Samsung and Motorola simply don’t match up to the quality of images coming out of the iPhone. I’ve tried many, many different Android devices over the years which promised better images but none have delivered. The only real smartphone contender in the camera space is Nokia, which is doing some great stuff with the Lumia line. But where Nokia is pushing the pixel-count boundaries with the 41 megapixel Lumia 1020, Apple has chosen to go in a different direction. Before I launch into the stuff that I found interesting about the new camera’s technology, a bit of background. I’m a reformed professional photographer that has shot just about every kind of camera from film to digital, professional and pocket. Weddings, portraits, landscape, wildlife, sports, industrial, you name it. I’ve processed film and prints by hand and machine and have taught photography as well. I don’t know everything photographic there is to know, far from it, but I’ve been around a bit. Over the last few years, the iPhone has really become my go-to camera. The DSLRs have sat on the shelf and even a compact Panasonic 4/3 camera only comes out infrequently. This means that when Apple introduces a new device I’m all ears when it comes to what they say about its camera. The iPhone 5S is no exception, and there is some pretty great stuff here. Obviously, this is not a review of the camera, just an exploration of the specs and what they might mean for other iPhoneographers. The sensor in the iPhone 5S remains at 8 megapixels, which is a bold choice given that competitors like Nokia are shooting for the moon as far as pixel count is concerned. But, as with many things, the sheer number of pixels is not as important as the quality of those pixels, and that’s what Apple has focused on here. The individual photo receptors that correspond to a ‘pixel’ in your image have been enlarged to 1.5 microns to present more surface area for photons to strike. The iPhone 5, like many other smartphones of its generation, featured a 1.4-micron pixel size. Think of this as holding a thimble in a rain storm to try to catch water. The bigger your thimble, the easier it is to catch more drops in a shorter amount of time. This will also aid light gathering and should improve both color saturation and noise (or grain) levels in images. Notably, the competing HTC One and an f2 aperture, but features a sensor with half the resolution at 4 megapixels and an odd 16:9 ratio for still images. But in shootouts, the iPhone 5 still with subtler and more accurate color. That’s likely due to the fact that Apple also designs its own ISP (image signal processor) and fine tunes it to work with its hardware. In order to accommodate the larger pixel size, the ‘active surface area’ of the sensor has been increased 15%. More surface area but no more pixels means bigger and more light-sensitive pixels. Apple says that this adds up to a 33% increase in overall light sensitivity. The iPhone 5S features a 5-element lens which Apple describes as ‘new’ for this device. That’s likely because of the increase in sensor size, as it will have to project a larger light circle onto the sensor itself. The lens has an f2.2 aperture, which is a 1/4 stop improvement over the iPhone 5’s f2.4 aperture. That should result in a .5 factor gain in light gathering ability for the lens, adding to the iPhone’s low-light abilities. Apple says that the new sensor has better dynamic range and less noise, with more detail in highlight and shadow. That fits with the specs, but we’ll have to reserve judgement until we’ve had time to play with the camera. With the iPhone 4S, Apple or image signal processor. This is a common component typically referred to as a in digital cameras. It’s the thing that color corrects your image, converts formats, applies color and tone adjustments and a bunch more. Think of it as a brain that only thinks about images. Apple has continued to evolve that ISP, though it didn’t refer to it directly in this weeks presentation. Instead, Phil Schiller continuously referred to the A7 as doing those things for you. That’s technically true as the A7 SoC is where the ISP is housed. In the iPhone 5S, we get a bunch of cool new tricks being performed by the ISP. Some of them have been standards on high-end DSLRs for a while now, and some are really bleeding edge. Though the new ISP still does stuff like white balance and auto-exposure, which is pretty standard. But it also now does dynamic tone mapping. Tone mapping is a technology that allows an image to be adjusted independently in various areas for brightness, contrast and color — or ‘tone’. It’s a similar procedure to the one used to make High Dynamic Range (HDR) images. In this case, Apple is using it to improve detail in the light and dark areas of the image. It should map the contrast levels of the various areas in the image and make pre-capture readings that help your post-capture