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Loopt Beats Groupon To Notifying You Of Nearby Groupon Now! Deals | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 5 | 20 | a checkin app that seems to be pulling out all the stops in order to survive in a saturated space, has now partnered up with in Chicago in order to provide Loopt users with locationally relevant realtime deals around them, push notifying them when they are near a deal. While the plan is to notify users of deals when the app isn’t even open, and the time sensitive Groupon Now! deals will also appear on place pages within Loopt, so users can see and share with friends their favorite relevant deals in the vicinity. Loopt has basically beat Groupon to bringing this LBS/realtime technology to its own app, where you still have to type in your zip code to get more granular locational deal notifications. But Groupon recently acquired Pelago, so I wouldn’t be surprised if a similar functionality is on its way. Currently the specific Loopt service is only available in Chicago, and users who are interested can go into their Loopt settings, turn Reward Alerts on and start receiving their once a day, location specific Groupon Now! deal well, now!. As notifications, this is a mutually beneficial and strategic partnership between the two companies. But one can’t help but wonder when Groupon will apply this same technology to its own mobile app and what exactly that will mean for Loopt long term. Loopt is planning on expanding the Groupon Now feature nationwide, and it should be available on both Android and iPhones in each market. |
Octopart, The Little Startup That Hung In There | Michael Arrington | 2,011 | 5 | 18 | Looking for a transistor or a relay? Or possibly an oscilloscope? More than likely you’ll end up at , a vintage Y Combinator startup that in 2007. The company is a search engine for electronic parts, allowing users to navigate through a taxonomy of structured stuff, or just do a plain old parts name/number search. Once you find what you’re looking for, Octopart will show you a variety of distributors who sell the part and their prices, along with a link to go buy it. the most searched item on the site. The company is small, but growing and profitable. While the company won’t disclose revenues, about $10 million a year in commerce flows through their site, they estimate (meaning end purchases at distributors via referrals from them). Octopart generates revenue from those referrals, and through display ads on their site. And it has a great story of how it got here. The company was by two physics Ph.D dropouts, Andres Morey and Samuel Wurzel. They added a third physics Ph.D dropout, Harish Agarwal, later during the Y Combinator process. They raised a modest angel round in 2008 from notable investors, but kept the team to just the three of them. Monthly expenses, other than their salaries, were just $700. In late 2008 they had another round of financing lined up and about to close. But that $800,000 angel round dissolved during the late 2008 venture capitalist “oh crap it’s 2001 all over again everybody run for it!” . The round never closed. The company was out of money. Anyone with would have gone back to the warm, safe, inviting Ph.D program cocoon that they so hastily left the year before. Instead, they cut their salaries to $0 and focused on finding that $700 every month to keep the servers up. Lean times. But then things started to change, Morey tells me. Traffic increased organically. They closed more paying deals with distributors. Something like critical mass was achieved, and real revenue started flowing in. At least, enough revenue to allow them to pay themselves salaries. And then more visitors showed up, clicking more results, and more revenue came in. Today Octopart has half a million monthly unique visitors, says Morey. And those are solid gold looking-to-buy-something-right-now unique visitors, the kind that bring in revenue. “We hired our first employee, Bryan Newbold (a new MIT physics grad),” Morey told me today, adding “And we just signed up Mouser Electronics which means we have deals with all major distributors of electronic parts.” Octopart isn’t sexy like a lot of startups. It’s boring, and practical (words Sarah Lacy used today ). But boring and practical, when combined with pretty awesome search technology, can make a fine business. Especially when the founders aren’t quitters when things get tough. Well, actually, they are quitters, since they all dropped out of grad school. But they’re not quitters now, and that’s all that counts. |
Fujitsu To Bring Out 7-Inch Android Tablet This Year | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 18 | Just last week had Fujitsu announcing the , a 10-inch convertible Windows /notebook. It’s actually aimed more at the enterprise market, but they have an option coming for consumers as well. It’ll be smaller, with a 7-inch screen and Android 3.1, but it’s not clear whether it will have the stylus support and keyboard of the TH40/D. If it’s convertible, it’s got its work cut out for it, with the presumably coming out soon, and sporting better specs (in some ways) than the more expensive TH40/D model. Fujitsu is supposedly targeting a sub-$400 price point for the low-end (16GB) model, but I’ll believe it when I see it. If it isn’t convertible, it may join the other devices that fail to differentiate themselves sufficiently from the herd. Hopefully Fujitsu works hard to make this thing a real option. |
Flickr Designer Publicly Criticizes Flickr's Design | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 5 | 18 | The photo-sharing space continues to heat up, and continues to leave dominant player in the dust innovation-wise. If one thing’s becoming clear, it’s that to work at Yahoo and have any sort of passion for good product design. The latest example of this pain point comes from Flickr designer , who has the service on her personal blog, in a post called “The Most Important Page On Flickr.” In the post Timoni links to the Flickr page and breaks down what’s wrong with it, namely that on a micro-level that there is no chronological way to sort photos, the thumbnail size is too small and there’s no way to see all of a user’s recent photos without visiting their profile. But what West finds most problematic is that … “The page fails on a fundamental level—it’s supposed to be where you find out what’s happened on Flickr while you were away. The current design, unfortunately, encourages random clicking, not informed exploration. The page isn’t just outdated, it’s actively hurting Flickr, as members’ social graphs on the site become increasingly out of sync with real life. Old users forget to visit the site, new sign ups are never roped in, and Flickr, who increased member sign-ups substantially in 2010, will forego months of solid work when new members don’t come back.” Power Flickr users, desperate for a platform that provides the sense of community early Flickr did, are moving on to , and the recently launched . As Flickr user and developer put it, “This highly perceptive post by @Timoni almost completely covers the reasons my use of Flickr has declined over time.” Many feel like Flickr has swerved from its original course of being a community of photographers and photosharers to being a storage center. Jason Kottke (Kottke!) to the problem as such, “Flickr has become a shoebox under the bed instead of the door of the refrigerator or workplace bulletin board. “ is one of the early Flickr evangelists who moved on because of lack of community, leaving the service for 500px, “500px is like Flickr was in the early day. They care about the users. Flickr doesn’t anymore … [500px CEO] Ian Sobolev is interacting with users like Stewart/Caterina did. Flickr censors, bans, deletes and talks down to their users.” But West thinks (or rather, writes) that there’s still a glimmer of hope, that Flickr still has the ability to “kick ass in this arena.” But she modifies her assertion with “They just have to build it” and her statement is decidedly less powerful when taken in the context of the “This post is largely taken from a proposed redesign I sent out last year” sentence in the introduction. With no such redesign in sight one can’t help but feel that West’s insightfulness is lost on Yahoo. And that Instagram should probably hire her to build its web platform. |
LG's Transparent Display Could Be Your Future HUD | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 18 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj_TWYStOOU&w=640&h=390]
Display conference SID is underway, and all the cool companies are showing off their new display tech. Yesterday we saw a sweet high-resolution bistable e-paper display , and today Engadget has found another cool screen, also bistable, but Yes, it’s transparent bistable. Just add “flexible” and “high pixel density” and they’ll have all the buzzwords covered. The low-power display is able to show full motion in monochrome, and of course because it’s bistable the image remains when you turn it off. What are the advantages over, say, an display? No clue. The device shown is just a concept (a prototype, really), but whether it’s an evolutionary dead end or just the start of something cool isn’t really stated. At any rate it’s cool. If you’re interested in more display stuff, has a bunch of semi-interesting stuff — not all of it mind-blowing, but still worth a look if you’re into that kind of thing. |
Google And Amazon May Have Just Handed Apple The Keys To The Cloud Music Kingdom | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 5 | 18 | With regard to their cloud music offering, it looks like Apple is now just about ready to rock and roll. It would seem that this is now coming together even faster than they anticipated. And that may be thanks to two unlikely sources: Google and Amazon. tonight that Apple has signed an agreement with music label EMI to offer its music through Apple’s upcoming new cloud music service. This means that Apple now has agreements in place with two of the four major labels (Warner signed last month). And Sandoval believes that deals with the remaining two, Sony and Universal, could be wrapped up as early as next week. Again, rock and roll. With those deals in place, it means that Apple will be free to launch their cloud service anytime they please. And while was to do so at their annual music event in the early fall, Apple could indeed move the launch up to WWDC in early June (just a few weeks from now). We haven’t heard anything definitive about this either way, but you can bet that Apple is thinking about it. It would be a pretty savvy move. One that would make their rivals look bad. Really bad. You see, while Apple is believed to have had the infrastructure work done for a while for their cloud music offering, the hold up was these label deals. Negotiations have been ongoing for months, and given the stakes, it seems likely that they could have gone on for many more months. Then Amazon decided to get ballsy. They without of the labels signed on, surprising everyone. Legally, they said they had the right to do this since customers are placing this music in digital vaults in the cloud in the same way they might put music on an MP3 player. The labels, not surprisingly, disagree. When Amazon did that, Google, which had also been negotiating with the music labels for , also decided they needed to get their offering out there. Last week at Google I/O, . Again, the labels were pissed off. And guess who they ran to? As Sandoval last week, following Google’s Music announcement: Nonetheless, the hope in the music industry is that Apple’s music service will make the competing offerings look shabby by comparison and force Amazon and Google to pay the licensing rates the labels are asking. So the labels, which for the better part of a decade now have been looking for someone, to help counter Apple’s power in their business, is turning right back to Apple when they need help. And Apple will obviously gladly welcome them with open arms. After all, with these licenses, Apple will have secured the cloud music high ground despite being the last to launch. Think about it. With these agreements, Apple is likely going to be able to do the one thing that is absolutely crucial for cloud music to take off: offer library syncing uploading. In other words, Apple now likely be able to do what Lala (the company Apple in late 2009 and subsequently shut down) was able to do: scan your hard drive for songs and let you play those songs from their servers without having to upload them yourself. It’s hard to overstate how critical this is. Right now, Amazon makes you upload your own library for any song you haven’t purchased from them since their service launched (those you purchase from them can automatically be added to your locker). Google doesn’t even have a music purchase option at all yet, so you have to upload music. As Jason and I talked about , that means hours or of uploading — that’s what he had to go through. How many people are realistically going to do that? Not a lot. But because neither Amazon nor Google have the label agreements — the key thing when people were buzzing about Google Music rumors — they have no choice. Apple has a choice. And will fully take advantage of it. Both Amazon and Google have complained that the terms the labels want are unacceptable and untenable for a business. Yet, it looks like Apple has been able to work them out. And that may well be thanks to, yep, Amazon and Google. |
Pirate Bay Servers Take Refuge In Secret Mountain Cave | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 18 |
If your website is so internationally controversial that you’ve got Interpol and RIAA secret police knocking on your door every other day, it pays to be a bit circumspect when it comes to hosting. But only the most paranoid (justifiably or not) will go so far as to . The Pirate Bay has been the target of numerous legal threats, some of which have had recourse to physical removal of the servers operating the site, so a secret location (or three) is an important step to keep the long arm of the law (and the longer arm of the multinationals) out of striking distance. Those are the new servers, to the right. Yes, they are inside a cave. They’re working on a few hardware upgrades, and I was surprised to learn that the whole site is hosted on just 17 machines. Granted they are serving mostly small files and lots of text comments, but that really is just an incredibly small number of servers for such a high-profile site. Compare to Facebook, which has tens of thousands of servers in . |
Security Breach: Here's How Expired Domains Expose You To Embarrassment (And Theft) | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 5 | 18 | As if you’re not scared enough of the Internet (and its potential to ravage your personal information), something comes along to make you even more paranoid. Just ask PlayStation users, or those that were on the receiving end of . Today’s vulnerability du jour? Expired domains. The technical veterans among us are likely already familiar with this, but it seems that letting a domain name expire, especially those tied to other online accounts, exposes your personal information and makes you vulnerable to potential identity theft. Today, British developer and hacker Ben Reyes how he was able to use an expired domain to access to another person’s Gmail, Google calendar, contacts, and more, which then, in turn, allowed him to access further web accounts, like Amazon. It started when Reyes recently attempted to link a newly registered domain to Google Apps. The Google Apps page immediately responded to the request, saying that the domain had already been registered. This was because the previous owner of the domain name had left it tied to Google Apps. So Reyes went through the domain reclamation process, proved he was the new owner, and shabang, he was granted access. Once he signed in, the fun started. Google apps gave him a choice of two administrator accounts, so he chose one at random, picked a new password, and signed in. He then found himself gazing at the entire email history, calendars, and contacts owned by someone he didn’t know. If Reyes had been harboring malicious intentions, he presumably could have used this information to launch an attack on the person as well as the organizations the person had patronized. He was able to quickly discover that the person in question was the owner of an Amazon Web Services account, so he sent Amazon a password reset request, changed the password, and was quickly granted access. Considering Amazon and most other online services simply require an email address to reclaim an account, you can see the potential for some serious identity theft here. Not only that, but with access to AWS, Reyes could easily recover the person’s name, address, and the last 4 digits of their credit card. Yikes. Again, someone with a greater facility with the dark side could easily use the information above to squirm their way into the person’s PayPal account to steal further financial information, not to mention files and personal information stored on Dropbox and Facebook. Reyes of course alerted the owner of the AWS account he had accessed, making them aware of their vulnerability — and to his blog post, which he had subsequently published on Hacker News. In fact, it turns out that the person in question is the senior lead at a well-funded and fairly well-known startup. So, if this can happen to someone with technical know-how, it can happen to anybody. Reyes has also contacted Google to make them aware of the security loophole. Google has not yet given concrete word as to whether or not they’ve fixed the problem, but this just illuminates the larger issue at hand here, which is that he could have easily accessed the person’s Amazon account using a wildcard email address. Meaning that it’s pretty easy to steal your personal information through an expired domain linked to Google Apps. According to , there are more than 33 million expired domains on the Web. I think many of us have let a domain name or two expire, but clearly doing so with other accounts still attached to it poses a huge security risk. Even if an expired domain isn’t attached to Google Apps, one could still use, say, an Amazon account to gather personal info. But Google Apps obviously provides an easier way for someone to discover what accounts are already tied to the domain. And this goes for the non-technical as well. You don’t have to be a hacker. Many of us legitimately tie domains to Google Apps and could experience the same. Reyes and I agreed that this may cause VCs and investors (not to mention people across the board) to rush back to those forgotten domains to re-register — for the sake of preventing their email addresses from being leaked to eager young startups. (God forbid.) And more. After all, a few users in the post’s comment section on Hacker News said that they’d already written scripts to scan all newly expired domain names to check to see if they’re connected with Google Apps. Megamark16 chimed in, saying, From what we can tell, and from what Reyes has learned from Google, the problem still remains. So, pull your pants up, and monitor those expired domains. If you don’t, you may find yourself sponsoring an anonymous hacker’s paid vacation to Tahiti. Just ask Reyes, who is likely now spending time on his new Kindle, thanks to those friends he’s made through Google Apps. While my headline may be a bit overzealous, as this is likely due to some lazy webmaster, or is an intentional design flaw, it’s obviously a big problem. We’ll update as we learn more. to Reyes’ post, too, for reference. |
Kinect Hack Could Eventually Translate Sign Language | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 18 | [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI80eGO17jc&rel=0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3]
Some have put together a program that uses the to detect certain hand gestures (which is, after all, what it was designed to do) and translate them into words. Right now it only recognizes “hello” and “sorry,” but the team is only just now teaching it words — the “build” period is over, and now it’s time to learn. The video’s in French, but there are English annotations (leave ’em on) and it’s easy enough to get the gist if you understand that “bonjour” is “hello” and “désolé” is “sorry.” The skeleton they’re using, though, doesn’t seem to recognize hand and finger positions, which can of course affect the sign you’re making. But once again we have this gaming peripheral being applied to the advancement of humankind, as opposed to the frittering away of time. Keep up the good work, guys. [via ] |
null | John Biggs | 2,011 | 5 | 20 | null |
Why Is Apple Trademarking "Thunderbolt" Instead Of Intel? | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 18 |
A strange development on the front. Intel’s new high-speed interface certainly made its big debut on Apple’s new MacBook Pros, but why would Apple be it if it’s Intel’s technology? We that Apple was “integral” to creating the Light Peak interface, but those reports , and it became clear that Apple was more a last-mile partner rather than R&D. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. So why the trademark? My guess is that “Thunderbolt” is Apple-specific, since it uses Apple’s Mini DisplayPort form factor — and while other implementations are possible (Sony appears to be doing , like the prototypes), it could be that Apple is trying to push their version as the de facto standard. If Apple MDP-style port caught on, manufacturers and OEMs would be forced to license it from them. Free of charge, sure, but it’s a sweet bit of leverage to have on the other guys. On the other hand, it could backfire and become another FireWire if their version doesn’t gain traction. And remember, Apple is just claiming the name “Thunderbolt,” not attempting to wrest control of the interface. It could be this was all worked out from the beginning. It depends on a lot of factors that aren’t even close to predictable yet, so let’s just watch and see. [via ] |
