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British Social Discovery Site Snog.com Looks To Build A Better Hot Or Not; Goes Viral (And Mobile) | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 9 | 8 | The Web has been home to a fair number of questionable memes and websites over the years, really too many to mention here. One among them that you’re likely familiar with is , the site that allows visitors to vote on photos of random people based on attractiveness. It’s not exactly high brow, but games like this have been around for years — in various incarnations. In the U.K., the theme gave rise to a popular reality TV show, called — the content of which you can probably guess based on the title. The show is also the inspiration for a young British startup, called , that has seen some serious viral adoption in the U.K. over the last six months. The startup was founded by Jonny Teeling and Will Peirce, two recent grads from Leeds University, who set out to create a social discovery site that offered a new spin on the old model, plus a way for young people to break the ice and interact without the awkwardness of traditional dating sites. The idea was simple: Create a community that removes the daunting aspects of social interaction for young people, and make it easy for them to connect, meet, and maybe even snog. The co-founders rather obviously grabbed the concept behind Snog, Marry, and Avoid, brought it to an online audience (with enough to distinguish from the TV series as to avoid lawsuits), and, after an all-night coding session, the site went viral, recording 30,000 page views in the first two hours. The story has a feel of Facebook’s early history, when Zuckerberg created Facemash, which attracted 22,000 views from Harvard students within an hour of being online. Of course, this is the problem that Snog.com has to confront: Facemash was only a precursor to the social network to rule them all, so the question becomes how to make sure Snog.com isn’t just a flash in the pan. The site’s early viral activity almost immediately overloaded the servers, leading to more than a few hours of downtime. But, based on the early interest, the founders were able to raise a “six-figure” investment from Kevin Ham, the investor and former . The investment led to a team of developers, Amazon hosting, and an advisor well familiar with building popular domains; and since the early stumble, Snog has continued to surge. The founders tell me that the site is currently attracting more than 1.5 million pageviews a day, and users are spending an average of 20 minutes on the site per visit. What’s more, the site has pulled in over 260 million pageviews in all since January. Clearly, Snog.com has struck an addictive chord for British teenagers, but there are many examples of early successes in Web 2.0 that later find themselves hosting a plot in the Web’s graveyard. Snog therefore seems to be an interesting case study for how to build a social web business, maintain early interest, and make it something more than just another updated Hot or Not. ( .) As of right now, Snog.com users can either choose to ‘Snog, Marry or Avoid’ based on another user’s photos and a small “about me” (or profile) section. The site also incorporates social elements, too, encouraging users to follow other users they like, write public notes, or send private messages. The average age on the site is about 17, which is certainly a coveted demographic for advertisers (Snog’s main monetization model at this point), but also somewhat limiting. The founders don’t want the site just to become a glorified chat room for teens, it wants to create a social discovery platform — not another social network. For starters, Snog has that offers users a gallery in which they can see top members and which of their friends are currently online, play with their user profiles, check their responses, send private messages, as well as a “Shuffle” setting that allows them to quickly browse — and, well, shuffle — through profiles. Mobile is certainly an important piece of the puzzle, but it’s really an added feature, what’s more important is baking more significant components into the site’s structure that make it a social discovery platform based on more than just a user’s profile pic and silly bio. Next, Snog plans to add more enhanced location features (for both web and mobile) that allow users to connect based on proximity, and hopefully take online flirting and connecting offline. Beyond that, the founders want to integrate users’ interest graphs into the site, allowing users to search for people with similar interests and demographics. The founders also plan to add “like, love, dislike” buttons across the site, which visitors can use to vote on statuses, specific photos, movies, books, cities, brands, etc. Snog is an interesting site, to be sure, and the founders clearly have a vision to transform their site a community platform — not to mention that they want to make “snog” an international word. There’s potential for both, especially for the latter (thanks to Harry Potter), but other young web entrepreneurs would be smart to pay attention to what happens to the site over the next year — it should be an interesting litmus. What do you think? Snog, marry, or avoid? |
