title stringlengths 2 283 ⌀ | author stringlengths 4 41 ⌀ | year int64 2.01k 2.02k | month int64 1 12 | day int64 1 31 | content stringlengths 1 111k ⌀ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Google agrees not to sell facial recognition tech, citing abuse potential | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 12 | 14 | null |
Facebook restructures Building 8, separating projects into Reality Labs and Portal groups | Lucas Matney | 2,018 | 12 | 14 | Facebook is restructuring its experimental hardware efforts and giving its moonshot projects a home within its AR/VR research division. The restructuring, reported by (paywalled), didn’t result in any layoffs but did see some shifts of teams as the old Building 8 group rebranded to Portal and some projects moved to the former Oculus Research group (now, Facebook Reality Lab). A Facebook spokesperson confirmed the reorganization to Business Insider. TechCrunch has reached out to Facebook for further comment. This is misleading. We renamed the Building 8 team Portal after that device launch. The research we initially started in Building 8 continues in our Facebook Reality Labs research group. — Boz (@boztank) The Building 8 brand is dead but the big change seems to be Facebook moving its more headline-grabbing experiments further away from its nearly ready-for-production ideas. With some of the more experimental hardware projects at Facebook — like a computer brain interface, “soft” robotics and a project to “hear” through a skin-worn device — moving to Facebook Reality Labs, it’s clear that the organization once centered around AR/VR technologies is seeing its scope expand to more distant-reaching technologies that aren’t vaguely ready for consumer products yet. Meanwhile, the Portal group seems to be where some of Facebook’s more in-reach consumer hardware products are living, with the newly released video chat device serving as the foundation. The leader of Building 8, Rafa Camargo, who took over after the departure of Regina Dugan, is the VP of the Portal team now. Meanwhile, Facebook Reality Labs is still led by Michael Abrash, who has long held a senior presence in the company’s AR/VR ambitions. Having products like Portal that are already for sale fall under the same leadership as invasive brain chips research probably didn’t make a ton of organizational sense, especially when Facebook has already gone to lengths to separate projects focused on immediate product needs compared to ones that are more far-out in other areas of the company. Facebook’s hardware ambitions are nascent, but now that they have a product on shelves, it’s probably more clear that there are some completely different leadership needs and an organizational restructure makes sense. |
Discord announces 90/10 revenue split for self-published titles on upcoming games store | Lucas Matney | 2,018 | 12 | 14 | After gaming chat app startup announced in August that they were building out a games store, today, they’ve detailed that they’ll be pursuing a very competitive 90/10 revenue split for self-published titles in 2019. In addition, the company revealed that they now have 200 million active users on their chat app, up from 130 million users in May. The announcement follows a storefront launch from Epic Games last week with an 88/12 revenue split. Valve’s Steam store had typically offered a constant 70/30 revenue split for all developers regardless of the revenues they were pulling in. The company recently announced that Steam would give a more favorable split to devs pulling in more revenue. Discord called up some of their thinking in a company : Why does it cost 30% to distribute games? Is this the only reason developers are building their own stores and launchers to distribute games? Turns out, it does not cost 30% to distribute games in 2018. Steam’s efforts are largely focused on holding onto big developers, but indie devs now have to balance what advantages they’re earning by establishing their central home on a platform filled with tons of titles that’s also taking a more substantial cut. This leaves some room for Discord to attract the self-publishing indies, though it’s still an uphill battle for the company that’s up against some big competitors. |
Amazon Echo speakers now play friendly with Apple Music | Greg Kumparak | 2,018 | 12 | 14 | Amazon Apple Music would find its way onto Amazon Echo devices sometime soon — and sure enough, it appears to be rolling out now. To make Alexa work with Apple’s streaming service, you should just have to jump into the newly updated iOS/Android Alexa app and link up your account. You can find the option under Settings > Music. Once done, commands like “Alexa, play music by Halsey on Apple Music” should work. Or, if you don’t want to have to say the “… on Apple Music” bit every time, you can just set Apple Music as the default service. If you don’t have a specific artist in mind, you an also request playlists or genres. One catch: as points out, it appears this currently only works with Amazon Echo speakers, and not yet with third-party speakers (like the Sonos ONE or Polk’s Audio Command sounder) that happen to have Alexa-support built in. Not a fan of Apple’s offering? Alexa also works with Spotify, Pandora, Tidal, Deezer and Amazon’s own Music service. Using Google devices, rather than Amazon’s? Alas, still no word on if/when proper Apple Music support might come to Google Home. |
Propel raises $12.8M for its free app to manage government benefits | Anthony Ha | 2,018 | 12 | 14 | , maker of the app for managing food stamps and other benefits, today that it has raised $12.8 million in Series A funding. Fresh EBT (the EBT stands for the Electronics Transfer Benefit card, which is how food stamp participants receive their benefits) allows users to check their food stamp/SNAP balance and find stores that accept food stamps. Users can also track their spending. The app is free for consumers and government agencies — the company makes money through digital coupons and a job board. Propel says Fresh EBT is now used by more than 1.5 million Americans each month, and that more than 30,000 people have applied for jobs this year that they discovered through the app. For example, the announcement quotes one user, Tracy B. from Fairland, Virginia — she described Fresh EBT as her “personal financial adviser,” and also said she used it to find discount zoo tickets, and even her current job. When last year, founder and CEO Jimmy Chen described his mission as building “a more user-friendly safety net.” He argued that there’s no conflict between Propel’s social mission and its structure as a for-profit business, a position he reiterated in today’s announcement. “Our investors are world-class experts in their respective fields,” he said. “They share an understanding of the challenges of low-income Americans and a belief that Propel can build a massive business by fighting poverty.” Those investors include Nyca Partners, which led the round. Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Omidyar Network, Alexa von Tobel and Kevin Durant’s Thirty Five Ventures also participated. “It’s not hard to see the huge opportunity in building better financial services for low-income people,” said Nyca Managing Partner Hans Morris in a statement. “We just haven’t seen many companies in this space that have an opportunity to have such a large impact at massive scale. That’s why we’re so excited to invest in Propel.” |
‘donald’ debuts at No. 23 on worst passwords of 2018 list | Kirsten Korosec | 2,018 | 12 | 14 | Almost 10 percent of people on the interwebs used at least one of the 25 worst passwords on SplashData’s annual list, which was released this week. And nearly three percent of you are still using “123456,” the worst password of the entire ranking. The eighth annual list of worst passwords of the year is based on of more than 5 million passwords leaked on the internet. Most of the leaked passwords evaluated for the 2018 list were held by users in North America and Western Europe. Passwords leaked from hacks of adult websites were not included in the report, according to SplashData, which provides password management applications TeamsID, Gpass and SplashID. This year revealed the same takeaway as previous ones: computer users continue to use the same predictable, easily guessable passwords. For instance, 2018 was the fifth consecutive year that “123456” and “password” retained their top two spots on the list. The following five top passwords on the list are simply numerical strings, the company said. There were a few newcomers on the list. President Donald Trump debuted on this year’s list with “donald” showing up as the 23rd most frequently used password. “Hackers have great success using celebrity names, terms from pop culture and sports, and simple keyboard patterns to break into accounts online because they know so many people are using those easy-to- remember combinations,” according to Morgan Slain, CEO of SplashData. SplashData does offer some tips to protect your data, including the use of passphrases of 12 characters or more with mixed types of characters, using different passwords for each login, and protecting assets and personal identity by using a password manager to organize passwords, generate secure random passwords and automatically log into websites. |
Niantic reportedly raising $200M at $3.9B valuation | Lucas Matney | 2,018 | 12 | 14 | Pokémon GO creator Niantic is raising a $200 million Series C at a valuation of $3.9 billion, according to a report from Katie Roof at the . The round is expected to be led by IVP with participation from Samsung and aXiomatic Gaming. The upcoming raise would bring the company’s total funding to $425 million, according to . Niantic’s last round was raised at a $3 billion valuation. TechCrunch has reached out to Niantic for comment. The gaming startup, which has invested significantly in augmented reality technologies, is also behind titles such as its recently updated Ingress title and an upcoming Harry Potter mobile game. The company was founded as a startup within Google in 2010 and was spun out as its own entity in 2015, releasing its hit title Pokémon GO the next year. The company is currently working on its next big augmented reality mobile title, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, aiming to create a proper follow-up hit that can capture the excitement of its Pokémon title. The app’s success will likely be crucial to perceptions that Pokémon GO was more than a fluke breakout success. A release date has not yet been set for the title. |
Lime continues to battle San Francisco’s electric scooter decision | Megan Rose Dickey | 2,018 | 12 | 14 | Electric scooter and bike-share company Lime is not giving up on San Francisco. This afternoon, Lime plans to protest on the steps of SF City Hall to petition the city’s scooter selection process. “We are calling the SFMTA to expand equitable transportation options throughout the City by allowing more choice and greater options, by requiring a scalable low-income program that ensures equal access to scooters and other mobility options, and by working with experienced operators with a proven track record of success,” Lime wrote in its petition. “The SFMTA scooter selection process resulted in an extremely small service area as well as an absence of robust equity options. If you are as frustrated as we are, come let your voice be heard.” In the ? Frustrated with the SFMTA scooter selection? Join us on the steps of City Hall at 1:00pm to deliver thousands of petitions from people from all over San Francisco and let your voice be heard! — Lime (@limebike) The SFMTA has previously said it was “confident” it picked the right companies. When the as the only two electric scooter companies permitted to operate in the city, . A San Francisco judge, however, . Meanwhile, Other companies, including Spin and Uber’s JUMP, have also appealed the scooter selection process. Earlier today, the SFMTA heard Lime’s case. It’s not clear how it went, but I’ve reached out to Lime and the SFMTA to learn more. Based on Lime’s actions, it seems as if it didn’t work out very well for the company. About 30 or so people showed up to Lime’s protest. It was relatively uneventful, but the gist is that Lime is seeking community support to petition the SFMTA and convince the agency to allow Lime to operate its electric scooters in the city. |
Disney’s invested in educational gaming app Kahoot, now at a $376M valuation | Ingrid Lunden | 2,018 | 12 | 14 | When , the startup that operates a popular platform for user-generated educational gaming, in October of this year, we mentioned that Disney had a stake in the company by way of the Disney Accelerator, and it had an option to become a larger shareholder if it exercised its warrants. Now with some 60 million games on its platform, today Kahoot that this has come to pass: Disney is taking that option, working out to a four percent stake in the startup at a $376 million valuation, based on the current share price of 28 Norwegian kroner (shares of Kahoot are traded on the Norway OTC as an unlisted stock). It makes Disney’s stake in the app worth about $15 million, although the actual value of the warrants Disney is exercising is smaller than this. Kahoot declined to comment for this story beyond the investment announcement posted on the exchange, but for some context, this is a nice bump up in Kahoot’s valuation from October, when it was at $300 million. Other sizeable and notable investors in the company include Microsoft, Nordic investor Northzone, and Creandum (the latter two also have backed Spotify and other significant startups out of the region). On the part of Disney, it’s not clear yet whether its Kahoot stake will lead to more Disney content on the platform, or if this is more of an arm’s length financial backing. The two have already put Lucasfilm content on Kahoot and there may be more to come. The entertainment giant has made nearly 50 investments by way of its accelerator program. In some cases, it increases those to more significant holdings, as it has in the case of , , (the company behind Fortnite, a very different take on gaming compared to Kahoot), Samba TV and more. Disney has been dabbling in both gaming and education as vehicles to market its many brands, and also as salient businesses of their own — no surprise, given that one primary focus for it has been on younger consumers and their needs and interests. In some cases, it seems it may use strategic investments to do this, for example with on HQ Trivia. Interestingly, although it doesn’t appear that Disney invests in the Indian educational app Byju’s — which itself just raised — the educational app, which has been described as “Disneyesque,” teamed up with Disney in October to develop co-branded educational content, another sign of Disney’s interest in the field. Kahoot has been around in one form or another since 2006 — originally as a gamified education concept called before launching as Kahoot in 2013 — but has seen a sharp rise in users in the last few years on the back of strong growth in the U.S. — benefiting from a wider trend of educators creating content on mediums and platforms that they know students already use and love. Kahoot’s last reported user numbers come from January, when it said it had |
Pimcore closes $3.5M for its open-source data platform to expand in the US | Mike Butcher | 2,018 | 12 | 14 | , an open-source platform for data and customer experience management which has emerged out of Austria, has closed $3.5 million in a Series A funding led by German Auctus Capital Partners AG. The funding will be used for its U.S. expansion. Pimcore is aimed at any channel, device or industry that wants to manage its digital data and customer experience. While there are several such companies on the market today, Pimcore claims to be an “out-of-the-box” solution and the only open-source platform out there, thus competing with more proprietary products from SAP or Informatica which typically run on licensing business models. CEO of Pimcore, Dietmar Rietsch says: “Our primary goal is to disrupt traditional licensing business models as open-source adoption skyrockets in enterprises. This funding round gives us the resources and tools to be able to stand up to legacy players like SAP and Oracle, and to really transform the customer experience and data management spaces, especially in the U.S.” Pimcore recently acquired the U.S.-based Pimcore Global Services and its whole outsourcing infrastructure in Delhi. After being founded in 2013, it now has over 82,000 customers across 56 countries, including global enterprises such as Audi, Burger King, Continental and Intersport. |
Goldex raises £1M for its marketplace app for ‘ethical’ physical gold trading | Mike Butcher | 2,018 | 12 | 14 | , a trading app that claims to power so-called “ethical pricing” for retail gold investments, says it has now raised more than £1 million ($1.25 million) in a pre-Series A round led by a group of angels and institutional investors. Amongst those participating in the round are Prepaid Financial Services (a European payment card issuer); Gaël de Boissard, former Executive Board Member of Credit Suisse; Richard Balarkas, former president and CEO of Instinets; and Craig James, founder and CEO of Neopay. Goldex was launched in late July this year. The company was founded by former City electronic trading pioneers from Credit Suisse and UBS, Sylvia Carrasco and Fernando Ripolles, who wanted to remove barriers to retail gold trading and address some of the questionable practices in the gold investment markets. The U.K. app claims to discover the best price amongst all the gold dealers offering bids and offers within the Goldex platform. Sylvia Carrasco, CEO of Goldex, says the funding “has taken us a step closer to becoming the leading gold trading platform that is both ethical and fully transparent to consumers.” Goldex is not alone in the space. Glint is a competitor, but whereas they hold physical gold and set their own prices for buying and selling, Goldex does not hold any gold inventory. Instead, Goldex routes all clients’ orders to the largest gold markets in the world in a selection of international vaults (for the time being London, Zurich, New York, Toronto and Singapore). The company claims this ensures an average savings of 8-12% on the trades and attempts therefore to avoid price manipulation as well as improving transparency over charges. |
Existential education error: Failing to train students on software | Ryan Craig | 2,018 | 12 | 14 | Although many of the milestones of the digital revolution have sprung directly from the research output of America’s colleges and universities, like Athena from Zeus’s forehead, on the instructional side, American higher education has taken a laid-back approach. Sure, there are more courses in computer science, millions of students taking courses online and MIT just committed $1 billion to build a . But a campus-visiting time-traveler from 25 or 50 years ago would find a very familiar setting — with the possible exception of students more comfortable staring at their devices than maintaining eye contact. This college stasis may be even more surprising to visitors from the transformed workplace. Jobs that made no or marginal use of digital devices 10 years ago now tether workers to their machines as closely as today’s students are glued to their smartphones. Processes that involved paper are now entirely digital. And experience with relevant function- and industry-specific business software is required in job descriptions for many entry-level jobs. This hit home a few weeks ago when speaking to an audience of 250 college and university officials. I asked which of their schools provide any meaningful coursework in Salesforce, the No. 1 SaaS platform in American business. Not one hand went up. There are many reasons for this. Few if any faculty have dedicated their careers to (or even get marginally excited about) equipping students with the skills they need to secure and succeed in their first jobs. No one’s losing their job (yet) over failure to help students get jobs. Another is the cost of teaching; with strong employer demand for these skills, finding and hiring capable faculty than teaching non-technical subjects. Finally, there’s the rapid pace of change in technology, and the sense that any educational effort will be obsolete in a few years. (Of course, the reality of business software is quite different; foundational platforms like Salesforce have a long shelf life — — and some platforms are expected to last for a generation.) But the primary reason colleges aren’t educating students on the software they need to launch their careers is the notion that it’s unnecessary because millennials (and now Gen Zers) are “digital natives.” The idea of digital natives isn’t new. It’s been around for decades: Kids have grown up with digital technologies and so are adept at all things digital. It’s certainly true that today’s college students are proficient with Netflix and Spotify and smartphones. But it’s equally true that the smartphones they’ve grown up with haven’t remotely prepared them to use , let alone career-critical business software. Eleanor Cooper, co-founder of , a startup partnering with higher education institutions to provide business software training, notes that millennials and Gen Zers are “accustomed to Instagram-like platforms which are both intuitive and instantly gratifying. But without exception, we find the user experience of learning business software to be exactly the opposite: instant friction and delayed gratification. Students first face an often multi-hour series of technical steps just to get the software set up before they begin working through tedious button-clicking instructions, which are at best mind-numbing and at worst outdated and inaccurate for the current version of the software.” In an article in The New Yorker last month, Dr. Atul Gawande describes the challenge of implementing Epic, a SaaS platform for managing patient care: “recording and communicating our medical observations, sending prescriptions to a patient’s pharmacy, ordering tests and scans, viewing results, scheduling surgery, sending insurance bills.” First, there’s 16 hours of mandatory training. Gawande “did fine with the initial exercises, like looking up patients’ names and emergency contacts. When it came to viewing test results, though, things got complicated. There was a column of thirteen tabs on the left side of my screen, crowded with nearly identical terms: ‘chart review,’ ‘results review,’ ‘review flowsheet.’ We hadn’t even started learning how to enter information, and the fields revealed by each tab came with their own tools and nuances.” Business software is really hard, even for digital natives. Today’s students are accustomed to simple interfaces. But simple interfaces are possible only when the function is simple, like messaging or selecting video entertainment. Today’s leading business software platforms don’t just manage a single function. They manage hundreds, if not thousands. Gawande references a book by IBM engineer Frederick Brooks, which sets forth a Darwinian theory of software evolution from a cool, easy-to-use program (“built by a few nerds for a few of their nerd friends” to perform a limited function), to a bigger program “product” that delivers more functionality to more people, to a “very uncool program system.” Gawande points to the example of Fluidity, a program written by a grad student to run simulations of small-scale fluid dynamics. Researchers loved it, and soon added code to perform new features. The software became more complex, harder to use and more restrictive. And so beyond cumbersome interfaces, the second reason why business software is really hard is that it has become inextricably and tightly wound up with business processes. Salesforce consultants will tell you it’s easier to conform your business practices to Salesforce than to try to customize (or even configure) Salesforce to support the way you do business today. And that’s true for almost all business software. As Gawande notes, “as a program adapts and serves more people and more functions, it naturally requires tighter regulation. Software systems govern how we interact as groups, and that makes them unavoidably bureaucratic in nature.” Software-defined business practices are increasingly standardized across functions and industries, and highly knowable. And because they’re knowable, hiring managers want to see candidates who know them. So it’s not just about educating students on software; inherent in preparing students on business software is equipping them with industry and/or job-function expertise. And that requires much more than 16 hours of training. “Why can’t our work systems be like our smartphones — flexible, easy, customizable? The answer is that the two systems have different purposes,” Gawande explained. “Consumer technology is all about letting me be me. Technology for complex enterprises is about helping groups do what the members cannot easily do by themselves — work in coordination.” The myth of the digital native is convenient for colleges and universities, because it allows them to stay focused on what faculty want to teach rather than what students actually need to learn. But it’s self-centered, superficial and silly. Rather than thinking about technology in terms of Netflix and smartphones, walk down the street and take a look at the software being utilized to manage your college’s admissions, financial aid and human resources functions. Indeed, 95 percent of your graduates will begin their careers working in places that look a lot more like this than like the faculty lounge. And that’s if they’re lucky. Otherwise they’ll begin their careers working in places that look a lot more like Starbucks. In his article, Gawande notes that despite the many challenges of adapting to working (and living) on a business software platform, software is eating the world for a good reason: to improve outcomes for consumers. The Epic implementation should allow hospitals to scan records to identify patients who’ve been on opioids for more than three months in order to provide outreach and reduce risk of overdose, or to improve care for homeless patients by seeing that they’ve already had three negative TB tests and therefore don’t need to be isolated. “We think of this as a system for and it’s not,” said the hospital system’s chief clinical officer. “It is for ” These improved outcomes are synonymous with the data analytics revolution — a revolution that has colleges and universities excited about new programs and increased enrollment. But all the additional data to improve these outcomes needs to be captured first. And that’s done with complex business software. So it’s unfair, or at least hypocritical, of colleges and universities to attempt to pick the fruit of big data without first sowing the seeds. And sowing the seeds entails a serious investment in preparing students with the technical and business process knowledge they’ll need to use the software that makes big data possible. |
Nvidia’s limited China connections | Danny Crichton | 2,018 | 12 | 14 | on Nvidia, and then some short news analysis. Following up on my analyses this week on Nvidia ( , ) , a reader asked in regards to Nvidia’s risk with China tariffs: but the TSMC impact w.r.t. tariffs doesn’t make sense to me. TSMC is largely not impacted by tariffs and so the supply chain with NVIDIA is also not impacted w.r.t. to TSMC as a supplier. There are many alternate wafer suppliers in Taiwan. This is a challenging question to definitively answer, since obviously Nvidia doesn’t publicly disclose its supply chain, or more granularly, which factories those supply chain partners utilize for its production. It does, however, as manufacturing, testing, and packaging partners, including: To understand how this all fits together, there are essentially three phases for bringing a semiconductor to market: For the highest precision manufacturing required for chips like Nvidia’s, Taiwan, South Korea and the U.S. are the world leaders, with China trying to catch up through programs like Made in China 2025 (which, after caustic pushback from countries around the world, this week). China is still considered to be one-to-two generations behind in chip manufacturing, though it increasingly owns the low-end of the market. Where the semiconductor supply chain traditionally gets more entwined with China is around testing and packaging, which are generally considered lower value (albeit critical) tasks that have been increasingly outsourced to the mainland over the years. Taiwan remains the dominant player here as well, , but China has been rapidly expanding. U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods do not apply to Taiwan, and so for the most part, Nvidia’s supply chain be adept at avoiding most of the brunt of the trade conflict. And while assembly is heavily based in China, electronics assemblers are rapidly adapting their supply chains to mitigate the damage of tariffs by moving factories to Vietnam, India, and elsewhere. Where it gets tricky is the Chinese market itself, which imports a huge number of semiconductor chips, and represents roughly 20% of Nvidia’s revenues. Even here, many analysts believe that the Chinese will have no choice but to buy Nvidia’s chips, since they are market-leading and substitutes are not easily available. So the conclusion is that Nvidia likely has maneuvering room in the short-term to weather exogenous trade tariff shocks and mitigate their damage. Medium to long-term though, the company will have to strategically position itself very carefully, since China is quickly becoming a dominant player in exactly the verticals it wants to own (automotive, ML workflows, etc.). In other words, Nvidia needs the Chinese market for growth at the exact moment that door is slamming shut. How it navigates this challenge in the years ahead will determine much of its growth profile in the years ahead. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. FETHI BELAID/AFP/Getty Images – Our very own Zack Whittaker talks about future challenges to U.S. national security. These technologies are “dual-use,” which means that they can be used for good purposes (autonomous driving, faster processing) and also for nefarious purposes (breaking encryption, autonomous warfare). Expect huge debates and challenges in the next decade about how to keep these technologies on the safe side. – A WSJ trio of reporters investigates the Saudi government’s aggressive attempts to shore up the value of its stock exchange. Exchange manipulation is hardly novel, either in traditional markets or in blockchain markets. China has been for years. But it is a reminder that in emerging and new exchanges, much of the price signaling is artificial. – Andrew McCormick writes in the Columbia Journalism Review how law firm Jones Day has taken a leading role in fighting against the unionization of newsrooms. The challenge of course is that the media business remains mired in cutbacks and weak earnings, and so trying to better divide a rapidly shrinking pie doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. The future — in my view — is entrepreneurial journalists backed up by platforms like where they set their own voice, tone, publishing calendar, and benefits. Having a close relationship with readers is the only way forward for job security. – Mike Orcutt at MIT Technology Review notes that , including China and Canada. What’s interesting is that the trends backing this up including financial inclusion and “diminishing cash usage.” Even though blockchain is in a nuclear winter following the collapse of crypto prices this year, it is exactly these sorts of projects that could be the way forward for the industry. More semiconductors probably. And Arman and I are side glancing at Yelp these days. Any thoughts? Email me at . |
Robinhood lacked proper insurance so will change checking & savings feature | Josh Constine | 2,018 | 12 | 14 | Robinhood will rename and revamp its upcoming checking and banking features after encountering problems with its insurance. The company a blog post this evening explaining “We plan to work closely with regulators as we prepare to launch our cash management program, and we’re revamping our marketing materials, including the name . . . Stay tuned for updates.” Robinhood’s new seemed too good to be true. Users’ money wasn’t slated to fully protected. The CEO of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, a nonprofit membership corporation that insures stock brokerages, tells TechCrunch its insurance would not apply to checking and savings accounts the . “Robinhood would be buying securities for its account and sharing a portion of the proceeds with their customers, and that’s not what we cover,” says SIPC CEO Stephen Harbeck. “I’ve never seen a single document on this. I haven’t been consulted on this.” That info directly conflicts with comments from Robinhood’s comms team, which told me yesterday users would be protected because the SIPC insures brokerages and the checking/savings feature is offered via Robinhood’s brokerage that is a member of the SIPC. If Robinhood checking and savings is indeed ineligible for insurance coverage from the SIPC, and since it doesn’t qualify for FDIC protection like a standard bank, users’ funds would have been at risk. Robinhood co-CEO Baiju Bhatt told me that “Robinhood invests users’ checking and savings money into government-grade assets like U.S. treasuries and we collect yield from those assets and pay that back to customers in the form of 3 percent interest.” But Harbeck tells me that means users would effectively be loaning Robinhood their money, and the SIPC doesn’t cover loans. I Robinhood’s team insisted yesterday that customers would not lose their money in the event that the treasuries in which it invests decline, and that only what users gamble on the stock market would be unprotected, as is standard. But now it appears that because Robinhood is misusing its brokerage classification to operate checking and savings accounts where it says users don’t have to invest in stocks and other securities, SIPC insurance wouldn’t apply. “I have an issue with some of the things on their website about whether these checking and savings accounts would be protected. I referred the issue to the SEC,” Harbeck tells me. TechCrunch got in touch with the SEC, but it declined to comment. Robinhood planned to start shipping its Mastercard debit cards to customers on December 18th with users being added off the waitlist in January. That may now be delayed due to the insurance problem and it’s announcement that it will change how it works and is positioned. Robinhood touted how its checking and savings features have no minimum account balance, overdraft fees, foreign transaction fees or card replacement fees. It also has 75,000 free-to-use ATMs in its network, which Bhatt claims is more than the top five U.S. banks combined. And its 3 percent interest rate users earn is much higher than the 0.09 percent average interest rate for traditional savings, and beats most name-brand banks outside of some credit unions. But for those perks, users must sacrifice brick-and-mortar bank branches that can help them with troubles, and instead rely on a 24/7 live chat customer support feature from Robinhood. The debit card has Mastercard’s zero-liability protection against fraud, and Robinhood partners with Sutton Bank to issue the card. But it’s unclear how the checking and savings accounts would have been protected against other types of attacks or scams. Robinhood was likely hoping to build a larger user base on top of its existing 6 million accounts by leveraging software scalability to provide such competitive rates. It planned to be profitable from its margin on the interest from investing users’ money and a revenue-sharing agreement with Mastercard on interchange fees charged to merchants when you swipe your card. But long term, Robinhood may use checking and savings as a wedge into the larger financial services market from which it can launch more lucrative products like loans. That could fall apart if users are scared to move their checking and savings money to Robinhood. Startups can suddenly fold or make too risky of decisions while chasing growth. Robinhood’s valuation went from $1.3 billion last year to $5.6 billion when it raised $363 million this year. That puts intense pressure on the company to grow to justify that massive valuation. In its rush to break into banking, it may have cut corners on becoming properly insured. It’s wise for the company to be rethinking the plan to ensure it doesn’t leave users exposed or hurt its reputation by launching without adequate protection. [Update 12/14/2018 9:30pm pacific: This article has been significantly updated to include information about Robinhood planning to change its checking and savings feature before launch to ensure users aren’t in danger or losing their money.] |