Cool! Google Places Now Allows You To Import Foursquare Data …Via RSS, So No One Will | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 5 | 18 | When I first saw the ReadWriteWeb headline: , I was surprised. Wow, that’s interesting, and could be huge, I thought. Then I wondered why neither Foursquare nor Google was touting this?Again, could be big for both! Then I read the not-so-fine print. Oh. RSS. Meh. Turns out, Google is touting this, quietly. On their Google Places blog (one of Google’s 100 or so blogs), they have a post today entitled: . Buried in this post, towards the bottom, you’ll see the note that you can now import other feeds of location information into Places. Writes Google: To do that, just find the URL of a public GeoRSS/Atom feed that contains place information you care about. This could be anything from a feed of your Foursquare check-ins to a My Map you may have created years ago. In other words, no one is actually going to do this. You have to go to a special Foursquare page, copy the RSS feed link, go back to Google Places, paste it there, and wait as they import your items. “It’s really easy!,” Marshall Kirkpatrick writes. I’m actually not sure they could have made this less intuitive. If you’re going to make this option, at least make a simple tool for it. Still, it is a nice option to have for the 13 of you that will use it. As a longtime Foursquare user, I have a long history of check-ins dating back more than two years (and longer if you count the Dodgeball check-ins they allowed you to import way back when as well). And Google notes that they sync those locations up with the corresponding venues in Google Places (or they do their “best” to). Trying it out, the results seem to sync up well. But I can’t get it to go beyond my ten most recent Foursquare check-ins. So much for my entire Foursquare history. Again, this is actually a good idea, I just wish it wasn’t such a shoddy implementation on the front-end. My guess is that’s because Foursquare has no idea about this. (And, to be fair, Google says you can do this with any location feed.) After all, there’s a war going on for location data. And Google and Foursquare are who had a falling out way back when. |
Microsoft: 1 In 14 Downloaded Programs Is Masked Malware Attack | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 5 | 18 | These days, most “hacks” are more about an attacker’s ability to exploit your download habits, as opposed to exploiting holes in your firewall. In a review of Internet Explorer’s feedback reports, found that 1 in every 14 programs downloaded are in some way malicious. The software giant also warned that more often than not, it’s the hacker’s mind-games that cause a malware attack rather than the software’s own vulnerabilities. “Social-engineering attacks, like tricking a user into running a malicious program, are far more common than attacks on security vulnerabilities, “said Jeb Haber, program manager for Microsoft SmartScreen in a blog post. Since the release of Internet Explorer 8 in March of 2009, SmartScreen technology has prevented over 1.5 million malware attacks. Haber added that the problem of user-downloaded malware is a “huge” one, and “getting bigger.” The most recent version of Internet Explorer, IE9, double-checks the reputation of each site visited and notifies the user if they happen to be hanging out in questionable/unknown territories. “Most people would be cautious about buying something online from a complete stranger,” Haber said. “Using reputation software helps protect users from newly released malware programs – pretending to be legitimate software programs – that are not yet detected by existing defense mechanisms,” he said. [via ] |
Video: Excellent Bionic Hand In Action | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 18 |
Body augmentation and limb replacement are just hugely interesting fields right now. We’ve got , , even . Bionic hands have been a troublesome topic for research because of the inadequacy of current technology in replicating fine motor control. This arm, being wielded by a young Austrian fellow who lost the use of his hand in an accident, isn’t quite perfect, but it sure is impressive as hell. , he won’t be playing the piano any time soon, but replacing limbs isn’t about that — it’s about getting basic functions working again, like holding a glass or tying your shoes. Both of those things seem totally doable, and I’m sure stuff like pressing buttons, holding a shopping basket, and other common tasks are equally possible. This is a neuroprosthetic, meaning it actually taps into the unused nerves that used to control the hand. At this point we can’t tap into too many — our electrodes and mechanics just aren’t good enough — but there are enough that you can have several degrees of freedom and analog control, which is There’s a ton of room for improvement, which isn’t a criticism so much as an aspirational statement. In just five or ten years these things are going to be looking real nice. , including some other researchers and bionic limb users. Exciting times, people! [via ] |
Exclusive: Gilt Taste Is Cooking Up An iPad App That Will Let You Swipe Without Touching | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 5 | 18 | Earlier today, Gilt launched the latest addition to its group-buying sites with —a very of produce, meats, fish, cheese, and other “artisinal” foods. While it’s easy to get distracted by the jaw-dropping prices ( anyone?), the part I find interesting is that Gilt Taste is also an online magazine. Mouth-watering food photography helps to move the merchandise. The entire design of the site started with what it should look like first on a tablet and then worked backwards to the tiled view on the Web. In fact, a companion iPad app is in the works. When you are cooking in the kitchen, a propped-up iPad would be perfect for reading recipes, except that you wouldn’t want to touch it with wet or greasy hands. So instead of swiping, Gilt is prototyping a way to use the camera to create “motion-activated recipes.” You would swipe your hands through the air in front of the screen instead of touching it to go through step-by-step recipes, which could include video and more photography. The editorial side of the site is overseen by advisor Ruth Reichl, who was the editor-in-chief of magazine for ten years and before that was the food critic for the . Mixed in with the articles on and is also an by Barry Estabrook on the impact natural gas fracking could have on the food supply. “It is very important to me that we create a new kind of magazine here that is not advertising-based,” Reichl tells me. Foodies love to read about food, learn about food, and related issues. Content brings buyers. There is a chinese wall between the online market and the editorial, just like there is between advertising and editorial at a traditional publication. But this is the that lifestyle publishing—from fashion to food—is going (see also, or ) Reichl comes from the print establishment, but she is already liberated by working online. “This wasn’t even conceived of six months ago,” she says. “In print, there is no way you could do this in six months. We have 8 people. You’d have 50 at a magazine.” And some of those are engineers who like to build things like that iPad app. It also costs a lot less than launching a splashy new magazine, which can easily run $50 million to $100 million. In contrast, Gilt chairman says the launch of Gilt Taste “is a few million dollars. It is nowhere close to what it would cost to launch a magazine.” And what of those expensive food items and departure from Gilt’s discount model? Well, there will be weekly specials, but Gilt Taste is not supposed to replace your grocery shopping It is for special occasions, and for foodies who want access to the same farms and culinary sources that the best chefs in the world go to. Also, Lyne knows there is demand for fancy foods because she tested it out on the main Gilt site where flash sales of food items “really flew.” It makes sense. Food is a perishable item, even more so than fashion. But the team at Gilt felt that shoppers needed more context, and in fact, editorial to attract them, educate them and keep them coming back. Personally, I can’t wait to try out some of those “motion-activated recipes.” |
HP TouchPad Gets Dedicated Teaser Page From Best Buy | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 5 | 18 | In March, HP CEO Leo Apotheker promised a June launch for his company’s forthcoming TouchPad tablet, and since Best Buy has already posted a teaser page, it’s probably safe to assume that the TouchPad is running on schedule. Best Buy’s page has yet to include pricing or specific availability dates, opting instead to mark the product as “coming soon.” Specs include a 9.7-inch capacitive XGA touchscreen at 1024×768 resolution, a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, and a dual-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor with webOS on top. More specs can be found on Best Buy’s , along with a promo video and an outline of the TouchPad’s core features. [via ] |
Wahwah.fm is like a Foursquare for sound – stream your music in a location (TCTV) | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 5 | 18 | in Berlin is an international, English language conference covering of the latest in “digital”, and serves as a useful platform for German startups to present themselves. One of the best – and the one that won the startup competition this year – was . I actually really liked this company, but the downbeat presentation of its founder belies quite an innovative idea. Imagine being able to get your iPhone and start broadcasting a local radio station that other people nearby with the same app could pick up, live. Wahwah.fm lets you listen to and broadcast music simultaneously, putting your location on a map. Out in a few weeks, the iPhone app currently streams sound via from Soundcloud. Now, there are interesting implications in allowing you to stream the tracks on your iPhone, and creating a playlist which can be found by your locations. You can follow broadcasts, post wall messages and track the number of listeners you have. Does it have implications for broadcast licensing? Hell yeah. Is there a brand new space being created around sound and music based on location? You bet. Admittedly others like and already do mobile recording and link it to location. I think there is a third space opening here to do with micro-location based streaming. What we’re talking about here is a kind of Foursquare for music, where your check-in is into a playlist you can share and comment on with people around you. More usefully, the implication of creating millions of little local streaming stations, especially for a live event you are at, could be pretty awesome. This could become a powerful broadcast network, and in turn a very interesting ad network. Here’s an interview with the founder: from on . |
Attn Entrepreneurs: Mark Zuckerberg Isn't the Role Model. Reid Hoffman Is. | Sarah Lacy | 2,011 | 5 | 18 | Forty-plus weeks traveling the emerging world has taught me many things. Chief among them is that most entrepreneurs outside Silicon Valley learn the wrong lessons looking in. A lot of that is the fault of publications like TechCrunch: We get excited about new things. If it’s exploding like Groupon, all the better. But we even go nuts over things like Foursquare or Quora that have pretty muted user-bases. That’s what being evangelists and early adopters is all about. We tend not to write about all the apps that launch and go nowhere, with good reason: If we’re doing our job well, we probably thought they sucked to begin with. But the bigger disservice we do is not writing enough about the boring companies who work every day to build something that becomes huge, giving the impression that starting a business is easy in the Valley. That somehow people wake up with an idea, and roll out of bed onto a pile of venture capital, press and adoration. A lot of times the companies we should be writing about more than we do are admittedly boring infrastructure or enterprise software names. But there’s a category of consumer names that should be sexy, but for whatever reason don’t get the hype. I’ve always thought of Yelp in this category. Local plays like Foursquare and Groupon have always gotten more attention. Another one is Pandora. Spotify has gotten far more attention, despite Pandora pulling off what almost no other music startup has– surviving the full-barrel onslaught of the record labels. But the king of them all for the Web 2.0 crowd is LinkedIn. You could understand if LinkedIn was just paling next to Facebook. I mean, who doesn’t? Facebook is one of those once-a-decade phenomenons. But LinkedIn started out as the less-sexy social network next to Friendster. And then it graduated to the also-ran next to MySpace. It has both now that its IPO has priced at $45 a share, or $4 billion-plus valuation– the highest valuation for an Internet company debut . More than ten years ago, Reid Hoffman– LinkedIn’s founder– was one of the first people to believe in the comeback of the consumer Internet, investing in a host of startups, but putting the bulk of his money, personal brand, time and firepower behind LinkedIn. LinkedIn is one of the only social networks that survived from the first social media frenzy. That’s quite an accomplishment when you think about it. Hoffman wasn’t exactly up against entrepreneurial slouches. All the big Valley venture capital guns were behind Friendster. Mark Pincus was behind Tribe. And Sean You-Know-What’s-Cool? Parker was behind Plaxo. One of the reasons LinkedIn outlasted that early generation of social networks was that it was boring and practical. In the early days of social networking, the only reason anyone could think to use these sites was for dating. But Hoffman knew that would always be a customer acquisition headache: Either a dating site solves your problem and you stop using it, or it doesn’t and you stop using it. LinkedIn on the other hand would be this thing in the background you would need your entire career. You could argue the flaw with LinkedIn was the rational strategy that saved it worked too well. For many people, it became an indispensable tool for certain moments of professional panic, but not something you used daily or even monthly. I’ve always compared it to a AAA card, a comparison that visibly annoys Hoffman and usually results in suggestions of other ways I should be using it. But back in 2007, even he admitted the site’s biggest flaw was they weren’t giving people enough . When the Web 2.0 craze took off in 2006 or so, Hoffman’s star soared, but shockingly it wasn’t really because of LinkedIn. It was his angel portfolio that got the bulk of media attention. That includes out-performers like Facebook, but also stars that shined bright and burned out like Digg and Six Apart. Ever the gracious interviewee, Hoffman would answer questions about the sexier companies, but always be sure to work in a LinkedIn plug. A favorite was regularly betting me an expensive dinner at the restaurant of my choice if LinkedIn couldn’t help me do a certain aspect of my job as a reporter better. Hoffman wasn’t in his early twenties or a college dropout, and he’d be the first to admit he wasn’t a natural CEO. He’s said in previous interviews that he has a hard time firing people quickly enough– a skill that Mark Zuckerberg has excelled at. He’s left the CEO chair several times, only to come back when other candidates haven’t worked out. But even though he could easily throw out that old cop-out of “I’m just the guy who starts stuff; I’m not the CEO type” and wash his hands of the company, Hoffman cared about LinkedIn too much to ever be very far even when insanely sexier jobs were his for the taking. Even now in his role at Greylock, he spends the bulk of his time working on LinkedIn. And yet, given all this, it’s LinkedIn that is the first social network to go public, the first multi-billion Web 2.0 IPO. It’s more than double the exit of sexy YouTube. And, in a rare case of startup justice, his day-in, day-out work building the social network no one ever wanted to get excited about has paid him handsomely: Netting him a boost of nearly $1 billion to his net worth. Few entrepreneurs who’ve spent a decade building a company get that kind of personal return, because few personally invest so much of their own cash along the journey. Hoffman can’t comment on any of this of course. I haven’t talked to him in weeks. These are all my observations after ten years of interviewing him about LinkedIn, watching him shake his head at the unfairness of the hype cycle and keep slogging away at building LinkedIn regardless. Hoffman should be the role model for entrepreneurs star-struck by the seeming glamour and ease of Silicon Valley’s consumer Internet world. He’s the living incarnation of the reality of the Valley: It may be easier than ever to start a product, but building a company is just as hard as its ever been. As for the brain-dead commentators wondering if LinkedIn’s IPO represents a bubble, somewhere Hoffman has to be laughing and shaking his head again. What part of spending a decade of building a business with more than 100 million users that no one hyped, that represents one of the few large-scale working examples of a freemium business model screams “BUBBLE” to you people? These are the same people that said Google was wildly overvalued when it priced at under $100 a share. As most people with common sense have argued, we’re not in an Internet bubble now, because the soaring valuations are mostly contained within the frothy insider ecosystem. Secondary markets are starting to change that, but so far, there are exactly two $1 billion + Web 2.0 exits that I can count: YouTube and LinkedIn. Maybe you count a few more. It depends on your definition of “Web 2.0.” I count it as the wave of consumer Web social media companies started with the Friendster explosion. Some could count Skype (twice,) but I’d argue Skype is more of a sandwich generation company. But even if your definition is more generous, I bet you can count them on one hand. Five or fewer isn’t a bubble. There’s exactly one aspect of Silicon Valley right now that I will concede does feel like 1999: It’s easy to start a company. Stupidly easy. And entrepreneurs like Hoffman are the antithesis of that archetype not a symptom of it. |
Dell's 10-Inch Streak Pro Gets A Few Details | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 18 | Hold onto your seats everybody. The big brother, the Streak Pro (it just doesn’t sound good, does it) has gotten a few . Are you ready to be underwhelmed?! First we’ve got a 10-inch screen. Then, inside that screen, . That works out to 1280×800, actually, which is pretty much standard. And then, under the hood, a supremely practical Tegra 2 T20 running at 1GHz, with a gig of RAM. Front and back cameras (5 and 2 megapixels) and up to 64 gigs of space round out the package. Sound familiar? Yeah, pretty much the same specs as everything else out there. It’ll have Dell’s special Stage skin, and would likely ship with Android 3.1 (if it doesn’t, it’s sunk), but beyond that there isn’t much to say. These specs didn’t really even need to be said in the first place! |
#TwitterAllowsYouTo. discuss. | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 5 | 18 | For someone so disdainful of the Internet, New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller sure fits the textbook definition of a His anti-aggregation screed “ ” and today’s Twitter-bait “ ” have taken up a good chunk of my paywall quota. If that was his objective, then well done Bill Keller. The part of me that wants people to be more clever than they actually are hopes Keller’s “First” column is an attempt to stir the waters. After all, attacking the entire Internet is definitely punching up. But sadly, instinct (and the fact that his reference to Twitter users as Twits is supposed to be funny but isn’t) tells me that this is not the case. Says Keller: “We are outsourcing our brains to the cloud. The upside is that this frees a lot of gray matter for important pursuits like FarmVille and “Real Housewives.” But my inner worrywart wonders whether the new technologies overtaking us may be eroding characteristics that are essentially human: our ability to reflect, our pursuit of meaning, genuine empathy, a sense of community connected by something deeper than snark or political affinity.” “The Internet Is Making Us Dumb” is the song that never ends, and was sung more beautifully than Keller by (Caveat: I’ve only read excerpts from Carr’s book, because yes I’m too busy tweeting and also because it is wrong). Essentially Keller is arguing that technologies like Twitter and Facebook make us less human, but seems to have conflated “human” with “familiar to me.” But I’ll go deeper than default snark for the moment. Twitter is a tool. Like any tool you use it as you see fit, within constraints. Apologies to but arguing that a tool or a medium makes you a certain way (in this case less human) is a bit like arguing that the existence of supermarkets make people fat or that haikus make people brief. Yes, the supermarket makes it easier to buy the food that makes you fat, but how much of it you eat it is ultimately your choice. Editor and media critic explains the conundrum thus, “Keller is being a bit hypocritical in complaining about how Twitter, and other technology, make us less able to connect because he keeps himself at arms length from it due to his own preconceived notions.” Keller has decided to abstain from going to the supermarket, and is proclaiming thinness as a result. Because of its opt-in follow system, Twitter allows us to make choices as to what information we consume, how we consume it and how we respond to it, within constraints. There are a plethora of anecdotes to support how Twitter and Facebook foster a greater sense of community and discussion, but let’s take today as an example: Because of Twitter I have read not just Keller’s piece, but read to his argument. Perhaps out of secondhand embarrassment, even Keller’s own employee Nick Bilton responded to his boss’ “#TwitterMakesUsStupid. discuss” tweet and subsequent treatise with an arguing essentially that “stupid is as stupid does.” “Could Twitter make me stupid? Absolutely. If I only followed with poor grammar, I’d be on my way to a vapid state of mind in no time. But I don’t. I follow dozens of and ; I follow chefs, and ; and of course, I follow .” To his credit Mr.Keller replied, in the comments section, that his actual argument was not that Twitter makes you stupid, but that Twitter is “ill suited to real discussion.” I don’t think anyone would hold up this stream of tweets as a proud example of an enlightening colloquy,” Keller said, referring to the reaction to his post. If Keller spent more time on social media, he’d understand that when it comes to the colloquy sparked by the Internet, what you see publicly posted on Twitter and Facebook is just the tip of the conversation iceburg. Thanks to Twitter and Facebook, I’ve now discussed The Twitter Trap privately (through DM) and publicly with multiple friends, colleagues and industry leaders whom I’ve both met and have yet to meet in person. And his experiment has certainly provided many bloggers with an easy opportunity to prove how well they write. ;) In addition to all of the Keller analysis I’ve consumed and discussed, I’ve read Sheryl Sandberg’s epic found material for a news post (about Twitter) and planned a real life meeting with a startup founder (who I met on Twitter). I’ve faced a torrent of human connection and knowledge and I’m still in my pajamas. Keller seems to forget that there are links at the end of some tweets, and those links lead to blog posts and newspaper articles and in the comments sections of those blog posts and newspaper articles you can find yes, real discussion. And definitely a lot more REAL DISCUSSION than in the comments section of Keller’s original post, which is currently closed.