image. Apple also touts the new iPhone 5S’ as having autofocus matrix metering with 15 focus zones. This is a common feature on decent DLSR cameras and some high-end compacts. It allows the camera to split the scene into various zones, determining what the subject of focus is and adjusting metering according to where it focuses. This typically increases the speed and accuracy of focus and helps to reduce errors in auto-exposure. Where a face turns out really dark or a sunset is blown out, for instance. This should mean less manual tapping around on the image to get the right focus and exposure, if it works as advertised. The speed of the ISP in the A7 is also shown off by the new multi-shot feature, which takes several exposures and then picks the sharpest one. This happens, in typical Apple fashion, in the background without your input. What’s happening here (though I’ll go into detail more in a bit) is that you typically move around a bit even as you press a shutter button, causing a slight blur. Having a couple of shots to pick from can result in finding a frame where your shake stopped, giving you a sharper image. Realistically, this should take a very small fraction of a second, so it won’t ‘feel’ any different, you’ll just have a sharper image. This thing is the crown jewel of the new iPhone’s camera capabilities, in my opinion. Yes, many people will probably still avoid using a flash, but the sheer engineering prowess here is insane. The dual-LED flash in the iPhone 5S is not about providing more light, instead, it’s about providing light of a more accurate color. The flash in your pocket camera or DSLR, or in the current iPhone, is calibrated to a single color that approximates sunlight. This is fine in the sun as a fill light, but goes all wrong when you try to shoot an image with it indoors or under artificial light. Where daylight is very cool and ‘blue’, indoor light is often very warm and ‘orange’. That goes for your tungsten (think typical light bulbs) lights, sodium bulbs and others in your home. This means that flash images pop blue light onto your subject’s face while orange light bathes the background. The camera’s ISP tries to balance the two and fails miserably on both counts. The True Tone flash has both an amber and a white LED to produce two tones of light that can balance the foreground ‘faces’ with the background ambient light. If the two tones of the image are the same, then the iPhone’s ISP can color-correct the image and produce something decent. But it even goes further than that. A flash with an orange color-correcting gel Professional photographers have been balancing flash and ambient indoor light for a long time. Typically this was done with gels — clear pieces of orange plastic that are placed over the front of a flash in order to simulate the light that comes out of regular bulbs. Then the camera’s white balance is set to tungsten and the image looks good. In the film days, you would use a special tungsten-balanced film. Either method is annoying and, in the end, you could never get the temperature exactly right. The iPhone 5S doesn’t just pop the amber flash if it’s in tungsten lighting. Instead, it reads the scene and fires off both LEDs in varying intensities to create up to 1,000 different color temperatures. This should allow it to match the foreground flash exposure color up perfectly with the background color. The long and short of it is that indoor images should be much more balanced in their color, with more natural skin tones and a balanced foreground and background. You might even like to use your flash again. This probably won’t help all that much in fluorescent light, as that’s much more ‘green’ in spectrum, but there’s a chance that it could. Couldn’t be worse than the iPhone 5’s flash indoors anyway. One thing that this new innovation won’t do, however, is increase the range of your flash much. Just because there are two LEDs doesn’t mean that they’re both going to be firing at full power. It’s likely that one or the other will be much lower power with any given image. So you might get a bit more range but don’t count on the extra bulb for extra brightness. Both the burst mode and image stabilization are probably only going to be useful in bright light. Both require that multiple shots be taken and quick shots mean less light makes it to the sensor. Still, both are nice to have. The stabilization system especially is interesting. Instead of just taking multiple shots and picking a sharp one, the system appears to use technology similar to the current HDR feature. It takes multiple images and then uses the best bits of each picture based on exposure and sharpness to composite together a final image. Theoretically, we’re looking at something that could replace a blurry face, for instance, with a sharp one from just a second later. Typically, shooting a sharp picture in really low light requires