Facebook open-sources PyText NLP framework | Lucas Matney | 2,018 | 12 | 14 | Facebook AI Research is open-sourcing some of the conversational AI tech it is using to power its Portal video chat display and M suggestions on Facebook Messenger. The company announced today that its PyTorch-based PyText NLP framework is now available to developers. Natural language processing deals with how systems parse human language and are able to make decisions and derive insights. The PyText framework, which the company sees as a conduit for AI researchers to move more quickly between experimentation and deployment, will be particularly useful for tasks like document classification, sequence tagging, semantic parsing and multitask modeling, among others, Facebook says. The company has built the framework to fit pretty seamlessly into research and production workflows with an emphasis on robustness and low-latency to meet the company’s real-time NLP needs. The product is responsible for models powering more than a billion daily predictions at Facebook. Another big highlight is the framework’s modularity, allowing it to not only create new pipelines from scratch but to modify existing workflows. PyText connects to the ONNX and Caffe2 frameworks. It also supports training multiple models at once in addition to distributed training to train models over several runs. The company obviously isn’t done with making improvements to its NLP frameworks. Facebook says that going forward they’re paying particular attention to working to build an end-to-end workflow for models running on mobile devices. PyText is available on . |
null | Sarah Perez | 2,018 | 12 | 13 | null |
Starbucks adding delivery services to more than 2,000 stores via Uber Eats | Kirsten Korosec | 2,018 | 12 | 14 | Starbucks is expanding its partnership with Uber Eats to in the United States next year, about a quarter of all of the company’s locations in the country. The relationship bolsters Uber’s mission for its on-demand food delivery service, Eats. Uber has said it plans to cover more than by the end of 2018. The partnership with Starbucks, while it won’t start in earnest until next year, will help the delivery service meet or even exceed that goal as it battles for market share. ☕️👀 & , arriving soon in 2019! — Uber Eats (@UberEats) Starbucks first launched its program, Starbuck Delivers, as a pilot in September, serving people in Miami and Tokyo. Its coffee delivery roots actually began in China through a partnership with Alibaba and on-demand food delivery service Ele.me. The company also piloted a delivery service through two supermarkets in Shanghai and Hangzhou. It’s an experiment that appears to have had some success. Starbucks Delivers has reached 2,000 stores across 30 cities in China since launching three months ago, the company said at its investor conference Thursday. Now it’s taking what it learned in China and applying it to the U.S. |
The new Palm is almost the MP3 player I want | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 12 | 14 | null |
GE’s digital future looking murkier with move to spin off Industrial IoT biz | Ron Miller | 2,018 | 12 | 14 | When in Niskayuna, New York in April 2017, I thought I saw a company that was working hard to avoid disruption, but perhaps the leafy campus, the labs and experimental projects inside the company. Yesterday GE announced that it is spinning out its Industrial IoT business and selling most of its stake in ServiceMax, the company For one thing, Jeff Immelt, the CEO who was leading that modernization charge, six months after my visit and was replaced by John Flannery, into his tenure by C. Lawrence Culp, Jr. It didn’t seem to matter who was in charge, nobody could stop the bleeding stock price, which has fallen this year from a high of $18.76 in January to $7.20 this morning before the markets opened (and had already lost another .15 a share as we went to publication). It hasn’t been a great year for GE stock. Chart: Yahoo Finance Immelt at least recognized that the company needed to shift to a data-centered Industrial Internet of Things future where sensors fed data that provided ways to understand the health of a machine or how to drive the most efficient use from it. This was centered around where developers could build applications using that data. The company to extend that idea and feed service providers the data they needed to anticipate when service was needed even before the customer was aware of it. As Immelt put it in a 2014 quote on Twitter: “If you went to bed last night as an industrial company you’re going to wake up a software & analytics company.” – — General Electric (@generalelectric) That entire approach had substance. In fact, if you look at what Salesforce announced earlier this month , you will see a similar strategy. As Salesforce’s SVP and GM for Salesforce Field Service Lightning Paolo Bergamo described in a blog post, “Drawing on IoT signals surfaced in the Service Cloud console, agents can gauge whether device failure is imminent, quickly determine the source of the problem (often before the customer is even aware a problem exists) and dispatch the right mobile worker with the right skill set.” Photo: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images The ServiceMax acquisition and the Predix Platform were central to this, and while the idea was sound, Ray Wang, founder and principal analyst at Constellation Research says that the execution was poor and the company needed to change. “The vision for GE Digital made sense as they crafted a digital industrial strategy, yet the execution inside GE was not the best. As GE spins out many of its units, this move is designed to free up the unit to deliver its services beyond GE and into the larger ecosystem,” Wang told TechCrunch. Current CEO Culp sees the spin-out as a way to breathe new life into the business “As an independently operated company, our digital business will be best positioned to advance our strategy to focus on our core verticals to deliver greater value for our customers and generate new value for shareholders,” Culp explained in a statement. Maybe so, but it seems it should be at the center of what the company is doing, not a spin-off — and with only a 10 percent stake left in ServiceMax, the service business component all but goes away. Bill Ruh, GE Digital CEO, the man who was charged with implementing the mission (and apparently failed) has decided to leave the company with this announcement. In fact, the new Industrial IoT company will operate as a wholly owned GE subsidiary with its own financials and board of directors, separate from the main company. With this move though, GE is clearly moving the Industrial IoT out of the core business as it continues to struggle to find a combination that brings its stock price back to life. While the Industrial Internet of Things idea may have been poorly executed, selling and spinning off the pieces that need to be part of the digital future seem like a short-sighted way to achieve the company’s longer term goals. |
Last call for Polish pitch-offs | John Biggs | 2,018 | 12 | 14 | I’m heading back to Europe to hang out in Wroclaw and Warsaw so it’s last call for pitch-off applications. I’ll be at a Wroclaw event, which is happening on December 17; you can submit to . The team will notify you if you have been chosen. The winner will receive a table at TC Disrupt in San Francisco. The Warsaw event, , is on the 19th at WeWork in Warsaw. You can sign up to . I’ll notify the folks I’ve chosen and the winner gets a table at TC Disrupt, as well. Special thanks to in Warsaw for supplying some beer and pizza for the event and, as always, special thanks to Dermot Corr and Ahmad Piraiee for putting these things together. See you soon! |
Uber reaches tentative settlement with drivers arbitrating over employment status and expense reimbursement | Ingrid Lunden | 2,018 | 12 | 22 | is reportedly on track to go , and in the lead up to that, it’s sewing up some loose ends. TechCrunch has learned that Uber has offered a tentative settlement to pay out 11 cents for every mile driven for Uber (including adjacent services like Uber Eats) to drivers who have been in individual arbitration with the company over their employment classification. Drivers were pursuing individual arbitration after an in September that they their cases into a class action lawsuit. Uber has declined to comment for this story, and one of the firms representing drivers, Lichten & Liss-Riordan, has not yet responded to our request for comment. In a case that now goes back years and covers nine states, drivers had been seeking to be classified as employees rather than independent contractors, partly in order to get compensated for expenses related to driving for the company, such as gasoline used and vehicle maintenance. Another big complaint in the case involved tips: drivers said Uber would not allow them to take or keep tips from passengers. (The claim preceded June 2017, when Uber formally in its app, netting some extra for drivers in one year.) Uber’s settlement of 11 cents per mile for all on-trip miles that were driven for Uber bypasses addressing those specific details. Notably, drivers who accept the settlement sign documents to release all claims against Uber related to employee misclassification. The settlement is tentative depending on a sufficient number of drivers signing the agreement (we do not know what the minimum would be — so if you’re a relevant driver, you should check your mailboxes and respond if you want compensation), among other factors, and it could take up to six months for payments to get to drivers. On one hand, this an okay result in what was a challenging situation for litigating drivers. A class action lawsuit, combining several people into one case, would have gained economies of scale in terms of legal costs, and that could have meant a stronger recovery payout for the group. But with the appeals judges striking down that possibility, it would have been left to individual drivers to pursue their own cases against the company. That is an expensive and time-consuming process and might not have seen as many plaintiffs willing to fight. It may have been unpalatable for Uber, too. With the company gearing up for a public listing and all the scrutiny that comes with that, drawing a line under these cases with a settlement is a better result than multiple, years-long arbitration cases. It’s also an important step in Uber repairing its image with current and potential drivers. The company went through a huge crisis last year that highlighted questionable management and bad company culture when it came to female employees, treatment of drivers, interfacing with regulators and more. (In fact the tipping was introduced as part of the company’s wider efforts to repair its business and image among drivers, passengers and employees. It also included appointing a . ) Having a loyal and growing base of drivers is essential to Uber scaling its business, and this settlement is one signal to drivers that Uber is trying to do right by them. Still, it seems that the bargaining power here may have been more on Uber’s side. Uber, valued at $72 billion as of its last funding and potentially as high as $120 billion in an IPO, is one of the world’s biggest privately held tech companies. The 11 cents per mile it’s offering as a settlement is estimated to be only one-third of what a driver could have recovered for just one of the claims, expense reimbursement, had he or she pursued the arbitration rather than opted for the settlement. Securing rights for the growing number of contract workers in the labor market has been one of the more controversial aspects of the boom in “gig-economy” businesses. It will be interesting to see how and if more of these kinds of cases come to light, and if regulators start to wade in, in cases where employers have not. |
How Juul made vaping viral to become worth a dirty $38 billion | Josh Constine | 2,018 | 12 | 22 | a cigarette. It’s much easier than that. Through devilishly slick product design I’ll discuss here, the startup has massively lowered the barrier to getting hooked on nicotine. Juul has dismantled every deterrent to taking a puff. Photographer: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images A found only 10 percent of former smokers who turned to vaping had actually quit cigarettes after a year. My (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Juul co-founder James Monsees |
The top smartphone trends to watch in 2019 | Brian Heater | 2,018 | 12 | 22 | year for the smartphone. For the first time, its seemingly unstoppable growth began to slow. Things started off on a bad note in February, when Gartner recorded its first year-over-year decline since it began tracking the category. Not even the mighty Apple from the trend. Last week, stocks took a hit as influential analyst Ming-Chi Kuo downgraded sales expectations for 2019. People simply aren’t upgrading as fast as they used to. This is due in part to the fact that flagship phones are pretty good across the board. Manufacturers have painted themselves into a corner as they’ve battled it out over specs. There just aren’t as many compelling reasons to continually upgrade. Of course, that’s not going to stop them from trying. Along with the standard upgrades to things like cameras, you can expect some radical rethinks of smartphone form factors, along with the first few pushes into 5G in the next calendar year. If we’re lucky, there will be a few surprises along the way as well, but the following trends all look like no-brainers for 2019. GUANGZHOU, CHINA – DECEMBER 06: Attendees look at 5G mobile phones at the Qualcomm stand during China Mobile Global Partner Conference 2018 at Poly World Trade Center Exhibition Hall on December 6, 2018 in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province of China. The three-day conference opened on Thursday, with the theme of 5G network. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images) Let’s get this one out of the way, shall we? It’s a bit tricky — after all, plenty of publications are going to claim 2019 as “The Year of 5G,” but . It’s true that we’re going to see the first wave of 5G handsets appearing next year. and LG have committed to a handset and Samsung, being Samsung, . We’ve also seen promises of a Verizon 5G MiFi and whatever the hell this . Others, most notably Apple, are absent from the list. The company is not expected to release a 5G handset until 2020. While that’s going to put it behind the curve, the truth of the matter is that 5G will arrive into this world as a marketing gimmick. When it does fully roll out, 5G has the potential to be a great, gaming-changing technology for smartphones and beyond. And while carriers have promised to begin rolling out the technology in the States early next year (AT&T even got a jump start), the fact of the matter is that your handset will likely spend a lot more time using 4G. That is to say, until 5G becomes more ubiquitous, you’re going to be paying a hefty premium for a feature you barely use. Of course, that’s not going to stop hardware makers, component manufacturers and their carrier partners from rushing these devices to market as quickly as possible. Just be aware of your chosen carrier’s coverage map before shelling out that extra cash. We’ve already seen two — well, one-and-a-half, really. And you can be sure we’ll see even more as smartphone manufacturers scramble to figure out the next big thing. After years of waiting, we’ve been pretty unimpressed with the foldable smartphone we’ve seen so far. The is fascinating, but its execution leaves something to be desired. , meanwhile, is just that. The company made it the centerpiece of its recent developer conference, but didn’t really step out of the shadows with the product — almost certainly because they’re not ready to show off the full product. Now that the long-promised technology is ready in consumer form, it’s a safe bet we’ll be seeing a number of companies exploring the form factor. That will no doubt be helped along by the fact that Google partnered with Samsung to create a version of Android tailored to the form factor — similar to its embrace of the top notch with Android Pie. Of course, like 5G, these designs are going to come at a major premium. Once the initial novelty has worn off, the hardest task of all will be convincing consumers they need one in their life. Bezels be damned. For better or worse, the notch has been a mainstay of flagship smartphones. Practically everyone (save for Samsung) has embraced the cutout in an attempt to go edge to edge. Even Google made it a part of Android (while giving the world a notch you can see from space with the Pixel 3 XL). We’ve already seen (and will continue to see) a number of clever workarounds like Oppo’s pop-up. The pin hole/hole punch design found on the Huawei Nova 4 seems like a more reasonable route for a majority of camera manufacturers. The flip side of the race to infinite displays is what to do with the fingerprint reader. Some moved it to the rear, while others, like Apple, did away with it in favor of face scanning. Of course, for those unable to register a full 3D face scan, that tech is pretty easy to spoof. For that reason, fingerprint scanners aren’t going away any time soon. was among the first to bring the in-display fingerprint scanner to market, and it works like a charm. Here’s how the tech works (quoting from my own writeup from a few months ago): When the screen is locked, a fingerprint icon pops up, showing you where to press. When the finger is in the right spot, the AMOLED display flashes a bright light to capture a scan of the surface from the reflected light. The company says it takes around a third of a second, though in my own testing, that number was closer to one second or sometimes longer as I negotiated my thumb into the right spot. Samsung’s S10 is expected to bring that technology when it arrives around the February time frame, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of other manufacturers follow suit. What’s the reasonable limit for rear-facing cameras? Two? Three? What about the five cameras on that leaked Nokia from a few months back? When does it stop being a phone back and start being a camera front? These are the sorts of existential crises we’ll have to grapple with as manufacturers continue to attempt differentiation through imagining. Smartphone cameras are pretty good across the board these days, so one of the simple solutions has been simply adding more to the equation. a pretty reasonable example of how this will play out for many. The V40 ThinQ has two front and three rear-facing cameras. The three on the back are standard, super wide-angle and 2x optical zoom, offering a way to capture different types of images when a smartphone camera isn’t really capable of that kind of optical zoom in a thin form factor. On the flip side, companies will also be investing a fair deal in software to help bring better shots to existing components. Apple and Google both demonstrated how a little AI and ML can go a long way toward improving image capture on their last handsets. Expect much of that to be focused on ultra-low light and zoom. |
Facebook’s fact-checkers toil on | Devin Coldewey | 2,018 | 12 | 22 | so many problems, oversights, scandals and other miscellaneous ills that it wouldn’t surprise anyone to hear that its fact-checking program, undertaken last year after the network was confronted with its inaction in controlling disinformation, is falling apart. But in this case the reason you haven’t heard much about it isn’t because it’s a failure, but because fact-checking is boring and thankless — and being done quietly and systematically by people who are just fine with that. The “falling apart” narrative was advanced in a , and some of the problems noted in that piece are certainly real. But I was curious at the lack of documentation of the fact-checking process itself, so I talked with a couple of the people involved to get a better sense of it. I definitely didn’t get the impression of a program in crisis at all, but rather one where the necessity of remaining hands-off with the editorial process and teams involved has created both apparent and real apathy when it comes to making real changes. Facebook likes to pretend that its research into AI will solve just about every problem it has. Unfortunately not only is that AI hugely dependent on human intelligence to work in the first place, but the best it can generally do is forward things on to human agents for final calls. Nowhere is that more obvious than in the process of fact-checking, in which it is trivial for machine learning agents to surface possibly dubious links or articles, but at this stage pretty much impossible for them to do any kind of real evaluation of them. That’s where the company’s network of independent fact-checkers comes in. No longer among their number are two former Snopes staffers who left to work at — pointedly involved with Facebook — and who clearly had major problems with the way the program worked. Most explosive was the accusation that Facebook had seemingly tried to prioritize fact checks that concerned an advertiser. But it wasn’t clear from their complaints just how the program does work. I chatted with head David Mikkelson and checked in with editor Angie Drobnic Holan. They emphatically denied allegations of Facebook shenanigans, though they had their own reservations, and while they couldn’t provide exact details of the system they used, it sounds pretty straightforward. “For the most part it’s literally just data entry,” explained Mikkelson. “When we fact-check something, we enter its URL into a database. You could probably dress it up in all kinds of bells and whistles, but we don’t really need or expect much more than that. We haven’t changed what we do or how we do it.” Mikkelson described the Facebook system in broad terms. It’s a dashboard of links that are surfaced, as Facebook has explained before, primarily through machine learning systems that know what sort of thing to look for: weird URLs, bot promotion, scammy headlines, etc. They appear on the dashboard in some semblance of order, for instance based on traffic or engagement. “It lists a thumbnail of what the item is, like is it an article or a video; there’s a column for estimated shares, first published date, etc.,” said Mikkelson. “They’ve never given us any instructions on like, ‘please do the one with the most shares,’ or ‘do the most recent entry and work your way down,’ or whatever.” In fact, there’s no need to even use the dashboard that way at all. “There’s no requirement that we undertake anything that’s in their database. If there’s something that isn’t in there, which honestly is most of what we do, we just add it,” Mikkelson said. I asked whether there was any kind of pushback or interference at all from Facebook, as described by Brooks Binkowski in the Guardian story, who mentioned several such occasions that occurred during her time at Snopes. Politifact’s Holan said she thought the suggestion was “very misleading.” , the organization said that “As with all our work, we decide what to fact-check and arrive at our conclusions without input from Facebook or any third party. Any claim suggesting otherwise is misinformed and baseless.” “I realize Facebook’s reputation is kind of in the dumpster right now already,” Mikkelson said, “but this is damaging to all the fact-checking partners, including us. We would never have continued a working relationship with Facebook or any other partner that told us to couch fact checks in service of advertisers. It’s insulting to suggest.” The question of receiving compensation for fact-checking was another of Binkowski’s qualms. On the one hand, it could be seen as a conflict of interest for Facebook to be paying for the service, since that opens all kinds of cans of worms — but on the other, it’s ridiculous to suggest this critical work can or should be done for free. Though at first, it was. When the fact-checking team was first assembled in late 2016, Snopes that it expects “to derive no direct financial benefit from this arrangement.” But eventually it did. “When we published that, the partnership was in its earliest, embryonic stages — an experiment they’d like our help with,” Mikkelson said. Money “didn’t come up at all.” It wasn’t until the next year that Facebook mentioned paying fact checkers, though it hadn’t announced this publicly, and Snopes eventually did $100,000 coming from the company. Facebook had put bounties on high-profile political stories that were already on Snopes’s radar, as well as others in the fact-checking group. The money came despite the fact that Snopes never asked for it or billed Facebook — a check arrived at the end of the year, he recalled, “with a note that said ‘vendor refuses to invoice.’ ” As for the mere concept of working for a company whose slippery methods and unlikable leadership have been repeatedly pilloried over the last few years, it’s a legitimate concern. But Facebook is too important of a platform to ignore on account of ethical lapses by higher-ups who are not involved in the day-to-day fact-checking operation. Millions of people still look to Facebook for their news. To abandon the company because (for instance) Sheryl Sandberg hired a dirty PR firm to sling mud at critics would be antithetical to the mission that drove these fact-checking companies to the platform to begin with. After all, it’s not like Facebook had a sterling reputation in 2016, either. Both Politifact and Snopes indicated that their discontent with the company was more focused on the lack of transparency within the fact-checking program itself. The tools are basic and feedback is nil. Questions like the following have gone unanswered for years: What constitutes falsity? What criteria should and shouldn’t be considered? How should satire be treated if it is spreading as if it were fact? What about state-sponsored propaganda and disinformation? Have other fact checkers looked at a given story, and could or should their judgments inform the other’s? What is the immediate effect of marking a story false — does it stop spreading? Is there pushback from the community? Is the outlet penalized in other ways? What about protesting an erroneous decision? The problem with Facebook’s fact-checking operation, as so often is the case with this company, is a lack of transparency with both users and partners. The actual fact-checking happens outside Facebook, and rightly so; it’s not likely to be affected or compromised by the company, and in fact if it tried, it might find the whole thing blowing up in its face. But while the checking itself is tamper-resistant, it’s not clear at all what if any effect it’s having, and how it will be improved or implemented in the future. Surely that’s relevant to everyone with a stake in this process? Over a year and a half or more of the program, little has been communicated and little has been changed, and that not fast enough. But at the same time, thousands of articles have been checked by experts who are used to having their work go largely unrewarded — and despite Facebook’s lack of transparency with them and us, it seems unlikely that that work has also been ineffective. For years Facebook was a rat’s nest of trash content and systematically organized disinformation. In many ways, it still is, but an organized fact-checking campaign works like constant friction acting against the momentum of this heap. It’s not flashy and the work will never be done, but it’s no less important for all that. As with so many other Facebook initiatives, we hear a lot of promises and seldom much in the way of results. The establishment of a group of third parties contributing independently to a fact-checking database was a good step, and it would be surprising to hear it has had no positive affect. Users and partners deserve to know how it works, whether it’s working and how it’s being changed. That information would disarm critics and hearten allies. If Facebook continues to defy these basic expectations, however, it only further justifies and intensifies the claims of its worst enemies. |
Two years later, I still miss the headphone port | Greg Kumparak | 2,018 | 12 | 25 | Two years ago, Apple killed the headphone port. I still haven’t forgiven them for it. When Apple announced that the iPhone 7 would have no headphone port, I was pretty immediately annoyed. I figured maybe I’d get over it in a few months. I didn’t. I figured if worse came to worse, I’d switch platforms. Then all of the other manufacturers started following suit. This, of course, isn’t a new annoyance for me. I’ve been hating right here on this very website since . For a little stretch there, though, I got my way. It was a world full of dongles and crappy proprietary audio ports. Sony Ericsson had the . Nokia had the . Samsung had like 10 different ports that no one gave a shit about. No single phone maker had claimed the throne yet, so no one port had really become ubiquitous… but every manufacturer wanted port to become port. Even the phones that had a standardized audio jack mostly had the smaller 2.5mm port, requiring an adapter all the same. Then came the original iPhone with its 3.5mm headphone port. It was a weird recessed 3.5mm port that didn’t work with most headphones, but it was a 3.5mm port! Apple was riding on the success of the iPod, and people were referring to this rumored device as the Phone before it was even announced. How could something like that have a headphone port? Sales of the iPhone started to climb. A few million in 2007. Nearly 12 million in 2008. 20 million in 2009. A tide shifted. As Apple’s little slab of glass took over the smartphone world, other manufacturers tried to figure out what Apple was doing so right. The smartphone market, once filled with chunky, button-covered plastic beasts (this one slides! This one spins!), homogenized. Release by release, everything started looking more like the iPhone. A slab of glass. Premium materials. Minimal physical buttons. And, of course, a headphone port. Within a couple years, a standard headphone port wasn’t just a nice selling point — it was mandatory. We’d entered a wonderful age of being able to use our wired headphones whenever we damn well pleased. Then came September 7th, 2016, when to announce it was ditching the 3.5mm jack (oh, and also by the way check out these new $150 wireless headphones!). Apple wasn’t the first to ditch the headphone port — but, just as with its decision to include one, its decision to remove it has turned the tide. A few months after the portless iPhone 7 was announced, Xiaomi nixed the port on the Mi 6. Then Google ditched it from its flagship Android phone, the Pixel 3. Even Samsung, which , seems to be tinkering with the idea of dropping it. Though the upcoming Galaxy S10 will have a headphone port, the company pulled it from the mid-range A8 line earlier this year. If 2016 was the year Apple took a stab at the headphone jack, 2018 was the year it bled out. And I’m still mad about it. Technology comes and goes, and oh-so-often at Apple’s doing. Ditching the CD drive in laptops? That’s okay — CDs were doomed, and they were pretty awful to begin with. Killing Flash? Flash sucked. Switching one type of USB port for another? , I suppose. The new USB is better in just about every way. At the very least, I won’t try to plug it in upside down only to flip it over and realize I had it right the first time. But the headphone jack? It was . It stood the test of time for , and with good reason: It. Just. Worked. I’ve been trying to figure out why the removal of the headphone port bugs me more than other ports that have been unceremoniously killed off, and I think it’s because the headphone port almost always . Using the headphone port meant listening to my favorite album, or using a free minute to catch the latest episode of a show, or passing an earbud to a friend to share some new tune. It enabled happy moments and never got in the way. Now every time I want to use my headphones, I just find myself annoyed. Bluetooth? Whoops, forgot to charge them. Or whoops, they’re trying to pair with my laptop even though my laptop is turned off and in my backpack. Dongle? Whoops, left it on my other pair of headphones at work. Or whoops, it fell off somewhere, and now I’ve got to go buy another one. I’ll just buy a bunch of dongles, and put them on all my headphones! I’ll keep extras in my bag for when I need to borrow a pair of headphones. That’s just like five dongles at this point, problem solved! Oh, wait: now I want to listen to music while I fall asleep, but also charge my phone so it’s not dead in the morning. That’s a different, more expensive splitter dongle (many of which, I’ve found, are poorly made garbage). None of these are that big of a deal. Charge your damned headphones, Greg. Stop losing your dongles. The thing is: they took a thing that worked and made me happy and replaced it with something that, quite often, bugs the hell out of me. If a friend sent me a YouTube link and I wanted to watch it without bugging everyone around me, I could just use whatever crappy, worn out headphones I happened to have sitting in my bag. Now it’s a process with a bunch of potential points of failure. “But now its water-resistant!” Water-resistant phones existed before all of this, plenty of which had/have headphone ports. As a recent example, see Samsung’s Galaxy S9 with its IP68 rating (matching that of the iPhone XS). “But it can be slimmer!” No one was asking for that. “But the batteries inside can be bigger!” The capacity of the battery jumped in the years from the 6S to the 8 — from 1,715mAh to 1,821mAh. It wasn’t until a few years later with the iPhone X, when the standard iPhone started getting wider and taller, that we saw super big jumps in its battery capacity. Will this post change anything? Of course not. Apple blew the horn that told the industry it’s okay to drop the headphone port, and everyone fell right in line. The next year — and the year after that — Apple sold another 200 million-plus phones. At this point, Apple doesn’t even bother giving you the headphone adapter in the box. Apple’s mind is made up. But if you’re out there, annoyed, stumbling across this post after finding yourself with a pair of headphones and a smartphone that won’t play friendly together in a pinch, just know: you’re not the only one. Two years later, I’m still mad at whoever made this call — and everyone else in the industry who followed suit. |