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NY Times Editor: Twitter Giveth, And Twitter Taketh Away | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 18 | I was tempted to make the headline “NY Times Editor: I Agree With Devin Coldewey,” since his editorial today, lamenting the loss of traditional ways of remembering and learning, is a very close sibling to my own . His experience was a little more personal, however, watching his daughter finally join/succumb to Facebook. It’s an interesting read and he gets a few worthwhile perspectives from others, including Jonathan Safran Foer, whom many of you have read (though I haven’t). It was reassuring to read the piece, if only because I now know there’s someone eminent who shares my perspective. |
ViewsHound introduces revenue sharing for its crowd-sourced news site | Steve O'Hear | 2,011 | 5 | 18 | Just two weeks after launch, , the crowd-sourced news site with daily prizes, has introduced a revenue share option for contributors. Instead of just being in with a chance of winning a part of the site’s daily prize fund for the best articles, photos and cartoons contributed, in a move similar to UK competitor , users can now get a share of advertising revenue – I just hope they didn’t take . That said, while ViewsHound is billing the feature as a 50/50 split, it’s not ad-revenue share quite in the way that we know it. Contributors won’t get a 50% share of revenue garnered through ads on the site sold by ViewsHound itself but will be able to run their own Google Adsense against content that they publish. The 50% comes into play in the way in which pages are rendered, with every other page view displaying the user’s ads versus those sold by ViewsHound. However, should the site take off, it’s likely that even low cost CPM ads from a generic ad network would dwarf the income generated through Adsense, although any type of revenue share is better than none. Commenting on the feature, Ian Howlett, Publisha founder and editor in chief (the company behind ViewsHound), says: “viewing figures are good, with over 11,000 unique visitors since launch, so whilst it’s still early days, we should see good growth in ad revenues”. It is early days indeed. |
DryerBro iPhone App Notifies You When Your Laundry's Done | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 5 | 27 |
The folks that brought you have created another way to make your life just a little bit easier and funnier. Meet , an app that uses an accelerometer to let you know when your laundry’s done. With DryerBro you put your iPhone or iTouch on your laundry machine and it texts you and the remaining members of your laundry party when your laundry’s done. I’m thinking this is going to be HUGE. I mean Facebook took off at colleges right? Once set up, DryerBro uses an accelerometer and Twilio to send a SMS, email or call to multiple phones when your unmentionables are ready to be picked up. Says creator Eric Kerr, “We live in a house with 11 dudes, and we’re seriously unorganized about laundry. We all want to use the machine on the weekends, but no one ever knows when the last load was done. It bothered me as hackers that we had the tools (accelerometer, Twilio) to solve the problem, but didn’t do anything about it.” So they built DryerBro. “We originally looked to see if an app already used the accelerometer to detect when your laundry is done but we couldn’t find anything – it’s a blue ocean strategy,” he says. Kerr and company are completely ridiculous, but their thing apparently works. When asked about future plans for DryerBro he told TechCrunch: “Ultimately we want to build out a hyper-local group buying ad platform for laundry detergents. Rough back of the napkin calculations indicate that we’d need roughly $41 million in financing, so we’re asking friends and family to help pony up the dough. We also want to build out the map of every active dryer in the world to hang on the wall of our office.” Both the DryerBro and Promo video are awesome. You can download the iPhone Promo video below. [vimeo 20732587 w=620] |
Facebook Still Has No iPad App But They're Building A Desktop Software Team?! | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 5 | 27 | Facebook has no iPad app. . Their iPhone app is the most downloaded app in the history of apps. And third-party iPad apps (many of which aim to ) constantly dominate the top 10 lists for both free and paid apps. And yet, Facebook doesn’t seem to care at all about the device. Because they’re , right? Well, someone might want to tell the Seattle office that. On for the Seattle Facebook office, one of the openings is for “Software Engineer, Desktop Software”. Desktop software. . Before the damn iPad. Hey Facebook, 1986 called, they want their strategic vision back. Seriously though, this isn’t just one engineer they’re looking for to work on fun products (like the nifty, but experimental ), this is an they’re building. Again, to work on desktop apps. The job description: The desktop software team is a new team at Facebook based out of Seattle, WA. We will be working on new products that we expect to deliver to millions of users’ computers to help make their entire computing experience more social. Facebook is seeking experienced Software Engineers in Seattle to join this team. The job asks for expertise in creating desktop applications for Mac and/or Windows (Linux fans can now revolt as well). Other responsibilities include: Is Facebook actually building a full-fledged desktop app? If so, that’s awesome. But again, it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense given their ( and again) commitment to HTML5 and that being the key driver for why they don’t have an iPad app. Of course, I also don’t believe that they’re not actually building an iPad app. I think they just thought they could get away with not building one ( — but the desktop is?) and only more recently realized they should probably be on the fastest growing new computing platform in history. And then there’s the project. Which . (with fingers crossed behind the back). Or might this be about that I’ve been thinking about for a while? That might actually make a lot of sense. Interesting times for the social network. I just better see that damn iPad app before I see a desktop client. |
LusionBloom: A Magnetic Vase For Your Next Weird Cocktail Party | John Biggs | 2,011 | 5 | 27 | [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc_6-ojSza4&w=640&h=390] In the old days, pole-shaping meant something completely different. However, now it is a technique for attaching multiple arms to each other at odd angles that allows them to remain upright with a load without falling. The LusionBloom is a nice example of pole shaping and, more important, is a freaking vase that tilts to the side while keeping flowers and water upright. Perfect for Mother’s Day at Quatto’s house. The LusionBloom curiously remains upright, even while leaning. It appears as though the LusionBloom defies gravity. Filled with flowers and water, the LusionBloom still doesn’t topple. In addition, steel vases can be attached to one another. How does this happen? A unique arrangement of ferrous material and neodymium magnets (and a technique called “pole shaping”) make this possible and keep your friends guessing as to the method by which the LusionBloom remains upright. You can get a small vase for $16 and a larger vase for $40 (provided the inventor’s Kickstarter project gets funded) and it’s made in Columbus, Ohio by one Jonathan Morgan of Acumen Enterprises. |
Disrupt Hack Baitr Skewers Viral Launch Pages | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 5 | 27 | While didn’t win the , it did win the minds and hearts of those in attendance who have a tendency towards black humor. Baitr, a -type viral launch page that does nothing but visualize your email falling into the abyss, isn’t at all useful. But it is funny. Says creator Peter Watts, “Launchrock is good for entrepreneurialism but it’s also bad [for users] because you sign up for these services, and then you never hear back from them.” Watts hopes that his hack will encourage startups to do something more productive with their beta sign up page. “All these people are driving to a page, willing to give their email,” says Watts. “Once you have their email, maybe ask them some questions or engage with them? There’s so much more you can do.” Ironically enough, Watts said that he too would use a Launchrock page if he were launching a startup. I guess parody, not imitation, is the sincerest form of flattery. Watch the interview with Peter Watts below and read more about TechCrunch Disrupt NYC . |
The Ultimate Guide To Disrupt NYC 2011 | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 27 |
The latest has wrapped, but given the volume of news it created and the rate at which posts were pushing each other off the front page, you could be forgiven for missing a few items or videos here and there. Don’t worry, though: we’ve got the highlights of the show collected right here. Actually, that’s not true. We still have a ton of backstage talks and other footage we’re editing and processing, so expect more Disrupt content over the next week as we post these candid interviews with CEOs and Battlefield competitors. In the meantime, enjoy this central repository of all things Disrupt NYC 2011. : : a slick search engine that searches using apps instead of the web
: a media recommendation engine based on trusted social graph connections
: plans an outing for you based on mood and intention
: a personalized photo stream based on topics and keywords, instead of people
: a flashy interface for video discovery and consumption : recommends places to go nearby, based on your own social network information
: a video chatting app that connects you with people nearby
: find people by you who you don’t know but should know, based on mutual connections
: a location-aware social planning app that tells you what to do now that you’ve arrived
: an experimental gnome-sharing application with a clever transfer method : a social shopping site that counts down prices until someone buys an item
: a powerful job management system for stylists and other independent operators
: deep spending tracking app with a reward system for usage
: “Antivirus for bills” that identifies fraudulent charges on your bank account
: a plush toy customization engine, “Build-a-Bear on steroids” : a platform for rich educational content
: world’s smallest hospital-grade ECG and an iPhone app to go along with it
: a tracking and communication platform for doctors and patients
: an app for keeping track of all your kids’ important medical data from shots to height : rent nearby cars or put yours up for rent, with a special keyfob and app
: richer, shareable status reports for your business
: collects emails into subscribable “loops,” reducing email clutter
: a powerful database tool that’s difficult to describe but very impressive to watch
: a platform for collaborating on and tracking projects and sales
: a mobile invoicing app with cloud backup and media integration : no one is quite sure what Lumier is – possibly a skin for Windows
: a citizen journalism platform aimed at hyper-local news
: an iPad app for teaching kids to draw, relying on butt-based drawings (yes, really)
: a platform for finding, rating, and recommending free services
: a unified service for managing groups and events
: “Color for normal people,” creates collaborative picture timelines for events
: an enterprise-level website backup system for consumers (plus an ) From 30 awesome demos came six extra-awesome finalists. We were impressed by every startup that made the stage, but those final six really blew our socks off. Congratulations to all the companies, with special mention to Billguard, ccLoop, Do@, InvoiceASAP, and Sonar — and, of course, the Disrupt NYC 2011 Winner (and Audience Choice Winner), Getaround, which captured the Disrupt Cup with its killer car rental marketplace. Not to mention that they brought a Tesla, which always helps. And of course, thanks to all our attendees, sponsors, and team members, who all help make Disrupt possible. This was the biggest yet, and we think it was also the best. See you next time. |
LinkedIn Halo Effect? Facebook Shares Surge To New High In SharesPost | Michael Arrington | 2,011 | 5 | 27 | Facebook shares on private secondary markets like SecondMarket and SharesPost in March to $34 – an $85 billion valuation. But they settled down to around $31.50 after that and have mostly stayed around that level since then. But something caused the shares to surge past that old record to a solid $35 per share in this week’s auction. Our guess is that somewhat impressive P/E ratio of 2,500 may have something to do with it. $35 per share values Facebook at roughly $87.5 billion. Which is a steal compared to the way the public markets are valuing LinkedIn. We are writing SharesPost members like you who indicated they would like to occasionally receive news from SharesPost. We would like to inform you that SharesPost’s affiliated broker-dealer completed its auction of 100,000 shares of the Class B Common Stock of Facebook, Inc. yesterday, May 26th. A clearing price of $35.00 was established at the auction. Members submitting Qualifying Bids at or above the clearing price will be contacted shortly with instructions on next steps for completing this transaction. |
William Gibson Discovered The iPhone In 1995 | John Biggs | 2,011 | 5 | 27 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAJSZsZYnrE] I was just rewatching the 1995 classic and, nestled amid the overwrought actors and odd storyline, I heard something that stuck out: mention of a Thomson Eyephone… or iPhone. If that doesn’t mean that William Gibson isn’t on the cutting edge of future-tech, I don’t know who is and I find it charming that he once thought that Thomson would survive past the new millenium. I also suggest that you grab the “I need a computer” audio for your ringtone. It’s a gem. |
Welcome To The Future: Polymer Vision Demos SVGA Rollable Screen | John Biggs | 2,011 | 5 | 27 | [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxhCiLvi5LI&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3] This 6-inch screen displays black and white e-ink text and images at 800×600 pixels and can roll around a tube the circumference of a dime. If this isn’t the future of print, I don’t know what is. Designed and manufactured by , the screen can be rolled and unrolled 25,000 times. The question, obviously, is why would you need a rollable display? Well, as ereaders become ubiquitous the need for them to be almost indestructible. I could see a day when kids get their own ereaders for the nursery a la the . Interestingly, Polymer Vision isn’t the company of note when you think of e-ink displays so either they will license this technology or they could start taking more and more market shares from leaders like . |
DIY Collapsable Ninja Star Is Great For Collapsable Ninjas | John Biggs | 2,011 | 5 | 27 | [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGRZURvKpYs&w=640&h=510] It’s hard out there for a ninja these days. It’s difficult to find commissions and getting the right gear and training is becoming increasingly expensive. Where do you buy your katana? Your tabi shoes? And, most important, your collapsable shuriken? Well, you’re in luck. A young man named Zach wanted to make a collapsable ninja star for his 7 year old brother. With a little plastic and some elbow grease he was able to make a unique, lucite ninja star that can flip out like a switchblade and then fly like the wind into the bushes, where it will eventually be lost, like all ninja stars of our youth. You can download the plans and all you need is some plastic and a laser cutter. Easy peasy! |
PSA: Get Everything Off Your Old T-Mobile Sidekick By June 30th, Or It's Gone | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 5 | 27 | As we found out , all of the old T-Mobile/Danger Sidekicks out there are headed for greener pastures early next week. Come May 31st, the ol’ Danger data servers will given a belly rub, one last defrag, then will be unceremoniously taken out back and shot. Here’s something we didn’t know, though: if you’ve still got any important photos, contacts, calendars, or notes on that Sidekick floating around in your sock drawer, you’ll want to get them off your device by May 31st. After that point, any Sidekicks that completely lose power (say, if the battery drains to 0%) will lose access to that personal data. You’ll still be able to pull it down from the myT-Mobile backend until June 30th, at which point all that stuff is gone forever. The number for that cute chick you’ve been promising yourself you’d call for like 3 years now? Poof! Always remember, folks: clouds don’t last forever. (Note: Don’t worry about any of this if you’ve got the new Sidekick 4G. Name aside, those have very little to do with the old Danger-built models, and aren’t affected by this stuff. Bet T-Mobile’s customer service team is just explaining that.) |
After Surging Past Angry Birds, The Heist Now Selling An App A Second | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 5 | 27 | For as long as I can remember, there has been one app that has constantly held the top paid app spot in Apple’s App Store: Angry Birds. Sure, other apps surge to the top briefly. But Angry Birds always comes flying right back. But a new app appears to be bucking that trend. Today is day 3 of ‘s reign, and sales are quickening. As after a partial day 1, The Heist saw download numbers just over 25,000. This was already enough to overtake Angry Birds. But what’s really remarkable are the day two numbers. There were 89,798 downloads of The Heist on day two. Again, that’s for a paid app ($0.99). There are 86,400 seconds in a day so… yeah, the app is selling at a pace better than one a second. Crazy. In total, that puts downloads now well north of 100,000, and revenues are nearing $100,000 already. In fact, they’re likely well past that number as I write this seeing as the app is also still the top-grossing app in the App Store. So what is fueling the surge? Well first of all, they had a good launch strategy. The team behind The Heist is the same team behind , the popular OS X software bundle. They began hinting about The Heist game earlier this year, and actually hid clues in the initial version of Twitter for Mac (which they had a deal with). That proved to be enough to push it to number one, past Angry Birds, Tiny Wings, and other insanely popular apps. And getting to number one has its own perks. Because everyone sees you’re number one, they get curious and want to download your app as well, which led to the day two surge. Well that and the fact that the puzzle game is getting excellent reviews across the board. The tap tap tap team behind the app is also behind the truly great app, which happens to be the number seven paid app in the store. In other words, these guys know how to make good apps — and money. You can find The Heist . |
A Bit More On WWDC, The Mythical iPhone "4S", and iOS 5 | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 5 | 27 | With WWDC quickly approaching, the rumor mills are heating up with what we should expect at Apple’s annual conference known for big announcements. We’ve learned a little bit more that speaks to what to expect — including a couple of big, widely-requested things. First of all, a lot of sites seem to be working themselves into a tizzy about the so-called “iPhone 4S”. While it has already been widely reported that at WWDC this year, people seem to be letting their imaginations get the best of them anyway. This , for example, notes that Apple is pushing for British journalists to fly out for WWDC. And today, there’s a about Australian journalists getting the same message. Both conclude this must be for the “iPhone 4S”. |
Ballmer: Piracy Kills Chinese Market Earnings By 95% | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 5 | 27 | Despite the fact the number of PCs in China and the U.S. are pretty similar, CEO claimed on Wednesday that the company sees 95 percent less revenue coming from China than the States. Why, you ask? Piracy, of course. Other tech companies have had the same problem in China, which could indicate that the Chinese government hasn’t done enough to stop the acquisition of costly products for free. Ballmer ruled out the idea that software is too expensive. “If you can [afford a PC], you could afford the software,” said Ballmer, the statement clearly directed toward the Chinese government. Perhaps, if the same rampant piracy was occurring in a smaller country this issue could have been tabled a bit longer, but Microsoft stands to lose billions in the Chinese market if the same behavior continues. Ballmer claimed that each sold in India generated six times the earnings than that of PCs sold in China. He said that if Chinese IP protection was as robust and enforced as India’s that the market in China would be worth “billions of dollars.” The government in China has recognized that there is a piracy issue, and claims to have taken steps to cut down the level of piracy. There has been some progress, as 78 percent of software installed in China last year was pirated, compared to 86 percent in 2005. Still, an 8 percent decrease over a five-year period definitely isn’t enough to abate Microsoft. [via ] |
null | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 5 | 18 | null |
Microsoft Has Made 5x More Money From Android Than They Have From Windows Phone 7 | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 5 | 27 | Depending on how you’re counting (whether or not you’re including slightly varied models or not, for example), Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 partners have released either slightly over or slightly under 10 different handsets since the platform’s debut. In that same time, how many Android phones has Microsoft released? Zero. Of course, no one would really Microsoft to release an Android phone, of course — but get this: Microsoft has likely made around 5x more money from Android than they have from Windows Phone 7.