two things: a steady hand and a steady subject. Stabilizing only the lens solves only one of those problems. It doesn’t matter how steady your lens is if your subject is fidgety. Utilizing a compositing method for ‘stabilization’ allows Apple to tackle both your movement and subject movement at the same time, which is pretty clever. The burst mode is a pretty standard 10 frames per second, a speed that can be matched by some third-party apps on the App Store already. The fact that Apple says you can capture ‘hundreds’ of images in a row without stopping is something worth noting, though. That’s normally related to how fast your ISP can process those images on the fly. But the post-shooting procedure is the really interesting bit. Firing off a burst of a hundred images is nice but potentially extremely difficult to weed through to find the best images. So, says Schiller, the iPhone 5S’ ISP will weed through those based on a bunch of factors in real-time: Then it picks the best one to display you to take action on. If it’s an action shot, you’ll get a couple of representative options to choose from. All of the images that you shoot remain in the roll. The bursting stuff is cool but nothing new for DSLR shooters. It’s long been one of the strengths of the mirrored or even high-end mirrorless cameras. The image processing to choose the best image for you has even been dabbled in by some companies. but the sheer number of signals checked on in each image and the seemingly pleasant UI for shooting and picking should set this apart from stuff we’ve seen from camera makers. Slow motion video takes a lot of light. When you’re capturing 120 images per second, you need to fire your shutter off quickly to move on to the next one (1/120th of a second or faster, to be exact). So I wouldn’t expect to see this work well in anything but broad daylight. But it’s a testament to the light-gathering capability of the new sensor and the sheer brute strength of Apple’s ISP that it’s able to do up to 120fps at 720p at all. That’s beyond the capabilities of most DSLRs, which top out at 60fps. Once you’ve shot the video you can specify the segment that you’d like to be slow motion. That segment can even be changed later, indicating that this is locally processed. Apple’s Schiller did note that you can share these segments with friends, though, indicating that some processing to create a final shareable clip will take place at some point. Perhaps after you choose to share it. Brian Klug of AnandTech got a look at the slo-mo feature of the iPhone 5S and it’s a separate mode like pano or video mode. Here’s an image he shot of the mode in action: As a bonus, panoramic images also get a boost from the new A7 ISP, capturing images 50% faster at 30fps, making for faster sweeps. So, we’ve got a bunch of improvements here that cross over from hardware to software and touch on user experience. All three Apple’s strong suits when it comes to integrated devices like the iPhone. If you peer more closely though, the biggest differences between an iPhone shooting experience and that of a traditional camera comes down to one thing: the image signal processor in the A7 chip. The aperture isn’t that much bigger than competitors and the pixel pitch is actually smaller than the HTC One, for instance. And the sensor, though increased in size, is very tiny when compared to even point-and-shoot cameras. The differences, then, come largely in how Apple’s ISP hardware and its front-end software mesh to make life easier for photographers. There’s a quote on Apple’s iPhone page which I think is nicely phrased: “It just makes more sense to teach iPhone how to take a great picture rather than teach people how to be expert photographers.” If you’re a photographer, you might actually rankle a bit at first, because you know as well as I that most of a good photograph happens at the photographer, not the camera. But, remember, most people are not trained photographers. They’re interested in getting the best picture possible but lack the formal training to compensate for the vagaries of poor sensors and lenses. Note that Apple says ‘teach people how to be photographers’. That’s key because everyone with a smartphone is now — whether they see themselves that way or not — a photographer. Apple just sees the value in taking the burden of having to be an expert off of their shoulders. And it has the software and hardware prowess to (maybe) pull it off. This discussion has been all about the potential of the new camera, as we’ve yet to put it through its paces. But as a photographer and as someone who likes to see what others capture, I’m fairly optimistic. Image Credit: Apple, Flickr/CC |