Slack says it will comply with sanctions and block Iran-based activity, apologizes for botched first effort | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 12 | 22 | Slack has apologized after following a poorly executed effort at complying with U.S. sanctions against the country. The company, , has scrapped that first go at the policy. But it did confirm it will now block all activity in Iran and other sanctioned countries, although user accounts won’t be closed. As one of the world’s largest community services, that botched first implementation will have impacted significant numbers of users — both in terms of enterprise teams and free accounts which use Slack for membership of interest groups and communities. The victims affected included Amir Abdi, a machine learning scientist at the University of British Columbia (UBC) who is also the recipient of the Vanier scholarship for PhD talent. that his account was shut down without prior warning, and the same appeared to apply to a number of other individuals who had visited Iran and used Slack from there. Slack told us on Thursday, , that it had implemented the ban based on IP addresses. The general gist was that anyone who had logged on from Iran was blocked and the company admitted in a statement on Friday that it had made “a series of mistakes” by taking that approach. “We recognize the disruption and inconvenience this caused and we sincerely apologize to the people affected by our actions,” . Going forward, Slack said it will suspend user accounts while they are in Iran — and logged in from Iran-based IP address — but they once they return to a non-sanctioned market, full access will be restored. That policy visit, and Users who travel to a sanctioned country may not be able to access Slack while they remain in that country. However, we will not deactivate their account and they will be able to access Slack when they return to countries or regions for which no blocking is required. The issue is perhaps the most serious screw up to date from Slack, . The company admitted that its policy had been both poorly communicated and badly implemented and it pledged to learn from the experience. “We’ll take the failures here as lessons we can use to improve our service and avoid similar mistakes in the future,” the company said. |
Twitter’s newest feature is reigniting the ‘iPhone vs Android’ war | Jon Russell | 2,018 | 12 | 22 | Twitter’s newest feature is reigniting the flame war between iOS and Android owners. The U.S. social media company’s latest addition is a subtle piece of information that shows the client that each tweet is sent from. In doing so, the company now displays whether a user tweets from the web or mobile and, if they are on a phone, whether they used Twitter’s iOS or Android apps, or a third-party service. The feature — which was quietly enabled on Twitter’s mobile clients earlier this month; it has long been part of the TweetDeck app — has received a mixed response from users since CEO Jack Dorsey spotlighted it. Some are happy to have additional details to dig into for context, for example, whether a person is on mobile or using third-party apps, but others believe it is an unnecessary addition that is stoking the rivalry between iOS and Android fans. Source information back in the tweets — jack (@jack) Interestingly, the app detail isn’t actually new. Way back in 2012 — some six years ago — as part of a series of changes to unify users across devices, focus on service’s reading experience and push people to its official apps where it could maximize advertising reach. That was a long time ago — so long that TechCrunch editor-in-chief was still a reporter when he and I were at another publication altogether — and much has changed at Twitter, . Back in 2012, Twitter was trying to reign in the mass of third-party apps that were popular with users in order to centralize its advertising to get itself, and its finances, together before going public. and it did migrate most users to its own apps, but it did a terrible job handling developers and thus, today, there are precious few third-party apps. That’s still a sore point with many users, since the independent apps were traditionally superior with better design and more functions. Most are dead now and Twitter’s official apps reign supreme. Many Twitter users may not be aware of the back story, so it is pretty fascinating to see some express uncertainty at displaying details of their phone. Indeed, a number of Android users lamented that the new detail is ‘exposing’ their devices. Here’s a selection of tweets: Thank god I switched to iPhone before this new twitter update cause chile, these android users are….. nvmd — EFRAIN 🐺 (@DOMXXXTOP) Twitter is trying to expose us android users 😭 — Marion 🦋 (@bIackprincessa) twitter said: time to expose people with androids — el ✰ vacation (@angeIichoney) Omg twitter! What a discrimination towards android users! Perlu ke cakap twitter for android or twitter for iphone?! Hina sangat ke pakai android?!! — ☕️ (@hani_farisha22) Since Twitter can show what a person is tweeting with Android, iPhone etc.. We are going to be selective when we reply, can't be back chatting to someone who is using android.🤣🤣🤣🤣 — Terry (@TENDANIL) So Twitter released a new update where you will see thee kinda phone someone is tweeting from, either iPhone or Android… I've been scrolling for five minutes and all the tweets are from iPhones… Except mine 😭😭 — Your Class Rep 😎 (@DaRealSeguncool) twitter out here exposing ppl with this ‘twitter for iphone/android’ shit huh — nia (@fiImsdaya) Twitter for iphone Twitter for android Twitter lite The iphone v samsung fights are about to turn savage — Nyasha (@NyashaSamsunga) Now Twitter let you know who uses IPhone and who uses Android and seems like I'm the only who uses Android here — Liya 🦄✨ || ia bc exams (@xliamstanxx) So now twitter tells me who's tweeting from Android or Iphone? I guess all us Android peasents need to start stockpiling ammo and jarring our urine. — the_silver fox (@the_silverfox1) Twitter for iPhone / Twitter for Android — Intrapiernoso (@INTRAPlERNOSO) I could go on — — but it seems like, for many, iPhone is still the ultimate status symbol over Android despite the progress made by the likes of Samsung, Huawei and newer Android players Xiaomi and Oppo. While it may increase arguments between mobile’s two tribes, the feature has already called out brands and ambassadors using the ‘wrong’ device. Notable examples including or . Suddenly spotting these mismatches is a whole lot easier. |
Cybersecurity 101: How to protect your cell phone number and why you should care | Zack Whittaker | 2,018 | 12 | 25 | Assuming you have your strong passwords in place and your two-factor authentication set up, you think your accounts are now safe? Think again. There’s much more to be done. You might think your Social Security or bank account numbers are the most sensitive digits in your life. Nowadays, hackers can do far more damage with little effort using just your cell phone number. But unlike your Social Security number, you’re far less likely to keep your cell phone number a secret — otherwise nobody can contact you! Whether you’re an AT&T, Verizon, Sprint or T-Mobile customer, every cell phone number can be a target for hackers. And it takes remarkably little effort to wreak havoc to your online life. Your cell phone number is a single point of failure. Think about it. You use your cell phone number all the time. You use it when you sign up to sites and services, and sometimes you’ll use it to log into an app or a game on your phone. Your phone number can be used to reset your account if you forget your password. And, you use it for two-factor authentication to securely login to your accounts. If someone steals your phone number, they become you — for all intents and purposes. With your phone number, a hacker can start hijacking your accounts one by one by having a password reset sent to your phone. They can trick automated systems — like your bank — into thinking they’re you when you call customer service. And worse, they can use your hijacked number to break into your work email and documents — potentially exposing your employer up to data theft. Just think of every site and service that has your phone number. That’s why you need to protect your phone number. It’s easier than you might think. Phone numbers can be found anywhere – thanks in part to so many data breaches. Often, hackers will find the cell phone number of their target floating around the internet (or from a phone bill in the garbage), and call up their carrier impersonating the customer. With a few simple questions answered — often little more than where a person lives or their date of birth, they ask the customer service representative to “port out” the phone number to a different carrier or a SIM card. That’s it. As soon as the “port out” completes, the phone number activates on an attacker’s SIM card, and the hacker can send and receive messages and make calls as if they were the person they just hacked. In most cases, the only sign that it happened is if the victim suddenly loses cell service for no apparent reason. From there, it’s as simple as initiating password resets on accounts associated with that phone number. Facebook, Gmail, Twitter — and more. A hacker can use your hijacked phone number to , take over or maliciously . You can read when his phone number was hijacked. In the worst cases, it can be difficult or impossible to get your phone number back — let alone the accounts that get broken into. Your best bet is to make sure it never happens in the first place. Just like you can apply two-factor authentication to your online accounts, you can add a secondary security code to your cell phone account, too. You can either call up customer services or do it online. (Many feel more reassured by calling up and talking to someone.) You can ask customer service, for example, to set a secondary password on your account to ensure that only you — the account holder — can make any changes to the account or port out your number. Every carrier handles secondary security codes differently. You may be limited in your password, passcode or passphrase, but try to make it more than four to six digits. And make sure you keep a backup of the code! For the major carriers: If your carrier isn’t listed, you might want to check if they employ a similar secondary security code to your account to prevent any abuse. And if they don’t, maybe you should port out your cell phone number to a carrier that does. |
null | Matt Burns | 2,018 | 12 | 14 | null |
Amid plummeting stocks and political uncertainty, VCs urge their portfolios to prepare for winter | Jonathan Shieber | 2,018 | 12 | 25 | The warning signs are flashing faster and more furiously now, and investors are increasingly urging their startups to take notice. With the Dow Jones Industrial Average of historic proportions, and other indices , the long-predicted end of the latest bull market is upon the technology industry. While tech companies , increasing regulatory scrutiny coupled with a broader set of economic risk factors (including a trade war with China, flagging domestic industrial spending and — perhaps most worrying — ) may offset projected growth in information technology outlays from companies to create a scenario where the roaring teens of the tech industry’s millennial years head into the terrible twenties of the new century. That means venture capital investors are once again breaking out the slide deck from Sequoia Capital and cautioning their portfolio companies about what comes next. “In the course of preparing plans for 2019, most of our mature companies have internalized the risk for a downturn, but I think it’s hard to really model what the impact will be,” wrote Founder Collective managing partner David Frankel in an email. “You could imagine a slowdown in capital markets due to a rise in interest rates, that might hurt some companies that are overly dependent on VC, but leave the strong companies largely unscathed. It’s also easy to imagine a more systemic correction that decimates the verticals that were (& this will be easy with hindsight of course) ‘vitamins’ not painkillers.” For some startups that means . As Joshua Hoffman, the chief executive of synthetic biology startup Zymergen, explained to Bloomberg when discussing his recent $400 million round led by SoftBank Vision Fund, “We wanted to have some fat on our bones for sure… The time to raise money is when people are giving it to you.” (Even if that money is tied to the dismemberment-and-beheading-happy Saudi Arabian government.) For some, the times look very similar to the early 2000s, when the dot-com bubble burst. In 2000, . Eighteen years later that number is roughly $96 billion. In the first year of the new millennium, a Japanese firm called SoftBank had established a worldwide network of funds to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into startup companies that were going to revolutionize the technology industry. Now, SoftBank is once again the firm throwing millions (hundreds of millions) against the proverbial wall in hopes that billions will come bouncing back. Venture firms are expected to raise around $45 billion this year, while back in 2000 funds were sitting on about $80 billion in capital, from University of Western Ontario professor Milford Green. There are important differences between the early part of the millennium and today’s technology and venture capital markets. Business models for technology companies are far more mature (Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook and Microsoft are among the world’s most valuable companies) and the replacement of “eyeballs” with ad dollars can’t be overstated as an engine for economic growth and value. At the same time, the fact that an entire generation of entrepreneurs have not experienced an economic down cycle is a sign of concern for some investors. “There’s a large cohort of founders who haven’t seen a down economy and that’s a risk to the ecosystem,” Frankel writes. “Many founders believe that in a weak economy, that they might have to accept a down round, but few have grappled with the reality that capital markets don’t soften, they seize and capital just can’t be had, at almost any price, for months or more.” So investors like Lux Capital’s Bilal Zuberi has begun advising portfolio companies to start preparing for times they’ve never seen. Winter… is indeed coming. In a direct message Zuberi wrote: Yes, for all obvious reasons we do believe startups should be thinking hard about their capital needs going into 2019 and beyond, and how to not get caught in a firestorm. (a) the amount of money flowing in SV startups has meant startup teams and investors are not used to being frugal. Consider this, many junior partners at VC firms have never seen an economic downturn — and they are sitting on Boards of startups spending tons of money, (b) raising money sooner than later, but not increasing burn is a prudent thing to do for companies that have access to more capital, (c) when downturn hits there will be special situations opportunities to invest in good companies but at lower valuations. All VC firms know…But I wouldn’t want any of my companies to become a ‘special situation’. So fighting hard now to reach escape velocity is also prudent. And (d) you are seeing VC firms bulk up their own funds, raise debt funds, and so on…this should be a signal to startups that where capital flows from upstream is starting to worry. Smart founders should take that as a signal, and prepare accordingly. For Zuberi, preparation means a few things. Founders need to think about their financing plans beyond the next 12 to 18 months, and raise capital only if that cost of capital is low. Preparation also means keeping tabs on burn rates and financials in general, and begin planning on how to move aggressively should competitors start becoming “special situations” that investors may look to offload. Of course, there’s still the possibility that all of this worrying will be for nothing. Bill Gurley in 2015, and there have been rumblings about a startup crash since the Brexit vote went through. The Dot Com bust and suprime crises felt like big, surprising (at the time) shocks. Now I feel like everyone's standing around with their emergency preparedness bags, pointing at the oncoming recession and it's just not happening. Very strange feeling. — Micah Rosenbloom (@micahjay1) At this point though, the parallels are beginning to look more than eerie, and it may behoove founders to take the warnings as more than just another instance of investors crying wolf — if only because it seems that the wolf is indeed at the door. |
We finally started taking screen time seriously in 2018 | Catherine Shu | 2,018 | 12 | 25 | of this year, I was using my iPhone to browse new titles on Amazon when I saw the cover of by Catherine Price. I downloaded it on Kindle because I genuinely wanted to reduce my smartphone use, but also because I thought it would be hilarious to read a book about breaking up with your smartphone on my smartphone (stupid, I know). Within a couple of chapters, however, I was motivated enough to download , a screen-time-tracking app recommended by Price, and re-purchase the book in print. Early in “How to Break Up With Your Phone,” Price invites her readers to take the , developed by David Greenfield, a psychiatry professor at the University of Connecticut who also founded the . The test has 15 questions, but I knew I was in trouble after answering the first five. Humbled by my very high score, which I am too embarrassed to disclose, I decided it was time to get serious about curtailing my smartphone usage. Of the chapters in Price’s book, the one called “Putting the Dope in Dopamine” resonated with me the most. She writes that “phones and most apps are deliberately designed without ‘stopping cues’ to alert us when we’ve had enough—which is why it’s so easy to accidentally binge. On a certain level, we know that what we’re doing is making us feel gross. But instead of stopping, our brains decide the solution is to seek out more dopamine. We check our phones again. And again. And again.” Gross was exactly how I felt. I bought my first iPhone in 2011 (and owned an iPod Touch before that). It was the first thing I looked at in the morning and the last thing I saw at night. I would claim it was because I wanted to check work stuff, but really I was on autopilot. Thinking about what I could have accomplished over the past eight years if I hadn’t been constantly attached to my smartphone made me feel queasy. I also wondered what it had done to my brain’s feedback loop. Just as sugar changes your palate, making you crave more and more sweets to feel sated, I was worried that the incremental doses of immediate gratification my phone doled out would diminish my ability to feel genuine joy and pleasure. Price’s book was published in February, at the beginning of a year when it feels like tech companies finally started to treat excessive screen time as a liability (or at least do more than pay lip service to it). In addition to the introduction of and , , and all launched new features that allow users to track time spent on their sites and apps. Early this year, influential activist investors who hold Apple shares also . In a letter to Apple, hedge fund Jana Partners and California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) wrote “social media sites and applications for which the iPhone and iPad are a primary gateway are usually designed to be as addictive and time-consuming as possible, as many of their original creators have publicly acknowledged,” adding that “it is both unrealistic and a poor long-term business strategy to ask parents to fight this battle alone.” Then in November, researchers at Penn State that linked social media usage by adolescents to depression. Led by psychologist Melissa Hunt, the monitored 143 students with iPhones from the university for three weeks. The undergraduates were divided into two groups: one was instructed to limit their time on social media, including Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram, to just 10 minutes each app per day (their usage was confirmed by checking their phone’s iOS battery use screens). The other group continued using social media apps as they usually did. At the beginning of the study, a baseline was established with standard tests for depression, anxiety, social support and other issues, and each group continued to be assessed throughout the experiment. The findings, published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, were striking. The researchers wrote that “the limited use group showed significant reductions in loneliness and depression over three weeks compared to the control group.” Even the control group benefited, despite not being given limits on their social media use. “Both groups showed significant decreases in anxiety and fear of missing out over baselines, suggesting a benefit of increased self-monitoring,” the study said. “Our findings strongly suggest that limiting social media use to approximately 30 minutes a day may lead to significant improvement in well-being.” Other academic studies published this year added to the growing roster of evidence that smartphones and mobile apps can significantly harm your mental and physical well-being. A group of researchers from Princeton, Dartmouth, the University of Texas at Austin, and Stanford that found using smartphones to take photos and videos of an experience actually reduces the ability to form memories of it. Others warned against or . Optical chemistry researchers at the University of Toledo found that blue light from digital devices can , potentially speeding macular degeneration. So over the past 12 months, I’ve certainly had plenty of motivation to reduce my screen time. In fact, every time I checked the news on my phone, there seemed to be yet another headline about the perils of smartphone use. I began using Moment to track my total screen time and how it was divided between apps. I took two of Moment’s in-app courses, “Phone Bootcamp” and “Bored and Brilliant.” I also used the app to set a daily time limit, turned on “tiny reminders,” or push notifications that tell you how much time you’ve spent on your phone so far throughout the day, and enabled the “Force Me Off When I’m Over” feature, which basically annoys you off your phone when you go over your daily allotment. At first I managed to cut my screen time in half. I had thought some of the benefits, like a better attention span mentioned in Price’s book, were too good to be true. But I found my concentration really did improve significantly after just a week of limiting my smartphone use. I read more long-form articles, caught up on some TV shows, and finished knitting a sweater for my toddler. Most importantly, the nagging feeling I had at the end of each day about frittering all my time away diminished, and so I lived happily after, snug in the knowledge that I’m not squandering my life on memes, clickbait and makeup tutorials. Just kidding. Holding my iPod Touch in 2010, a year before I bought my first smartphone and back when I still had an attention span. After a few weeks, my screen time started creeping up again. First I turned off Moment’s “Force Me Off” feature, because my apartment doesn’t have a landline and I needed to be able to check texts from my husband. I kept the tiny reminders, but those became easier and easier to ignore. But even as I mindlessly scrolled through Instagram or Reddit, I felt the existentialist dread of knowing that I was misusing the best years of my life. With all that at stake, why is limiting screen time so hard? I decided to talk to the CEO of Moment, Tim Kendall, for some insight. Founded in 2014 by UI designer and iOS developer Kevin Holesh, Moment recently launched an Android version, too. It’s one of the best known of a genre that includes , , , , and , all dedicated to reducing screen time (or at least encouraging more mindful smartphone use). Kendall told me that I’m not alone. Moment has 7 million users and “over the last four years, you can see that average usage goes up every year,” he says. By looking at overall data, Moment’s team can tell that its tools and courses do help people reduce their screen time, but that often it starts creeping up again. Combating that with new features is one of the company’s main goals for next year. “We’re spending a lot of time investing in R&D to figure out how to help people who fall into that category. They did Phone Bootcamp, saw nice results, saw benefits, but they just weren’t able to figure out how to do it sustainably,” says Kendall. Moment already releases new courses regularly (recent topics have included sleep, attention span, and family time) and recently began offering them on a subscription basis. “It’s habit formation and sustained behavior change that is really hard,” says Kendall, who previously held positions as president at Pinterest and Facebook’s director of monetization. But he’s optimistic. “It’s tractable. People can do it. I think the rewards are really significant. We aren’t stopping with the courses. We are exploring a lot of different ways to help people.” As Jana Partners and CalSTRS noted in their letter, a particularly important issue is the impact of excessive smartphone use on the first generation of teenagers and young adults to have constant access to the devices. Kendall notes that suicide rates among teenagers have . Though research hasn’t explicitly linked time spent online to suicide, the link between screen time and depression has been noted many times already, as in the Penn State study. But there is hope. Kendall says that the Moment Coach feature, which delivers short, daily exercises to reduce smartphone use, seems to be particularly effective among millennials, the generation most stereotypically associated with being pathologically attached to their phones. “It seems that 20- and 30-somethings have an easier time internalizing the coach and therefore reducing their usage than 40- and 50-somethings,” he says. Kendall stresses that Moment does not see smartphone use as an all-or-nothing proposition. Instead, he believes that people should replace brain junk food, like social media apps, with things like online language courses or meditation apps. “I really do think the phone used deliberately is one of the most wonderful things you have,” he says. Researchers have found that taking smartphone photos and videos during an experience may decrease your ability to form memories of it. (Steved_np3/Getty Images) I’ve tried to limit most of my smartphone usage to apps like Kindle, but the best solution has been to find offline alternatives to keep myself distracted. For example, I’ve been teaching myself new knitting and crochet techniques, because I can’t do either while holding my phone (though I do listen to podcasts and audiobooks). It also gives me a tactile way to measure the time I spend off my phone because the hours I cut off my screen time correlate to the number of rows I complete on a project. To limit my usage to specific apps, I rely on iOS Screen Time. It’s really easy to just tap “Ignore Limit,” however, so I also continue to depend on several of Moment’s features. While several third-party screen time tracking app developers have , Kendall says the launch of Screen Time hasn’t significantly impacted Moment’s business or sign ups. The launch of their Android version also opens up a significant new market (Android also enables Moment to add new features that aren’t possible on iOS, including only allowing access to certain apps during set times). The short-term impact of iOS Screen Time has “been neutral, but I think in the long-term it’s really going to help,” Kendall says. “I think in the long-term it’s going to help with awareness. If I were to use a diet metaphor, I think Apple has built a terrific calorie counter and scale, but unfortunately they have not given people nutritional guidelines or a regimen. If you talk to any behavioral economist, not withstanding all that’s been said about the quantified self, numbers don’t really motivate people.” Guilting also doesn’t work, at least not for the long-term, so Moment tries to take “a compassionate voice,” he adds. “That’s part of our brand and company and ethos. We don’t think we’ll be very helpful if people feel judged when we use our product. They need to feel cared for and supported, and know that the goal is not perfection, it’s gradual change.” Many smartphone users are probably in my situation: alarmed by their screen time stats, unhappy about the time they waste, but also finding it hard to quit their devices. We don’t just use our smartphones to distract ourselves or get a quick dopamine rush with social media likes. We use it to manage our workload, keep in touch with friends, plan our days, read books, look up recipes, and find fun places to go. I’ve often thought about buying a bag or asking my husband to hide my phone from me, but I know that ultimately won’t help. As cheesy as it sounds, the impetus for change must come from within. No amount of academic research, screen time apps, or analytics can make up for that. One thing I tell myself is that unless developers find more ways to force us to change our behavior or another major paradigm shift occurs in mobile communications, my relationship with my smartphone will move in cycles. Sometimes I’ll be happy with my usage, then I’ll lapse, then I’ll take another Moment course or try another screen time app, and hopefully get back on track. In 2018, however, the conversation around screen time finally gained some desperately needed urgency (and in the meantime, I’ve actually completed some knitting projects instead of just thumbing my way through #knittersofinstagram). |
Cybersecurity 101: How to choose and use an encrypted messaging app | Zack Whittaker | 2,018 | 12 | 25 | Text messaging has been around since the dawn of cellular technology, and sparked its own unique language. But it’s time to put sending regular SMS messages out to pasture. If you have an iPhone, you’re already on your way. iPhones (as well as iPads and Macs) use iMessage to send messages between Apple devices. It’s a data-based messaging system reliant on 3G, 4G, and Wi-Fi, rather than SMS messaging, which uses an old, outdated but universal 2G cellular network. iMessage has grown in popularity, but has left Android devices and other computers out in the dark. That’s where other messaging services have filled a gap in the market. Apps like Signal, WhatsApp, Wire and Wickr are also data-based and work across platforms. Best of all, they’re end-to-end encrypted, which means sent messages are scrambled on one end of the conversation — the device — and unscrambled at the other end on the recipient’s device. This makes it near-impossible for anyone — even the app maker — to see what’s being said. Many popular apps, like Instagram, Skype, Slack and Snapchat don’t offer end-to-end encryption at all. Facebook Messenger has , but isn’t enabled by default. Here’s what you need to know. SMS, or short messaging service, is more than three decades old. It’s generally reliable, but it’s outdated, archaic and expensive. There are also several reasons why SMS messaging is insecure. SMS messages aren’t encrypted, meaning the contents of each text message are viewable to mobile carriers and governments, and can even be . That means even if you’re using SMS to secure your online accounts using two-factor authentication, your codes . Just as bad, SMS messages leak metadata, which is information about the message but not the contents of the message itself, such as the phone number of the sender and the recipient, which can identify the people involved in the conversation. SMS messages can also be spoofed, meaning you can never be completely sure that a SMS message came from a particular person. And a recent ruling by the Federal Communications Commission now gives cell carriers greater powers to block SMS messages. The FCC said it will cut down on SMS spam, but many worry that it . In all of these cases, the answer is an encrypted messaging app. The simple answer is , an open source, end-to-end encrypted messaging app seen as of secure consumer messaging services. Signal supports and encrypts all of your messages, calls and video chats with other Signal users. Some of the world’s smartest security professionals and cryptography experts have looked at and verified its code, and trust its security. The app uses your cell phone number as its point of contact — which some have criticized, but it’s easy to without losing your own cell number. Other than your phone number, the app is built from the ground up to collect as little metadata as possible. A for Signal’s data showed that the app maker has almost nothing to turn over. Not only are your messages encrypted, each person in the conversation can set messages to expire — so that even if a device is compromised, the messages can be set to already disappear. You can also add a separate lock screen on the app for additional security. And the app keeps getting stronger and stronger. Recently, Signal rolled out a new feature that , making it better for sender anonymity. But actually, there is a far more nuanced answer than “just Signal.” Everyone has different needs, wants and requirements. Depending on who you are, what your job is, and who you talk to will determine which encrypted messaging app is best for you. Signal may be the favorite app for high-risk jobs — like journalism, activism, and government workers. Many will find that WhatsApp, for example, is good enough for the vast majority who just want to talk to their friends and family without worrying about someone reading their messages. You may have heard some misinformed things about WhatsApp , sparked largely by incorrect and misleading reporting that claimed there was a “backdoor” to allow third parties to read messages. Those claims were unsubstantiated. WhatsApp does collect some data on its 1.5 billion users, like metadata about who is contacting whom, and when. That data can be turned over to police if they request it with a valid legal order. But messages cannot be read as they are end-to-end encrypted. WhatsApp can’t turn over those messages even if it wanted to. Although many don’t realize that WhatsApp , which has faced a slew of security and privacy scandals in the past year, Facebook has said it’s committed to . That said, it’s feasibly possible that Facebook could , security researchers have said. It’s right to remain cautious, but WhatsApp is still better to use for sending encrypted messages than not at all. The best advice is to never write and send something on even an end-to-end encrypted messaging app that you wouldn’t want to appear in a courtroom — just in case! Wire is also enjoyed by many who trust the open-source cross-platform app for sharing group chats and calls. The app doesn’t require a phone number, instead , which many who want greater anonymity find more appealing than alternative apps. Wire also backed up its end-to-end encryption claims of its cryptography, but users should be aware that a trade-off for using the app on other devices means that the app in plain text. iMessage is and are used by millions of people around the world who likely don’t even realize their messages are encrypted. Other apps should be treated with care or avoided altogether. Apps like Telegram have been for its error-prone cryptography, which as “being like being stabbed in the eye with a fork.” And researchers have found that apps like , once a favorite among White House staffers, don’t properly scramble messages, making it easy for the app’s makers to secretly eavesdrop on someone’s conversation. A core question in end-to-end encrypted messaging is: how do I know a person is who they say they are? Every end-to-end encrypted messaging app handles a user’s identity differently. Signal calls it a “safety number” and WhatsApp calls it a “security code.” Across the board, it’s what we call “key verification.” Every user has their own unique “fingerprint” that’s associated with their username, phone number or their device. It’s usually a string of letters and numbers. The easiest way to verify someone’s fingerprint is to do it in person. It’s simple: you both get your phones out, open up a conversation on your encrypted messaging app of choice, and you make sure that the fingerprints on the two sets of devices are exactly the same. You usually then hit a “verify” button — and that’s it. Verifying a contact’s fingerprint remotely or over the internet is tricker. Often it requires sharing your fingerprint (or a screenshot) over another channel — such as a Twitter message, on Facebook, or email — and making sure they match. (The Intercept’s Micah Lee has of how to verify an identity.) Once you verify someone’s identity, they won’t need to be reverified. If your app warns you that a recipient’s fingerprint has changed, it could be an innocuous reason — they may have a new phone number, or sent a message from a new device. But that could also mean that someone is trying to impersonate the other person in your conversation. You would be right to be cautious, and try to reverify their identity again. Some apps don’t bother to verify a user’s identity at all. For example, there’s no way to know that someone isn’t secretly snooping on your iMessage conversations because Apple if someone is secretly monitoring your conversation or hasn’t somehow replaced a message recipient with another person. You can about how Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Wire allow you to verify your keys and warn you of key changes. (Spoiler alert: Signal is the safest choice.) There are some other tips you should know: A very important point here — often, your encrypted messages are not encrypted when they are backed up to the cloud. That means the government can demand that your cloud provider — like Apple or Google — to retrieve and turn over your encrypted messages from its servers. You should not back up your messages to the cloud if this is a concern. One of the benefits to many encrypted messaging apps is that they’re available on a multitude of platforms, devices and operating systems. Many also offer desktop versions for responding faster. But over the past few years, most of the major vulnerabilities have been in the buggy desktop software. Make sure you’re on top of app updates. If an update requires you to restart the app or your computer, you should do it straight away. Encryption isn’t magic; it requires awareness and consideration. End-to-end encrypted messaging won’t save you if your phone is compromised or stolen and its contents can be accessed. You should strongly consider setting an expiry timer on your conversations to ensure that older messages will be deleted and disappear. One of the best ways to make sure you stay secure (and get new features!) is to make sure that your desktop and mobile apps are kept up-to-date. Security bugs are found often, but you may not always hear about them. Keep your apps updated is the best way to make sure you’re getting those security fixes as soon as possible, lowering your risk that your messages could be intercepted or stolen. |