Confused? Don’t worry — it’s a weird one. You see, back in April 2010 Microsoft and HTC got into a little legal battle over a few patents which Microsoft claimed HTC was infringing with their Android phones. It never evolved into a formal lawsuit, because HTC turned around and offered to pay a licensing fee. That fee, according to a report from Citi analyst Walter Pritchard, is $5 per device. At the same time, Microsoft has been licensing out Windows Phone 7 to handset manufacturers at a cost generally believed to be around $15 per device. Last time they shared numbers, Microsoft said they’ve sold 2 million Windows Phone 7 licenses. 2 million multiplied by $15 per device works out to $30 million. HTC, meanwhile, has sold 30 million Android phones. So, what’s 30 million multiplied by $5 per device? $150,000,000. Yep. Without building a Android phone, Microsoft has very likely racked in $150 million from Android. And that’s just from their deal with HTC, mind you — it’s entirely feasible that they’ve got similar deals with the other Android-building big-guns (like Samsung, or LG), and that such details just haven’t trickled out yet. [via the incredible ] |
Algae Biofuels Maker Solazyme Goes Public, Finally, Raking In $197.6 Million | Lora Kolodny | 2,011 | 5 | 27 | Shares in Solazyme, the makers of algae biofuels and algae-based oils and chemicals used in health and beauty products, began trading on Nasdaq under the symbol SZYM.O on Friday. The business set an initial public offering price at $18, but its stock opened at $20 and traded between $19.60 and $22.00 throughout the day, with 10.98 million shares sold, raising about $197.6 million for the company. Solazyme’s on March 11, 2011 confirmed its intention to go public, officially. Speculation about an IPO for the company preceded that by many months in the cleantech industry, however. Algae-derived marine and jet fuels made by Solazyme have been . Prior to going public, the company also sold dietary supplements and skin care products, made from algae-based oils, via retailers including: Whole Foods, GNC, Sephora and QVC. It also struck deals to expand production and sell its fuels and oils to Chevron, Dow Chemical, Unilever, and Qantas Airlines Ltd. Founded in 2003, and headquartered in South San Francisco, Solazyme’s venture investors include: the Roda Group, Braemar Energy Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sir Richard Branson, a well-known advocate for the use of renewable fuels. Competitors to Solazyme include biofuels makers like and , also public companies, that convert plant-based sugars — from sugarcane and other starchy crops, rather than algae — into fuel and oils that can displace petroleum-based products. Other privately held cleantech startups in the algae biofuels space could prove significant competition. One interesting player, LiveFuels, is a next-generation fishery and biofuels maker, that uses living fish to process all forms of algae, and then presses the oil out of the fish before selling the edible fillets. LiveFuels’ business would avoid the cost of phosphorous — which is used in food farming, and is in shorter and shorter supply these days, globally — through its unique methods; but the company has not scaled up to commercial sales of biofuels and fish, yet. Several others that have already begun to produce and sell biofuels from a variety of feedstocks — including food waste, jatropha, sugarcane and algae — have struck huge partnerships with, or drawn venture investments from traditional oil and gas companies, already. A few examples: earlier this month, BP Alternative Energy Ventures led an investment round of $9.4 million (out of a targeted $15 million) in , a startup using yeast to produce biofuels and chemicals; in June 2010, Cargill and Shell led a $46.4 million investment in Madison, Wisconsin-based the makers of biogasoline; and , which is genetically engineering algae for biofuels, attracted a $600 million research and development deal from Exxon in 2009. On May 24, the U.S. federal government announced plans to “ by one-third by 2025 and putting one million advanced vehicles on the road by 2015,” by making all of its new, light duty vehicles — leased or purchased by agencies — “alternative fueled vehicles” by the end of 2015. That government definition includes hybrid or electric, compressed natural gas, or biofuel vehicles — that’s good news for Solazyme, and its competitors. Image: Jonathan Wolfson and Harrison Dillon ring the opening bell at Nasdaq, courtesy of Solazyme [hat tip: ] |
Munch On Me Is A Groupon For Food, Done Right | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 5 | 27 | is a daily deals site for food. But wait, before you click away to a slideshow about , Munch On Me ( Summer class of 2011) has got some features that might just reroute you from relying on the big G for your munchies back to its sweet sweet embrace. First of all, Munch On Me focuses on giving discounts on specific dishes, instead of on anything in the entire restaurant. Any business who’s been a victim of the Groupon effect knows why this is important, namely because restaurants can prepare for the demand in advance, overloading on the inventory they expect will sell out. The Munch On Me discount focuses only on one item, and restaurants can upsell after the initial sale (“Would you like fries with that free milkshake?) and can keep offering up deals. Customers can redeem their deals immediately, a food industry-specific convenience that Groupon seems to have caught onto with its Groupon Now concept. Because it takes less of a cut than Groupon, Munch On Me can get merchants to give out larger discounts as well as items for free in hopes of bringing more people into the store. Says co-founder Jason Wang, “We were surprised in the beginning too, but merchants are willing to give out ‘freebies’ since we focus on dishes and not the entire menu. It drives a significant amount of traffic to the establishment. For example, when we ran King Pin Donuts in Berkeley, CA for a week, 1,573 people claimed when it was limit 1 per person.” But the startup also makes money, “We don’t always offer 100% off. We sell individual dishes as well. For example, when you visit the Featured Dishes page in Berkeley right now ( ), [and] these cost money for users.” Munch On Me also has another, more unique competitive advantage to Groupon. Banking on the fact that restaurants can’t take stellar pictures of their own food (food pics are a big deal), it sends out a professional photographer to get the job done. You can currently peruse 2-4 Munch On Me deals a week in San Francisco and in Berkeley. |
HTC ThunderBolt, Google Nexus S 4G And More For Free On Amazon Monday (Update: Maybe not) | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 5 | 27 | Memorial Day isn’t usually a gift-giving holiday, but ’s Memorial Day sale may put you in the mood to treat yourself. Almost 20 4G phones will be listed for free (with a contract, of course) on Amazon’s site on Monday, including some pretty top-of-the-line devices like the Thunderbolt, Droid Charge, Revolution, and Nexus S 4G. If you choose to forego the route, a new phone will get you a $25 gift card from the web retail giant, while a game-centric Sony Ericsson Xperia Play purchase will get you $10 in Amazon Appstore credit. Amazon’s Appstore has had a tough go thus far, getting slammed with a suit by over the similarity between their stores’ names. But the real struggle will be enticing customers to switch from the Android Market, which boasts 294,000 applications as of May. [via ] |
Interview: Stepan Pachikov, the founder of Evernote, talks about his future vision (TCTV) | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 5 | 27 | Stepan Pachikov, founder of , is a fascinating individual and very much the model of the Russian intellectual who was driven by sheer curiosity to create the concepts behind Evernote and thus one of today’s most successful startups. A founder of ParaGraph, ParaScript, he studied at the Academy of Sciences of the old USSR where his dissertation was the use of fuzzy logic. And in some sense his work has pre-figured what Evernote eventually became. In the mid-1980s he doubtless helped foster the growth of the Russian tech scene by founding the Moscow Children Computer club. ParaGraph, in 1988 was one of the first Soviet-American Joint Ventures which eventually signed a multimillion contract with Apple to develop digital ink software. ParaGraph’s handwriting recognition technology was eventually acquired by Microsoft and incorporated into the Pocket PC. In 1993 he created software for a virtual “time machine” to allow children to experience Syracuse in 212 BC and Rome in 80 AD, eventually leading to 3D VR technology and a leadership in VRML langauge. In Moscow I caught up with him at . Here he talks about Evernote came about, how he handed the reigns over to Phil Liblin, a CEO he considers more than capable of taking the company to the next stage, and what he sees in the future for Evernote – including the eventual merging of recording devices into the brain. |
The first ever book about Twitter in Russian (TCTV) | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 5 | 27 | While at the in Moscow this week I stumbled across something quite special. Two of the authors behind a new how-to-guide for Russians all about Twitter. This is significant – after all, no-one would even bother with writing an entire book, unless there was a growing curiosity about the platform both amongst consumers and business people wanting to learn more about using it as a marketing and communications channel. The book’s title is suitably direct (as Russians are want to be): “140 symbols of self-expression in social media.” I managed to catch up with two of the three Julia Fedotchenko (@Moscowholic), Elena Sorokina (@esorokina), Ksenia Chabanenko (@pr_a_tak) authors of the book , and chatted to about the step-by-step guide. The jury is out on how it’ll perform in the market but that fact it even exists is interesting in its own right. |
Some Things Never Change: TI vs. Calculator Hobbyists Version 3.0.2 | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 5 | 27 | The battle between and calculator hobbyists rages on, as TI seeks to keep its OS locked away from third-party developers. After the calculator hacking community discovered the independent tool Ndless (which allows for third-party development on TI’s platform), TI has spent the last year updating its OS to prevent downgrading to version 1.1, which is necessary to run Ndless. Version 2.1’s anti-downgrade protection was hacked last summer, and just a month ago, calculator hobbyists broke into OS 3.0.1. TI retaliated by immediately adding an encryption check to ensure that any third-party programs won’t work with OS 3.0.2. The company has asked sites offering version 1.1 to remove it from public download in the past, but this time the company has even targeted those to sites with OS 1.1. Here’s the text sent to Make for merely to a forum post that outlines a potential way to run other OSes without additional software on the TI-83: Re: Illegal Offering of Material to Circumvent TI Copyright Protections It has come to our attention that the web site http://blog.makezine.com contains material and/or links to material that violate the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”). This letter is to notify you, in accordance with the provisions of the DMCA, of these unlawful activities. Pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA, we request that you remove any whole or partial reproductions of and/or disable links to the following: The discussion entitled “ Fun Number Theory Facts ” located at the following URL http://www.unitedti.org/index.php?showtopic=8888 and the link to the personal website of “brandonw” at http://brandonw.net/. Texas Instruments Incorporated (“TI”) owns the copyright in the TI-83 Plus operating system software. The TI-83 Plus operating system uses encryption to effectively control access to the operating system code and to protect its rights as a copyright owner in that code. Any unauthorized use of these files is strictly prohibited. http://blog.makezine.com is distributing or providing links to information (http://www.unitedti.org/index.php?showtopic=8888 and http://brandonw.net/ found at http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/08/ti-83_plus_os_signing_key_cracked.html) that bypasses TI’s anti-circumvention technology. By providing copies of or offering links to such information, http://blog.makezine.com has violated the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA at 17 U.S.C. §§ 1201(a)(2) and 1201(b)(1). Please confirm to the undersigned in writing no later than noon on **/**/**** that you have complied with these demands. You may reach the undersigned by telephone at ***-***-**** or by email at **********@ti.com. TI reserves all further rights and remedies with respect to this matter. [ via /.] |
InsideDeal! WebMediaBrands Acquires Inside Network For $14 Million | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 5 | 11 | When it comes to in-depth news about Facebook, there has been no better site than . In fact, the flagship site of became so successful alongside the meteoric rise of Facebook that they launched several other vertical sites to bet big on their brand of news and analysis. And that bet just paid off. Big time. has acquired Inside Network for roughly $14 million, we’ve learned. The deal should be formally announced soon and is said to be a roughly half cash and stock deal. It’s a big win for Inside Network, which was founded by entrepreneur in April 2006, and has taken no outside investment. The entire Inside Network team (which includes a former colleague of mine, , who is editor and junior co-founder) will remain intact, we hear. And they will remain in their Palo Alto-based office. It’s a smart deal for WebMediaBrands as Inside Network will provide WebMediaBrands with insight by way of their content, research, and rich data they pulled in from their product, which tracks social applications. Of course, those who have followed the situation surrounding Facebook coverage perhaps shouldn’t be too surprised by this deal. After all, (the company behind Inside Facebook rival site ) was in December 2009. They also Charles Hudson’s 3rd Power LLC in late 2009. Hudson is the co-author of Inside Networks’ research reports. We congratulate the Inside Network team of Susan Su, Kim-Mai Cutler, Josh Constine, AJ Glasser, and Smith, and Eldon on the deal. Now back to work, as we aim to crush you in the Facebook news category. |
Contour Launches Contour+ Sportcam With Wider Lens, More Ports | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 11 |
You might remember the ContourHD rugged wearable camera we a while back — they updated later with and now ( ) have a new camera live on their site that adds a wider angle lens and a few useful ports for recording and streaming your media.
The has a 170 degree, F/2.8 lens — 35 degrees wider than the already wide view from the earlier cameras. Unfortunately you’ll only be able to take full advantage of that in 720p; the 1080p video is limited to 125 degrees. Boo! On the bright side, the new lens is flush-front, cutting down on water and dust getting caught in the lens well, and easing cleaning. They’ve also added some new functionality: there’s now a 2.5mm mic jack for external sound recording — which is great, because pinhole mics are especially awful when in motion.
And now there’s an HDMI port, doing exactly what you expect an HDMI port to do — handy for reviewing footage quickly without worrying about transferring files or removing the micro SD card with muddy hands. This and the USB port have pass-throughs in the rear cover, a nice touch. And of course you can still stream the video using Bluetooth to your iPhone or Android device. Very handy for framing the shot. Video modes appear to be unchanged; if there are bitrate or encoding tweaks under the hood, they aren’t listed on the . GPS performance has been improved to a 4Hz update rate (sweet). , twice as much as the ContourHD and $150 more than the GPS. You’re getting a lot of hardware tweaks for that price, and for a lot of people the extra degrees of wide angle will be more than worth it. We’ll have one soon to review, though, so if you’re not quite sure, just hold tight. |
Gingerbread Rolling Out To Galaxy Tabs? | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 11 | It seems that the country is among the first to get the Android 2.3.3 update for the original 7″ . It’s rolling out via KIES, Samsung’s useful device management tool, but naturally there’s no word of it here in the states yet. Remain vigilant! You could load it yourself before now if you really wanted to, but this update should have support for Samsung’s custom widgets and app store, among the performance gains and other features. [via ] |
What Bias? FCC Commissioner Leaving To Become Comcast Exec | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 11 | Now, let’s be charitable here and admit that it’s natural for people to perform similar duties in business as they might have in government, and vice versa. It’s called job experience. But honestly now. Voting in favor of the and then You’re joking, right? Other, more important people than me will be objecting to this, I’m sure, but I just wanted to put down for the record here how incredibly inappropriate this is. Funnily enough, she criticized the merger process as taking too long. I wonder why! |
How Amazon Controls Ecommerce (Slides) | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 5 | 11 | [slideshare id=7928875&doc=amazonwhitepaper-110511144038-phpapp01&w=620&h=400] When you think about ecommerce, you think about Amazon. But how did a company that started with online books come to dominate an estimated one third of ecommerce in the U.S.? In the 72 slides above, global consulting boutique breaks down Amazon’s business and strategy. The keys to Amazon’s success are 1) the Internet imposes no limits on how much Amazon can sell; 2) its control of customer accounts and loyalty, and 3) and a growing ecosystem that is helping it cement its place in the world of digital goods as well. It’s instructive to see how Amazon has expanded over the years and moved away from its reliance on books, music, and movies. You also forget that along the way, Amazon piled up $3 billion in losses between 1995 and 2003. Now it’s got $34 billion in annual revenue, and is spitting out $1 billion a year on profits. Who says you can’t spend your way to profitability? The slides are a real deep dive into Amazon’s business model and future prospects. Every year faberNovel puts together one of these strategy presentations. In the past it’s analyzed ( ), and . |
Pringles Mod Repurposes Old Top-Down Cameras For Digital Use | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 11 | Here’s an easy project to make use of an old viewfinder camera you might have lying around. The big viewing windows on cameras like Rolleiflexes and Seagulls provide enough light to capture using a digital camera — and you can rig one up just using a Pringles can and a little elbow grease. Works best with a macro or telescopic lens, it looks like. The result may not replicate the incredible definition of these medium-format cameras, but it capture the amazing look provided by the viewfinder window. . |
Yahoo To Acquire Advertising Platform 5:1 | Michael Arrington | 2,011 | 5 | 11 | Yahoo is likely to acquire advertising platform for around $30 million, we’ve heard from multiple sources. The company at TechCrunch50 in September 2009, and had raised around in various rounds of funding. About half of that was raised in November as part of a reverse merger . The company has deep ties with , Yahoo’s EVP Americas and formerly the President of Fox Interactive Media. Levinsohn is actually a cofounder of the company and a former board member and shareholder (he divested himself after joining Yahoo). Cofounder and CEO worked with Levinsohn at FIM. We the company, including their management team, in June 2009. This is almost literally a case of “getting the band back together.” This is the team that oversaw MySpace in the , including their nearly . CRO Peter Foster, CFO Mitchell Chun, EVP John Smelzer and COO Mark Stieglitz are all former FIM executives. 5:1 has signed contracts with 25 or so media companies that reach some 200 million people, say sources. Those relationships, along with the team, are the key assets. said one source. We reached out to Yahoo and 5:1 for comment. Yahoo said 5:1 did not respond.