Nettlebox Is A $28,000 Hologram Rig That Lets You View Real-Time 3D From All Angles | Natasha Lomas | 2,013 | 9 | 12 | Russian startup , which is based in the , is showing off a $28,000 holographic gaming set-up at TechCrunch Disrupt SF’s Hardware Alley. The Nettlebox rig consists of a 3D plasma display, with four fisheye lens infrared cameras at the corners to track the position of the gamer who wears a pair of 3D glasses with two infrared lights onboard. The game itself is powered by a Windows PC built into the table. The set up tricks your brain into seeing a real-time holographic image of the game as you play. The holographic scenery appears sunken into the table, rather than standing out proud above the surface. Most importantly, the 3D illusion is sustained as you change your position so you can move around to get the best vantage point. “With this technology users can see a 3D screen from all viewpoints, from all angles, and see a 3D object in front of him. The brain believes that it’s a real object because the illusion is very strong,” says co-founder Andrei Desyatov. “We are tracking the user’s position very fast.” The Nettlebox’s proprietary cameras run at 1,000 fps. That high frame rate is required to enable a “stable illusion” when the user changes their physical position, he adds. The camera range (i.e. the distance between the user and the table) is up to around 1.5 meters in the brightly lit (“noisy”) environment of the Disrupt conference hall but can extend up to 5 meters when using the Nettlebox in darker rooms, according to Desyatov. After a brief hands on — or eyes on — I can confirm it certainly works, and that the effect is pretty immersive, though it did feel like it could become rather disorienting. And possibly end up inducing a headache/motion-sickness style nausea. But that’s likely to depend on your sensitivity to this sort of stuff (speaking as someone who had to quit playing Minecraft because mining its 3D blocks left me feeling too queasy). At $28,000 the Nettlebox itself is not about to become the next great leap forward in home videogaming, but Nettle is targeting this device at the presentation/exhibition market. It is also working with real-estate companies on developing showroom/presentation use cases by, for instance, allowing architects to walk around a hologram of a model building. After that, it does have videogaming in its sights. “The next step for us is gaming. We are going to create a gaming machine for amusement parks,” says Desyatov. “And then the last step is for videogames like strategies like Starcraft and so on.” Pushing the Nettlebox into the home gaming market is going to require some serious squeezing of its price tag but Desyatov reckons it will be possible to build something that is “affordable for most users.” Nettle is bootstrapping at present and launched the Nettlebox in Russia a few months ago. It’s got five customers so far and is looking to expand that customer base internationally, eyeing the U.S. market. “We’re thinking about looking for external funding to increase the speed of entering the gaming industry,” he adds. |
Mobile News App Circa Launches Its Web Platform For Browsing And Following Stories | Stephanie Yang | 2,013 | 9 | 12 | , a startup that offers quick and mobile news consumption, is expanding its services to the web by launching its for following and sharing news. While the website doesn’t have the full functionality of the iOS app, the company aims to complete it later this year. The mission of , the startup’s iOS app, is to give readers the main points of each relevant news story. Circa’s team of 10 writes stories optimized for mobile with several key points. This speeds up news consumption and potential bias that may come from long-form and opinion pieces. Users can browse specific categories and follow stories they are interested in. “We’re doing a lot of things to bring the web more in line with our mobile,” co-founder and CEO Matt Galligan tells me. “It’s about closing that loop.” The Circa website will allow users to access the news they want more often, which Galligan tells me is to expand the company’s reach. He declined to disclose user numbers, but the he said Circa had seen a few hundred thousand downloads. Galligan added that according to Flurry, Circa users spend 50 percent more time in the app than on average in other news apps. Circa is also working on adding a breaking news feature, adding news categories and user interface improvements, Galligan tells me. New areas of coverage that Circa News is looking into include business, finance, entertainment and sports. Galligan says what sets Circa News apart is that the stories are written for mobile, rather than a longer reading experience. “Our intent is not to make a summary; it’s not to make something smaller,” he tells me. The app takes all the need-to-know facts and quotes only, which is a different approach from mainstream news apps or popular apps such as . Circa has raised $1.65 million in seed funding and is planning on bringing its app to Android and iOS 7 soon. |
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