Why you need to use a password manager | Zack Whittaker | 2,018 | 12 | 25 | If you thought the age of passwords will soon be over, think again. They’re here to stay — for now. are cumbersome and hard to remember — and just when you do, you’re told to change them again. And sometimes passwords can be guessed and are easily hackable. But while nobody likes passwords, they’re a fact of life. And while and small have tried to kill off passwords by replacing them with fingerprints and face-scanning technology, neither are perfect and many still resort back to the trusty (but frustrating) password. How do you make living with passwords easier? You need a password manager. Think of a password manager like a book of your passwords, locked by a master key that only you know and other security protections to guard your most sensitive secrets. Password managers don’t just store your passwords — they help you generate and save strong, unique passwords when you sign up to new websites. That means whenever you go to a website or app, you can pull up your password manager, copy your password, paste it into the login box, and you’re in. Often, password managers come with browser extensions that automatically fill in your password for you. And because many of the password managers out there have encrypted sync across devices, you can take your passwords anywhere with you — even on your phone. You might think a “master key” to your password manager might sound like a single point of failure. What if someone gets my master password? That’s a reasonable and rational fear. But assuming that you’ve chosen a strong and unique, but memorable, master password that you’ve not used anywhere else is a near-perfect way to protect the rest of your passwords from improper access. Plus, most password managers also come with additional protections, like , meaning a determined hacker could not access your password manager with just your master password alone. Password managers take the hassle out of creating and remembering strong passwords, and storing other secrets like tokens, credit cards and even crypto keys. It’s that simple. But there are three good reasons why you should care. Passwords are stolen all the time. Sites and services are at constant risk of breaches as much as you are to phishing attacks that try to trick you into handing over your password. Although companies are meant to scramble your password when they store it — a process known as hashing — not all use strong or modern algorithms, making it easy for hackers to reverse that hashing and read your password in plain text. Some companies don’t bother to hash at all! That puts your accounts or your data at risk of being used . But the longer and more complex your passwords are, the longer it takes for hackers to unscramble them. That can be a password that’s a mix of uppercase and lowercase characters, numbers, symbols and punctuation — or, as many are moving towards, the use of deliberately lengthy pass-phrases, which make up several unique words that can be easily remembered but can be far stronger than shorter passwords. The other problem is the sheer number of passwords we have to remember. Banks, social media accounts, our email and utilities — it’s easy to just use one password across the board. But that makes “ ” easier. That’s when hackers take your password from one breached site and try to log in to your account on other sites. Using a password manager makes it so much easier to generate and store stronger passwords that are unique to each site, preventing credential stuffing attacks. And, for the times you’re in a crowded or busy place — like a coffee shop or an airplane — think of who is around you. Typing in passwords can be seen, copied and later used by nearby eavesdroppers. Using a password manager in many cases removes the need to type any passwords in at all. The more popular password manager features with your friends or colleagues. The simple answer is that it’s up to you. All password managers perform largely the same tasks — but different apps will have more or relevant features to you than others. Up-to-date iPhone and iPad users have built-in by default — so there’s no excuse not to use one. You can sync your passwords across devices using iCloud Keychain. Apple also has for those who want to access their iOS passwords on another browser or a Windows computer. For anyone else, most password managers are free — with the option to upgrade to get better features. If you want your passwords to sync across devices for example, is widely used and , so you can tell if (and avoid!) a password that has been previously leaked or exposed in a data breach. has a free offering for a single device. Some password managers are open source, like and allowing anyone to read the source code. KeePass doesn’t use the cloud so it never leaves your computer unless you move it. That’s much better for the super paranoid, but also for those who might face a wider range of threats — such as those who work in government. Because it’s open source, others have taken the project and created their own open source versions, like , which includes a range of more modern features. Although most browsers like , , and allow you to save your passwords, some security experts warn that password-stealing malware targets browsers in the hope of stealing passwords and other sensitive secrets. Like all software, vulnerabilities and weaknesses in any password manager can . But so long as you keep your password manager up to date — most browser extensions are automatically updated — your risk is significantly reduced. Simply put: using a password manager is than not using one. |
How two-factor authentication can protect you from account hacks | Zack Whittaker | 2,018 | 12 | 25 | If you , two-factor authentication probably won’t get much love. But security experts say using two-factor authentication is one of the to protect your online accounts from even the most sophisticated hackers. Two-factor authentication adds another factor of authentication to your usual log-in process on top of your password, hence the name. Once you enter your username and password, you’ll be prompted to enter a code sent as a text message or an email, or sometimes as a push notification on your phone. In all, it usually only adds a few extra seconds to your day, if that. Two-factor authentication (sometimes called “two-step verification”) combines something you know, such as your username and password — with something you own, such as your phone or a physical security key, or even something you have — like your fingerprint or another biometric, as a way of confirming that a person is authorized to log in. You might not have thought much about it, but you do this more than you might realize. Whenever you withdraw cash from an ATM, you insert your card (something you have) and enter your PIN (something you know) — which tells the bank that it’s you. Even when you use your bank card on the internet, often you still need something that you know — such as your ZIP or postal code. Simply put, having a second step of authentication makes it so much more difficult for a hacker or a thief to break into your online accounts. Gone are the days where your trusty password can protect you. Even if you have a unique password for every website you use, there’s little in the way to stop malware on your computer (or even on the website!) from scraping your password and using it again. Or, if someone sees you type in your password, they can memorize it and log in as you. Don’t think it’ll happen to you? So-called “credential stuffing,” “password spraying”, or brute-force attacks can make it easy for hackers to break in and hijack people’s online accounts in bulk. That happens all the time. , , , , and even tech giants like and Apple’s service aren’t immune. Only accounts with two-factor authentication are protected from these automated log-in attacks. Two-factor also protects you . If someone sends you a suspicious-looking email that tries to trick you into logging in with your Google or Facebook username and password to a fake site, for example, two-factor can still protect you. Only the legitimate site will send you a working two-factor code. A three-step illustration of how two-factor authentication works, from entering your account password to receiving and entering a code sent to your phone. Getty Images Enabling two-factor is a good start, but it’s not a panacea. As much as it can prevent hackers from logging in as you, it doesn’t mean that your data stored on the company’s server is protected from hackers breaching a server elsewhere, or a government demanding that the company turns over your data. And some methods of two-factor are better than others. As you’ll see. Even if you want to secure all of your accounts, you may find some sites and services don’t support two-factor. But as credential-stuffing attacks rise and data breaches have become a regular occurrence, many sites and services are doing everything they can to protect their users. There are four main types of two-factor authentication, ranked in order of effectiveness: The most common form of two-factor is a code sent by SMS. It doesn’t require an app or even a smartphone, but cell service is required. It’s easy to use and set-up, but two-factor by text message is the least secure method. Hackers can easily exploit weaknesses in the phone networks . Because SMS messages aren’t encrypted, text messages . Plus, if your phone is lost or stolen, an attacker could request a two-factor code and access your accounts. A text message code is far, far better than not using two-factor at all, but there are far more secure options. This works similarly to the text message, except you’ll have to install an app on your smartphone. Anytime you need a two-factor code, you can get one from your app. Authenticator apps even work offline and don’t require a cell or internet connection. There are many authenticator apps to choose from, like , , and . The difference here is that they are sent over an encrypted connection, making it nearly-impossible for anyone to steal your two-factor code before you use it. If you , you already have a two-factor authenticator built-in to your iPhone. Using your face, eye, or fingerprint is a common way , but it’s also increasingly used as a method for websites to check that you are who you say you are. Often these biometric-based two-factor options are built into your device, such as your computer or phone, to scan your face or fingerprint. Last but not least, a physical security key is considered the strongest of all two-factor authentication methods. Security keys often look like that are small enough to fit on a keyring. You may not even need one since newer and have the hardware feature built-in. These security keys contain unique cryptographic code that tells a website or a service that it’s you logging in. After entering your password, you are prompted to insert the security key into your device. And that’s it! Even if someone steals your password, they can’t log in without that key. And phishing pages won’t work because only the legitimate sites support security keys. These keys are designed to thwart even the smartest and most resourceful attackers, like nation-state hackers. Google’s own data shows it since rolling out security keys to its staff. There are several security keys to choose from: Google has for high-risk users, like politicians and journalists, and for everyone else. But many security experts will say Yubikeys are . There are a few things to note, though. Not all sites support security keys yet, but most of the major companies do — like Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Twitter. Once you set up a physical key, this will often become the only way to log-in — you likely won’t be able to revert to a lesser-secure way of logging in, like a fingerprint or a two-factor code. You may also need to buy two security keys, with one stored in a safe place as a backup. Also, if one is stolen, there’s no way to determine your account from the key itself. But, if you lose them both, you might be done for. Even the company that stores your data might not be able to get you back into your account. That’s why it’s important to save any backup codes you might be given in the event of account lock-outs. If after all this your favorite site or service still doesn’t use two-factor authentication, you should tell them! If it’s a site or service that you cannot avoid, consider using a very long, unique password that is not used anywhere else. This reduces, though does not eliminate, the risk of someone compromising your accounts unless they breach the site or service itself. That’s what you need to know. You might want to create a checklist of your most valuable accounts, and begin switching on two-factor authentication starting with them. In most cases, it’s fairly straightforward. You might want to take an hour or so to go through all of your accounts — so put on a pot of coffee and get started. You should see two-factor as an investment in security: a little of your time today, to save you from a whole world of trouble tomorrow. |
How to browse the web privately and securely | Zack Whittaker | 2,018 | 12 | 25 | So you want to browse the web securely and privately? The fact is it’s almost impossible. Your internet provider collects about you, like the sites you visit, and , prompting some states to . And that’s not to mention the data that the U.S. government can . But perhaps the most egregious data collectors are the sites you visit and the apps you use. Social media giants suck up your data, , and your search history can reveal your health concerns, your political beliefs and your browsing habits. Any time you use the internet, you leave a trail of data behind you. You can’t stop it all; that’s just how the internet and web browsers work. But there are plenty of things that you can do to reduce your digital footprint. You’ve probably heard a lot about VPNs — a virtual private network — and how they can hide your internet traffic from snoopers. Well, not really. A VPN lets you funnel all of your internet traffic through a dedicated, often encrypted tunnel, allowing you to hide your web browsing history from your internet provider. That might help you get around censorship systems or geoblocks that limit your streams to your region. But otherwise you’re just sending all of your internet traffic to a VPN provider instead. Essentially, you have to decide who you trust more: your VPN provider or your internet provider. The problem is, most free VPN providers make their money by selling your data or serving you ads — and some are just or have that can put you at risk. Even if you use a premium VPN provider for privacy, they can connect your payment information to your internet traffic, and many VPN providers don’t even bother to encrypt your data. As , the best VPNs are the ones that you set up and control yourself. You can create your own (if you want to use the cloud) or server in just a few minutes. Algo is created by , a highly trusted and respected security company in New York. The source code is , making it far more difficult to covertly insert backdoors into the code. Instead of rerouting your traffic from one place to another, there are better ways to minimize your digital footprint. What does it mean that “your internet provider knows what sites you visit,” anyway? The internet relies on DNS — or the domain name system — to convert web addresses into computer-readable IP addresses. Most devices automatically use the DNS resolver that’s set by the network you’re connected to — that’s often your internet provider — which means your internet provider knows what websites you’re visiting. A few years ago, Congress passed a law allowing internet providers to to advertisers. You need a secure and private DNS provider. One of the most popular privacy-friendly offerings is , which it calls . Cloudflare encrypts your traffic, won’t use your data to serve ads, and doesn’t store your IP address for any longer than 24 hours. It’s easy to get started, and you can download Cloudflare’s apps from and . For Firefox users, (or DoH) is built in and enabled by default. DoH encrypts your DNS queries, which hides your web browsing history from third-parties and also makes it more difficult for your DNS queries to be intercepted and hijacked to redirect you to malicious sites. Gone are the days of legacy web plugins. Flash and Java have been deprecated from the web for years. As such, it’s safe to remove them as this will reduce ways for malware to target you. For the Java hold-outs, there are instructions to remove it for both and . These days, web browser extensions add functionality to your browser. But they can also present privacy and security risks. Like apps on your phone, browser extensions often to your browser, your data, or even your computer, and although vetted by the web browser makers, extensions can be sneaky, siphon off or share your data, or . There’s no simple rule to what’s a good extension and what isn’t. Use your judgment. Make sure each extension you install doesn’t ask for more access than you think it needs. And make sure you uninstall or remove any extension that you no longer use. Changing long-standing habits can also go a long way to preserving your digital privacy. You could also consider switching to a more privacy-minded search engine like , a popular search engine that promises to never store your personal information and to serve ads. iPhone and iPad users can also in iOS to DuckDuckGo. Brave also offers and in beta. If you want anonymity, use Tor. Tor is an that bounces your internet traffic through a series of relay servers dotted across the world, making it incredibly difficult to track your browsing activity. You access the Tor network using the Tor Browser, a . You can access regular websites just as you would any other web browser, as well as special .onion domains which can only be accessed via Tor. These days, many of the big companies have rolled out .onion domains for their services, like , , and the , in large part in response to growing global censorship. A screenshot of Twitter running in the Tor Browser. Tor makes it near-impossible for anyone to snoop on your web traffic, know which site you’re visiting, or that you are the person accessing the site. Activists and journalists often use Tor to circumvent censorship and surveillance. Using Tor is not a panacea. Just like any other web browser, you have to make sure the Tor Browser is up to date. (It should automatically download updates, but make sure you restart to install them.) The Tor Project has a helpful guide on about using Tor. Just don’t expect Tor to be fast. Although it’s getting faster as Tor continues to scale, it’s not practical for streaming video or accessing bandwidth-hungry sites. |
Conan Roasts iPad 2: You'll Buy It No Matter What We Say [Video] | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 3 | 3 | With every new Apple product launch, there’s now an expectation that we’re going to get a video made by Apple to help explain the product. You know the ones. They feature Apple executives (though, oddly, never CEO Steve Jobs) set against a white background telling us how great and revolutionary the product is. They’re brilliant and effective. But they definitely also take themselves way too seriously. And that’s why they’re the perfect target for parody. We’ve seen dozens of people/groups mock these . And now the professionals are getting involved. During his TBS show tonight, Conan O’Brien decided to take his shot. Like Jobs, O’Brien isn’t in the actual video. Instead he sets it up and lets his minions do the work. “ ” O’Brien says to set up his take on the iPad 2 ( ). Enjoy below. I personally enjoy the Vice President of “Dream-Telligence”. |
Cybersecurity 101: How to protect your online security and digital privacy | Zack Whittaker | 2,018 | 12 | 25 | Security used to be difficult. Now it’s easier than ever. With an ever-changing and evolving landscape of threats and hacks, breaches and vulnerabilities, there’s no better time to invest in your personal cybersecurity by from hackers and protecting your from spies and trackers. We’ve put together these helpful how-to guides — which we call the — covering some of the important cybersecurity basics, from and , learning how to and more privately, and what you can do to from the web. |
What history could tell Mark Zuckerberg | Natasha Lomas | 2,018 | 12 | 25 | obsessed over the wrong bit of history. Or else didn’t study his preferred slice of classical antiquity carefully enough, faced, as he now is, with an of ‘fake news’ simultaneously undermining trust in his own empire and in democracy itself. A recent — questioning whether the Facebook founder can fix the creation he pressed upon the world before the collective counter-pressure emanating from his billions-strong social network does for democracy what Brutus did to Caesar — touched in passing on Zuckerberg’s admiration for Augustus, the first emperor of Rome. “Basically, through a really harsh approach, he established two hundred years of world peace,” was the Facebook founder’s concise explainer of his man-crush, freely accepting there had been some crushing “trade-offs” involved in delivering that august outcome. Zuckerberg’s own trade-offs, engaged in his quest to maximize the growth of his system, appear to have achieved a very different kind of outcome. If you gloss over the killing of an awful lot of people, the Romans achieved and devised . Let alone the data-distributing monster that is Facebook — an unprecedented information empire unto itself that’s done its level best to heave the entire internet inside its corporate walls. Literacy in Ancient Rome was dependent on class, thereby limiting who could read the texts that were produced, and requiring word of mouth for further spread. The ‘internet of the day’ would best resemble physical gatherings — markets, public baths, the circus — where gossip passed as people mingled. Though of course information could only travel as fast as a person (or an animal assistant) could move a message. In terms of regular news distribution, Ancient Rome had the , A government-produced daily gazette that put out the official line on noteworthy public events. These official texts, initially carved on stone or metal tablets, were distributed by being exposed in a frequented public place. inutes of senate meetings were included in the by Julius Caesar. But, in a very early act of censorship, Zuckerberg’s hero ended the practice — preferring to keep more fulsome records of political debate out of the literate public sphere. “What news was published thereafter in the contained only such parts of the senatorial debates as the imperial government saw fit to publish,” writes Frederick Cramer, in an on censorship in Ancient Rome. Augustus, the grand-nephew and adopted son of Caesar, evidently did not want the risk of political opponents using the outlet to influence opinion, his great-uncle having been assassinated in a murderous plot hatched by conspiring senators. The Death of Caesar Under Augustus, the A was instead the mouthpiece of the “monarchic faction.” “He rightly believed this method to be less dangerous than to muzzle the senators directly,” is Cramer’s assessment of Augustus’s decision to terminate publication of the senatorial protocols, limiting at a stroke how physical voices raised against him in the Senate could travel and lodge in the wider public consciousness by depriving them of space on the official platform. Augustus also banned anonymous writing in a bid to control incendiary attacks distributed via pamphlets and used legal means to command the burning of incriminatory writings (with some condemned authors issued with ‘literary death-sentences’ for their entire life’s work). The first emperor of Rome understood all too well the power of “ .” It’s something of a grand irony, then, that Zuckerberg failed to grasp the lesson for the longest time, letting the eviscerating fire of fake news rage on unchecked until the inferno was licking at the seat of his own power. So instead of Facebook’s brand and business invoking the sought-for sense of community, it’s come to appear like a layer cake of fakes, iced with hate speech horrors. On the fake front, there are , , , and . Plus a and cynical manufactured by the company itself. There’s some murkier propaganda, too; a PR firm Facebook engaged in recent years to help with its string of reputation-decimating scandals reportedly worked to by seeding a little inflammatory smears on its behalf. indeed. Perhaps Zuckerberg thought Ancient Rome’s bloody struggles were so far-flung in history that any leaderly learnings he might extract would necessarily be abstract, and could be cherry-picked and selectively filtered with the classical context so comfortably remote from the modern world. A world that, , Zuckerberg had intended to render, via pro-speech defaults and systematic hostility to privacy, “more open and connected.” Before it got too difficult for him to totally disregard the and . Revising the mission statement a year-and-a-half ago, Zuckerberg had the chance to admit he’d messed up by mistaking his own grandstanding world-changing ambition for a worthy cause. Of course he sidestepped, writing instead that he would commit his empire (he calls it a “community”) to strive for a specific positive outcome. He didn’t go full Augustus with the new goal (no ‘world peace’) — but recast Facebook’s mission to: “Give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” There are, it’s painful to say, “communities” of neo-Nazis and white supremacists thriving on Facebook. But they certainly don’t believe in bringing the world closer together. So Facebook’s reworked mission statement is a tacit admission that its tools can help spread hate by saying it hopes for the opposite outcome. Even as Zuckerberg continues to house voices on his platform that seek to deny historical outrages like the Holocaust, which is the very definition of antisemitic hate speech. “I used to think that if we just gave people a voice and helped them connect, that would make the world better by itself. In many ways it has. But our society is still divided,” he wrote in , eliding his role as emperor of the Facebook platform, in fomenting the societal division of which he typed. “Now I believe we have a responsibility to do even more. It’s not enough to simply connect the world, we must also work to bring the world closer together.” This year his personal challenge was also set at “ .” Also this year: Zuckerberg made a point of defending , then scrambled to add the caveat that he finds such views “deeply offensive.” (That particular Facebook content policy has stood unflinching for .) It goes without saying that the Nazis of Hitler’s Germany understood the terrible power of propaganda, too. More recently, faced with the consequences of a moral and ethical failure to grapple with hateful propaganda and junk news, Facebook has said it will set up to handle some content policy decisions next year. But only at a higher and selective appeal tier, after layers of standard internal reviews. It’s also not clear how this committee can be truly independent from Facebook. Quite possibly it’ll just be another friction-laced distraction tactic, akin to Facebook’s self-serving . WASHINGTON, DC – APRIL 11: Facebook co-founder, Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg prepares to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on April 11, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Revised mission statements, personal objectives and lashings of self-serving blog posts (playing up the latest self-forged “accountability” fudge), have done nothing to dim the now widely held view that Facebook specifically, and social media in general, profits off of accelerated outrage. Cries to that effect have only grown louder this year, two years on from revelations that Kremlin election propaganda maliciously targeting the U.S. presidential election had reached , fueled by a steady stream of fresh outrages found spreading and catching fire on these “social” platforms. Like so many self-hyping technologies, social media seems terribly deceptively named. “Antisocial media” is, all too often, rather closer to the mark. And Zuckerberg, the category’s still youthful warlord, looks less “harshly pacifying Augustus” than modern day Ozymandias, forever banging on about his unifying mission while being drowned out by the sound and fury coming from the platform he built to programmatically profit from conflict. And still the young leader longs for the mighty works . For all the positive connections flowing from widespread access to social media tools (which of course Zuckerberg prefers to fix on), evidence of the tech’s divisive effects are now impossible for everyone else to ignore: Whether you look at the wildly successful megaphoning of Kremlin propaganda targeting elections and (genuine) communities by pot stirring across all sorts of identity divides; or algorithmic recommendation engines that systematically point young and impressionable minds toward extremist ideologies (and/or brain-meltingly ridiculous conspiracy theories) as an eyeball-engagement strategy for scaling ad revenue in the attention economy. Or, well, . Whatever your view on whether or not Facebook content is actually influencing opinion, attention is undoubtedly being robbed. And the company has a long history of utilizing addictive design strategies to keep users hooked. To the point where it’s publicly admitted it has and claims to be tweaking its algorithmic recipes to dial down the attention incursion. (Even as its engagement-based business model demands the dial be yanked back the other way.) Facebook’s problems with fakery (“inauthentic content” in the corporate parlance) and hate speech — which, without the hammer blow of media-level regulation, is forever doomed to slip through Facebook’s one-size-fits-all “community standards” — are, it argues, merely a reflection of humanity’s flaws. So it’s essentially asking to be viewed as a global mirror, and so be let off the moral hook. A literal — warts, fakes, hate and all. It was never selling a fair-face, this self-serving, revisionist hot-take suggests; rather Facebook wants to be accepted as, at best, a sort of utilitarian plug that’s on a philanthropic, world-spanning infrastructure quest to stick a socket in everyone. Y’know, for their own good. “It’s fashionable to treat the dysfunctions of social media as the result of the naivete of early technologists who failed to foresee these outcomes. The truth is that the ability to build Facebook-like services is relatively common,” wrote Cory Doctorow in a damning assessment of the Facebook founder’s moral vacuum. “What was rare was the moral recklessness necessary to go through with it.” Even now Zuckerberg is refusing the moral and ethical burden of editorial responsibility for the content his tools auto-publish and algorithmically amplify, every instant of every day, using proprietary information-shaping distribution hierarchies that accelerate machine-selected clickbait through the blood-brain barrier of 2.2 billion-plus users. These algorithmically prioritized comms are positioned to influence opinion and drive intention at an unprecedented, global scale. Asked by the about the inflammatory misinformation peddled by InfoWars conspiracy theorist and hate speech “preacher,” Alex Jones, earlier this year, Zuckerberg’s gut instinct was to argue again to be let off the hook. “I don’t believe that it is the right thing to ban a person for saying something that is factually incorrect,” was his disingenuous response. It was left to the journalist to point out InfoWars’ malicious disinformation is rather more than factually incorrect. Facebook has taken down some this year, in its usual case by case style, where it deemed there was a direct incitement to violence. And in (“for glorifying violence, which violates our graphic violence policy, and using dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies”). But it has certainly not de-platformed the professional purveyor of hateful conspiracy theories who sells supplements alongside his attention-grabbing lies. One academic study, published , found much of the removed InfoWars content had managed to move “swiftly back” onto the Facebook platform. Like radio and silence, Facebook hates a content vacuum. The problem is its own platform also sells stuff alongside attention-grabbing lies. So Jones is just the Facebook business model if it could pull on a blue suit and shout. It’s clear that Facebook’s adherence to a rules-based, reactive formula for assessing speech sets few if any meaningful moral standards. The company has also preferred to try offloading tricky decisions to third-party fact checkers and soon a quasi-external committee — a strategy that looks intended to sustain the suggestive lie that, at base, Facebook is just a “neutral platform.” Yet Zuckerberg’s business is the business of influence itself. He admits as much. “Senator, we run ads,” he told Congress this April when asked how the platform turns a profit. If the ads don’t work that’s an awful lot of money being pointlessly poured into Facebook’s coffers. An astute political operator like Augustus was entirely alive to the risks of political propaganda. Hence making sure to keep a lid on domestic political opponents, while allowing them to let off steam in the Senate where a wider audience wouldn’t hear them. Zuckerberg, by contrast, created the most effective tool for spreading propaganda the world has ever known without — so he claims — bothering to consider how people might use it. That’s either radical stupidity or willful recklessness. Zuckerberg implies the former. “I always believed people are basically good,” he wrote in his on rethinking Facebook’s mission statement last year. Though you’d think someone with a fascination for classical antiquity, and a special admiration for an emperor whose harsh trade-offs apparently included arranging the execution of his own grandson, might have found plenty to test that theory to a natural breaking point. Safe to say, such a naive political mind wouldn’t have lasted long in Ancient Rome. But Zuckerberg is no politician. He’s a new-age ad salesman with a crush on one of