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Behold: The Chromebook (Samsung Series 5) | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 5 | 11 | Here she is. Earlier today, the first notebooks running Chrome OS. Or as they’re calling them, “Chromebooks”. The first two partners producing them will be Samsung and Acer. And at an event tonight in San Francisco, we got some extensive hands-on time with the Samsung Series 5 Chromebook. Initial reaction? That’s still to come. For now, enjoy a bunch of pictures. |
null | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 5 | 27 | null |
Defaceable Lets You Comment Anonymously On Facebook Comments | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 5 | 11 |
Miss being able to blather on about Android versus iPhone or express your irrational hatred of a certain author, startup or device on TechCrunch, without having to (and don’t want to go through all the trouble of creating a dummy Yahoo/Aol account)? Well you might be in luck with a new that lets you comment sans identity on Facebook Comments. allows commenters to leave and see anonymous comments by other Defaceable users, both on the Facebook platform and on sites that use Facebook Comments like TechCrunch or the LA Times. Defaceable works by parsing the html code and extracting the ID of the comments you’re looking at, checking against the Defaceable database for defacements it can show you. Inspired by the anonymity system of , Defaceable users comment as fruits (“Posting as Peach,” “Grape said” etc) and can check back into the Defaceable website to view and vote on top posts and trending topics. While this does defeat the purpose of having Facebook Comments in the first place, the fruit thing seriously makes it hard to be negative; Just try posting something, anything mean, when your user name is Watermelon. You can download the Chrome extension (you can’t see the comments if you don’t have the extension). |
A Peek At Google TV's New Interface | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 11 |
Google announced yesterday that would be , but aside from some new manufacturers, there wasn’t much to show. Today, though, during another GTV-related developer talk, they showed off the new interface (above) and noted that the remote app API was being open-sourced. That’s nice — hopefully we’ll see more support in universal remote apps and so on now. I like the new look, but what really matters is how it performs, of course. It won’t be rolling out until a bit later this year (no dates were mentioned, though summer is a possibility), but expect a preview before then. [via ] |
The Future Of Chrome: Synced Tabs, Profiles, Native Client, And Chrome OS On ARM | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 5 | 11 | Today at Google I/O there was a fireside chat with a number of Chrome team members. Their goal was simply to answer questions — both from the web and from the audience. Among those, there was a common theme: what’s next? One question asked each panelist what features they were most excited about going forward? Some answers were general — excitement about pushing HTML and CSS work forward. But other answers were more specific. One member noted how excited he was about expanding the personalization aspects of Chrome. Whereas now you can sync much of your data across the browser on different machines, soon you’ll be able to sync more things that will make the experience more personalized. He elaborated a bit to say that one of these features is internally called “Profiles”. This feature (which you can already see hints of in builds of Chromium) allows users to have different Chrome features enabled on the same machine based on which Google account they’re logged into. This means that you’ll be able to have multiple Chrome windows opened side-by-side on the same machine that can have different themes, extensions, etc. All of this personalization will be siloed in that one browser window. Another feature that team members were excited about was the syncing of tabs. They’re still figuring out exactly how this should work, but the idea is a welcomed one. Essentially, you’ll be able to have a bunch of tabs open on one machine and quickly open those on another as well. Other features comes soon include GPU acceleration, syncing data from within extensions, and a new tab page. And then there’s Native Client. A team member noted that this feature would finally be coming later this year. Google has been . And it’s important because it may well be the missing link between native and web apps. Another question asked about the possibility of Chrome OS working on ARM chips. Work is already well underway to make this a reality, team members said. Right now, they’re focused on the first two Chromebook partners, Samsung and Acer (both of which use Intel chips), but for low-power, thin machines, they’re very much thinking about ARM. One thing probably not coming anytime soon: a Canary build of Chrome for Linux. They noted that Linux users tend to be more savvy about getting developer builds of Chromium, so they’re just not sure how big of a need this is. Still, they might offer one down the road. |
Panasonic G3 Camera Leaked, Should Be Showing Up Late Tonight | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 11 |
A new Panasonic camera, successor to the , is scheduled to be announced tomorrow in London, . It’ll have a new 15.8-megapixel sensor, a 3″ articulating LCD, a more compact body, and a few other notable features. It’s supposed to hit the wire at 8AM in London, which is midnight here in Seattle. We’ll have all the juicy details then, so stay tuned! |
Xperia Play Games See Slow Uptake, But Sony-Ericsson Isn't Worried | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 11 |
The so-called is out there internationally (May 26 is when it’s hitting the US), but sales haven’t been huge for its biggest feature: access to PSOne classic games via the Android Market. None of the games on sale has sold over a thousand copies, and most have sold far less. , however, Sony Ericsson’s Dominic Neil-Dwyer said that they weren’t too worried just yet.
“We know there’s a lot more to come that we’re not, obviously, releasing yet. We’re releasing as we go, rather than telling everyone the full story,” he said, emphasizing the fact that it’s a brand new platform that is in active development. It’s worth noting, as well, that the Play is just the first in a line of Playstation-certified devices, and others (like the interesting-looking ) are on their way. I actually agree with him here, although I have to guess they were hoping for a bit more of a concerted launch (five titles, really?) and bigger numbers. If sales are still slow when there are a few more devices and a more mature marketplace, we can talk about failures and missed expectations. Until then it’s okay to wait and see. [via ] |
Ultimate Surround Sound System Could Prepare Soldiers For Extreme Battlefield Noise | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 11 |
It’s hard for me to imagine being in a firefight at all, let alone having to make tactical decisions and communicate with other soldiers over the roar of tanks, guns, jets, and explosions. But our troops do it every day — after they’ve gotten used to it, at least. It can be a bit disorientating at first, as you can imagine, and this project by a Missouri professor is intended to get them inured to the cacophany before they’re actually on the battlefield.
works in “Communications and Digital Signal Processing,” and has created a sort of jumbo-sized surround-sound system in order to blast sound at GIs at levels approaching those found in battle. There are 64 speakers for precise locational audio, including four subwoofers for that low end. Recordings of rifle fire, helicopters, and other common noises are played back at up to 100dB — any higher would violate OSHA guidelines. . I know there are simulation systems like this out there, but I’m sure this kind of development is always welcome. |
3M's Uniformity Tape Reduces "Stage Light" Effect On Cheap LCDs | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 11 |
Have you got a cheap LCD monitor around? It’s okay, you can admit it. I do too. My second monitor, a $200 Dell otherwise perfectly good, gets the stage light effect when it’s all black. You know, the little spotlights that seem to shine from the bottom? It’s due to the spaces between LEDs getting uneven lighting, and 3M has just come up with a solution. And it’s a piece of tape. But not just any tape! This stuff is printed with a “micro-replicated optical pattern” that helps spread the light better, allowing for fewer LEDs and counteracting the stage light effect. They call it “headlighting” but I like mine better. Hopefully they’ll start using these in cheapo monitors soon. It’s not so bad on my Dell, but I’ve seen it get ugly. |
Another Oprah Moment At Google I/O: Game Developers Get Free Xperia PLAY Phones | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 5 | 11 |
New product giveaways have become something of a tradition at Google I/O. Last year attendees to the developer-focused conference walked home with two new Android phones (an Evo 4G and a Nexus One or Droid, depending on where they live). This year, everyone was given a new Galaxy 10.1 Honeycomb tablet a month before its release. And a few minutes ago, several hundred Android developers were given the Xperia PLAY, the Android-powered ‘PlayStation phone’ that comes with a unique gamepad. The giveaway took place in the C++/Game Developer panel, which discussed the use of native code in Android applications (games, in particular, are likely to use the NDK as opposed to standard Dalvik). And aside from winning some karma points from developers, Sony’s motivation for handing out the phones are pretty clear: give developers a phone that features the gamepad, and they’re much more likely to make sure their games work flawlessly with it. Google also handed out the Android Open Accessory Development Kit (ADK), an Arduino-powered chipset that will help developers build Android accessories, at a panel yesterday. Google’s strategy of giving out so much stuff at the I/O conference has probably contributed to the fact that it now sells out in a matter of minutes. But I doubt they’ll be moving away from it. I’ve seen countless developers toying with their new tablets throughout the conference, many of whom are using Honeycomb for the first time. Time will tell if that leads to an increase in tablet-friendly Android apps, but I’m guessing it will help get the ball rolling.
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Startupbootcamp to sponsor development of Startup Weekend in Europe | roxannevarza | 2,011 | 5 | 11 | Earlier this week, we announced the launch of startup accelerator in Europe. joined the growing list of -like programs in the UK, including , , and . Yet, while each of these programs provides seed capital and mentoring to early-stage startups, they differ in the way that they operate and interact with the local ecosystem. Seedcamp, for example, hosts a number of “mini” Seedcamp or 1-day events in various countries in hunt of the best teams for its program. Now, Startupbootcamp – which recently announced that it would be launching in European – is taking a somewhat similar approach. Yet, rather than hosting its own “mini” events, the Copenhagen-based startup accelerator announced that it would be dropping €10K to sponsor the development of in Europe. The famous weekend program allowing entrepreneurs to connect, pitch and build product prototypes in just 54 hours has been going through very rapid international expansion – especially in Europe. There are currently 65 events planned in Europe for this year alone. For example, the first French program took place in Paris in December 2009 and today there are events in throughout the country, including Bordeaux, Toulouse, Nice, Marseille and Lyon. And that’s just France! But one of the main issues that the program faces is the support that can be offered to entrepreneurs once those magical 54-hours are over. In France, some of Startup Weekend’s entrepreneurs have gone on to launch companies like , and . Still, these examples are perhaps a bit of an exception to the rule; a majority of entrepreneurs have difficulty developing their projects after the event. But maybe a little seed capital and mentoring could do the trick! Last year, Startup Weekend scored a but the money is primarily for the organization’s US development. Therefore, Europe-based accelerators like and now Startupbootcamp have stepped up to fund the development of additional European events – realizing that Startup Weekend participants may be prime candidates for their startup acceleration programs. In fact, Hackfwd has Startup Weekend grads, like . For the moment, Startupbootcamp has committed $10K to the cause and has plans to help with the organization of investor day-like events for Startup Weekend graduates. And I’m assuming we’ll see them scoop up companies in the same way that Hackfwd has. So to all the future participants of Startup Weekend – if you thought everything ended after 54-hours, maybe you should guess again! |
GridGlo Raises $1.2 Million To Help Utilities Understand How Customers Use Electricity | Lora Kolodny | 2,011 | 5 | 11 | A New York research firm that turns massive amounts of data into streamlined information, (pronounced “coo-brick”) invested $1.2 million in seed finance, and established a strategic partnership with — a smart grid technology startup from Delray Beach, Florida, the companies revealed today. GridGlo sells software and services that help utilities see how and why their customers, primarily homeowners, are using electricity in real-time. They also provide utilities with an Energy People Scoring Mechanism, or EPM score that the company hopes will become a standard like the is to credit card issuers and other financial institutions. The EPM (see screenshots, below) is based on four criteria: how much power a customer uses and from which sources including things like rooftop solar panels (consumption); how efficient a consumer is compared to neighboring customers or their own past behavior (efficiency); whether or not they frequently try or are willing to try things that the utility suggests like buying a more efficient refrigerator or shutting off the air conditioner during peak hours (engagement); and whether or not the consumer is consistent in their energy related habits (predictability). How is GridGlo’s offering different from those of well-established smart grid intelligence businesses, like , and ? The chief executive of GridGlo, Isais Sudit, explained: “Several companies doing great things to move the market forward, here. At GridGlo, we’re using a deeper level of analytics, though, and handling a greater amount of data — 1,300 criteria to start — than any other companies in the energy space. Also, we focus strictly on helping the utilities. We don’t have a consumer-facing app or product. It is our aim to help the utilities offer what works best for their business, and their market to the energy consumer. Our technology can tell a utility if their customers are married, have kids, living in a 5,000 square foot home, if and when they installed solar panels, if they drive a hybrid electric vehicle, if they had the same job for the last ten years, haven’t moved in that time and more. You put those components together and you begin to build an understanding of how this is all related to energy consumption. When that happens, your relationships with customers improve, and your business becomes more predictable.”
Ostensibly, if utilities can make sense of a plethora of energy data — coming in every fifteen minutes or even more quickly from smart meters, smart appliances and home energy management systems — and fuse it with other available information about their customers, they will be able to motivate those customers to use electricity more efficiently, or to use electricity from renewable and clean sources more often. GridGlo is still in a proof-of-concept phase, Sudit admitted. He could not yet provide firm evidence that the EPM, or other GridGlo technology will actually help utilities engender this behavioral change — yet. 2. A map that color codes different zip codes based on the energy that households in the area are consuming. Attributes contributing to the model (e.g. average square footage, average household size) are shown in the lower panel.
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Kwaga launches WriteThat.Name to semantically update Gmail contacts | Steve O'Hear | 2,011 | 5 | 11 | , which offers a to help manage email, has launched , a new product designed to help users keep their Gmail contacts up-to-date. It does this by employing semantic technology to read the email signatures of incoming messages, noting any changes to included contact details. After all, if a contact changes their phone number or place of work, for example, their email signature is likely to be the first thing they update. Kwaga’s WriteThat.Name keeps an eye out for those changes and will either update a user’s Gmail address book automatically or, if in manual mode, will simply alert the user to a potential update. Pricing-wise, the feature isn’t free (after the first month) but costs 2 euros per month or 15 euros per year for each subscribed email address. Kwaga was founded in 2008 by Philippe Laval (founder and previously head of Sinequa, Enterprise semantic search engine vendor) and a team of software entrepreneur and computational linguistics specialists. The startup has won a number of French innovation awards (Oseo, Scientipole, Paris Innovation, Centre Français de l’innovation, Web 2.0), while both SeedCamp and Kima Ventures have provided seed-funding. |
Google's Open Accessory Development Kit Gets Handled | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 11 | Yesterday, Google showed off its “ ,” a set of tools and hardware for connecting Android to a variety of devices via an Arduino-based board. I wrote how it indicated , but I’m no technical expert on the stuff — I couldn’t say anything specific about the devices and capability. Make, however, knows what they’re talking about with this kind of thing, and has , with initial impressions and some tips. |
Rosebud | Steve Gillmor | 2,011 | 5 | 29 | I’m a creature of habit, of habits I create to push myself forward. When Twitter appeared, I knew it was a habit that would grab a hold of not just my generation but many others. In fact, it grabbed a hold of the notion of generations and twisted it into something special: a generation of the now. The other day we were in Las Vegas, in a hotel that like all of Vegas stank of cigarettes and losers, which by definition included us for being there. We sat at a sushi restaurant, or what started with sushi and ended with samba — three kitchens with little crossover from latin to salmon. And so we sailed across the generations, talking music and the history of salesforce, and arriving at the movies. And in particular Citizen Kane. Orson Welles’ defining moment, the intersection of melodrama and politics, of the end of the age of controlled media and the dawn of what we now call social media. The story of Charles Foster Kane, a stand-in for Hearst who started wars when there was a dearth of headlines. We saw him in a fake newsreel standing on a balcony with Hitler, saw the arc of his life at the center of the Golden Age where Washington and Hollywood were two sides of the same coin. And as we were swept along in the daring pop media that the film invented, we became a generation of one. Go look for Kane on Netflix and it’s not available, at least not for streaming. That’s because the owners of the film can still wring a handsome sum out of the 1941 release. Black and white, but stunning in its visual quality, the experiments of cinematographer Gregg Toland who flooded the sets with enough light to allow perfect focus with infinite depth of field. In enabling the dramatic perspective shots, Toland had ceilings constructed, anticipating the move to location filming when faster lightweight cameras were developed. The story-telling was equally elliptical, with flashbacks tracing various stages of the great life, and in the process opening the picture up with the passage of time and intersecting impressions from a wide range of family, friend, and foe. Like the Godfather films a generation later, history and personal drive stood side by side, informing each other. Like the Kennedy assassination and the ascent of the Beatles, two polar opposites that defined the culture in ways that still are being played out. And then there was the conceit of the enterprise: the idea Welles had that he could create a self-contained world, or universe even, where the natural laws of ambition and power met forces even greater. Kane was a hurricane without peer, a modern king who took his birthright and assembled a Xanadu to house the treasures of emperors and dynasties alongside the stars and leaders of the day. And Welles drove the picture through the force of his will, co-writing, starring, producing, and directing a film that would easily have won the Academy Award it was nominated for if not for the vendetta Hearst held against Welles and his team for the rest of his and their lives. In the early Eighties, the computer revolution began to take shape, fostered by the space program and the spirit of the Kennedys and the Beatles. Apple synthesized the two threads with its choice of a name, and the Web birthed a generation of Kanes that has yet to subside. Viral wealth creation and the culture of the virtual king-making machine may still be playing out, but as the old saying goes in Hollywood, they don’t make stars like they used to. As Zuck and Ev and even Larry and Curly attest, the era of the studio system has come to an end. But the spirit of Kane is alive and well, and the proof is in the social wave. Just look at the entropy of Windows, the power of realtime building a head of steam as it reworks our language like the Front Page remade our dialogue, like the West Wing suggested we could carry on big decisions while getting plenty of exercise, like Twitter begat Foursquare begat Groupon begat the App Internet. We’ll argue about all this across the realtime stream, claiming winners and losers and revenue in between. But we’ll do this as one generation, united by the breathless mothers of invention, those who like Welles dared to produce a wave of innovation that will shape our lives far into the future. |
Users Say They're More Likely To Buy If A Business Answers Their Question On Twitter | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 5 | 29 | Currently I am . The reason I am not in Cancun is out of my control (an over three hour Virgin delay on the tarmac at JFK caused me to miss my connecting USAirways flight at SFO). I spent a good part of those three plus plane-trapped hours bitching on Twitter, both the and Twitter accounts for guidance, because calling their respective 800 numbers either put me on hold or wouldn’t go through. Guess which Twitter account responded? Guess which one I’ll consider purchasing tickets from again. And according to a recent survey of 2049 Twitter users completed by Twitter Q&A search service I am not alone: 64% of the inboxQ survey respondents were more likely to make a purchase from a business account that answered their questions on Twitter, 24% were just as likely and only 12% were less likely. Another added benefit of answering user questions on Twitter (ARE YOU LISTENING ?) is that users are more likely to follow a business that answers their questions, at 59% versus 29% who are just as likely and 12% who are less likely. The survey results are filled with other lovely “well duh” info nuggets like how users with high follower accounts are more likely to receive answers to their questions, at 41% respondents with more than 100 followers receiving an answer from a business versus 21% with less than 100 followers (Maybe brands don’t think its worth the effort? Or maybe the questions from low volume accounts get lost in whatever social media monitoring service businesses are using?). In any case, pro tip: If you’re a business serious about user engagement on Twitter, go out of your way to sincerely answer sincere questions from users, no matter how many followers they have. They might just end up buying something. Or not . https://twitter.com/#!/bmull/status/74958431110443008 |
Flashback: Two Years Ago, Twitter Killed A Feature — The One They Just Added Back | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 5 | 29 | This past Thursday, that garnered quite a bit of positive buzz. Essentially, they now allow you to see what other users see when they look at Twitter. In other words, if you click on the “Following” area in my profile, you can see the main tweet stream that I see with all the (public) tweets from people I follow. Very cool. But it’s actually not new at all. In fact, Twitter had this feature in place two years ago. We mentioned this in passing in the post, but then I was directed to the blog post explaining why they removed it in June of 2009. It’s pretty interesting. From on their Twitter Status blog: Recently we made a change to remove the With Friends tab from user profiles. We did this after finding out that this tab was both a relatively rarely accessed as well as computationally expensive page for us to serve. Yep. The feature was “relatively rarely accessed” by Twitter’s own standards. And it was eating up precious cycles on their taxed servers at the time. So why bring it back now? Well first of all, Twitter is clearly beyond their main scaling issues. Sure, they have downtime every now and then, but it’s nothing like the nightmare that it was two years ago. There would be hours seemingly everyday where the service was down or parts of it were taken offline to keep the main functionality up. This included features like the “With Friends” feature. This ended up being one of the many casualties. Other included tweet-to-IM, auto timeline updates, and yes, . Because of those issues back then, the building of a robust social graph was more of a secondary concern at the time. But today it’s one of the primary concerns as Twitter has had no problem adding new users, but they need a way to keep them on the service and engaged. Features like , and the resurrected “See What I See” should help as well. It’s more or less a self-tutorial to show new users what Twitter can look like when you get a feed of interesting users to follow. Considering it’s fairly buried (you have to click on a profile and then click on the “Following” link — or use the drop-down), it will still probably be “relatively rarely accessed”. But I would assume they’re figure out a way to highlight it more on the main homepage for new (or logged out) users. Perhaps that’s why they included a “Shuffle” feature as well. Plus, again, it’s a feature that will no longer cripple Twitter, so why not include it? And it makes good on a promise made two years ago. The reason for the aforementioned Twitter post was because a group of users were upset that Twitter killed off this feature without saying anything (specifically, the feed for the feature, which some were using to follow tweets). In response, Twitter wrote: It’s our hope to bring back the access to these feeds at some point. But for stability reasons, we’re unable to restore them at this time. We should have done a better job explaining this up front and anticipating this problem. Apologies for this; it’s our highest priority to provide a reliable, stable service for everyone. Two years later, mission accomplished. Well, except the feed part. But anymore anyway? . It’s good to see Twitter in a place where they can bring back old features rather than killing ones off to stay alive. |
Greylock Partners launches new $160 million tech fund for Europe and Israel | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 5 | 29 | Well known US VC house is launching a brand new $160 million fund aimed at internet technology companies, with the fund being deployed between Europe and Israel. Greylock is best known for its stakes in Facebook, Groupon and LinkedIn and European investments including Wonga. Greylock’s move will be a shot in the arm for European tech companies looking for more options when raising financing. We’ve confirmed that the fund will be represented in London by Laurel Bowden, a Partner, and will cover investments from early stage and beyond. [Correction: The fund was raised by Greylock Partners’ affiliate fund, Greylock Israel Partners. The fund is managed by five Greylock general partners, Moshe Mor, Erez Ofer, Yoram Snir, Laurel Bowden and Arnon Dinur. Laurel Bowden is operating from the recently opened office in London. Greylock Partners began operating in Israel in 2002, when Moshe Mor started investing there and launched Greylock Israel with its first fund in 2006]. In the US Greylock invests in seed stage companies through its Greylock Discovery Fund, early stage companies through Greylock XIII and late stage companies through Greylock Growth. But this new fund will specifically target Europe and Israel. [Update: We’ve now confirmed with Greylock that this is Fund II for Europe/Israel. Fund I started investing in Israel in 2006 and started investing in Europe in 2008.] The news will be of interest to the latter, since VC fundraising has fallen off dramatically and in 2010 VCs in Israel raised . Greylock Israel has not had any large exits so far, and had to write off its investment in failed mobile company modu. Bowden joined Greylock in 2008 and her investments at Greylock include Wonga, notonthehighstreet and Just Eat. She is also an angel investor in companies such as Hybris, Wix and Fizzback. |
(Founder Stories) Quora's Charlie Cheever On Building A Disruptive Knowledge Platform | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 5 | 29 | Last week at Disrupt, Chris Dixon did a version of onstage with founder . We learned that Quora is , but we also learned a lot more. For instance, what convinced Cheever to quit Facebook with co-founder Adam D’Angelo was that tried to “imagine a world where I knew everything that I wanted to know, as long as someone else in the world knew it.” And that’s what Quora wants to build. It’s a pretty outrageous goal, which is what makes the startup so interesting. But like all Q&A sites, Quora relies a lot on search traffic. Dixon asks, “Do you worry about being so dependent on SEO?” Cheever has a good answer: “Not really. I think we do get a lot of traffic from search engines because there’s lot of good content that matches what people are searching for. But we also, Quora also kind of works a little bit similar to a blogging platform, where people sort of promote their own stuff that they write.” In that sense, it is like a blogging platform for people who only want to blog occasionally, or can’t be bothered to set up their own blog. Quora takes a blog post that might only live for a few days and turns it into evergreen content. And since people are promoting their own answers, they also get a lot of traffic from Twitter. Watch the whole interview above. |
Infinity Ventures Summit In Sapporo: Demos From 14 Japanese Startups | Serkan Toto | 2,011 | 5 | 29 |
Earlier this week, I took part in [this and many of the following links are in Japanese], a two-day, invitation-only event that takes place twice a year in Japan. IVS attracted over 400 people from the domestic and international web industry this time and is organized by VC firm (which just raised US$41 million for their IVP Fund II). Apart from panel discussions and presentations, some hours of the program gave a total of 14 Japanese start-ups the chance to present their services onstage. Here’s a rundown of all companies that participated at the IVS launchpad this time. by (winner of the launchpad)
Best of show went to , an HTML5/Javascript-based game engine for smartphones and web browsers. enchant.js is open source and free to use (MIT or GPL dual license). is an example of how an RPG developed with the engine could look like, is a jump and run game developed with enchant.js (over 100 games have been developed based on the engine in less than a month). enchant.js was created by 19 year old Ryo Tanaka (more information in English on the engine can be found ). by
is a geo-aware iPhone app that leads users to spots in Japan that were shown in popular TV shows. Last year, maker Hakuhodo DY Media Partners developed an app that helped fans of popular period drama to travel to locations the series was filmed at. The app was even available in and included a number of additional multi-media features for fans (location-based background music, location-based photo frames etc.). by
is a Twitter client that uses a so-called social emotion engine to analyze the content of your tweets and turn your timeline into a comic strip of sorts. Users can switch between comic and “normal” display mode with the push of a button. Feel On!, which is available and in the form of an , is currently available in Japanese only, but an international version is already on the works (more information in English can be found ). http://youtu.be/PIPseyO0w6w by Ohma
Launched in March this year, is Japan’s first crowdfunding service. It works much like Kickstarter in the US, but the focus here is to make it possible for artists in particular to get their projects (music, movies, fashion etc.) financed. The people behind project, for example, are currently trying to collect 600,000 Yen/$7,400 for a documentary on Fukushima (more information on READYFOR? in English can be found ). by
is an iPhone VOIP app that lets you call your Facebook friends without having to dial numbers – choosing a person from the Facebook friend list and pushing a button is enough. The app works with 3G and Wi-Fi and was downloaded in the 80,000 times (it’s bilingual but not yet available in other stores) in 15 days. Reengo for Android is currently in beta, with maker Kayac saying an iPad version is on the way, too. |
ioSafe Releases 3TB Everythingproof Drive | John Biggs | 2,011 | 5 | 16 | makes water, fire, and bomb-proof hard drives and they’ve just upgraded their SoloPRO device to support up to 3 terabytes of storage – enough for just about everything you could ever want to store. The drive is $499.99 and includes 12 months of data recovery service as well as eSATA and USB 3.0 connections. The drive can withstand 1550° F for 30 minutes and live underwater at 10 feet for three days. My took a blowtorch to one of these things so you know it’s going to survive. The 3TB drive is available now.
AUBURN, Calif., May 4, 2011 — ioSafe today announced the availability of a 3TB version of the fireproof and waterproof SoloPRO external hard drive. The 3TB SoloPRO enables users to store up to 1,500 hours of DVD-quality video, 45,000 hours of digital music or more than 500,000 digital photos.1 SoloPRO features include: A choice of eSATA and USB 3.0 connections providing fast transfer speeds up to 3 to 4 times faster than USB 2.0.
Rugged disaster proof design. Both the USB 3.0 and eSATA versions of the SoloPRO protect against data loss at temperatures up to 1550° F for 30 minutes per ASTM E119 or being submerged to a depth of 10 feet for up to 3 days.
12 months Data Recovery Service Standard. Up to $2,500 towards the cost of third-party forensic data recovery, one time, for any reason including accidental deletion, hard drive failure, fires, floods, etc. Upgradeable to 3 or 5 years for $49 or $99 respectively.
Available in capacities of 1TB, 2TB and now 3TB. |
null | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 5 | 11 | null |
Eventually, One Of These Updates Will Make Google News Not Suck At Tech News, Right? | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 5 | 16 | For as long as I can remember, there has been one constant in tech news: Google News sucks at it. Now, that’s not entirely fair since Google News doesn’t actually provide any of their own content. Instead, they use the supposedly magical Google algorithms to curate others’ content from around the web. Still, there’s just no way around it — the product, at least for tech news, sucks. Again, this is nothing new. I’ve been at least once a year for five years or so. But what’s amazing to me is how many updates Google does to the product and it still sucks. Even more remarkable is that a lot of people continue to go to it as a source of tech news. How do I know? When TechCrunch does appear on it, it sends a lot of traffic. So is this just me complaining that we don’t appear on it enough? Well sure, partially. But to me, our sporadic appearances are also indicative of the big problem the service has. How much tech news gets broken on TechCrunch? Even our rivals would admit “a lot”. Yet if that news appears on Google News at all (far from a given), it often does hours later and almost always under another source that has re-reported it after we have. That’s really Google News’ problem in a nutshell. It’s hit-or-miss, way too slow, and as a result, often credits the re-bloggers rather than actual sources. Let’s look at the Google News right now (which, humorously, is still called the “Sci/Tech” section — Technology apparently isn’t yet big enough to have its own stand-alone section even though I think just about everyone in the media industry would disagree at this point — and impressively odd since Google is a company known for one thing: technology). This goes on and on. Now, let’s compare it to . Techmeme long ago that algorithms alone aren’t nearly enough to fully, quickly, and competently convey the news. Google has not yet learned this. For some categories, their algorithms probably work fine. For tech news, they suck. And I’d argue they suck for both visitors and for publishers. Because it’s so obvious what Google’s algorithms are looking for, there’s a not-so-secret trick on how to game them. Instead of rushing to get a post out about a hot story, just wait a few hours. By then, the story will bubble towards the top of Google News’ tech section and if you time it correctly and you’re a site that Google News watches (some good, some bad), you can easily be the top headline for the entire section (which also means placement on the main site as well). This works because Google News favors recent “takes” on a story instead of actual sources of information. You could argue that’s okay in some situations, but often these “takes” are just like the Today’s THV bullshit: republishing AP content late. In other words, if you’re in the business of breaking news, you’ll almost never find your stories on Google News. Instead, you’ll find someone else re-purposing your story there hours later and reaping tens of thousands of pageviews as a result of the sloth and/or jackassery. Why bring this all up now? Because Google yet more updates to Google News today. I tried reading over what’s new, but my eyes quickly glazed over. I’m certain it will be business as usual. Actually, it might be worse. As , Google now allows you to cut out the source of much of the fresh content — blogs — as an option. Brilliant. Now you can further hide the sources that Google was already burying for you. At some point, I have to believe Google will start to care about the quality of this product. But years of experience tells me otherwise. And really, that’s fine by me. It’s just another service I can easily ignore. |
Fake USB Cable? Check. Hilarity? Guaranteed! | John Biggs | 2,011 | 5 | 16 | This $5 fake USB cable connects to almost anything (bananas included) and lets you pretend you have some of the coolest gadgets in the office. Want to make a Bananaputer? It’s only a click away. Stick-on USB cable makes anything USB-compatible
Not really, but it’s fun for jokes and pranks!
Invented and designed by ThinkGeek. |
Instagram Adds Bios, Grid View For Profile Pages | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 5 | 16 | If you’re like me has become a service you check the first thing you wake up in the morning, alongside Twitter and Facebook. My Instagram addiction has seriously gotten to the point where I anticipate the app’s bi-monthly updates ( is the best thing to happen to photo sharing addicts since sliced bread, or something). So what’s new in ? The most obvious change is that when you click on someone’s photo history, the app now shows you a grid view instead of a laborious feed view, but lets you toggle between them both. Users also now have the option to add a bio to their profiles by going to Account > Edit profile > Bio, upload a profile picture from Twitter and Facebook (Account > Change profile picture) and drill down into which profile notifications they actually want to receive based on their Instagram follow graph. The update also makes it more clear when your photos are being geo-tagged and includes bug fixes and speed improvements. Instagram founder delved deeper into the motivation behind each :
One of the biggest requests we’ve had was an easier way to browse feeds. Now, you can view user, location, and hash-tag feeds more quickly by browsing a grid view of the photos.
One of the strongest assets Instagram has is its community. People have been making friends from around the world, and users have always wanted to know more about the people behind the photos. With the simple addition of a bio, we allow you to tell your story in text as well.
Before today, you either had to choose to get all push notifications from Instagram or none at all. Today that all changes with fine-grained push notifications control. Now for new likes and comments you can choose to receive pushes from everyone, just the people you’re following or no one at all.
Most people don’t have a picture of themselves lying around in their camera roll — so now we allow people to import their profile photos from other services. Systrom tells me that the company is maintaining a quick release schedule while simultaneously working on some bigger picture stuff. Hopefully some of that bigger picture stuff includes an Android app. |
Chrome OS 12 — AKA: The Shipping Version — Hits Beta | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 5 | 16 | Last week, just prior to day one of Google I/O, that some updates in the Chrome OS code and forums indicated that a formal unveiling was likely very close. Sure enough, on day two of I/O, Google unveiled the first Chromebooks, the first shipping products running Chrome OS. But Google also noted that the first orders wouldn’t start until June 15, about a month away. One reason: Chrome OS still needed a tiny bit more work. And an update today brings it very close. Google has just the Chrome OS beta channel to R12, aka Chrome 12. The version, which has been in the dev channel for a couple of weeks, will now be further tested in beta for a couple of weeks before it becomes the first version of Chrome OS to go stable. Expect this to happen slightly before the June 15 date. Following Google I/O, we got some , the Samsung Series 5. Sure enough, it was running Chrome OS version 12 (though the dev version). Representatives from Google stated that this would eventually be the build (when complete) that ships with the first Chromebooks. So what does Chrome OS R12 contain? Well, it’s essentially Chrome 12, the browser (which is also in beta), with a number of Chrome OS-specific features. Those include: I just updated my Cr-48 to the new build and it’s feeling pretty polished (though there are still some bugs — such as with Angry Birds). Notably, it makes the trackpad feel more stable than ever. So if you have a Cr-48 and want a glimpse of what the first Chromebooks will feel like, check it out. |
HEX iPod Watch Band Is The Last Gasp For The iPod Watch Band | John Biggs | 2,011 | 5 | 16 |
While, arguably, HEX was first to market with their rubber sports band for the Nano, they are now inexplicably creating more iPod watch bands for the millions of people out there who want to of both their watch and their iPod in one fell swoop. The bands come in metal and leather and top out at $69 for a stainless-steel model.