history’s canniest political operators — who happened to know the power and value of propaganda. And who also knew that propaganda could be deadly. If you imagine Facebook’s platform as a modern day — albeit, one updated continuously, delivered direct to citizens’ pockets, and with no single distributed copy ever being exactly the same — the organ is clearly not working toward any kind of societal order, crushing or otherwise. Under Zuckerberg’s programmatic instruction, Facebook’s daily notices are selected for their capacity to emotionally tug at the individual. By design the medium agitates because the platform exists to trade attention. It’s really the opposite of “civilization building.” Outrage and tribalism are grist to the algorithmic mill. It’s much closer to the tabloid news mantra — of “if it bleeds it leads.” But Facebook goes further, using “free speech” as a cloaking mechanism to cross the ethical line and conceal the ugly violence of a business that profits by ripping up the social compact. The speech-before-truth philosophy underpinning Zuckerberg’s creation intrinsically works against the civic, community values he claims to champion. So at bottom, there’s yet another fake: no “global community” inside the walled garden, just a globally scaled marketing empire that’s had raging success in growing programmatic ad sales by tearing genuine communities apart. Here confusion and anger reign. The empire of Zuckerberg is a drear domain indeed. One hundred cardboard cutouts of Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg stand outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, April 10, 2018. Advocacy group Avaaz is calling attention to what the groups says are hundreds of millions of fake accounts still spreading disinformation on Facebook. (Photo: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images) Might things have turned out differently for Facebook — and, well, for the world — if its founder had obsessed over a different period in history? The English Civil War of the 1640s has much to recommend it as a study topic to those trying to understand and unpick the social impacts of the hyper modern phenomenon of social media, given the historical parallels of society turned upside during a moment of information revolution. It might seen counterintuitive to look so far back in time to try to understand the societal impacts of cutting-edge communications technologies. But human nature can be surprisingly constant. Internet platforms are also socio-technical tools, which means ignoring human behavior is a really dumb thing to do. As the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, recently of modern day anthropogenic platforms: “As we’re designing the system, we’re designing society.” The design challenge is all about understanding human behaviour — so you know how and where to place your ethical guardrails. Rather than, per the Zuckerberg fashion, embarking on some kind of a quixotic, decade-plus quest to chase a grand unifying formula of IFTTT reaction statements to respond consistently to every possible human (and inhuman) act across the globe. Mozilla’s Mitchell Baker made a related warning , when she called for humanities and ethics to be baked into STEM learning, saying: “One thing that’s happened in 2018 is that we’ve looked at the platforms, and the thinking behind the platforms, and the lack of focus on impact or result. It crystallised for me that if we have Stem education without the humanities, or without ethics, or without understanding human behaviour, then we are intentionally building the next generation of technologists who have not even the framework or the education or vocabulary to think about the relationship of Stem to society or humans or life.” What’s fascinating about the English Civil War to anyone interested in current day Internet speech versus censorship ethics trade-offs, is that in a similar fashion to how social media has radically lowered the distribution barrier for online speech, by giving anyone posting stuff online the chance of reaching a large audience, England’s long-standing regime of monarchical censorship collapsed in 1641, leading to a great efflorescence of speech and ideas as pamphlets suddenly and freely poured off printing presses. This included But, at the same time, pamphlets were also used during the English Civil War period as a cynical political propaganda tool to whip up racial and sectarian hatred, most markedly in the parliament’s fight against the king. Especially vicious hate speech was directed at the Irish. And historians suggest anti-Irish propaganda helped fuel the rampage that Cromwell’s soldiers went on in Ireland to crush the rebellion, having been fed a diet of violent claims in uncensored pamphlet print — such as that the Irish were killing and eating babies. For a modern day parallel of information technology charging up ethnic hate you only have to look to where its platform was appropriated by military elements to incite genocide against the minority Rohingya population — leading to terrible human rights abuses in the modern era. There’s no shortage of other awful examples either. “There are genuine atrocities in Ireland but suddenly the pamphleteers realise that this sells and suddenly you get a pornography of violence when everyone is rushing to put out these incredibly violent and unpleasant stories, and people are rushing to buy them,” says University of Southampton early modern history professor, Mark Stoyle, discussing the parliamentary pamphleteers’ evolving tactics in the English Civil War. “It makes the Irish rebellion look even worse than it was. And it sort of raises even greater levels of bitterness and hostility towards the Irish. I would say those sorts of things had a very serious effect.” Stoyle says pamphlets printed during the English Civil War period also revived superstitious beliefs in witchcraft, leading to an upsurge in prosecutions and killings on charges of witchcraft which had dipped in earlier years under tighter state controls on popular printed accounts of witch trials. “Once the royal regime collapses, the king’s not there to stop people prosecuting witches, he’s not there to stop these pamphlets appearing. There’s a massive upsurge in pamphlets about witches and in no time at all there’s a massive upsurge in prosecutions of witches. That’s when Matthew Hopkins, the witchfinder general, kills several hundred men and women in East Anglia on charges of being witches. And again I think the civil war propaganda has helped to fuel that.” If you think modern day internet platforms don’t have to worry about crazy superstitions like witchcraft and devil worship just Google “Frazzledrip” (a conspiracy theory that’s been racking up the views on YouTube this year which claims Hillary Clinton and longtime aide Huma Abedin sexually assaulted a girl and drank her blood). The Clinton-targeted viral “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory also combines bizarre claims of Satanic rituals with child abuse. None of which stopped it catching fire on social media. Indeed, a whole host of ridiculous fictions are being algorithmically accelerated into wider view, here in the 21st (not the 17th) century. And it’s internet platforms that rank speech above truth that are in the distribution saddle. Stoyle, who has written on witchcraft and propaganda during the English Civil War, believes the worst massacre of the period was also fueled by political disinformation targeting the king’s female camp followers. Parliamentary pamphleteers wrote that the women were prostitutes. Or claimed they were Irish women who had killed English men and women in Ireland. There were also claims some were witches. “One of these pamphlets describes the women in the king’s camp — just literally a week before the massacre — and it presents them all as prostitutes and it says something like ‘these women they revel in their hot blood and they deserve a hotter punishment’,” he tells us. “Just a week later they’re all cut down. And I don’t think that’s coincidence.” In the massacre Stoyle says parliamentary soldiers set about the women, killing 100 and mutilating scores more. “This is just unheard of,” he adds. The early modern period even had the equivalent of viral clickbait in pamphlet form when a ridiculous story about a dog owned by the king’s finest cavalry commander, prince Rupert, takes off. The poodle was claimed to be a witch in disguise which had invested Rupert with magical military powers — hence, the pamphlets proclaimed, his huge successes on the battlefield. “In a time when we’ve got no pictures at all of some of the most important men and women in the country we’ve got six different pictures of prince Rupert’s dog circulating. So this is absolutely fake news with a vengeance,” says Stoyle. And while parliamentarian pamphlet writers are generally assumed to be behind this particular sequence of Civil War fakes, Stoyle believes one particularly blatant pamphlet in the series — which claimed the dog was not only a witch but that the prince was having sex with it — is a doubly bogus hoax fake. “I’m pretty certain now it was actually written by a royalist to poke fun at the parliamentarians for being so gullible and believing this stuff,” he says. “But like so many hoaxes it was a hoax that went wrong — it was done so well that most people who read it actually believed it. And it was just a few highly educated royalists who got the joke and laughed at it. And so in a way it was like a hoax that backfired horribly. “A classic case of fake news biting the person who put it out in the bum.” Of course this was also the prince’s dog pamphlet that got the most attention and “viral engagement” of the time, as other pamphlet writers picked up on it and started referencing it. So again the lesson about clickbait economics is a very old one, if you only know where to look. Fake news most certainly wasn’t suddenly . Modern hoaxers like Jones (who has also been at it for far longer than two years) are just appropriating cutting-edge tech tools to plough a very old furrow. Equally, it really shouldn’t be any kind of news flash that free speech can have a horribly dark side. The overarching lesson of history is that propaganda is baked indelibly into the human condition. Speech and lies come wrapped around the same tongue. The stark consequences that can flow from maliciously minded lies being crafted to move a particular audience are also writ large across countless history books. So when Facebook says — caught fencing Kremlin lies — “we just didn’t think of that” it’s a truly illiterate response to an age-old problem. And as the philosophical saying goes: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. That’s really the most important history lesson of all. “As humans we have this terrible ability to be angels and devils — to use things for wonderful purposes and to use things for terrible purposes that were never really intended or thought of,” says Stoyle, when asked whether, at a Facebook-level scale, we’re now seeing some of the limits of the benefits of free speech. “I’m not saying that the people who wrote some of these pamphlets in the Civil War expected it would lead to terrible massacres and killings but it did and they sort of played their part in that. “It’s just an amazingly interesting period because there’s all this stuff going on and some of it is very dark and some of it’s more positive. And I suppose we’re quite well aware of the dark side of social media now and how it has got a tendency to let almost the worst human instincts come out in it. But some of these things were, I think, forces for good.” ‘Balancing angels and devils’ would certainly be quite the job description to ink on Zuckerberg’s business card. “History teaches you to take all the evidence, weigh it up and then say who’s saying this, where does it come from, why are they saying it, what’s the purpose,” adds Stoyle, giving some final thoughts on why studying the past can provide a way through modern day information chaos. “Those are the tools that you need to make your way through this minefield.” |
Confirmed: Bungie's Next Game Will Be An MMO | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 3 |
Not every developer gets the headline treatment when they make an announcement like this, but Bungie is not just any developer. I don’t have a lot of love for Halo, but I respect Bungie and they’re a huge force in the market, so when they confirm their next project is , people like Blizzard tend to take notice. Beyond what Bungie’s David Aldridge said at GDC today, there’s no new information, so we’ll probably have to wait until E3 before we hear anything new. It’s exciting, though — more competition for WoW is always good, in my opinion. (And here’s hoping it’s based in the Marathon universe.) |
Doom: The Love Child Of D&D And NeXT | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 3 |
We here at CrunchGear love John Carmack. His remains one of our no-nonsense tech talks, up there with the unveiling of the iPhone. So when he speaks, we listen with interest. Unfortunately, he wasn’t at GDC to talk about the origins of Doom, everyone’s favorite mom-shocking FPS from the early 90s. Fortunately, and Tom Hall were. Man, I wish I was there! I’ve always been interested in the development of Doom and Quake, since those games were a serious cut above the competition at the time, and have aged extremely well. Some stuff is known about the incubation process of the game, but Romero and Hall today talked about how they digitized clay models on their NeXT Cube, played and replayed levels, and how they basically were inspired by (read: ripped off) D&D for a lot of their levels and monsters. , but I’m hoping a full transcript or video will be available later, this super-early game development stuff is really interesting to me. |
Handy Android App: Launch Task Of Your Choice When You Plug In USB Or Headphones | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 3 |
This is pretty sweet, I’m actually going to download it right now. Pretty much the only time I plug my phone in now is when I’m heading to bed, and the only time I plug in a headset is to listen to music. So why not get an app that automates launching those apps, saving me a few swipes of the finger? does just that. Useful! [via and ] |
Drop By The Behemoth's Booth At PAX To See Their Hand-Built Arcade Machines | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 3 |
If you’re going to PAX East this year, you should be sure to head over to The Behemoth’s booth (developers of among other things) and check out their sweet arcade cabinets, which they’ve for you to fiddle around with. Four will be running their newest game, , and one will have on it for your medieval beat-em-up pleasure. I’ve always wanted a home arcade machine. How hard can it be, anyway? [via ] |
Vurve Raises Another $4.5 Million To Give Businesses "Advertising On Autopilot" | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 3 | 3 | It’s no secret that a well-managed online marketing campaign can be a powerful weapon for small businesses eager to get in front of new customers — there’s a reason Google’s AdWords pulls in billions each year. But while many online platforms offer self-service tools that businesses can use to manage their own campaigns, the legwork involved with running these (especially on multiple platforms simultaneously) can be daunting. That’s where comes in. The startup, which just raised $4.5 million in a Series A funding round, promises businesses “Advertising on autopilot” — it automates many of the most time-intensive aspects of running marketing online. The funding round was led by Spark Capital, with participation from Dave McClure’s 500 Startups and True Ventures. Vurve’s signup workflow is pretty simple, relatively speaking (the startup says that it generally takes less than to complete). To help streamline things the company has been working on partnering with ecommerce platforms like Shopify — which has integrated Vurve directly into its administrator dashboard — and Yahoo’s storefronts. Vurve says that Magento support will be launching in two weeks, and that it’s in talks with “all but two” of the most popular hosted ecommerce platforms for further integrations. Once you’ve signed up, Vurve will ask you to set your monthly budget — the minimum is $200, the maximum is $10,000 (Vurve doesn’t want to be working with very large businesses that require huge marketing campaigns). From there Vurve’s engine, dubbed , will automatically run ads through a variety of marketing channels, including search ads on Facebook, Google, Bing, and Yahoo, and display ads on various shopping sites, like Amazon. Ad copy is generated using a combination of templates and information garnered from simple questions (What is your company’s tagline?) The service will also automatically post your products to shopping search engines like Bing and Google Product Search, and over time it will adjust which channels it invests in based on performance. Vurve makes money by taking 15% of your budget as a fee. Vurve has been in beta since February 2010, and it launched publicly in November. It previously raised a $1.2 million seed round in 2009.
|
Noteleaf Takes Mobile Meeting Notifications To A Whole New Level | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 3 | 3 |
Backed by and (outside of Start Fund), helps you prepare for meetings, in one of the more novel ways I have seen. Launching today, the service pulls information from your Google Calendar and LinkedIn accounts inorder to send you comprehensive notifications of what you need to do, where you need to do it and who you need to do it with. you say. Noteleaf goes a step further, using machine learning technology to read your calendar entries and build you a mobile profile of your meeting, complete with LinkedIn profile and work history of the person it guesses you’re meeting with. In addition, you get a link to a thread of every email you’ve ever exchanged with the person and a map of the meeting’s location. (Note: The app only works with your default Google Calendar, and as a user with multiple Google accounts I had some trouble toggling back and forth between my different accounts.) Says co-founder Jake Klamka, The app texts you with a link to your meeting “dossier” 10 minutes before your meeting, both as a reminder and a way to brush up fast on the personal details of the person. This is awesome if you’ve got back to back meetings and don’t have the time to background research and especially useful in the tech industry, where everyone’s done something important. While you could improve its chances by entering the person’s whole name, the app has 80% accuracy rate in guessing who you’re meeting with, even if you write something vague like “Lunch with Paul.” But Klamka and co-founder Wil Chung tell me that the most important aspect of this is the emphasis of the mobile experience, The founders eventually plan on adding even more information into the dossier, like a user’s Twitter account, so you can become well-versed in not just where people worked, but what they did over the weekend — Great for building rapport.
|
Wi-Fi Xoom With "Homeycomb" To Sell For $539? | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 3 |
An inside man or woman at Sam’s Club has a few pictures of the end cap display there, and the price is refreshingly low, considering the total cost of ownership for a subsidized 3G one. $539 is still a chunk of change, but it might give the shopper pause. Bear in mind these prices are unconfirmed, and considering the other errors on the placard (“Android 2.0 Homeycomb”) could easily be a mistake or guess. : Yeah, it looks like that’s definitely a two-year-contract price. False alarm. Oh well! |
Vetted, A New Shop For Exquisitely Overpriced Designer Goods | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 3 |
Every once in a while I spend a few minutes perusing , looking at all the things I can’t afford (like ). There are a few such direct-from-designer shops out there, and now there’s one more. was started late last year and is offering a few items you might like. For instance, I remember this from a while back, but this its US debut, I think. Cute and well-designed. Truth be told there’s really not a lot there yet (though their stationery section is robust), as it seems the editors of the store are selective. Check back occasionally, though, and you’ll be the first on your block with the next equivalent of . [via ] |
The Snow Sledding Winch Makes Sledding More Fun But At What Cost…. | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 3 | 3 | [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm4eGnL4xx4&w=640&h=390] I’m by no means hating on this particular invention because it will without question extending the best part of sledding — the actual sledding — while reducing the worst part of sledding — walking up the damn hill. The winch even has a safety switch in case a little one gets close to the gears. But seriously, we’re at the point in our evolution where we can’t even walk up a hill? Sigh. Click through for the video demo. |
Ford Focus Is #WINNING | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 3 | 3 | You know who else is in this whole thing? The Twitter ad sales team. At upwards of $100K a pop, the revenue that Promoted Tweets bring in is no a joke. And it looks like big name brands like Ford Focus, Arbys and Audi and AMC Theatres have all forked over some cash to capitalise on the attention onto to Sheen at the moment, buying into what is likely a Promoted Tweet keyword auction on the hashtag of his infamous catchphrase, “Winning.” The reason these tweets cost so much is that Promoted Tweet engagement on hashtag search 5% of users who see the tweets react to them either by re-tweeting, clicking on a link or replying. And impressively, 80% of brands that buy one ad end up buying another. Right now only one of the #WINNING Promoted Tweet products is directly related to Sheen, and it’s for a cheesy Shepard Fairey-style , proliferating the meme. Branding in this day and age is so strange and somewhat shady, as one man’s media meltdown can become another man’s venue for pimping their bacon cheeseburger. http://twitter.com/#!/McDonalds/status/43326195177238528 As Alexis Madrigal from , While I was writing this post, it looks like the Ford Tweet got “Un-Promoted.” Did someone over at Ford have ? |
Krator Desktop Speakers Inspired By Sydney Opera House | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 3 |
Distinctive yet tasteful desktop speakers are hard to come by; I was always slightly jealous of my Mac friends and their cool Harmon Kardon Soundsticks (not that they were only for Mac, but you know what I mean), since the best PC speakers from Logitech and Klipsch have always been… not ugly, certainly, but not stylish, either. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that these speakers from Krator aren’t for everyone, but at least they’ve got a definite design reference, bold lines, and a unique look. They actually revealed a few different speaker sets over at CeBIT, but , and I’d hate to just duplicate their content here. Will we ever see these speakers stateside? Anything’s possible, I guess. |
TextPlus Plays A Different Card In Group Messaging SXSW Battle: Your Heart Strings | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 3 | 3 | We’re a week away from the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas and it’s becoming very clear what the big battleground will be this year: group messaging apps. Just like micro-messaging apps a few years ago, and location apps last year, a bunch of players are poised to battle for the conference crown. But the fight will be even crazier this year as apps from players big ( ) and small ( ) will be in the mix. And one of the larger players is taking a unique approach to the war. TextPlus honestly doesn’t need SXSW. With 7.7 million monthly active users, the app by GOGII is already massive. For comparison’s sake, until , Yobongo had 140 users. And the previous huge winner at SXSW, Foursquare, . TextPlus is going into this battle with quite a head start. But they’re smart enough to know that no lead is safe. Rivals like GroupMe, FastSociety, and Beluga have gotten a lot of buzz and some traction recently. So much so that . But textPlus is going to use SXSW to build on their success by doing some good. At the conference, the service is launching a new monthly campaigned called . The premise is simple: for every group created within textPlus, GOGII will donate $1 to charity. For SXSW, they’re capping this at 10,000 groups (meaning $10,000). But again, this will be a monthly thing. For each month after SXSW, they plan to give up to $1,000 to charity. Plainly: if you use textPlus to group message other people, GOGII will give $1,000 to charity each month. (And $10,000 in March to kick things off.) For the SXSW initial campaign, three charities will get this money: , , and . And they’re not restricting it to users in Austin for the conference, that’s just the kick-off point — anyone can create groups in the app to add to the cause. And beyond this month, textPlus is going to open up the charity picking process to the users. Within the Groups4Good Communities Channel in the textPlus app, users will be able to vote on which charities should receive the money each month. It’s a nice gesture, and a solid way for textPlus to leverage their huge userbase at SXSW in a slightly different way. Sometimes war can be used for good too. |
Star Wars Is Going 3D Starting On Feb 10, 2012 — Or Rather, George Lucas Will Fail Humanity On Feb 10, 2012 | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 3 | 3 | Take offensive action! It’s a trap! Oh never mind. The right people aren’t listening. and short of a glorious asteroid crashing into Earth, there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. The plan is to release one film a year in 3D starting with Episode One on February 10, 2012. This chronological order will retell the story in proper timeline order while at the same time giving Lucas a potential escape pod just in case the 3D fad dies before it’s time to release A New Hope in the gimmick that is 3D. Please let the Mayans be right. |
DEMO Wrap Up: 7 New Social Startups to Watch | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 3 | 3 | The DEMO Spring 2011 conference wrapped up yesterday in Palm Springs, and echoing the current climate in the Valley, day two of the conference belonged to startups focused on social technologies. From social CRM platforms, photo sharing, and social networks to aggregation and reader engagement tools to video and group chat, the day’s startups showed that the interest in the “social” Web only continues to blossom. Here, in no particular order, is a look at seven new interesting startups worth keeping an eye on: The widget is similar to other real-time commenting platforms (like, say, ), except that Marginize puts interaction and commentary back into the hands of the individual user, rather than allowing the owner of the Web site to control and moderate what’s said. In a way, Marginize is akin to a private Twitter feed for Yelp, because the widget creates this pop-out tab (or “margin”) on the side of every Website, where users can provide supplementary information about the site, write reviews, or discuss the site’s credibility. Though the company launched six months ago (and was mentioned even before that ), yesterday at DEMO they announced an amendment to their product strategy, now offering publishers and content creators a chance to enter the game. The company added a “publisher widget”, which allows publishers to seamlessly insert the feature on any Website so that the tab is visible to both publishers and users. The idea behind Marginize itself may not be new, but the product has an eminent usability and interface that sets it apart from those that came before it. Users define the type of audience they want to canvass from an exhaustive list of categories, and Gut Check then uses the profile to select a targeted group from their bullpen of 5 million research participants. Following that, the service allows you to perform interactive interviews with individual participants through its portal while sharing images and asking questions. At $40-per-session, I can see this relatively cheap tool coming in handy for both big and small companies that make frequent updates to their products or services and want to gather feedback from a targeted consumer in near real-time. The Enterproid apps appear as a separate home screen, yet enables both your enterprise and personal homescreens to be aware of each other, alerting you if you receive a personal email while in the enterprise section, for example. Enterproid also offers a set of rules that can be accessed by the corporate IT department, allowing IT to change security setting and shut off access to a particular app when worried about security issues. Though that allows a user to have two profiles on an Android phone, Enterproid’s platform is likely to be very appealing for small businesses, especially in terms of cost optimization, as employees can now keep their personal phones for business. Users can pull in videos and annotate them with voice-overs, drawing mark-ups, or add typed comments in a dialogue box. Videos can be slowed down to enable this annotation, made into links that can later be shared, stored on-demand, watched simultaneously, and synced with Facebook, Twitter, and Google. While it may still be too early for a social TV solution to gain mainstream adoption, enabling an interactive and social viewing experience on the Web is a very appealing idea. HeyStaks uses a comprehensive back-end social search algorithm to drive highly relevant community filtered recommendations. The idea was developed over a number of years by group of scientists in Ireland and is now teamed up with , former VP of M&A/Integration at Yahoo!. Dillon was part of the team that acquired , which offered a scaled-down (and relatively unsuccessful) version of Heystaks beginning in 2005. Part of the reason it didn’t take off, according to Dillon, was that social graphs and networks were not yet as pervasive as they are today. HeyStaks hopes to leverage the now more mature social graphs and collaboration technologies not by becoming a search engine, but by improving your Google and Bing results through the addition of community-sourced content to the top of those pages. To target those with a common goal or shared interests to better parse results, users can create “search staks”, or collections of the best Web pages from a group of users on a particular topic. These “staks” can be made public and easily shared with colleagues and friends via email, Twitter, or kept private or shared on an invite-only basis. Heystaks currently offers an iPhone app, a Firefox plug-in, and a Chrome extension still in alpha. I’m not positive that this can work, but the presentation was intriguing. Check it out . With the growing influence of Facebook’s social graph, several DEMO startups became advocates for the value of incorporating the social network into both our personal and professional circles. So, for good measure, I’m including a bonus: Two startups that caught my attention for how they’re attempting to improve upon the Facebook experience — both at home and at work. WonderRank technology, which reminds me of , takes your friends’ photos and analyzes the metadata associated with the photos (think “likes” and comments) to create combined and categorized viewing, as well as an easier way to rank and discover new photos. The app also allows you to like, comment, or tag photos, follow your closest friends, and receive alerts when they upload new photos. , I wonder if Pixable could become a potential target for acquisition? We’ll see. Check out Day 1 coverage . Photo Credit: |
ContextLogic Gets $1.7M From Rabois And Others To Better Target Ads, Content | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 3 | 3 | , an information relevancy startup that is focusing on optimizing the online ads space at the moment, has raised $1.7 million in angel funding from former Global President of Sales at Google Aydin Senkut, Keith Rabois, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, YouTube co-founder Steve Chen, Microsoft VP Hank Vigil, former Microsoftie Fritz Lanman, Twitter Director of Search Elad Gil, Nils Johnson, Digital Garage, Michael Stoppelman, Raymond Tonsing, Paige Craig, Farmville creator Sizhao Yang, CRV partner Bill Tai, Brian Koo, Naval Ravikant, Paul Bricault and Transmedia. Whew! Right now the stealthy ContextLogic is working on using machine learning and NLP to leverage information context in order to increase relevancy of advertising as well as content. Its algorithm uses a topic hierarchy to better break down what people actually are looking for or find interesting. Basically it’s like an AdSense on steroids, that can be applied outside of Google to anything from ads to content like tweets, Facebook profiles and text messages. Founder , who used to be a Google Ambassador, describes his product (which is still in private beta) as being at the forefront of the , somewhere between the “Personalized” and the “Serendipity” quadrants The startup has already partnered up with publishers responsible for “billions of pageviews” (it wouldn’t disclose who) and is focusing on its advertising offerings at the moment, hunkering down on two relevancy products, “Reach” which helps advertisers target ads and “Lift” which increases ad performance. Szulczewski said. |
GeeknRolla: Startups Launches, 40+ Speakers, VCs And Angels Collide In London, March 30 | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 3 | 3 | GeeknRolla is the annual conference to bring together Europe’s technology startups to network with investors and talk about how they create and build themselves. The watchwords are: Launch startups; give investors dealflow. Any startup selected to pitch on stage will get one free ticket (for the person pitching) and there is no charge to pitch. We will notify all companies invited to pitch by March 11. If you have not heard from us by that time, your application was not successful. If you wish to attend the GeeknRolla conference you will then have to purchase tickets. As with last year there is a special emphasis on launching startups and connecting them with investors, who will comprise our judging panels. There will also be a “DemoRolla” area of demo tables for startups to showcase their products. The venue will be Park Plaza Victoria, 239 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 1EQ. The now legendary GeeknRolla Afterparty, which will take place at the amazing, world-famous London nightclub, , will also help the networking. Ticket holders for the main day-long conference will automatically get in to the after-party, so fear not! We may release a limited amount of After-Party-only tickets at a later date. Details of how to get these will be available in due course, so stay tuned to the and the . For sponsorship opportunities please email events director Aléna Dundas ( alena [@] beta.techcrunch.com ) for further details. You can follow any specific updates on the . I’d strongly advise you get a . Last year we more than sold out shortly after GeeknRolla was announced. To attend the event, tickets will be £149. Thus is a stunning price for a conference of this nature. See who we last year and . We’re today announcing the majority of our speakers: Dave Mcclure, founder 500 Startups Josh Williams, Co-Founder, CEO, Gowalla Iain Dodsworth, Founder & CEO TweetDeck Tariq Krim (founder of Jolicloud) Morten Lund (early investor in Skype, now of Tradeshift and Everbread) Wendy Tan White (founder of Moonfruit) Michelle You, Chief of Product, Co-founder, Songkick Martin Varsavsky (founder of Fon) Brent Hoberman, Founder of lastminute.com and of Mydeco Errol Damelin, CEO, Founder, Wonga.com We’ll be hearing from Europe’s best entrepreneurs about how they are building their own companies and with it, contributing to Europe’s emerging tech ecosystem. I can pretty much guarantee that the speeches will be fast, furious and fulfilling. We run a tight ship on timing, and there is lots of opportunity to network. Below you’ll find our fantastic sponsors so far.