I do believe it’s important to note, however, that Snoop Dogg thinks these things are “off tha chain” and he also believes that they are “goinn hard Uhearme,” a ringing endorsement if I’ve ever heard one. If Mr. Broadus thinks these things are legit (barring the obvious money he got for the endorsement) who are we to argue? |
Lenovo ThinkPad X1: Hands-On | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 5 | 16 | Despite the fact that some specs have already been leaked, we got a chance to get hands-on with the latest Think product from and thought it was only fair that you get the complete story, too. Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 was announced today, and if you’ve seen the “Perfect Marriage of Form and Function” commercial, I can honestly tell you that it’s no exaggeration of the truth. This is Lenovo’s thinnest laptop to date, and possibly its most rugged. In terms of specs, the 13-inch Lenovo ThinkPad X1 comes in two processor models: 2.5 GHz second-generation Intel Core i5-2520M and 2.1 GHz second-generation Intel Core i3-2310M, and according to Lenovo’s release, the i7 will become an option soon, too. The laptop will run Windows 7 OS, and offer a choice between the Home Premium and Professional versions with 32-bit and 64-bit options. The ThinkPad X1 measures in at 13.3 inches across, 9.1 inches in length, and from front to back, .65 inches to .84 inches thin, weighing just 3.76 pounds. Along the side, the laptop offers support for HDMI output, USB 3.0 and 2.0, a 3.5 mm headphone/mic jack, and a 4-in-1 card reader (SD, MMC, SDHC, SDXC). And those are just the basics. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 can basically stand up to anything you put it through, within reason of course. Built from magnesium alloy with an interior roll cage, the ThinkPad X1 employs Corning Gorilla Glass, which was tested at the product launch event thrown by Lenovo. Think Product Group VP Dilip Bhatia whipped out his key chain and dragged a key across the laptop’s display, with no harm caused. The ThinkPad X1’s keyboard is also pretty impressive. Not only did Lenovo improve the overall look and feel of this keyboard with the addition of an LED back-light, but the company also equipped it with some much-needed ruggedness. The redesigned keyboard sports a water-shedding design that keeps spills from frying the guts of your new laptop. Lenovo also got rid of the SysRq button in favor of dedicated multimedia and voice calling controls. Lenovo has worked hard to make the ThinkPad X1 a more universal model than previous enterprise-focused products, and has done so with the addition of Dolby Home Theater v4 and a superbright high-def display. Entertainment may not be an integral part of a businessman’s day, but as Mr. Bahtia pointed out at the event, a movie always comes in handy on those long business trips. The battery life on this bad boy isn’t all that special, offering just under 5 1/2 hours without the battery slice accessory. After popping in the slice, battery life extends to about 10 hours. But even though battery life may not be everything you’ve dreamed of, Lenovo is one step ahead, as the ThinkPad X1 features RapidCharge technology. This means that after just 30 minutes of charging, the laptop battery is charged up to 80 percent, and the user can get back to business. All in all, this rugged little laptop will start out at $1,399, and go on sale tomorrow through Lenovo business partners or on .
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Harman Announces Partnership With Luxoft For Next-Gen In-Vehicle Infotainment Systems | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 5 | 16 | The automotive industry is the final frontier for many consumer A/V companies and Harman — you know, H/K, JBL, Mark Levinson — just made public the ongoing realationship that’s producing some leading infotainment systems. Luxoft and Harman employs more than 300 “development experts” mainly in a Ukraine dev center where they conjurer up systems at least in part for BMW and Daimler. It’s this now official 4-year old partnership that brought forth current leading infotainment systems over the last few years. Expect more from the team-up in the near future as well. Luxoft Helps Harman International Develop Sophisticated Infotainment Systems for the Automotive Industry Moscow, New York, May 16, 2011 – Luxoft, a leading global provider of advanced application and product development services, today announced that it is working with Harman International to conceive of, design and develop sophisticated infotainment systems for the automotive industry. For more than four years, Luxoft has been involved in the maintenance of Harman’s current products, as well as the development of future products and platforms that are critical to meeting evolving consumer demands, such as the “Internet of Things.” Luxoft has dedicated more than 300 development experts, based mainly in its Ukraine Development Center, to work with Harman to meet its aggressive infotainment development goals. “Consumer demand in the automotive sector is evolving rapidly, as drivers today are in search of sleek, sophisticated options that not only give them access to vehicle performance data, but also high-end infotainment options,” said Dinesh Paliwal, CEO, Harman International. “To meet that need, Luxoft has proven to be an invaluable partner over the past several years due to its industry expertise, ability to innovate and exceptional product and service delivery.” Currently, Luxoft is working with Harman on several automotive projects, including embedded real-time operating systems, advanced navigation systems, in-vehicle Internet capabilities and the integration of social networks into the driving experience. Many automotive manufacturers such as BMW and Daimler are currently using infotainment technologies that have resulted from this partnership. “Over the years, we’ve seen our relationship with Harman grow into the strategic relationship that it is today,” said Luxoft President and CEO, Dmitry Loschinin. “They look to us as a trusted partner, and we look forward to future opportunities to innovate as we’re only scratching the surface of what we can accomplish together.” “In any such partnership, the most important thing is reliability and accountability for the time critical milestones,” said Paliwal. “Luxoft’s leadership and project teams have been incredibly responsive and attentive to our needs, and as a result, we have started treating Luxoft as our extended organization. We look forward to furthering our relationship with Luxoft and are excited to see what new automotive technologies are possible as a result.” |
Local Q&A Site Hipster Raises $1M From Google Ventures, Lightbank, 500 Startups And More | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 5 | 16 | Local Q&A startup has raised $1 million in seed funding from some prominent angel Valley investors including , , , , , , and , Google’s , , , and others. Many of you best know Hipster as the startup that launched a thousand blog posts, having insane hype and a before its SXSW launch. While Hipster’s initial launch page had over in its first few days of existence, the startup’s actual user numbers for SXSW were at just over 4,000 for the entire three day period. Were you using Hipster during SXSW? I wasn’t either. “We learned a lot during SXSW, it was ‘baptism by fire,'” Hipster CEO tells me. “One of my big takeaways from the event was that people tend to have a lot more answers than questions.” Ludlow also has since then re-evaluated the company’s product strategy: Instead of launching city by city, Hipster will now be launching everywhere in the US at once, on both web and mobile. While he doesn’t reveal many product details, he emphasizes that the lessons of SXSW were hard won and won’t be forgotten. Hipster is a small player in an arena dominated by Foursquare and Yelp, but Ludlow is undaunted, believing that each of them represents only 1/2 of the “local knowledge” problem: “Foursquare is trying to become the go-to application to share knowledge when you’re out and about (with Check-ins and tips), yet provides a very poor web experience for accessing, augmenting, editing, or sharing this information.” “Yelp is great for browsing local content on the web, but doesn’t provide a good method for submitting knowledge this knowledge when its freshest in your mind (namely, while you’re currently at a location.)” In order to further carve out a small but strong position in the local space for Hipster, Ludlow plans on using the new financing to double the team (going from three to six) and to move the entire operation from Los Angeles to San Francisco. |
Ashton Kutcher On Stage At TechCrunch Disrupt | Michael Arrington | 2,011 | 5 | 16 | will be on stage next week at in New York. The actor, entrepreneur and investor will talk with on Tuesday morning, and joins what is clearly our most impressive list of at any TechCrunch event to date. His talk with Rose will be entirely focused on his new job starring in CBS’s . Ok, hopefully not really. Kutcher is known in tech circles as a fairly savvy investor, although many of these investments have been kept private. In addition to his publicly known investments in companies like Flipboard, Milk, Zaarly and Blekko, he also mentioned casually to me last week during a prep call for the event that he invested in Skype along with Silverlake Partners and Andreessen Horowitz in 2009. He’s also worked directly with companies in various ways. Blekko CEO Rich Skrenta, for example, says that Kutcher helped significantly with as well as other features. “He’s a geek at heart,” says Skrenta. One thing Kutcher doesn’t ask for is a free pass in our world. He freely talks about missteps (although I wouldn’t count Ooma out for good just yet), and Blah Girls, which he at a TechCrunch event in 2008. In other ways, though, he’s had massive success. His has nearly 7 million followers. Sure, he’s a famous actor, but others in his world in Hollywood have fallen flat on Twitter. And his investment portfolio looks to be as healthy or healthier than many professional angel investors. That Skype investment sure didn’t hurt. See you all next week, in person or on the live stream. Kutcher will be on stage Tuesday morning, immediately after Charlie Rose interviews Y Combinator’s Paul Graham. |
Facebook's Own (Smaller) "OAuthpocalypse": Devs Have 48 Hours To Secure Apps | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 5 | 16 | For a group of developers on Facebook’s platform, the clock is ticking. Last night and into today, Facebook has been sending out notices to developers they believe have apps in violation of their policy against sending authentication data to third parties. Those developers have 48 hours to fix their apps or they risk being “subject to one of the enforcement actions” — read: being booted. You may recall that all of this initially came up last week when Symantec wrote a blog post entitled “ .” That post detailed how the company found close to 100,00 apps that were inadvertently leaking auth tokens due to the use of iframes for app authentication. As a result, Facebook responded with noting that by September 1 of this year must migrate to OAuth 2.0, ensuring encrypted access tokens. But September 1 is still a long way away. And there are still apps out there leaking these tokens, which is even more of a problem now that Symantec has exposed the issue (Facebook, for its part, says there haven’t been any problems as a result yet). So it should be no surprise that Facebook is issuing this ultimatum to the apps they’ve found to still be in violation. Still, 48 hours is a sharp turnaround time. One developer wrote us calling it the “great Facebook auth 2.0 switch panic of 2011”, noting that developers are pouring onto web forums to express their panic and confusion over the situation. It’s sounding a little bit like the brilliantly named “ ” which Twitter has encountered a few times over the years (though the situation is completely different). Facebook says these changes are only required from “a very small percentage of the developer community”. But given Facebook’s size, that’s still likely a lot. So what can those in violation do? There are two choices — one easier than the other. They can either move over to OAuth 2.0 now or “create and use an interstitial page to remove the authentication data before redirecting to your page with 3rd party content”. The latter is likely easier than the former for many developers in the short term. It’s more of a temporary fix until they’re ready to move over to OAuth 2.0 by the September deadline. Below, find the full email Facebook is sending to offending developers. Our automated systems have detected that you may be inadvertently allowing authentication data to be passed to 3rd parties. Allowing user ids and access tokens to be passed to 3rd parties, even inadvertently, could allow these 3rd parties to access the data the user made available to your site. This violates our policies and undermines user trust in your site and Facebook Platform. In every case that we have examined, this information is passed via the HTTP Referer Header by the user’s browser. This can happen when using our legacy authentication system and including <iframe>, <img> or <script> content from 3rd parties in the page that receives authentication data from Facebook. Our legacy mechanism passes authentication information in the URL query string which, if handled incorrectly, can be passed to 3rd parties by the browser. Our current OAuth 2.0 authentication system, released over a year ago, passes this information in the URL fragment, which is not passed to 3rd parties by the browser. Please ensure that you are not allowing this data to be passed immediately. Accessing your site as a test user while running a HTTP proxy/monitor like Charles or Fiddler is the best way to determine if you are allowing this information to be passed. If you discover the issue, you can do one of two things: 1. Migrate your site to use our OAuth 2.0 authentication system. We are requiring all apps and sites to update to this mechanism by Sept. 1, 2011. Migrating now will address this issue and ensure that you are one of the first to meet the deadline. For more details, please see our Authentication Guide. 2. Create and use an interstitial page to remove the authentication data before redirecting to your page with 3rd party content. This approach is used by many of our largest developers today (although they are all migrating to OAuth 2.0 shortly). This is a simple and straightforwardchange that should have minimal impact on your site. For more details on this approach, see our Legacy Connect Auth doc. Because of the importance of ensuring user trust and privacy, we are asking you to complete one of the above steps in the next 48 hours. If you fail to do so, your site may be subject to one of the enforcement actions outlined in our policies. If you have any questions or believe you have received this message in error, please contact us. Facebook Developer Relations : Symantec reached out to note that Facebook says they fixed the token problem (via scrubbing) so it shouldn’t be an issue anymore even with the legacy API. Clearly, Facebook is just taking precautionary measures here. “We don’t want to be seen as increasing the problem, which we are not. As part of responsible disclosure we only released info about the potential problem after we had worked with Facebook to make sure the issue was fixed on their end,” Symantec writes. https://twitter.com/jennifermontes/status/70143308634144769 |
Twitter Strikes Tweet Firehose Deal With Japan's Largest Carrier, NTT DOCOMO | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 5 | 16 | Up until now, when Twitter has struck deals overseas with carriers, it has mainly been for SMS deals so that users can send/receive tweets for free and/or cheap. Today, Twitter has announced a new type of deal with NTT DOCOMO, Japan’s largest carrier: a content deal. As they’ve announced in Japanese on (with English translation below), “Tweets and other Twitter content will be included in DOCOMO i-mode portal search results, providing access to relevant, real-time information.” In other words, it’s a deal similar to the one that Twitter struck with Google, Microsoft and others a few years back. And like those, it’s a full firehose deal, a Twitter representative tells us. That means that NTT DOCOMO will be able to do cool things with their portal and search results, but also other things as well which we’ll see down the road. As usual, terms of the deal are not being disclosed. Deals like this one around the world seem more likely as Twitter continues to expand their reach. Japan is a natural first step as it’s the country that the service has worked most closely with since their inception. |
Tencent And Expedia Invest $126 Million In Chinese Online Travel Marketplace eLong | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 5 | 16 | Chinese internet giant Tencent and U.S. travel bookings company Expedia have in Chinese travel site , totaling $126 million. Tencent has acquired approximately 16% of the outstanding shares for a total purchase price of $84.4 million and becomes the second largest shareholder of eLong. Expedia has acquired approximately 8% of the outstanding shares for $41.2 million, holds 56% of the outstanding shares (Expedia held a a previous investment in eLong), making the company the largest shareholder in eLong. This is actually the first investment in the travel market for Tencent and the funding represents a partnership as well, in which both companies will develop online travel products and will distribute eLong’s hotel supply to Tencent’s online community. Currently Tencent says it reaches 674 million active user accounts in China. And eLong’s hotel supply portfolio now covers over 150,000 hotel properties worldwide, including more than 19,000 hotels in China, and more than 130,000 internationally through its connection with Expedia. , Tencent has made a number of major investments recently, including the The company is to be interested in buying MySpace and just bought Riot Games for For Expedia, the investment gives the company a stronger foothold in China, which is a “key region” for the U.S. travel company. |
iPhone 4, App Store Get A Bevy Of Records In The Guinness Book | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 5 | 16 | We’ve learned some pretty amazing (and incredibly arbitrary) things from the Guinness Book of World Records. Did you know that the record for most people dressed as Smurfs was set on July 18, 2008 by 1,253 attendants of Ireland’s Muckno Mania Festival? Now you do. Or did you know that Jean-Francois Vernetti of Switzerland set the record for the largest “Do Not Disturb” door-hanger collection with 8,888 hangers (way to go, Jean-Francois!)? Bam, another brain wrinkle! Joining the Muckno Mania festival and Jean-Francois in the big book today: the iPhone 4, and Apple’s App Store. The deadly duo that is iPhone 4/App Store walked away with not two, not three, but records under its collective belt. The titles it claimed: Throwing the iPhone and the App Store in amongst the likes of the DS and the PSP seems almost.. cheap. It’s plenty reasonable to stretch the definition of “game portable” to include the iPhone and iPad — it can, after all, provide a gaming experience very much on par with anything else out there. To directly compare the number of “launch” games or otherwise compare quantities, however, is to pit apples against oranges — as much as we love mobile games around these parts, we’re not going to pretend that the majority of games on iOS are of the same caliber or complexity as most of the stuff on DS or PSP. [via ] |
Former Foursquare Head Of Ops Nathan Folkman Leaves Facebook For Path | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 5 | 16 | Former Foursquare Head of Operations and current Facebooker will be joining photo-sharing startup as an engineer, Path CEO Dave Morin tells me. Prior to Facebook and Foursquare, Folkman was an engineer at bit.ly, AOL and Betaworks. He also holds the honor of being the only employee to have ever left Foursquare (for Facebook ), Foursquare has verified with me. “[Folkman’s] expertise in building highly scalable technology in mobile, social, and location will be invaluable to Path,” Morin said. “His specific expertise in MongoDB is especially important as we are helping to pioneer document-based data structures at scale, the best way to store and access social and location data.” We’re also hearing that Folkman decided to leave Facebook and then approached Path. Path of course was founded by former Facebook Platform Manager Morin. The two did not overlap at while either was at Facebook. |
Klout Nabs Former Yahoo Data And Analytics VP To Lead Engineering | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 5 | 16 | , a startup that on Twitter, LinkedIn and has today—a VP of Engineering. And the nabbed a seasoned analytics exec from Yahoo, . Mariani was most recently was the Vice President of User Data and Analytics at Yahoo. While at Yahoo Dave managed engineering for all of Yahoo’s audience and advertising analytics platforms where they processed 30-plus billion user and advertising events per day. Mariani joined Yahoo through the of Blue Lithium where he served as CTO. Prior to his role at Blue Lithium, Mariani founded MineShare and sold the company to Digital Impact for $34.4 million. Digital Impact, where Mariani was CTO, was sold to Acxiom Corporation for $140 million. He also served as CTO of Acxiom Digital following the acquisition. For background, Klout evaluates Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook users’ behavior with complex ranking algorithms and semantic analysis of content to measure the influence of individuals and topics around the web. On Twitter, Klout’s influence score is based on a user’s ability to drive action through Tweets, Retweets and more. On Facebook, Klout will examine how conversations and content generate interest and engagement, via likes, comments, and more, from the network’s 600 million-plus users. For Klout, a seasoned analytics exec is a must. On a daily basis the company ingests and semantically analyzes 100-plus million tweets, Facebook status updates and LinkedIn updates to analyze the Klout Score for over 75 million people. And the company serves hundreds of millions of API calls for its over |
California Bill To Give Parents Access To Kids' Facebook Pages | John Biggs | 2,011 | 5 | 16 | , proposed by Sen. Ellen Corbett, would force social networks like Facebook to allow parents access to their child’s account(s) and, more importantly, force all privacy settings to their maximum level by default. Parents can request that images or text be removed from any social network page “upon request … within 48 hours upon his or her request.” Here’s the interesting part: any social network failing to perform these duties will get hit with a $10K fine per incident. Obviously this is a state-level law and does not apply nationally (yet) and it does smack of the nanny state. However, being able to access my own son’s Facebook page in the event of some tragedy real or imagined would give me peace of mind but be wildly invasive. This would also bump up against problems like children in divorced families and/or emancipated youngsters. “This legislation is a serious threat both to Facebook’s business in California,” said Facebook rep Andrew Noyes and, to be fair, it is: it gives parents the chance to launch frivolous requests 24/7 and there is a slippery slope here that could result in anyone editing anyone’s accounts – after all, if you’re able to edit your kid’s pages when he or she is under 18 what’s to stop the requests from coming in after they come of age? The bill is now on its way to the Senate after moving through legislative committee. Rest assured it won’t be passed without a fight. |
Tradeshift raises $7m for its 'Skype for invoicing' and wider B2B play | Steve O'Hear | 2,011 | 5 | 16 | , the free invoicing platform and wider play to become the de facto social network for “B2B communications and processes”, has raised a $7m round from . As we’ve the Denmark and London, UK-based startup was rumoured to be courting VC funding at an $80-100 million valuation after scoring angel investment from former MySQL CEO Mårten Mickos and founding investor in Last.fm Stefan Glaenzer. , which is into the platform, is also . Dubbed “Skype for invoicing” based on its disruptive potential, Tradeshift’s free invoicing platform is a direct challenge to overpriced banking systems and credit card processing. Instead of forcing hefty charges onto companies for electronic invoicing, the startup’s business model is based on creating an API platform for free, legally binding invoicing and then allowing third parties to create other applications, as well as leveraging their own. Additionally, accounts running on Tradeshift constantly monitor exchange rates and automatically withdraw funds or make purchases just when the price is cheapest for the goods that a company requires. However, it’s the app store model, which will launch later this month, and wider B2B social network where Tradeshift plans to make money. And it looks like the company is making significant headway in picking up customers. Last June it announced in the SaaS accounting space, for example, and claims 50,000 registered companies across 180 countries including and Danish and French governments. |
Odd Rumor: The iPhone 4S Will Come In 16/32GB Configurations | John Biggs | 2,011 | 5 | 28 | I didn’t even want to dignify with a post, but Steve’s a good guy and maybe… and this is a big maybe… he found a case for the upcoming “iPhone 4S” at “Claire’s.” The best part is when Google translates his article the last line comes up as “So authentic dumpling or simple typo in your opinion? …” which is how I’m going to end all of my posts from now on. Grain of salt, people. Remember: there will be no hardware at WWDC this year. |
What Makes A Startup Successful? Blackbox Report Aims To Map The Startup Genome | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 5 | 28 | Generally speaking, the odds are stacked heavily against the average startup. The rate of failure among entrepreneurs and startups is startlingly high — it comes with the territory. Otherwise, entrepreneurs wouldn’t be . But, what if there were a way to reduce that failure rate by cracking the formula of startup success? No easy feat to map the double helix of startups, but entrepreneurs are risk-takers by nature, so four of these risk-loving international entrepreneurs came together to found the , a report that is part of a larger project that dives into the very anatomy of what makes Silicon Valley startups successful — or not. The entrepreneurs who founded the Startup Genome report (Bjoern Herrmann and Max Marmer), have also created a business accelerator called , which will be leveraging the data they have collected (and will collect) from their ambitious R&D enterprise. The Startup Genome Report, as it is today, is a 67 page analysis on data collected from 650+ web startups. The entrepreneurs recruited both UC Berkeley and Stanford faculty members, like , the Sandbox Network team, the Startup Bootcamp team, and the Pollenizer team, to help coauthor and contribute to the study. The goal of the report is to lay the foundation for a new framework for assessing startups more effectively by measuring the thresholds and milestones of development that Internet startups move through. Blackbox, which was co-founded by and other organizations that have a track record of working with 100+ startups, including 15 exits (such as Bebo, Tapulous & Lala), hopes to use the Startup Genome Report as a cipher to help crack the innovation code, and give fledgling entrepreneurs and startups from around the world access to the characteristics and qualities that make Silicon Valley companies successful. Here are 14 of the most interesting trends identified by the Startup Genome Report, some of which are intuitive and some of which may come as a surprise. Among them? Investors may be less help than they think. Take a look: If you’re interested in learning more, detailed analysis of each of these points can be found in the full . The team is also introducing a new survey that aims to help entrepreneurs understand the stage their startup is in and gives them personalized tips and advice for what to focus on based on data from the research project. The more data the project collects, the more accurate its conclusions become, and the more entrepreneurs and their startups can benefit from that knowledge, so check it out . |
Cliqset Founder Takes On Personal Publishing And Social Conversations With Stealthy Startup Glow | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 5 | 28 | As we heard last fall, , a FriendFeed like social aggregation platform, was by its founders, and Charlie Cauthen. Cliqset, which , was a high-powered social syndication and aggregation service, with the ability to post and syndicate content on Cliqset, Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz and 80 other sites and networks. You can read our prior coverage of Cliqset As last November, the startup was one of the first networks to implement Pubsubhubbub for real-time updates, and Salmon for cross-network comment posting. But despite these technologies, the service couldn’t attract an active number of users and landed in the It looks like Bounds is on to his — Bounds writes that Glow is his “personal attempt at building a social network that doesn’t sacrifice simplicity, features or user-experience in an effort to promote decentralization, user privacy and data ownership.” The site, which is in stealth mode for now, will combine personal publishing ans social conversation. Glow sill use many of the same open protocols and standards that Cliqset implemented, including Activity Streams, Salmon, PubSubHubbub and Portable Contacts. Bounds says that he is taking a different approach to social networking that Diaspora, OneSocialWeb or Status.net. From his post, “Feature wise it’s a little of Twitter, a little of Facebook and few of my own ideas. Think real-time, follow-model, @mentions, likes, comments and private group messaging to start.” Interestingly, Bounds says that he doesn’t plan to build a business around Glow. Bounds told Gray back in November that any future projects would projects would leverage users’ existing social graphs and that “the need for success wouldn’t be contingent on relationships and community within itself.” Perhaps that could indicate that Glow is built around your social graph on Facebook and Twitter. It should be interesting to see what Bounds has up his leave with Glow. Thankfully we won’t have to wait too long. He says he’s rolling out the first set of invitations to Glow in the next two weeks. |
Oren Jacob, CTO of Pixar, joins August Capital as EIR | Cyan Banister | 2,011 | 5 | 28 | recently that , CTO of has joined as their newest entrepreneur in residence. After a few weeks on the job, I got a chance to interview Oren and ask him how his new gig was going. In short, he has new-found respect for venture capitalists and button down shirts. Oren had no idea how many meetings back to back were in store for him and how hard it can be to put on a fresh face and high level of excitement for each pitch. However challenges like that – and a bad case of entrepreneurial itch – were exactly why he decided to leave Pixar. After being at the animation company for over 20 years, Oren wasn’t completely ready to take the startup leap, at least not until he’d found a way to understand the challenges of entrepreneurship from every angle. What was it like to sit on the other side of entrepreneurs looking for investment? What’s it like to be a company that successfully received investment and what are the struggles they go through that he will help eventually guide them through? What should you do in a pitch? What should you not do? The only way to find out was to immerse himself in that world as he prepared himself for his next journey. He’s not entirely sure what he’s going to do post-August Capital, but that’s the nature of being an EIR. He’s hoping a great idea will come to him or that he’ll join an exciting company that crosses his path in one of those meetings. I first for my Speaking Of… show where I learned about his love for competitive farming and ‘Ready Set Bag’, the film he made in collaboration with his wife. At the time of that interview, he was still deeply involved with Pixar. In my last interview, I focused on his current side projects, but Oren also told a story that I found truly incredible and that I hoped to write some day, when he was no longer at Pixar. Which is to say, now… Back in high school in Irvine, Oren had gone to see the the year that was in it. At that very moment, he decided he was going to apply to both Cal and Stanford because both schools were near Pixar and Industrial Light and Magic (ILM). If he wanted to work at either of those companies, he figured being closer to them would be a good start. Oren got into Cal and continued to go to the Spike and Mike film festivals and one year saw with a friend. Some weeks later, his friend saw a flyer for an internship on their campus with Tin Toy as the “I” in Pixar. She recognized Tinny from the festival and brought the flyer home, to Oren’s delight. Still, Oren figured there was no chance of him winning the internship: surely they were looking for computer science folks, leaving a mechanical engineering student like him way at the bottom of the list of applicants. So, what does a young enterprising young man do when he wants to eliminate the competition? Well, he strapped on his jogging shoes and ran around campus ripping down every flyer that had been put up. Apparently his tactic may have worked because there ended up being only four candidates for four positions. He got an offer to work there that summer for $10 bucks and hour. About two weeks into the job in 1990, Oren started to feel guilty that what he had done was dishonest and that building his career on something dodgy was a crappy way to live his life. So, after some thoughtful reflection, he decided to go to his boss, explain everything and offered to resign. For those of you that don’t know Oren, he speaks faster than most humans on earth and you really have to pay attention to follow along. His boss sat there for more than a few minutes in silence as Oren rambled his explanation and apology. Finally he responded, “Wow…” Oren asked if he should leave or go back to work. His boss just shrugged, so he went back to his desk relieved. About 6 months later, in the winter of 1991, Pixar had some major layoffs and the company shrank to less than 40 people. Oren was still an intern at the time and had attended both the “you’re being laid off” meeting and the “you are the few who are staying” meeting and decided he liked the latter one better. He went home for the rest of the week, didn’t attend any exit interviews, didn’t turn in any keycards and just showed up for work the next week to a company that was now focused solely on animation. The guy who dealt with keycards never deactivated his key. Oren kept showing up. Folks were surprised to see him in the hallway, but he played it cool and nobody raised a fuss. Many months later, paychecks started showing up in his box again and continued for 20+ years. Over those 20 years Oren worked obsessively hard and rose through the ranks of the company to CTO. Stories like Oren’s are rare but always inspiring. I love that he started out as an intern and was so passionate about the company that he would do whatever it took to not only remain there, but see just how far he could go. If he applies that kind of passion and tenacity to his first start-up – whatever that ends up being – only a fool would bet against him. |
Council of Europe To Return To Wired Communication, Potentially Pony Express | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 5 | 28 | Yesterday, the Council of Europe released a report recommending that member states rethink the way they look at radiation used in wireless communication, putting it on par with the type of health hazards found in cigarettes and genetically altered foods. The report suggests that member states should push for a return to wired communication and a ban on in schools. This seems to be a pretty exaggerated response, as most of the research we have on the dangers of wireless communication is inconclusive, at best.
Apparently, Europe has Jean Huss, member of Luxembourg’s Les Verts, to thank for such an observant response to the issue. To Huss, the ambiguity that the rest of the world has conceded exists around the issue is crystal clear: “non-ionizing frequencies, be they sourced from extremely low frequencies, power lines, or certain high frequency waves used in the fields of radar, telecommunications and mobile telephony, appear to have more or less potentially harmful, non-thermal, biological effects on plants, insects and animals, as well as the human body even when exposed to levels that are below the official threshold values,” said Huss. The issue here isn’t whether or not cell phones, and other forms of radiation-emitting wireless communication, are a danger to our health. The answer to that question has yet to be answered definitively. This issue is, rather, the way we digest research, and the way we shape policy around it. [via ] |
Gillmor Gang 5.28.11 (TCTV) | Steve Gillmor | 2,011 | 5 | 28 | Although the noise has died down about the Microsoft/Skype deal, enterprise analysts are tripping over themselves to handicap Steve Ballmer’s job tenure. George Colony produced a Wave chart with Apple all alone up and to the right, Salesforce.com owning the next space, and as one senior analyst put it, only imaginary companies on the horizon to compete with us. I say us because apparently there are still a few who don’t know I work for Marc Benioff. And Microsoft was well down and to the left in the view Colony calls the AppInternet. What we talk about today on the Gang may have something to with all this. |
WillItRain iOS App Tells You… If It Will Rain | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 5 | 28 | While doing a little browsing in the App Store this morning, I came across a cute little application that I can totally see myself using just about every day: . In most cases, I have no use for the direction of the wind or the level of humidity. I just want to know if it will rain. WillItRain has a minimalist interface, simply saying YES or NO. Should the answer be YES, the app also offers a little extra detail like “before 9 pm” or “rain all day,” to give you a little context before getting dressed. You can also pull up from the bottom to get information like the current temperature, wind, precipitation, cloud cover, and pressure, if you’re looking for a more thorough report. The WillItRain app is a free download in the Apple . |
The Cansole: A Pong Console In A Can | John Biggs | 2,011 | 5 | 28 | You can stick anything into a can. Peaches. Corn. (Very small) Apples. Or an board and potentiometer. The latter of those items allows you to create a playable pong TV pong game in a container the size of one of the old Pong paddles from the 1970s. While you won’t be able to eat the contents of the Cansole, you can make one yourself and play the age-old game of table tennis right on your TV.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plqbdFe7Mx8&w=640&h=510] |
Disrupt NYC: The Final Battle (Video) | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 5 | 28 | After 30 startups launching on stage at Disrupt NYC, it all culminated in the between six finalists: Getaround, BillGuard, Sonar, Do@, ccLoop, and InvoiceASAP. What made this final battle so fascinating to watch was not only the quality of the startups, but the quality of the judges: Fred Wilson, Ron Conway, Marisa Mayer, Roelof Botha, and Josh Kopelman. We put together a list of videos from the entire final battle. Individual videos for all of Disrupt can also be . And below are links to our original writeups for each company with videos showing their first demos that got them to the final round.
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null | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 5 | 16 | null |
Why Isn't Google Chrome A Part Of Android? | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 5 | 17 | Over the past couple of years covering Google, there’s one seemingly that comes up again and again, that Google just can’t seem to answer. Why isn’t Chrome a part of Android? Read the wrong way, that could seem like a deep question. But it almost never means “why isn’t Chrome OS simply merged with Android?” or the like. Most of the time, it’s simply a question wondering why Google’s very popular web browser is not a part of their very popular mobile operating system? After all, that OS has a browser (the aptly-named “Browser”), but it’s not Chrome. Why not? Unsurprisingly, the question came up once again at Google I/O last week. During on the Chrome team, it was one of the first questions asked. The response? “It’s not something we’re talking about right now.” Ouch. “I don’t know how to answer that,” the engineered continued. Okay… Another team member, probably realizing those answers sounded both cryptic and harsh, chimed in. “The important thing at the end of the day is to make browsers better. While it’s not strictly Chrome, we share a lot of code with the Android team. We’ll share more over time.” Okay, that’s better. Still, a bit odd. Based on my understanding, after having a number of discussions on this topic over the years, it would seem that boils down to a few things. First, the Android team is a completely separate team from the Chrome team. Second, it’s a branding issue that Google isn’t quite sure how to resolve. Third, the Android browser, while similar to Chrome, really isn’t Chrome. The first and second issues are interesting because more and more, they’re related. As they showcased at I/O this year, Google now is fully backing two horses in the OS race: Android and Chrome OS. Each are made by two entirely different teams that don’t often mix with one another. As Google executives kept saying over and over again when asked last week, the two OSes have different goals — and are going about things in completely different ways. While Chrome may have started out as a web browser, it’s now much more from an ideology perspective inside of Google. No one will admit this, but if they’re to ultimately succeed, they sort of have to believe that Android won’t. That makes it hard to work together. When Android first launched in October of 2008, it seemed like either a small oversight or precautionary measure that the browser bundled with it wasn’t branded as Chrome. After all, Google’s browser had just launched in beta (on Windows) the month before. Assuming people liked it, you would have assumed that Google would transfer the branding over to use in Android, right? Well people did like Chrome. A lot. And yet, Google never moved it over. This despite the fact that Apple did just that on the iPhone with its much less successful Safari browser. Meanwhile, Opera and Mozilla’s Firefox were committed to mobile versions of their popular browsers as well. But Google stuck with “Browser” for Android. And now they may be stuck with it for good. The problem is that Chrome, for better or worse, is now associated with another product that is similar but different from Android — again, Chrome OS. Imagine if they start including a Chrome browser on Android tablets and then next year Chrome OS tablets launch. Consumers will wonder what the hell the difference is? (And this may already prove to be an issue on the PC/Chromebook side of things, we’ll see.) All that aside, it is still important to remember that Android’s Browser really isn’t Chrome. The two are both based on WebKit and use Google’s V8 JavaScript engine, but there are dozens of other features that Google is trying to associate with Chrome that they couldn’t possibly squeeze into a mobile web browser (at least not yet). The same issues are true with Apple’s regular Safari browser and their mobile one. But that browser generally seems to be less feature-focused, so the branding might not be as big of an issue. Plus, even if the two sides don’t work closely together inside of Apple (though it seems like they might), does anyone really believe there’s any way in hell Steve Jobs would let the browser in iOS be called anything but Safari? Back to Google, on the flip side of things, the Android team have their own wants and needs for the browser bundled with their software. And imagine if a problem on the Chrome team was stalling a new Android build? Or vice versa? But with the launch of Honeycomb, Android’s Browser is now starting to a lot more like Chrome as well, thanks to the tabbed browsing experience it offers. This will only lead to more questions. And it’s only a matter of time before users start demanding that elements are fully synced between the two (Chrome and Android’s Browser). At that point, Google may have to consider this question yet again. Is it time to bring Chrome to Android? |
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