If you want to get a table to demo your startup you can so so in the conferencenetworking/breakout area (with wifi internet access and 2 delegate passes to GKNR and after party). Please choose the ‘Startup demo table’ . Editorial/Programme Editorial queries related to the programme should be directed to me, . Any questions relating to tickets, please contact Aléna Dundas (alena [@] beta.techcrunch.com). (Due to strong demand for tickets, we regret tickets are not transferable and not refundable. If you use your name to purchase multiple tickets, your guests must arrive with you to check in at the door. We will not make any name changes so please do NOT request these from the our event team. If you show up at the event without a valid ticket, We reserve the right to charge the full ticket price plus an administration fee to allow access to the event subject to availability. Why are we rather strict about this? Because our events are almost always sold-out and we like to protect the people who actually gone to the trouble of buying a ticket and following the instructions). Lastly: Why “GeeknRolla”? . Here are some images from past GeeknRolla’s
Microsoft® BizSpark™ is a global program designed to help accelerate the success of early stage startups by providing key resources when they need it the most: . Receive fast and easy access to current full-featured Microsoft development tools, platform technologies, and production licenses of server products for immediate use in developing and bringing to market innovative and interoperable solutions. There is no upfront cost to enroll. . Get connected to Network Partners around the world — incubators, investors, advisors, government agencies and hosters — that are equally involved and vested in software-fueled innovation and entrepreneurship who will provide a wide range of support resources. . Achieve global visibility to an audience of potential investors, clients and partners As a Microsoft BizSpark member, you’ll be tapping into a rich, vibrant ecosystem of peers, partners and support resources around the globe, helping you grow and succeed. Microsoft BizSpark is the quickest way to get your Startup fired up. Joining is easy. Check to see if you qualify – most privately held software development startups in business for less than 3 years that are generating annual revenue under USD $1 million can join. You can join BizSpark through a valid BizSpark Network Partner or a Microsoft BizSpark Champ to get your BizSpark enrollment code. Enrollment is free, just pay a USD $100 program offering fee at program exit. For more details about BizSpark, see: The Startup Program Guide , which describes the program benefits and more. If you want to join BizSpark, click on the link below or send an email to if you are eligible, we will send you a code. has been providing DIY tools for people to design and build ‘Beautiful websites, simply.’ since 1999. To date 2.7m+ websites have been built by small businesses, communities, families, designers, crafters and freelancers who want to express themselves online without having to code. Moonfruit is passionate about creativity and simplifying technology for everyone. Our latest release Moonfruit 5.0 is not just a website editor, it behaves more like a graphic design package giving you control over the detailed design of your site. The Flash environment allows true drag and drop, point and click editing. You can layer, crop, animate, colour, apply transparency to objects on your page. You can also now add HTML widgets and social media tools to your sites. All sites are rendered in Flash and an alternate version in HTML. Moonfruit has been profitable since 2003 and grew 70% in 2009. Please go to for more information. (@ on Twitter) is the new hub for the technology community. Just 10 seconds walk from Old Street tube station, TechHub London is aimed specifically at technology entrepreneurs, startups and developers. Inside London’s main technology cluster and close to the financial heart, it offers affordable permanent , a large member-based , meeting rooms for hire, a large board room and a conference/event space for up to 200 people. You can work all day on the 100mbs WiFi and connect with a great community of TechHub members. TechHub runs its own events as well as being available to hire for tech or developer events, conferences or meetups. Members are already joining TechHub from all over Europe, Silicon Valley, the Middle East and Asia to use TechHub as a base when they’re in London and we’re arranging Member discounts at some of the great bars, restaurants, cafes and hotels in the area too. TechHub facilities include: 30 permanent desk spaces for monthly hire, 100 pre-bookable co-working spaces, meeting rooms for hire by anyone (discounted for TechHub members), A/V, whiteboards, kitchen facilities and printing. Permanent deskspaces come with wifi/wired data, power and a mailing address. Contact us . Join the mailing list to get regular updates . Address: TechHub, Ground Floor, 76-80 City Rd, London, EC1Y 2BJ. Old St tube (exit 5) and a short walk from Moorgate Tube, Liverpool Street mainlines station, and close to taxis and buses.
Bambuser offers a service that gives its users the opportunity to stream live video from a mobile phone or web-cam using 3G or WiFi network. The simplicity of the application and the unlimited mobility gives you the opportunity to instantly share your experience with your viewers and interact and communicate through the web- to-mobile chat. Share the world, Live and Mobile with Bambuser, visit . Bambuser is drawing comparisons to mobile videocasting service Qik. The major difference is the lower latency that bambuser offers due to different technical approaches. Another difference between the services is that Bambuser offers streaming both from your computer and mobile, while Qik only allows streaming from the mobile. In October 2009 Bambuser was the first of the live streaming start-ups to allow users to stream video directly from their mobiles to their Facebook Wall. And here’s some bonus inspiration for you: |
First Hands-On With The Phosphor Reveal Crystal Watch | John Biggs | 2,011 | 3 | 3 |
The Reveal is one of the coolest timepieces I’ve seen in a long time. This is an extremely simple digital watch with a surprising trick: it shows the time by “flipping” little jewels from dark to light. The face is actually covered in little crystal nubs but some of the nubs can retract into the body of the watch and, in essence, disappear. The watch contains a few hundred Swarovski crystals and uses a micro-magnetic mechanical movement to move them up and down. This model, made and sold by will be available on March 7 for an unannounced price. This model has two read-outs, a time display and a seconds display. You change the time by holding down the button and advancing the hours and minutes. It’s quite simple, but this is the first watch that my wife actually loved out of the box. It’s a really cool idea and a very handsome timepiece. Here is a quick video of the watch in action. I love how the read-out makes a little tapping noise when the digits change. UPDATE – The watch is now available for $210 .
|
Yikes, A RoboRoach Made By Grafting A Toy Bug To A Real Bug | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 4 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04T5Zq6KPyY&w=640&h=390]
Some aspiring Dr. Frankensteins have taken the circuitry from a remote control critter and grafted it directly to the nervous system of a large cockroach. They can now steer the cockroach. I’m not taking any kind of moral high ground here, and this stuff is very interesting to me, but it still squicks me out to think that we are capable of doing this bio-manipulation so easily. , the company who made this “RoboRoach,” are planning on offering a kit. A mind-control kit for bugs! [via ] |
Tron: Uprising Gets A Trailer | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 3 | 4 | [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THcItXSnngA&w=640&h=390] is getting animated and you know what, it doesn’t look that bad. I mean, it can’t be worse than the movies. Plus the animation format will likely allow for a deeper story line. is set to debut next summer on Disney’s XD channel. |
Judge Allows Sony's Request For Identifying Information For Anyone Who Visited Hacker's Sites | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 4 | This is a rather disturbing turn of events. Federal Magistrate Joseph Spero has to subpoena the hacker GeoHot’s web host, as well as YouTube, Google, and Twitter, for identifying information on anyone who has accessed, commented, or viewed information relating to the . At best this is lazy on Sony’s part and irresponsible on Magistrate Spero’s, and at worst it is a deliberate and malicious wholesale violation of privacy. The pretense for this wildly overreaching action is that Sony needs this information to prove the case should be tried in San Francisco, in federal court and close to Sony’s headquarters. And why do they feel it should be? Because that’s in Sony’s terms of service. This after that by Sony’s standards, “the entire universe would be subject to [her] jurisdiction.” Sony contends that the subpoenas are “narrowly tailored for jurisdictional discovery.” Yet their subpoena for Bluehost, GeoHot’s host, requires “all server logs, IP address logs, account information, account access records and application or registration forms” and “any other identifying information corresponding to persons or computers who have accessed or downloaded files hosted using your service and associated with the www.geohot.com website, including but not limited to the geohot.com/jailbreak.zip file.” Essentially, everyone who visited (or his blog at Blogspot) is subject to involvement in this case. They also will subpoena YouTube and Google requiring identifying information for anyone who watched GeoHot’s video showing a PS3 hack. Every viewer. Every visitor. No matter how they came there, whether or not they downloaded the contested information. Whether they used that information illegally or not. I’m on that list. Are you? How do you like the idea of Sony subpoenaing your personal browsing data from when you followed a link from Reddit or CrunchGear out of curiosity? Sony contests that everything is proper, and that the non-parties (which is to say, you and I) will have a chance to contest involvement. Really? Sony is asking that the court knowingly involve potentially hundreds of thousands of individuals, because those individuals aren’t legally restricted from saying they’re not involved. They may as well accuse the whole world and then let the 6.9 billion of us not concerned each send a letter to Magistrate Spero saying there’s been a minor mistake. The EFF has responded in a letter to the Magistrate, saying “the discovery seeks information about non-parties and… the relationship to the narrow jurisdictional question at issue [i.e. where the case should be tried] seem tenuous at best” and citing a previous decision in which it was found that “Nonparty disclosure is only appropriate in the exceptional case where the compelling need for the discovery sought outweighs the First Amendment rights of the anonymous speaker.” The DMCA forbids devices that circumvent copyright or other protections, and the idea behind it is similar to the laws preventing you from modifying, say, your bumper height beyond a certain level, or building a house without the proper permits. But cases like this one clearly are not analogous, as has been pointed out thousands of times over the last few years ( is a reliable source on this topic). is somewhere between a right and a privilege, but at the very least if it is done in private and no ill effect can be shown to result, you should be free to hack. It’s not legal yet, but neither is crossing the street against the light. Whether Sony or the Magistrate is more at fault here, I don’t know. It’s clear that this request by Sony is either lazy or malicious: they could have made it more specific, but didn’t bother. And the Magistrate should have demanded, as the EFF points out, that Sony meet higher standards for discovery limitations. Is anyone else worried that our judges and legislators are unable to comprehend the issues they are forced to judge and legislate? Magistrate Spero for one clearly does not understand the scope or gravity of the request he just granted. Meanwhile, of course, the master signing key for the PS3 is widely available to anyone who looks. What Sony thinks it will accomplish by suing GeoHot and anyone else who posts the key (including their own , I expect) is beyond me. Hacks are like the hydra, and while Sony is suing the head it has already cut off, two more, or two thousand, will grow in its place. [edited for clarity] |
Apple Files For Dozens Of Patently Ridiculous International Trademarks | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 4 |
We just recently had a pretty good discussion of the , but this one is a little weirder. Apple has filed for trademark protection in Europe not just for computers and electronics, but in a massive 42 (out of 45 possible) trademark categories, including categories governing paints, chemicals, leather goods, alcohol, and “lace and embroidery.” Should we be expecting an iDoily soon, or is this a purely legal move? It seems like they’re preemptively protecting themselves against trademark dilution in pretty much every industry. You can do that? It seems like you should maybe, you know, participate in these categories if you want protection in them. Some are arguable, like medical or industrial devices, but really, lace and embroidery? Hopefully this is just a standard move companies make in international markets to prevent misuse of the name and logo. I don’t think Apple is getting into baby food any time soon. |
Wow. Just… Wow: Facebook Hits Record $75 Billion Valuation On SecondMarket | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 3 | 4 | Last week, in our weekly report on the insanely hot Facebook stock trading going on behind the scenes on , I wrote the following: “ ” I was sort of kidding. But it looks like the joke is on me! Sure enough, Facebook hit a $75 billion valuation on SecondMarket this week, a new record. I thought my prediction might be a little too optimistic give that it was at a “mere” $70 billion a week ago. Shares were trading at $28 a share then, after rallying back from a few weeks of actually being down. But they jumped a full two dollars this week, to be trading at $30 a share. With about 2.5 billion shares outstanding, that’s trading at a $75 billion valuation. This blows by the set in mid-January. And it puts the valuation a cool $10 billion past the that a General Atlantic investment (in private shares) will apparently give the social network. Below, find the full email sent out of the folks buying this stuff up: To Facebook market participants: This week’s SecondMarket auction successfully cleared 115,000 shares at a per share price of $30.00. Read more details in the attached auction results report. Next week’s auction will require a minimum sale and minimum purchase of 10,000 shares. If you are bidding for fewer than 100,000 shares, you are required to open a brokerage account with SecondMarket. Please email XXXX@SecondMarket.com to receive a Brokerage Account Opening Form and return the completed form by Monday, March 7, 2011 at 5:00 PM EST. Please email your completed Seller or Buyer Information Forms to XXXX@SecondMarket.com by Wednesday, March 9 at noon EST. To verify receipt of your order, you must receive a confirmation email from XXXX@SecondMarket.com. If you do not receive a confirmation email, your order has not been received by SecondMarket and may be excluded from the auction. Responses are typically sent within one hour. Next Week’s Auction Timeline: – Friday, March 4 at 7:00 PM EST – SecondMarket will begin accepting Seller Information Forms, Buyer Information Forms and Brokerage Account Opening Forms
– Monday, March 7 at 5:00 PM EST – Brokerage Account Opening Form due, if bidding for fewer than 100,000 shares
– Wednesday, March 9 at 12:00 PM EST – Seller and Buyer Information Forms due
– Wednesday, March 9 at 5:00 PM EST – Participants informed of auction results
– Wednesday, March 9 at 8:00 PM EST – Transaction documentation distributed to buyers and sellers
– Thursday, March 10 at 5:00 PM EST – Wire of 100% of gross purchase price to escrow account due, if allocated fewer than 100,000 shares
– Friday, March 11 at 4:00 PM EST – Completed transaction documentation due from buyers and sellers
– Friday, March 11 at 7:00 PM EST – Notice sent to Facebook, Inc. By reading this email, the recipient acknowledges and agrees that all of the information contained herein is confidential and that the recipient will keep this information confidential. The recipient further agrees that it will not copy, reproduce, or distribute this email in whole or in part. Please contact us at XXXX@SecondMarket.com or XXX.XXX.XXXX if you have any questions. Please note that the information in this email does not constitute an offer to sell to, nor a solicitation of an offer to buy from, nor shall any securities be offered or sold to, any person in any jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. Regards, Terrence |
HP Semi-Unveils Wristwatch Cloud Computer – I Think | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 4 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoHFuXR1Lqg&w=640&h=390]
I can’t make any more sense of this “Metal Watch” announcement than the guys at and elsewhere, but it might be a cool idea. I think? Basically a super-small system on a chip embedded in your watch that stays connected with the cloud, presumably syncing with various services and making that information available through… what, exactly? The watch looks like it’s just a watch. It’s unclear what HP’s vision is here. I can imagine, though, the watch being a sort of “key” to your other devices, activating a sort of secure private network, syncing information between devices, and so on. But is a separate device really necessary? Can’t these devices just connect to each other? I really don’t know. Until they release a little more info, I think we all have to be satisfied to be in the dark. It’s still just a prototype, though, so don’t expect it to hit the market any time soon. |
Valve's Steam Guard: Protecting Your Account From Evildoers Since 2011 | Nicholas Deleon | 2,011 | 3 | 4 | has officially announced , which is a new form “user rights management” in the words of Gabe Newell. There were all sorts of rumors about it yesterday, but now that Valve has made the official announcement it’s safe there’s no real reason to panic. The service is more about keeping your Steam account secure and out of the hands of evildoers than it is about punishing you for having the audacity to play games on the PC. Valve isn’t Ubisoft. What Steam Guard, which is completely opt-in right now, aims to do is make sure that only you have access to your account. Anyone who’s played in the past few years will know how rampant account theft has been. It got so bad that Blizzard created a (and mobile app ) that generates a unique password that you’d input at time of login. Users would log into the game by putting their account name (usually their e-mail address), their account password, a second password that’s created on the spot. It ensures that even if someone managed to steal your account name and password they wouldn’t be able to log into your account because they’d also need that second, randomly generated keyfob password. Steam Guard work similarly. You establish one computer as your home base. “This is my primary gaming computer,” that kind of thing. Whenever you try to log into your account from a different computer, Steam automatically sends a randomly generated password to your e-mail account. In order to log in from this different computer you’ll need your account name, regular password, and also the randomly generated one that’s sent to your e-mail account at time of login. This makes it all the more difficult for someone to log into your Steam account without your authorization. Needless to say, it would be prudent to have a different password for your Steam account and your e-mail account. Now, there is a second component to Steam Guard, but it hasn’t been implemented yet. It will use Intel’s hardware-based authentication scheme known as Identity Protection Technology, which is only available with the newest Intel CPUs and compatible motherboards. It’s this bit that had people so worried yesterday: “What happens when I want to game on a different PC, or if my machine dies? Will my ‘authenticity’ die along with it?” Well, presumably if you want to game on a different PC all you’d do is collect the secondary password from the aforementioned automatically generated e-mail. What happens if your machine dies, however, I’m not sure right now, as neither Valve nor Intel have made it clear how this portion of Steam Guard would work. We can debate that point when everything’s been clarified. Oh, and speaking of Ubisoft, it seems our were at least partially heard and understood, as the upcoming PC port of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood a 24/7 Internet connection; a working Internet connection will only be required at time of installation. I still don’t understand why more companies can’t adopt the attitude toward DRM, but what are you gonna do? |
Review: Booq Cobra Courier M And XS Bags | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 4 |
Beautiful and well-made, but somewhat restrictive space-wise (especially the twee XS), these premium bags are great for the pro on the go, but not really for any kind of travel. Do you like the slick black style for your laptop bags? This one is probably the sexiest out there right now.
I had my eye set on this series ever since it was announced, and I’m happy to say that the bags have lived up to my expectations. I should say that I mainly tested the Courier M and only gave the XS a little bit of use since, to be honest, the XS is a murse. And I’m not a murse guy. The exterior is a nice, regular nylon weave of the weight you’d expect on a travel bag. It’s thick and the bag retains its shape while still being flexible. The rubberized bottom looks almost identical to the nylon, but it’s thicker and feels very durable. I would have no problem dragging this thing along in the dirt, or putting it down on a wet street. The handle is covered in leather and feels very sturdy. The back of the bag has a sort of open pocket, and the bottom of the pocket unzips, allowing you to hitch the bag to your rolling luggage handle. There’s one pocket underneath the main flap (which fastens with velcro) with a nice orange color inside, but unfortunately no external pockets that I could discover. The nylon strap was quite long enough for me, and has an excellent (and removable) shoulder pad with a grippy pattern on it. The strap attaches to the bag vertically, which is a bit weird and caused a few extra twists here and there, but in the end it’s good ergonomically. Attachment stitching seems solid, and I couldn’t cause it to stretch or tear by pulling hard in the “wrong” direction. Inside the bag there’s a different texture and color: a sort of beige or off-white with a glossy, luxurious finish. It looks and feels nice. There are two notepad-sized pockets that can fit a charger, phone, or what have you. The main compartment really isn’t very big, however, especially when you’ve put your laptop in. I have bags that don’t look much bigger yet seem to hold twice as much. The extra trim, double-layer material, and stiffness of the bag contribute to a slightly restricted feeling inside, but really you can still fit your laptop, a charger, your phone, a couple pens, and a few medium-sized books or a pop can in there. I wouldn’t use it to go shopping, though.
The laptop compartment will fit up to a 15″ laptop, and is designed with the MacBook Pro in mind. The sleeve really is a wonderful little thing: it’s extremely soft, with a slick texture that lets your laptop slide in and out easily. There’s a very distinctive quilted pattern that protects and looks cool. The inside of the sleeve is the same orange color as the outside pocket — again, it’s distinctive and attention-grabbing yet tasteful. Every Booq bag comes with a Terralinq ID, so if by some chance someone finds your lost bag, they can alert you via the Terralinq service. Handy, but let’s hope it’s not necessary. Everything I’ve said regarding build and style applies equally to the XS version. But, the XS being essentially a Murse, my criticisms regarding space apply doubly. That said, it’s obviously not meant to be a serious cargo bag, since iPad-carriers are generally going after a minimalist thing. So there’s a slot for your iPad (or a slim netbook), though if you have a bulky case, it might not fit. The I use barely made it. Your mileage may vary. There’s room outside the slot for a phone in the little pocket, and a charger or medium-sized paperback in the main area. It’s really pretty small in there. The compact size really makes this thing feel even more solid, though, and the leather flap is very “executive.” If you’re the kind of guy (or girl) who just likes to carry your iPad and a book or something around, this little guy could be a good solution. Now we get to the price. $195 and $145 — serious money. Personally, I’d say it’s worth it for the larger M but not for the XS. The XS certainly deserves that price, I should say, but I don’t think you should pay it. It’s just not providing very much utility, in my opinion, and there are other compact and stylish bags out there. The Courier M on the other hand is, I think, a worthwhile investment. $200 is significant but not unreasonable, and this thing really is a live-forever bag. Booq’s minimal exterior style isn’t for everyone, but it’s seriously classy, durable, well-designed, and the sexy little laptop sleeve is just a bonus. Product page: and
|
WordPress.com DDoS Attacks Primarily From China | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 3 | 4 | After recovering from the largest Distributed Denial of Service attack in the history ( ) yesterday morning, blog host again very early this morning, finally stabilizing its service at 11:15 UTC (around 3:15 am PST). WordPress.com serves 18 million sites, many of them news sites like our own, which lead some that the attacks had come from the Middle East, a region experiencing at the moment. Not so says Automattic founder who tells me that 98% of the attacks over the past two days originated in China with a small percentage coming from Japan and Korea. According to Mullenweg one of the targeted sites was a Chinese-language site operating on WordPress.com which also appears to be blocked on Baidu, China’s major search engine. WordPress.com doesn’t know exactly why the site was targeted and won’t release the name until it does. Based on the extent of the attacks Mullenweg tells me that they appear to be politically motivated. While Mullenweg tells me that DDoS attacks are fairly common at WordPress.com but its the strength of its infrastructure (distributed across three data centers in three cities) usually prevents anyone from noticing. The recent attacks have impacted not just WordPress.com sites, other servers in the same part of the network causing the outages. WordPress.com is collaborating with upstream providers to shift the attacks. Says Mullenweg, WordPress.com isn’t the only one suffering from recent DDoS attacks, also took a hit during the same time period. Mullenweg tells me that after closer scrutiny the attacks don’t seem to be politically motivated, |
null | Mg Siegler | 2,011 | 3 | 3 | null |
IntoNow Hits A Million Shows Tagged In A Month. Two And A Half Men One Of The Shows #Winning | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 3 | 4 | Just about a month ago, we wrote about , a new service that what television shows and movies you’re watching in realtime. But unlike other media “check-in” services, you do this simply by hitting a button and letting your phone listen to what you’re watching. It’s awesome. Really, really awesome. Others seem to agree, as today IntoNow is announcing that they’ve already hit a million shows/movies tagged in a month. They’re seeing an average of about a show tagged each second, with a peak of 17 tags a second during primetime hours, co-founder Adam Cahan says. But the most interesting thing so far about the service may be the data they’re collecting about how people are consuming media. As you can see in the charts above and below, the one million tags have already given IntoNow some good information. For example, 57 percent of users are watching shows time-shifted (meaning recorded and watched later or viewed on-demand). The things not time-shifted are generally news, sports, and events (all of which are obvious). But a ton of people also watch cooking show and reality shows not time-shifted either. On the other end of the spectrum, a ton of sci-fi viewing is time-shifted viewing. Read into that what you will about geeks versus regular folks. Of the IntoNow users, 79 percent are using it for television content versus 14 percent for movies. That shouldn’t be too surprising either though given that IntoNow only focuses on older movies for the time being. More interesting is that a full 7 percent of tags are used to tag commercials. Among TV shows, people seem to love sitcoms. And yes, Charlie Sheen’s former show made the cut for most popular shows — but is tops overall. Given that rival Clicker was , I asked Cahan for his thoughts on the current state of things. “ ,” he says. Cahan also notes that Clicker founder Jim Lanzone will be a great fit for what CBS Interactive is trying to do. |
A Day In The Life Of A Liveblogger | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 3 | 4 | I hate liveblogging major events. It’s hard. It’s painfully frustrating, and lifespan-limitingly stressful. I also absolutely love it, and it’s one of my favorite parts of this job. It’s something that, from a technical stand point, was next to impossible to accomplish just years ago. It lets us transport our readers from their offices and living rooms to a spot right beside us in the packed auditorium, an experience that post-event recaps and standard news posts just can’t provide. Our liveblog of on Wednesday went well; in fact, the response was probably the most unanimously positive one I’ve seen to anything I’ve ever done here. We’ve received thousands of e-mails, tweets, and comments about it, many of which asked how it all works and what it’s like to do. Rather than respond to each one individually, I’ve put together this post. It is, as best as I can convey, a look at things from the other side. For those unfamiliar with the term: liveblogging (read: not life-blogging. That’s writing about what your cat had for breakfast) is covering a major event on the fly — in my case, usually product announcements. The person liveblogging acts as the eyes and ears for those at home, blasting out the details (be it text, images, video, or all of the above) through a system that automatically refreshes for the viewer the very instant new content is sent. Accurate immediacy is the goal. At this point, I’ve probably liveblogged somewhere around 50 events. Some of them pulled in a few hundred readers; others manage to pull in many tens of thousands (It largely depends on the hype surrounding the product expected to be announced.) This post isn’t recapping Wednesday’s event, or any other specific event — it’s just a general, overarching look at how things work. The night before a big event is always sort of strange. Take the feeling you got as a kid on the night before Christmas — then take the feeling you get on the night before a big surgery. It’s something of a mix between the two. The gadget-geek in me is anxiously eager to see what new toys await; the battle-tested blogger in me dreads what might go wrong. Like anything else in life, a successful liveblog is all about the prep work. The night before is for charging batteries (and back-up batteries!), clearing SD cards, brushing up on facts and tech specs, and doing dry runs of the liveblog system. There’s nothing quite like trying to log into the liveblog system 10 minutes before an event only to find that your password mysteriously no longer works, or that the whole thing is inexplicably broken. Anything that can go wrong will, so limiting the failure points is crucial. With the battery and tool kit inventory checked and double checked, it’s off to bed. I usually start trying to conk out somewhere around 11, but end up running through things in my head (and trying to think of anything I may have forgotten to pack) until around 1 A.M. My brain finally chills out and lets things shut down when.. The alarm starts shrieking. After a night of narrowly dodging the REM cycle and avoiding anything resembling good sleep, smashing the snooze button a dozen times seems like a totally acceptable idea. The timing doesn’t exactly help; 9 times out of 10, we’re up long before the sun. If an event starts at 10AM., we’re up at 4 or 5. This is when the foundation generally starts being laid; we put up our “We’re live at Blah Blah Event!” posts, and connect the remaining dots in the backend (creating the liveblog embed, scheduling any countdown timers we might have, etc.). We’re usually out the door and on the way to the event about 2 hours before we think we need to be. Why so early? Traffic. Traffic is the most avoidable wrench that can get thrown into the gears — but if you forget and it strikes, it’s nearly impossible to work around. Remember: these events are almost always held in the ultra-dense downtown areas of major cities, often at the worst possible commute times. The Traffic Gods don’t care that you’ve got an army of anxious geeks depending on you, and neither do the other people stuck in traffic. We’ve made it! We’re here! … Now what? Every venue is different, and every company plans things differently. Figuring out where you’re supposed to be is often the first real test of the day. I covered a product announcement not too long ago at a venue that was spread out across around 40,000 square feet with 12 entrances, and there wasn’t a directional sign in sight. Fortunately, venues tend to be considerably less ridiculous in their size and design, and things are usually a good bit more intuitive. At most events, the staff will ask everyone to wait outside prior to check-in so that they can finish putting the last minute touches on everything inside, and ensure they’ve hidden anything that might ruin the surprise. Everyone stands in nice, straight little lines making casual conversation, politely watching each other’s bags (so that we can all get the ever-important shot of the line, like the one above) and inevitably defaulting to chit-chat about the weather. About 40 minutes before the event starts, check-in begins. A nice friendly PR person from the company asks for your business card, scans for your name on the big list of approved attendees, hands you your badge, and points you in the right direction. Then it all Once badges are acquired, there’s generally a second indoor waiting area intended for people to mill about in before being let into the theater. There’s finger food and coffee (Remember: 5 a.m. wake up call, a race against traffic, then standing in line. Breakfast usually isn’t on the schedule, hence the very-much-appreciated food.) Unfortunately, few people can actually take the time to eat the food. Remember those neat little lines from before? Sorry, bub — those are for when we’re outside. Once we’re badged, those finely organized queues turn into Black-Friday-esque blobs, with everyone trying to get just bit closer to the door. It’s especially bad when there’s only one or two doors into the auditorium; every time someone thinks the doors are opening and inches up, the entire back of the mass pushes forward. Things can get pretty claustrophobic. During my liveblog on Wednesday, the feeling of an impending trampling had me saying that I “felt like Mufasa” (a reference that my inner-child high-fived me for before he went back to crying over that scene.) If we didn’t start posting to our liveblog when we were outside, this is when we’ll start. This is also when I’ll post our final “We’re live!” announcements. We’re still on our feet at this point and the line-mob-thing rarely tends to form around any tables, so using a laptop gets a bit tricky. Some wiggle their way to the edge of the mob and camp out cross-legged on the floor. Those who are lucky enough to have an extra set of hands at the event may have whoever isn’t tasked with typing hold up the laptop (though this tends to make whoever is typing look like a total jerk). Others of us have developed a rather risky technique wherein we balance our laptop on one slightly bent leg and tell gravity to shove off by gripping the laptop in place with our wrists. Some liveblog backends are also smartphone-friendly, which makes this whole bit so, much less painful (as long as the carriers haven’t already tanked). It also lets us shoot video and images when we otherwise just couldn’t. After about a half dozen false alarms, the doors will eventually open. If laptops are still open, there’s about a 5 second window to get them packed up and secure before people get pushy. Imagine 150 12 year old girls being let into a general admission Justin Bieber concert. Got that image in your head? Okay, now replace the 12 year old girls with 6′ tall, 200 pound writers with backpacks and satchels in tow. Yeah. It’s not quite so crazy at every event; a lot of it depends on the layout of the venue, and how important of an event it is. If the doors enter into the sides of the hall and the seats are nearby, it tends to be pretty calm. At other events, though… Take WWDC, for example; this is where Apple annually announces their new iPhone — pretty much the biggest announcement of the year, from a readership standpoint. It’s also one of very few events that caters to both media and developers alike. You enter the massive WWDC theater from the back, and it’s a long, straight shot to row, after row, after row of seats. The first 5 feet from the door are usually taken at a brisk walk — then someone will slip into a jog, and the chain reaction has begun. By the 10 foot mark, the more intense folks are literally toward the front, backpack trailing behind them like a kite. It’s hilarious and absurd. (Especially when the dudes sprinting end up being the ones not taking photos, and spend the whole show jotting down notes on a pad of paper.) Why the race for a seat? I mean, they sent out invites to this thing; obviously they’ve got room for everyone, right? Right. But unless you’ve lugged out your camera with an African-Safari-Mega-Lens on it, the closer you are, the better your photos will be. Add in the facts that seats are often reserved for executives and VIP guests/partners (a fact which is rarely clear before you’ve bolted up to a front row only to find a lil’ “RESERVED” sign on each seat), and that certain sections are often designated “No Photo Zones” so as to not blind (Flash-bang!) the people on stage, and the good ones start to fill up fast. Could the companies assign seats? Certainly! That is, they could if they didn’t mind people on them for giving other outlets seats that were arguably better in any way. Yeah, I’ve seen it happen. With the crowd conquered and a trampling avoided, the fun part is over. Seats are filled, the Black Eyed Peas soundtrack is blaring (I’ve heard “I’ve Got A Feelin’ (Tonight’s Gonna Be A Good Night)” somewhere around 87,000 times in the past year), and they’re asking everyone to silence their phones. You attempt to hop on WiFi… and so does everyone else. The router bites the dust immediately (except at recent Apple events. I have no idea how they do it, but their network has been rock solid and mega fast for the last few shows. Others, like Samsung, have just taken to not providing WiFi at all.) You plug in one carrier’s 3G dongle, and the combination of a billionty cell phones and ultra-thick auditorium walls has it crawling at 3 kilobytes per second. You swap it out for another carrier’s — same deal. Readers start complaining about your silence, and your colleagues are texting to ask what’s up. Your pulse quickens; the liveblog viewer count was already at 5 digits before you even entered the theater, and they’re all expecting updates . You try the last dongle in your bag —success! Now you’re just hoping that no else notices that Carrier X is the one with decent bandwidth. The lights are dimmed, and the music fades. The CEO (or whoever is making the announcement) takes the stage. If there’s anything technical left that can go wrong, Murphy’s Law commands that it happen now. At this point, the talents required of the liveblogger shift. Your ability to stare down would-be line cutters and resist the push of the crowd no longer matter — now it all boils down to your ability to multitask. To be clear, “Multitasking” here takes on a whole new meaning. I’m not talking about being able to browse Reddit and hold an IM conversation at the same time. This is a one-man-band spectacle. You’re listening to every word that comes from the stage, with what you’re typing matching what’s being said with a delay of just a syllable or two. You’re taking pictures, pulling the SD card, slipping it into your computer, swapping your secondary card into the camera, and scanning for the best shot to upload. You’re blasting from browser tab to browser tab to verify specs of past models. All the while, you’re navigating through constant light changes that make your camera , SD cards that SWEAR they haven’t been formatted even though you’ve been using them all day, and network connections that can go from 60 to 0 in the blink of an eye. And remember: Don’t. Miss. A. Word. (Oh, and don’t make typos.) The best liveblogger is the one with 8 hands. Speaking of extra hands: things can be made easier by having an extra person or two liveblogging with you — but that’s often just not possible. The more popular an event is, the more demand there is for seats, and the harder it is to get more than one seat for one outlet. Larger outlets occasionally have the pull to get an extra seat or two — but more often than not, it just doesn’t happen. And even if an extra seat be had, the extra points of failure added by needing two solid WiFi connections, two fully charged batteries, and two people not missing a beat can just as easily make things . There are technologies built to make these things simpler; MiFi portable hotspots, EyeFi cards that automatically post photos online, etc. Trust me — we use ’em all, when it’s feasible. Each one of them introduces a new point of failure into an already complicated orchestra of tools. In this game, the simplest formula tends to win. Before you know it, the show is over. You don’t even remember looking at the stage. Take that 200+ person mob from before, and throw them in a room just outside of the auditorium with maybe 15 (usually fewer) of the devices that were just announced. Some people just want to play with it. Others need to touch it for a few minutes, but have a day or two to write up their reports. For a smaller chunk of us, we’ve got 30-45 minutes to wiggle through the crowd, find a rep that hasn’t started their demonstration yet, record 4-5 minutes of video, take photos, use the device long enough to really get a feel for it, edit the video together, and get it online while dealing with the same connectivity issues as before. Sound fun? No? Because it absolutely . It feels like a bit of a game, even. Hell, thanks to other people , there are even obstacles to avoid! The first to get a high quality video online wins. The event is over. The hands-on post is up. You’re done, right? Not quite. Now it’s time to talk! Radio shows and TV outlets often don’t have the resources (be it invites, man-power, or need) to cover these events in-person, so they’ll often turn to those who there to do the talking. By tomorrow, we’ll be back to talking about what meat Lady Gaga is wearing this week or the latest non-sense Charlie Sheen has babbled out, so it has to be today. Sure, your brain may be fried — but duty calls. Better Red Bull up, Brocahontas! I’ve done interviews that I’m pretty sure I wasn’t actually awake for. Take , for example — see my eyes? Yeah, they’re usually not half closed. Liveblogging is hard. It’s stressful. Done properly, it’ll destroy your mind and body for a day or two. It’s also an . Perhaps it’s some ultra-nerdy form of masochism, but I love it. Every second of it is a rush — and to be able to make a massive legion of gadget geeks happy (if only until the next time something goes wrong) makes every sweaty second and every panicked keystroke worth it. Thanks for reading our liveblogs, folks. [ ] |
CrunchDeals: Wilsons Leather Texting Gloves | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 3 | 4 |
Men, listen. It’s okay to own texting gloves. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to use your phone while keeping your hands warm. has a nice sale on a set of leather gloves that feature little slots in the forefinger and thumb allowing for multitouch phone usage. $15 but only available in XL. |
Foursquare's SXSW: Version 3.0, Party, Concert, 18 New Badges, And A Genius Amex Deal | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 3 | 4 | Of all the startups launching things at SXSW this year, the most closely watched may be , since they’re a company that got their beginning at the conference two years ago. And it’s looking like they’re not going to disappoint. A couple weeks ago they gave a hint of what they had cooking: “ ”. Now we know a little bit more. As you can see , the plan is to launch the Foursquare 3.0 app, host a party on Saturday night, host a concert on Monday night, and launch 18 new badges to earn during the conference. But there really is more. Earlier we detailed the fun — a karaoke bus that will travel around throughout the conference and will have a “Mayor Throne”. There will also be a four square (the actual schoolyard game) court they’re doing alongside Pepsi. But that’s kids stuff. The really big deal is the one they’ve signed with American Express. Yes, Foursquare can be tied to your credit card starting next week. has the details of this partnership. There’s no other way to put it: it’s a genius maneuver by both sides. Here’s the basic gist: American Express cardholders will be able to tie their cards into their Foursquare accounts beginning next week. This will allow Foursquare users to get special offers from merchants simply by swiping their cards to pay for things in Austin. 60 local merchants will apparently be involved in the promotion. So what type of deals will Foursquare/Amex users get? The main ones will be “spend $5, save $5” deals, WSJ reports. There will be other offers pushed out to customers via mobile devices as well. One thing that’s not a part of this partnership: checking-in. You won’t be able to swipe your credit card to check yourself in to a venue just yet, we hear. But eventually, that is a part of the plan as the program evolves. Also not a part of this partnership: money for Foursquare. This isn’t a revenue-generating program for them. Instead, it’s a test of a way to eventually make money. And if it works, there’s potentially a lot of money to be made down the road. Foursquare could become the loyalty layer on top of credit cards. That could be a win for credit card companies, for venues, and for Foursquare. Again, it’s genius. |
Belkin Announces Its First Set Of iPad 2 Accessories | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 4 |
We did a little on the day of the announcement, but other companies were a little slow on the draw (or didn’t want to get buried) and their stuff is trickling out now. Belkin, maker of fine Mac accessories, has just dropped a bundle of cases and stands. Let’s take a quick look. , , , and Folio cases: As you can see, these all have a similar motif. The Flip and Slim are similar except the Slim is… slimmer. The Access has a pocket for documents and also stands up in a slightly different way (see top). The Verve is leather. They all work as landscape-style stands and have holes for the cameras. Belkin has also adjusted its and stands for the iPad 2. I don’t think it took much modification: No pricing or availability yet, but I’m sure you’ll see these available in just a week or two. |
Dice Says PC Gaming Isn't Dead, Battlefield 3 Will Fix The FPS Experience | Nicholas Deleon | 2,011 | 3 | 4 | PC gamers—those who aren’t , at least—have at least one genuine PC game to look forward to this year, and that’s . All of us here are pretty excited about, and we’re generally tough graders. Anyhow, Dice revealed the game at GDC this week, and they’ve rushed to the defense of PC gamers, that the “death of PC gaming” is “bullshit.” Can’t get much more clear than that. When I saw Battlefield 3 about two weeks ago (EA was in New York for some event), the producer on hand stressed that the game was absolutely built from the ground up for the PC. The game’s engine, Frostbite 3, will take advantage of the raw power flowing through recent Nvidia and AMD GPUs. It’s not going to be a shoddy port, filled with the low-res textures commonly found in the transition from console to PC. (Have you seen Dragon Age 2 on a PC? Oh, dear…) It’s not going to be like where you can’t so much as edit the .ini files without having to pray to the sun god. Being able to use a mouse and keyboard or set the FOV should not be considered a “feature” in 2011. Dice that the game intends to “[fix] the experience” found in shooters today, that games will be copying in the future. Dice also said that controversy “is not a mature way to sell a game. You still want to be proud at the end of the day.” Remind you of ? |
Google Responds To Android Malware, Will Fix Infected Devices And ‘Remote Kill’ Malicious Apps | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 3 | 5 | On March 1, news that dozens of malicious applications had made their way to Android Market, each infected with a rootkit that could grant hackers deep access to Android devices that installed them. Google removed the malicious applications from Android Market within a few minutes of being notified, but has otherwise remained silent on the situation. Until now (at 10PM on a Saturday…) Google has now confirmed that 58 malicious applications were uploaded to Android Market, and that they were downloaded onto around 260,000 devices before Google removed the apps Tuesday evening. That number sounds alarmingly high, but Google believes that only device-specific information, namely the phone’s IMEI number, was compromised — and that no personal data or account information was ever transferred. Given that these apps were getting root access, this could have been a lot worse. Now the cleanup begins. Beginning tonight, Google is going to invoke a special ‘remote kill’ function that allows it to remove these malicious applications from any affected Android devices with no action required from the user. Google will also be issuing a fully automated Android Market security update to infected devices that should remove the rootkit (again, no user action will be required). All affected users will be receiving email notifications about the situation as well. Unfortunately, while Google can remotely fix affected devices, it automatically patch the security hole that made the exploit possible in the first place. That’s because the hole exists on the system level, so it requires a system upgrade to resolve — and it’s up to the carriers and hardware manufacturers to deploy the fix. Google is issuing a patch and informing its partners that it is urgent, but who knows how long it will take the carriers to push it to users. As if to underscore this problem, Google says that the exploit was actually fixed in recent versions of Android, and that it only affects version 2.2.1 and lower. Unfortunately the vast majority of Android devices are still running older versions of the OS because of the aforementioned sluggish carrier updates. Beyond these software updates, Google says that it’s taking steps to try to prevent similar malicious apps from making it onto Android Market. But it’s being vague on the details: We are adding a number of measures to help prevent additional malicious applications using similar exploits from being distributed through Android Market and are working with our partners to provide the fix for the underlying security issues. The whole situation is pretty alarming for Android users (and I’m sure the email alerts Google will be issuing are going to spur even more user angst). Google wins some points for removing the affected applications within minutes of being informed of their malicious intent. But the fact that it is unable to distribute system security updates is unnerving — Google can downplay Android’s fragmentation issue all it wants, but when user security is at stake, we shouldn’t have to rely on the carriers. And it’s also obviously alarming that the applications were accepted onto Android Market in the first place. Google doesn’t screen applications manually (even Apple doesn’t actually have a reviewer look through every application’s code) but hopefully it can institute some automated tools to better screen malicious apps. Because if malware continues to creep into Market, users may become wary of downloading apps from developers they haven’t heard of, which would hurt the whole ecosystem. Here’s the email that is being sent to affected Android users: You are receiving this message to inform you of a critical issue affecting your Android Market account. Hello, We recently discovered applications on Android Market that were designed to harm devices. These malicious applications (“malware”) have been removed from Android Market, and the corresponding developer accounts have been closed. According to our records, you have downloaded one or more of these applications. This malware was designed to allow an unauthorized third-party to access your device without your knowledge. As far as we can determine, the only information obtained was device-specific (IMEI/IMSI, unique codes which are used to identify mobile devices, and the version of Android running on your device). However, this malware could leave your device and personal information at risk, so we are pushing an Android Market security update to your device to remove this malware. Over the next few hours, you will receive a notification on your device that says “Android Market Security Tool March 2011” has been installed. You are not required to take any action from there, the update will automatically run. You may also receive notification(s) on your device that an application has been removed. Within 24 hours of receiving the update, you will receive a second email confirming its success. To ensure this update is run quickly, please make sure that your device is turned on and has a strong network connection. For more details, please visit the Android Market Help Center. Regards,
The Android Market Team |
The App Wall | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 3 | 5 | A couple nights ago, a friend sent me a message. “So glad we finally have a way to talk without hanging out.” He was, of course, kidding. He sent me the message through , a new location-based realtime chatting app that this week. Earlier in the day, we had a similar conversation on . And before that, . And . And Facebook Messages. But his joke also has a serious subtext. Increasingly, I find myself running into a wall. I’m using too many apps of the same nature for any of them to actually be truly useful. And in fact, I now have too many apps in my life in general. I’ve hit the app wall. Granted, my usage right now is very extreme. Leading up to SXSW next week, I’m heavily testing out five to ten new apps that people are hoping to launch there. But the fact of the matter is that this is the way things are headed for everyone. It will take the average user longer to hit it, but everyone will eventually hit this app wall. In this regard, apps are in a way just the new websites. There’s only so many you can visit throughout the day and so you find the ones you like and cycle through those day in and day out. Only on the rare occasion does a new site break into this must-visit cycle. Technologies like RSS, and now social filters like Twitter have helped ease this monotonous burden. But those don’t exist for apps yet. The closest things we have are push notifications and apps like (for notifications) and (for discovery). And even if there was a streamlined way to use the data in many apps, you’d still have your set group of go-to apps. And there would still be a limit to how many you can use, like websites. The difference is that I’m not sure many app developers fully understand this just yet. There’s so much exuberance in the app space right now because mobile platforms are exploding with growth. And so anytime one type of app remotely hits, a hundred similar apps pop-up. And they all seem to think they’re in the right position at the right time to hit too. We saw this a year ago with location apps — this led to a subset of the app wall, . The truth, of course, is that not all of those have taken off. For every big winner ( ) and even the moderate hits ( , , etc), there are dozens of others that failed, are failing, or will fail. Not surprisingly, with Facebook and Google now also firmly in the space, we’re not seeing many pure location check-in services pop-up anymore. Instead, we’re seeing the wave shift elsewhere — currently to photo-sharing apps and group messaging apps. Those areas are red hot right now, and getting a lot of press, so everyone is piling on. For some, that strategy may work. But it will only work for two or three apps in each space, tops. That’s not to say you shouldn’t try, but it’s something to keep in mind. Obviously, if you truly believe you have the absolute best app in the space, you must go for it. Put everything into it, and don’t stop until you prove it. There’s definitely some element of luck involved, but in the end, the cream often rises. Facebook wasn’t the first social network, but they knew they would be the social network. Of course, . And I believe that many of the apps we see these days don’t actually think they’re the best. They’re just hoping someone else thinks that. But they won’t. Here’s a simple test: if you have to copy features from a competitor, you’re not the best. That’s not to say the best don’t copy. Of course they do. But rarely does a startup get to be the best by copying — they do it to stay the best, and because they can (sad, perhaps, but true — and it only works if mixed with even more original innovation; see, again: Facebook). The features that make a startup the best can’t be copied because they’re not actually features, they only appear to be to competitors. Instead, these “features” are a deeply woven fundamental that is vital to the fabric of the startup that came up with it. To put it another way: these “features” are often something that was dreamed up from the inception of a product, not something that was tacked-on (as it would be by the copying party). But many playing the app game these days are just mimicking features that work for others. They’re just riding a wave, hoping to hit because others have. Most would never admit that out loud, of course. But I’m sure plenty acknowledge this in their own heads. And if you’re one of those people, the likelihood that the effort is going to be worth your time is very, very small. Infinitesimally small. It’s a harsh reality. But it is reality. Instead of building the me-too photo app, or the try-mine group messaging app, why not set out to do something completely different? Why not do something no one else has ever done before? Obviously, that’s much easier said than done — but I’m not sure it’s any harder than trying to compete in a totally over-saturated market. The mobile space is absolutely the right space to target. New form factors and freedom from the traditional bounds of computing means that there’s so much possibility for what can be done. We’ve really just scratched the surface. At the same time, it is a harder surface to scratch. Because there are so many apps released each day now, every mobile user is inching closer to the app wall. This means that new apps not only have to be good to get traction, they have to be . The app wall means that for every app in, one must go out. That means your app has to be good enough to displace another one. If you’re not designing an app that is meant to be on the homescreen of every iPhone or Android phone out there, you’re not aiming high enough. Take it from someone who has hit the app wall. |
955 Dreams Plays The iPad Like Jazz | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 3 | 5 | “ .” That statement, which is profound itself, is how co-founder approaches app creation. And so far, that approach is working — very well. The companies hit app, The History of Jazz, has been earning rave reviews and selling like crazy. And it’s not a $0.99 app selling like crazy — The History of Jazz is priced at $9.99. In the age of cheap apps, that may seem like a lot. But the model is working for 955 Dreams because they feel they’ve hit on a deeper experience that the iPad can offer. “ ,” Bellubbi jokes. “ .” The History of Jazz is an iPad app that provides a visual and interactive walk through the musical genre. Filled with pictures, videos, and sound clips, the app delivers much more than a traditional book on the subject matter could. And that’s exactly why 955 Dreams felt that jazz would be the perfect subject for such an app — because it is so much about experiencing the music. Apple clearly agreed as they quickly featured the app shortly after its release and sales skyrocketed. It’s not surprising that Apple agrees with 955 Dreams’ vision. This type of app is exactly what Apple has always envisioned for the iPad: a rich, immersive experience that satisfies the user in a way that would be impossible on another medium. Not only can you watch videos and listen to music in the app, but with one-click, you can buy songs you like right through the handy iTunes buttons in the app. Back in 2009, Apple released the iTunes LP format. It’s a format that takes albums and wraps them in various multimedia in an effort to give the user an experience more akin to that of unwrapping an old LP. Most people, it seems, aren’t biting on that offering. Instead, it really does seem like The History of Jazz app is more along the lines of what Apple should have done. 955 Dreams clearly knows that as they’re now hard at work on a wide range of apps in a similar vein of History of Jazz, but spanning all different genres and individual artists. Not surprisingly, some of the music labels are starting to eat this idea up as well. They’d be crazy not to — “a ,” Bellubbi says, noting that they’re seeing around 14 to 22 percent conversion rates within The History of Jazz. “ ,” Bellubbi believes. “ ,” he continues. Again, that used to be a tough sell to the record companies, but they’re biting now. The company raised a $250,000 seed round from Mitch Kapor and Dave McClure’s 500 Startups late last year. And they made half of that money back in the first month of sales, Bellubbi says. And the money has continued to flow in, but they’re pumping it right back into the products. “ ,” he says. So that means an expansion to Android, right? Not so fast. “ ,” Bellubbi says, noting that they’re in no rush to develop for Android. And he goes further. “ ,” Bellubbi says in defense of Apple’s model. “ ,” he continues. His advice to would-be iPad app makers? “ ” Expect to see the next app from 955 Dreams soon. It will obviously also be music-related, but quite a bit different than the History of Jazz, is all they’ll say for now. And if and when that one takes off, expect a wide range of music apps for the iPad to follow — especially as the newly-unveiled iPad 2 further explodes the potential user base. You can find The History of Jazz in the App Store . |
OMG/JK: A Kiss For iPad 2, A Slap For Xoom | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 3 | 5 | It’s war! This week, I went to the unveiling of the iPad 2 and got some hands-on time with the device afterwards. Meanwhile, Jason bought a Xoom and has been extensively testing it out. The consensus? iPad 2: Good. Xoom: Bad. At least for now. I haven’t extensively played with iPad 2 yet, and Google is undoubtedly going to patch the Xoom. But still, first impressions are key. Jason and I discuss these two products in depth in this week’s episode of OMG/JK, and we also dive into the upcoming group messaging war that is likely to break out at SXSW next week. Now that Facebook has bought Beluga and really kicked everything into a frenzy, the ultimate winners are far from clear. Watch the episode above and check out some of the links below for more details on what we talk about.
|
Fly Or Die: The iPad2, ecoATM, and SocialEyes | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 3 | 5 | Last week was about the , but this week was all about the iPad 2. You’ve read all the and , but will it fly as high as Steve Jobs says it will? And what, if anything could kill the iPad 2? Watch this episode of to find out. Crunchgear editor John Biggs and I also discuss the prospects of two new startups that just this week at DEMO, and . The ecoATM is a kiosk that takes your old cell phones and recycles them for cash. SocialEyes, which I earlier this week, brings your Facebook friends into a multiple-party video chat experience. As always, one of the founders of the companies we talk about appears during the show as a surprise guest to challenge our instant analysis and answer some questions. (John and I don’t know who the guest will be until halfway through the show). Be sure to watch for that exchange—it’s always my favorite part of the show. Tell us in comments what products or apps we should cobver next week, and now you can subscribe to . http://twitter.com/#!/erickschonfeld/status/43076081644867584 |
View Is Like Foursquare Tips, But Visual And In Realtime #SXSW | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 3 | 5 | Right now in private beta and planning on launching right before , location relevancy service wants to tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it. Unlike Foursquare Tips, there’s no checking in to View, you just open the app and the relevant information (“discovery”) comes to you on your View Wall in realtime. Discoveries like and are accompanied by photos and location. You don’t have announce your location to view each discovery and can also browse and contribute to the service from home at . View allows you to increase or decrease you location relevancy, by 1/2 mile, 1 mile, 5 miles and 10 miles. You can also sort View disoveries by most Popular (there is a voting feature), most Recent, and Top of all time. Users can submit an item for View as either News, Tip or Deal and the app uses the Foursquare and Google APIs to add the corresponding location. View co-founder tells me that the ideal usecase for this app is SXSWi, where thousands of early adopters congregate, starving for the details on the hottest parties, best BBQs or just useful information about local deals. Its big play is relevancy (Chan and co-founder g formerly lead the search relevancy team at ) which it gages by time-elapsed and other factors. Says Chan, While the location space is saturated, with Foursquare and Yelp pretty much dominating the two opposite ends of the spectrum, there’s no one specializing in serendipitous granular information discovery as of yet. says Chan Chan tells me that eventually he wants to integrate Facebook Interests and category tagging as well as event search but is trying to keep the app streamlined for the moment so The iPhone app will be available for people in SF, NY and Austin sometime next week (Android users can use the service at on the mobile). The first 25 interested TechCrunch readers can get access to the beta by following the link
|
'Tweet Viewer' Virus Spreads On Twitter | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 3 | 5 | http://twitter.com/#!/deventweet/statuses/44120534321082368 http://twitter.com/#!/syndicatedtech/statuses/44126027613605888 There is something amazing about how desperately humans want to see who has viewed their online profiles. This desire has been taken advantage of ( ) by Twitter spammers as tweets like and ” are this morning, at about 159 tweets a minute. The “See Who Viewed Your Profile” application preys upon this exact curiosity, asking users for Twitter oAuth, and then using that authorization to tweet out the above. And while it’s not clear that it’s doing anything behind the scenes, at the moment it is definitely using the access granted to spread itself. Once again: Don’t click on any http://bit.ly/tweetviewer links, and if you do, immediately revoke the application’s access to your account by going to Settings > Connections > Revoke Access. Twitter’s Head of Trust and Safety Del Harvey recommends the same, http://twitter.com/#!/delbius/status/44121948069961728 http://twitter.com/#!/msuster/status/44119982312914944 Bit.ly has blocked the domains hosting the links, but as long as the app has Twitter permissions it continue to spread with a new short link. Here are the Bit.ly stats of the original |
First Piece of Mozilla's Web Apps Project Arrives, But Can it Outfox Chrome? | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 3 | 5 | At great long last, has revealed the first developer release of their , which aims to build the infrastructure for an open web app ecosystem. Back in May of 2010, for what would become the Chrome Web Store. with plans for its own web store, now known as the Web Apps Project. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Google was first to the punch; the Chrome Web Store , and we’ve been waiting for Mozilla’s “more open” rejoinder since. The initial phase of Mozilla’s project is finally here and shows that the company is making a serious attempt to take advantage of what few limitations there are in Chrome’s ecosystem. Of course, whether it can compete toe-to-toe in the long run remains to be seen. As to what we can expect: Mozilla’s web apps will run on Firefox browsers on desktops, tablets and smartphones, just as Chrome web apps run on Chrome and (eventually) corresponding Android devices. Yet, the difference is that Mozilla wants to play nice with Chrome and others (which isn’t exactly a new trend, ), by offering Chrome users the ability to use its web apps through the release of a plug-in. For its part, Google has said that Chrome web apps will also run in other browsers, but we have yet to see that — or much talk of that, since the Chrome Web Store launched a few months ago. In the spirit of the new and open web, these new Mozilla-backed applications can be built using HTML5 and Javascript, and developers can use the stable APIs, utilities, and documentation in this release to publish their app to users, or to create a web app store or directory. Users can review a gallery of user experience ideas and beta-quality versions of Firefox and Chrome add-ons that integrate the web app experience more tightly with the browser. This all sounds like a good start to me, because I will tell you that while I am a fan of Chrome, when using web apps in the browser, the experience (IMHO) is almost identical to that of using a website. When I click on the app’s icon, it opens in a new tab, takes up the full page, and just opens the URL. In terms of front-end user experience, I’m left wondering why it was necessary to even download the app in the first place? (That being said, Chrome continues to add to improve the overall usability of its web apps.) But, until the experience of a browser-based web app truly distinguishes itself (for the average non-techie) from that of visiting its sister website, it’s a zero sum game. This seems to be a big part of the reason why so many continue to prefer the experience of a native apps to that of web apps. Web developers and designers are beholden to certain expectations when changing features of a company’s website that the designer of a company’s native app may not be. Take Facebook for example: every time the site’s profile template is changed or layout is toyed with, millions of people are up in arms, shouting for blood (myself included). With native apps, there are fewer expectations and strings attached — the canvas is essentially blank — so developers can start fresh and figure out how to optimize the best features of its website with the possibilities inherent in an app. What’s cool about Mozilla’s conception of web apps is that they are now easier to find, launch and synchronize across mobile and desktop platforms — they can be grabbed and arranged with a single click and will hopefully keep my credit card information safe, while sharing information with other sites that is both safe and improves the experience of a web app in such a way that a traditional website could not. The deeply integrated in-browser experience that will allow syncing of applications with mobile devices and native web browser and OS integration is still on the way (this primary release is really just aimed to familiarize developers with the platform’s capabilities). And considering Mozilla announced its last week, it remains to be seen whether these features will make it into Firefox 4. Seeing as Firefox, unlike Chrome, is not the default browser on millions of Android devices, it had better make it in and it had better work well. For developers, cross-platform fragmentation is a big problem when developing apps, requiring them to create different versions of the same app for different phones, different browsers, different OSes, and so on. Then trying to sync updates of an app across the various iterations? *Shudder*. In the case of web apps, if you have to use a specific browser to run a certain web app, then that app is by default a Chrome app or a Firefox app, etc. You’re locked in. Mozilla is resisting the Chrome web app paradigm — in which a web app is designed for a particular browser (Chrome) in a channel the proprietor controls — in the attempt to make the experience more packaged, wherein the user chooses the channel and the browser in which to run the app. So, by giving developers the opportunity to create their own web app stores or publish apps directly to the user and, in turn, allowing users to use these apps on any device or desktop, the experience can become significantly more open. Though, knowing its many implications, I say “open” haltingly. Of course, Google has the advantage of its humungous cloud and, having created a better (speedier and less buggy, IMHO) user experience with Chrome, it will probably continue to be the more trusted source. Perhaps given time, Mozilla’s wonky idealism will prevail, but it still has a lot of ground to make up. Check out the intro to the Web App Project below: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErqCqwkwIDE&w=640&h=510] |
Weekend Giveaway: One Of 10 Zazzle iPhone Cases | John Biggs | 2,011 | 3 | 5 | You may recall Shakespeare’s opinion of iPhone cases. I quote from his famous play, : If iPhones be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of them, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o’er my ear like ,
That breathes upon a bank of iPhones,
Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:
‘Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe’er,
But falls into abatement and low price (free),
Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical. In honor of the Bard’s love, Zazzle would like to give you one of ten custom iPhone 4 cases. How do you win? Comment below, offering your best ode to an iPhone case you can muster. I’ll pick one of ten winners on Monday at Noon Eastern and not, incidentally, to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow. |
Gillmor Gang 3.5.11 (TCTV) | Steve Gillmor | 2,011 | 3 | 5 | The Gillmor Gang — Cluetrain co-author Doc Searls, Betaworks’ John Borthwick, Robert Scoble, and Kevin Marks — explored Apple’s launch of the iPad 2 and its impact on the linked worlds of television, technology, and the social wave. Scoble and I were lucky enough to attend the launch event and the appearance of Steve Jobs to a standing ovation. There may have been no “one more thing” but the event itself seemed to have that aura about it. Funny, passionate, and not about to miss this event if he could help it, Jobs alternated between a detailed dissection of Apple’s lead in the marketplace and simply standing back and marveling at the power of this emergent platform. The Gang may not have fully endorsed my view that we’re seeing the rapid decline of Microsoft’s Windows platform, but no one can question the speed with which iOS has come from seemingly nowhere to a powerful economic engine that will likely spawn as much change as has already occurred since the iPad first launched less than a year ago. The famous couch Jobs sat on in the first announcement sat unused but with mute testimony to the distance Apple has already traveled in reinventing itself and our notions of what’s possible. |
(Founder Stories) Foursquare's Dennis Crowley: "Stop Sketching, Start Building" | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 3 | 5 | All this week, we’ve been running segments of our Founder Stories interview with Foursquare CEO (see links at bottom for past episodes, or watch the whole 45 minute interview below). In this final episode (video above), Crowley answers some rapid fire questions from host . What was his best business decision ever? What does he like least about being a CEO? Who are his mentors? What are his favorite iPhone apps? And what advice does he have for other founders? You’ll have to watch the clip above to find out, but I will tell you his answer to the last question. “Forget about where you want to be and go out and build stuff. Dodgeball came from being bored at work, . . . things happen because you make them happen. Stop sketching, and start building.” Good advice. Crowley also talks about how he is still fascinated with “the idea of having the phone coming alive and telling you what to do,” and other startups he thinks are exciting like GroupMe and Beluga. This is the final installment of the Crowley interview. You can also watch (on Foursquare’s origins), (on building a company), and (on inventing the future), or you can watch the entire unedited interview below. You can subscribe to . |
RIM Finally Sees The Light. Unfortunately, It’s An Onrushing Train – Or Is It? | Jon Evans | 2,011 | 3 | 5 | Strange things are afoot in my hometown of Waterloo, Canada, which doubles as Research In Motion’s headquarters. ShopSavvy that someone there has been running their Android app — on BlackBerry devices. Separately, Bloomberg has that RIM’s forthcoming PlayBook tablet will run Android apps. A allegedly shows a BlackBerry employee confirming “We’ll also support Android apps.” Their UK managing director on the subject. And if rumours of the mountain en route to Mohammed aren’t enough, there are also reports of Mohammed travelling to the mountain: BGR that RIM will soon release their prized BlackBerry Messenger as an Android/iOS app. Thus far it’s all just smoke and rumours, no confirmed fire … which is also how one could describe the PlayBook itself. RIM first the device back in September. My in November was in part about how RIM should embrace Android, he said slightly smugly. Since then, Samsung has released the Galaxy Tab, Dell the Streak 7, and Motorola the Xoom; next week, the iPad 2 will emerge — and yet the PlayBook still has no firm ship date. But at least RIM have been busy on the BlackBerry front, right? I mean, in the last four months, they have announced or released … er … new handsets. (They have, however, announced three new VaporBooks. I’m sorry, PlayBooks.) Perhaps they were focused on shoring up their inferior app-development tools? Ask , whose caustic and hilarious rant about RIM’s extreme developer-unfriendliness went viral in the hacker community last week. RIM remains highly profitable, and its sales are still increasing—but the same was true of Nokia, which last month leapt off its into Microsoft’s icy embrace. RIM too seems on the verge of its come-to-Jesus moment. They have a little more time, because the corporate behemoths who have adopted BlackBerries will be loath to abandon them, but the simple truth is that Research in Motion’s products are not remotely as good as their competitors’. BlackBerries have an antediluvian OS, a bad browser, an inferior app ecosystem, and hardware and pricing that is at best on par with Apple and Android. They do have somewhat better email, messaging, and security – but who really cares about that? And before you answer “enterprises,” bear in mind that most of the Fortune 100 have . The PlayBook is beginning to look like RIM’s last, lone hope. It’s allegedly a terrific piece of hardware, running their sleek new QNX OS, and I think there’s a lot of room in the market for a good little tablet. The Streak 7 and Galaxy Tab aren’t it, but a PlayBook that runs Android apps would qualify — if it didn’t . Unfortunately, that apparently remains RIM’s policy, even though it’s like chaining an Olympic swimmer to an anchor and telling her to win a medal. But undoing that horrible mistake still won’t save them. If RIM coerces their devices into supporting Android apps and also releases their superior email and messaging software to the Android Market, then they’re tacitly admitting that their App World is dead. After all, what developer would ever want to write a BlackBerry-only app again? And apps are like ‘s spice; whoever controls a device’s apps controls its universe. That’s why the Android Market, unlike Android itself, is tightly controlled by Google. So let me speculate. Most people are suggesting that RIM will support Android apps via some sort of emulation mode. Some have argued that they should officially adopt Android, as Nokia . But there is one other possibility: might RIM be developing an entirely new handset OS which is a of Android? After all, Android is open source; anyone can fork it. RIM could build an Android-plus OS, running on the Dalvik virtual machine atop QNX, able to do everything Android does offer security and messaging features that Android doesn’t. They couldn’t license Google’s Android apps or Android Market — but if RIM built their own Android marketplace, existing Android developers would surely copy their apps over en masse, and they could replace Google’s browser, maps, and email apps with ease. Again, this is pure speculation, but it could explain most of the strange rumors cited above; it might at long last give people a reason to buy a BlackBerry, other than “the IT department demands it”; and it would set the stage for a titanic struggle between RIM and Google for Android supremacy. Pass the popcorn, and don’t count RIM out yet. Maybe, just maybe, they’re about to get back in the game. |
'Sloppy Google' Is Lazy And Incompetent, Like A Human | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 3 | 2 | [vimeo http://vimeo.com/20571211 w=620] Sometimes I think we suffer from , as in we don’t fully understand how amazing it is to live in a time where technological advancements allow all the world’s information to be , among other things. A mashup of Html5 Canvas, processing.js, jQuery, and the Google Search API, the project yawns as it completes erroneous searches, expressing its apathy for its work anthropomorphically. To further hammer it home, its “I Feel Lucky” button is perennially out of service. In the same vein as CK’s video, serves as a reminder that for all its foibles, Google is still way better at its job then we are, never sleeping, making careless mistakes or being half-assed (unless you include Adsense). Writes creator , an MFA at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design (verbatim), Exactly. You can search on Sloppy Google [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk&w=630]
|
Daily Crunch: Hurry Down Doomsday Edition | Bryce Durbin | 2,011 | 3 | 5 | |
null | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 3 | 4 | null |
New Zelda: Skyward Sword Trailer | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 2 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKUn5ESdK4s&w=640&h=390]
has released a new trailer for Skyward Sword, the next Zelda game for . I have to say, it’s looking better than it did , but maybe that’s because it’s not being controlled live. I do have faith that Nintendo will come up with quite a few interesting sword dynamics — their ingenuity is unlimited when they set their minds to it. Not exactly looking stunning graphics-wise, but we all knew that was going to be the case. |
Nintendo Demos Glasses-Free 3D With The Wii | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 2 |
Now don’t get too excited, this is just a demo being shown at GDC. Nintendo decided to test out what Wii games would be like in 3D, so they set up to send a 3D image to a glasses-free TV, and decided… that it was cool. That’s all. Yeah, kind of a disappointment after that headline, but that’s what they did! Don’t blame me! There’s a nice flamewar going on , source for the pic. |
Zero Punctuation On Two Worlds II | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 2 |
I like the “Western RPG” market – it’s almost a version of the games it creates. Each game has its own unique take on the open world idea, a special way of going about combat that may not agree with every player, and usually a few glaring flaws that some can forgive and some can’t. So choosing a western RPG to like is a bit like playing one — a very personalized affair. That said, they’re not all of them good. To this day I’d say is still the gold standard, though of course the good but overrated and games are also worth a play. In case, it looks like too much time was spent on building the world and not enough time making sure that world was navigable or interesting to play in. Ah well! There’s always More videos, as always, . |
If Sony's NGP Had PS3's Power, It Would "Set Fire To Your Pants" | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 2 |
Despite my about the place in the gaming market of tomorrow, it’s plain that it’s a hell of a machine. But people were saying that it was at PS3 levels of graphics. Leaving aside the question of whether you could tell that was true within the confines of a lower resolution and smaller screen, those claims (whoever made them) always seemed a bit spurious. And now Sony has confirmed that no, the NGP isn’t quite at PS3 levels. At GDC today, SCEA platform research manager David Coombes noted that the processor in the NGP is capable of 2GHz, but is dialed down because “the battery would last five minutes… and it would probably set fire to your pants.” Noted. Games will be a maximum of 4GB, and will come on 2GB and 4GB capacity cartridges. He wouldn’t specify how much space would be available on the NGP, but… 32GB seems too low, and 64GB seems too high, don’t you think? Hard to say. There will be 3G and wi-fi versions, but Coombes assured the audience that wi-fi could still do really solid positioning, as many of us know from using our phones. The touchpads on both the front and the back perform surface area analysis, he said, which potentially lets them tell you how hard you’re pressing. Nice. No more info on naming, pricing, or any of that jazz, unfortunately. Good to hear a little more from Sony about this cryptogadget, though. [via ] |
Review: Kork iPad Case | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 2 |
An original and eco-friendly case for using your iPad around the house, but if you need screen protection or plan to travel with it, the Kork isn’t the best choice. : this is for the iPad 1. The makers of Kork have told me they are planning an iPad 2 Kork for a month or two out, so hang tight!
Not too much to say about this one; the pictures really explain what’s going on here. The Kork is a case for the iPad 1 that’s entirely made of cork. Its natural elasticity causes it to grip the iPad quite strongly, though it’s easy to get in and out: you just sort of bend the case backwards. The material is a little more than a third of an inch thick and has a sort of puffy aspect. It’s not meant to be compact, it’s meant to envelop and be a sort of big bumper around the device. Its texture is corky — comfortable to hold and easier to grip than the plain aluminum back. All the ports and buttons are easily accessible, and the speaker cut even has a little angle to it that supposedly fires the sound out at you instead of straight down. I wouldn’t say it makes the speaker sound , but it’s sure better than just covering it up, as some cases have done. I’d be a little concerned that the cork acts as an insulator for heat, but that’s not something I can really test. I doubt it’s much worse than a foam-padded case, though, if at all. The Kork fills the role of a basic protector rather than a full-blown case. There’s nothing to protect the screen and it’s too large to be an effective travel case. If your iPad never leaves the house, and you primarily hand-hold it (as opposed to docking, mounting, or standing it), the Kork is a cool and eco-friendly way to prevent dings and bumps, and to make holding the device a little more comfortable.
|
Salesforce Debuts A More Social Service Cloud 3 With Chatter, Facebook And Twitter Integrations | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 3 | 2 | It’s no secret that Salesforce is aggressively pushing its social agenda with product developments. , the company’s “Facebook for the Enterprise,” was with Facebook and Twitter-like features, including likes, @replies, trending topics and more. And today, Salesforce is injecting social into the new version of Service Cloud 3, the company’s customer service SaaS application. As we’ve the Service Cloud aims to capture crowdsourced pools of knowledge floating across the internet, combine this data with CRM functionality and provide a platform for commercial customer service, potentially replacing traditional on-premise contact center technologies which are disconnected from knowledge (i.e. social) that can be found in the cloud. To date, more than 15,000 customers have deployed the Service Cloud to power and deliver customer service. While the previous version allowed agents to answer questions on a company’s Facebook page, Service Cloud 3 provides a deeper integration with the social network. Companies will now be able to convert Facebook wall posts and comments into cases within Service Cloud 3. Salesforce has also added the same functionality for Twitter and allows agents to create cases and share knowledge from Tweets and conversations. And a new Radian6 AppExchange app will let agents work entirely within Service Cloud 3 but still engage with customers via Twitter, Facebook and other social channels including blogs, video and photo sharing sites. Service Cloud 3 will give companies the ability to implement live chat between agents and customers (courtesy of the company’s last Fall). Companies can embed the Social Agent into their web site for chat functionality between representatives and customers. Analytics have also been added to the new Service Cloud, with the ability to generate reports on social channel interactions, customer conversation analyses, and social dashboards to help identify trends. And teams can also collaborate in Chatter around how to answer questions and to get feedback on published knowledge articles for increased accuracy. Readers can access an article’s history, contribute comments, and see input from internal experts. The Service cloud console now allows agents to follow important cases in Chatter, to receive realtime updates on status and to collaborate around how to solve the customer service issue. resolve issues faster. Put simply, Salesforce made the Service Cloud a whole lot more social in this release. While this is unsurprising considering the company’s and its , it does make me wonder if this trend is a sign of things to come. I’m curious if we’ll see the Chatterification of Salesforce’s database offering and other products. |
Day Zero iPad 2 Accessory Round-Up | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 2 | The has arrived, and the accessory makers are all dropping their new gear as well. Sure, the new device might have debuted with a “magical” screen protector, but not everyone is into magic. Apple be turning people into sorcerers! In league with the fiend, be they! Seriously, though. A ton of non-Apple accessories have come out today, and we didn’t want to fill our front page even more with Apple stuff, so I’ve collected the interesting ones here in this post. Thinking of buying an iPad 2? Check here to see if there’s anything you ought to add to your cart. This guy is like a lot of the ones I reviewed for the original iPad over the holidays. It’s covered in unleather and the iPad can rotate freely between portrait and landscape. Pick yours up at . Booq, maker of fine bags, has put out a new iPad case that has room for pen, notepad, business cards, and so on. Looks pretty practical if you don’t care about slimness. They even have different kinds of ruling for the notepad! But will Moleskine one-up them with more luxurious one? The black one ($50) is leatherette, the brown one real leather, and the beige one… something else. This is another traditional folio-style case. Leather effect outside, stands up on its own, has a couple grooves for standing at different angles. I don’t know, seems a little plain. But! Very compact. They’re not for sale yet but when they are, . For some reason Kensington has decided to call their non-keyboard case the Keyfolio. Won’t that confuse people, since all your other Keyfolios come with keyboards? Well, Kensington?! They’re not answering. Ah well. I really liked the last Keyfolio iPad case, though it was expensive then, and it’s expensive now. If it’s the same thing, though, it’s very high quality and the keyboard is, well, usable. . In the meanwhile you can get case without the keyboard for only $40, which I think is a good deal. Available in April. New iPad too thin for you? This handy rubber bumper will make it thicker! I know that picture makes it look like that’s an iPad 1, but it’s just an optical illusion. Snap out of it! It’s a car charger! There are lots of these. Scosche . You can probably buy a generic one on Amazon for under ten bucks. , but it works with iPad 2. You could get the Kensington Keyfolio vanilla and put this thing inside, just to make Kensington angry. Useful to have around. Whose idea was it to call their product “freaky”? Are you man enough to walk around with an iPad dragging down the left side of your suit jacket? I suspect not. Even the guy in the picture here is afraid he’s not quite living up to his secret pocket. . Or just ask your mom to stitch an iPad-sized patch onto your coat. There you have it. There are, of course, the official Apple accessories as well, and there will be a ton of sleeves and protectors from every brand out there. We’ll keep you updated on the interesting ones. |
The Four And A Half Things Missing From The iPad 2 | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 3 | 2 | Did you hear?! . It’s called the . Clever, right? It packs a faster CPU, more powerful graphics engine, a fancy magnetic cover, thinner casing, herp, derp and more. It’s a fair upgrade from the original although it’s erroneous to call it revolutionary; evolutionary is more like it. In fact, there is still a fair amount of major features missing from the platform. Some of them are big enough to be dealbreakers, too.
Alright, Apple. It’s beyond silly anymore how dependent iOS devices are on iTunes. Cut the cord, Mom. Let your children run free! Look at Android. Those devices are living free and crazy lives without ever having to plug into a computer for nominal updates or information merging. It’s not that hard – just offer a similar experience to AirDrop, the file sharing system that will appear in OS X Lion. There should be no reason that our iPads go music-less because we forgot to plug them in every evening.
The iPhone 4’s retina screen was a game-changer. It’s still perceived as the best mobile screen on the market eight months later. The iPad’s screen is nice, sure, but so are the incoming Honeycomb tablets’. They’re close enough that fanboys of either faction can argue endlessly at their merits. The iPad 2’s IPS screen is nice, but it’s far from a retina display. Let’s hope iPad 3 will have that high-rez screen we keep hearing about. Let’s step it up, Apple.
Do you know the Samsung Galaxy Tab can take a hammer to its screen? You can shoot steel BBs at it while jabbing at it with an ice pick. The Gorilla Glass is seriously tough. Chances are Apple looked at putting some high-strength glass on the iPad, but the company’s obsession with style and design probably trumped screen durability. The iPad 2 is 30% slimmer. Gorilla Glass would have probably affected that stat. However, I for one would rather have a slightly thicker tablet and know it can take a kick to the delicates.
There’s a laundry list of reasons the iPad doesn’t have expandable memory – it limits hacks, validates pricing by memory size, it allows Apple to sell add-ons – but not one counters the sheer amount of functionality that an SD card slot would bring to the platform. It’s the prime reason I didn’t buy the first iPad and one of the many reasons I’m skipping this one as well. Sure, the iPad is post-PC, or whatever nonsense Steve Jobs stated today, but that doesn’t mean it can’t carryover some PC tricks. You see, the iPad is still a computer, just one where the OS is hidden by a fancy skin and the experience is closely guarded by Apple designers. Apple is bringing much of the iLife suite to the iPad and so with iMovie, Garage Band, and whatever else is in store later on, and the lack of easily transferable memory is a big downside to the iPad. 4G – or rather – is still rolling out but the iPad 2 is taking a pass. There’s a model set for both GSM and CDMA networks, but unlike the , the tablet is not upgradeable to 4G. Apple’s likely holding that out until chipsets shrink in size and power consumption and providers roll out the network to more markets. That will happen probably just in time for the iPad 3 or iPad 4. |
Square Now Processing $1 Million In Mobile Payments Per Day | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 3 | 2 | Mobile payments startup has reached a new milestone this week—the company is now processing $1 million in payments per day, co-founder Jack Dorsey just Square was in mobile transactions per week as of last fall, so the startup has seen a steady increase in transactions over the past four months. The startup just raised in new funding, and is gaining a lot of most recently debuting a fairly large billboard in Times Square. And last week, Square the $0.15 per transaction charge for businesses using the mobile payments service. COO Keith Rabois told us in January that the startup is expected to process $40 million in transactions in Q1 of 2011 and is currently signing up 100,000 merchants per month. That’s compared to 30,000 monthly signups last Fall. Square has no doubt created a foothold amongst small businesses, as the service is free to implement and now has cut out the transaction charge completely (a move that competitors VeriFone and Intuit have yet to make). But it should also be interesting to see if Square will announce large-scale implementations with retailers in 2011. This will no doubt help scale the company’s reach even further. Fun fact—Square’s technology was also showcased by Apple at today’s . |
The iPad 2: Sleeker, Faster, And Light Enough To Use As A Frisbee? [Video] | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 3 | 2 | As you undoubtedly know by now, this morning Apple unveiled the — the successor to its massively successful tablet, and a product that’s sure to sell millions over the next year. You may even know the differences between this device and the last one: it’s thinner, lighter, and faster, with two cameras and a snazzy new magnetic case. But which of these things matter when you actually pick up the device and start using it? This afternoon I sat down with MobileCrunch editor , who got a chance to play around with the iPad 2 during Apple’s event. Check out the video above for Greg’s thoughts on how the iPad 2 will fare in the evolving tablet landscape, and whether or not the iPad’s sleek new size really makes a difference when you’re holding the device. |
New Pentax Optio S1 Is A $200 Point-And-Shoot, No More, No Less | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 2 |
Ahh, this is a nice break after all that iPad 2 craziness. Pentax has released a new mid-range point-and-shoot called the Optio S1, and it’s just a camera. It doesn’t do stuff, it The S1 has 14 megapixels, a 5x zoom lens (28-140mm equivalent), a 2.7″ LCD (probably 320×240 since the resolution isn’t specified), and electronic image stabilization. It’ll do 720p video and has a special HDR mode that probably doesn’t really create HDR images, but could still be useful for making interesting exposures. It even comes in three pretty colors: black, chrome, and “green,” which is really more of a turquoise or aqua. But I digress. It should be available later this month for $200, . Is it just me, or does the turquoise one look a little bigger than the others in that picture? ☛ |
SkyFire 3.0 Comes To iOS, Brings Over Features From The Android Port | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 3 | 2 | [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_tE3PYfnd8&w=640&h=390] Back in November of last year, SkyFire (the company behind the Flash-video-friendly smartphone browser of the same name) launched version 3.0 of their app to the Android Market. The big new features? It was all social stuff, like instant Facebook wall access, a one-click Facebook “Like” button that constantly lived on the nav bar, a “Popular” feature that scans social sites for popular content from the current domain, and the “Fireplace”, which lists JUST the Rich media from your social streams. I harshed on it a bit, with my main nag being that SkyFire was forgetting to Just about seemed to agree with me. But hey, what do we know? SkyFire has apparently seen enough love for the new social staples that they’ve just been added to the iOS port, bringing that build on par with its Android counterpart. You can for $2.99. |
A Week With Uber And This Blogger Is Totally Hooked | Michael Arrington | 2,011 | 3 | 2 | I just finished a week long trip to San Francisco. This time I didn’t rent a car, meaning I didn’t have to deal with the rental cost, gas cost, parking and the delays in shuttling back and forth to the airport car rental area – usually at least $500 for the week and sometimes much more. I just used instead, a service that launched last summer that lets you call up a black car service from your mobile phone. . You add a mobile app, create an account with your credit card, and when you want a car you hit a button. A black car comes to you via GPS in a couple of minutes, and you can see how far away they are on your phone. When your trip is done, your credit card is automatically billed. I’m going to share all the data from the week with you here. Here’s how things worked out. I used Uber six times during the week, and three of those uses were either to or from the airport (I got a ride from a friend the fourth time). That seems to be what I use taxis and rental cars in San Francisco for the most – going to and from the airport. I went a total of 46.32 miles on those six trips and paid Uber a total of $273, and that includes tips (just under $6/mile). By my the same trips in a normal taxi would have been about $120. Or with tips around $140. Uber is twice the cost of using cabs. And worth every penny. My average wait time was just about 5 minutes. I’ve waited hours for taxis in San Francisco, and you never quite know if they’re actually going to show up or not. And Uber’s cars are Lincoln Towncars or similarly large and nice cars, not the nasty cramped things that you end up in with taxis. Even if the cars were the same or worse it would be worth the extra fee just because I know I can get a car in a few minutes without any hassle or stress at all. In the future I’ll definitely only be using Uber for trips where I don’t need to do a ton of driving. I hope I never have to get in a taxi again. It won’t be easy for Uber, the taxi people are already starting to put their politicians to work trying to . But I do know one thing, as long as Uber is up and running, I’ll be a happy customer. |
Our Take: Apple's iPad 2 Announcement | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 2 |
This morning’s Apple press event has come and gone, and as you likely have noticed, we covered just about every aspect of it. The , the new and coming with iOS 4.3, the , even the new device’s . That said, the announcement was conspicuous for its lack of truly major announcements. have been flying left and right about potential new features, but virtually none actually manifested. Did our little online echo chamber make us expect too much, or did Apple, in the face of powerful alternative devices like the , deliver too little? Here are our opinions on the announcement and what’s yet to come.
: It’s here! It’s here! It’s finally here! And it’s… about what we expected — . The rumor mill’s whispers on this one ranged from fairly obvious (cameras!) to fairly absurd (touch sensitive back!), which seems to have set a lot of people’s expectations unreachably high. The iPad 2 isn’t a complete overhaul; it’s the result of polishing up the first generation. It’s thin (almost shockingly so, in person), crazy light, and runs like butter. If you held off on buying the first-gen knowing this one was right around the corner, there’s no real harm in buying now; even if the rumors of #3 being months away pan out, that just means you’ll feel out of date in 6-9 months rather than 9-12. ( Added the last 1/3 of Greg’s input. WordPress ate it.) : We kind of expected this. As with the iPod Touch, the iPad is more a “device” than a “cellular device” and as such follows Apple’s standard upgrade procedure. It’s almost silly the way we’re able to read the Kremlinology of Apple upgrades these days, but that’s what you get for sticking to a working formula. As for the rest of the tablets out there? Tough luck. While I love the and can still get behind the new , it would be hard to recommend either of those over the iPad 2 to the average user. Apple knows how to make tablets and everyone else is just learning. : The new industrial design is great, but that’s pretty much the only change that happened here. The new processor is mainly necessary for iMovie and processing video from the camera, the rest of the apps and interface probably won’t show much difference. And 4.3… well, there’s just not a lot to it. To be perfectly honest right now I’d say the best deal on the market is a refurbished original iPad, which you can get for only right now. Until the Android devices start driving each other’s prices down and/or the iPad 3 hits at the end of the year, you’ve got a solid and now fairly cheap tablet to hold you over. As for that cover? It’s very clever, but sliding things along glass carries a great risk of sliding other things… like grains of sand or crumbs. I’ll be interested to see whether it’s as effective as they claim. : So, the iPad 2, eh? I guess it’s a solid device—Apple knows how to make a shiny piece of kit—but it’s hard to get too excited about it when you know the iPad 3 will be available in just a few months. That’s what the rumors suggest, at any rate. Not everyone is going to be happy with the iPad 2 (Real Madrid player Alfonso Arbeloa why there’s no USB or Flash support), but what are you going to do? Remember: no one’s forcing you to upgrade just yet. Besides, if you need features like that there’s for you at this point. In short, I’m reasonably keen on the iPad 2, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to let this whole tablet craze pass me by. I will cling on to my giant desktop PC (and regular MacBook) till they disintegrate into dust. : The iPad 2 is just an evolution. Other than a few features (dual-cameras, dual-core A5 chip, and mirrored HDMI), there isn’t much to cause one to line up — I’m waiting for a high-rez display. Apple will certainly sell a , but I think I’ll hold off for iPad 3 and see if it gets a lower price. One thing that’s nice, but still evolved, is the new thin form factor; it’s pretty amazing to fit everything in while keeping battery life and features intact. : The iPad is evolving away from what I personally want. The iPad 2 announcements reaffirmed that I’m an Android user. iOS is simply too constrained for my taste. It feels curated and one dimensional. That’s great for some users, but not me. Oh and that’s a sweet iPad pool cover, Apple. We’ll have a full review of the iPad 2 and its new apps as soon as it becomes available. In the meantime, be sure to keep an eye on our for the latest developments! |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.