Nike’s Mag Sneakers Unveiled, Due For Letterman Appearance Tonight? | Chris Velazco | 2,011 | 9 | 8 | Nike made a legion of sneaker geeks’ dreams come true when they sent out their , but the official word has now come down from on high: the Nike Mag is real, and they’re all going on eBay tonight. First things first: the Mags sadly don’t auto-lace. Aside from that, only subtle changes have been made from the original, film-friendly reference design, but it’s likely all for the sake of comfort. Retro-future aficionados will be glad to know that the tri-color, LA Gear-esque lights remain true to the original, as does the electroluminescent Nike logo embroidered on the side. The limited-edition kicks will only be produced in a small 1,500 unit run, but hopefully that scarcity will up drive up demand a bit. While we normally enjoy a good deal around here, all of the proceeds will be going to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Disease Research. Speaking of the fantastic Mr. Fox, he’s currently scheduled to make an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman tonight — the timing seems almost too good to be true, so keep your eyes peeled for a surprise appearance. This reveal has been a long time coming for Nike fans, who have obsessively been tracking the shoe from the that inspired everything to its more recent appearances. One of the first big clues to the shoe’s existence came from an , one of Nike’s most prolific sneaker designers. At about 13 minutes into the video, an assistant tosses Hatfield the shoe just after the interview changes focus onto Nike’s future. Video of in the style of the original film’s classic mall parking lot scene also popped up on YouTube back in June, making today’s announcement the culmination of a whole lot of work. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eihSPj9lSMw&w=640&h=345] |
Project Gutenberg Founder Michael Stern Hart, 1947-2011 | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 9 | 8 | In 1971, Michael Hart was given some operator time on a Xerox mainframe, and felt obligated to produce something worthwhile. Struck by an idea, he typed in, letter by letter, the text of the Declaration of Independence, from a copy he had been given on the fourth of July. He then attempted to send it to everyone connected to the mainframe, and narrowly escaped bringing the network (such as it was) down around their heads. An inauspicious start for , one of the most forward-thinking projects in the history of technology. The basic principles of the web as we know it are embodied in Project Gutenberg. The idea of digitizing and making freely available the world’s information found its first real traction there. YouTube, iTunes, and Google Books of course are merely scaled-up versions of that first impetus, to take the written page and translate it to ones and zeros. And in an age of copyright conflicts, patent disputes, and trademark bullying, the project is a sobering reminder that posterity cares very little for our vain squabbling. Decisions made by Hart and his group of volunteers in fact not only predicted future markets and technologies, but looked beyond that pesky period when they’ll be used for profit and commercial purposes. Finding ways to monetize the works of others is a job for Amazon, Adobe, and Apple. Gutenberg was always about making as much literature as accessible as possible. That’s why the books are in plain ASCII (branching out more recently to a few other accessible formats), supported by everything from Amigas to iPads. It’s the internet in its purest form: the unfettered dissemination of information in the simplest and most open way possible. The Project Gutenberg approach was the first, and it’s still the best. While companies and industries may cling like remora to the ark of progress, leeching what profits they can during periods of exclusivity and marketability, the direction we are moving is unchanged. Hart was a true visionary, and his eyes were on a more distant horizon than many who have come since. Hart died in his Illinois home earlier this week. His industry, charity, and modesty will be sorely missed. . . |
null | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 9 | 30 | null |
Twitter’s Next Focus: Simplify And Unify All Interfaces | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 9 | 8 | During his sit down with the press today, Twitter CEO offered up some good information. Some of it was in , some was in (get this: occasional ads in the stream). But he also revealed something that was probably overlooked, but is important: the upcoming unification of Twitter’s various interfaces. I had actually been hearing whispers about this for a few weeks now. Right around the time that Jack Dorsey in one fell swoop, I was hearing this was going to the focus. And a part of that means creating #newnewtwitter to replace #newtwitter. In talking about the “core product” today, Costolo noted that step one going forward was “simplifying the interface”. “We want Twitter to be dead-simple between different clients — you’ll see interfaces become more consistent,” he said. From what I’ve heard, this means an interface more like the mobile clients and less like the multi-pane views of New Twitter and the iPad app. That’s interesting since the iPad app influenced the web app. Now things may be headed back. Twitter would like a way to have a nice, clean single stream of Tweets again, I hear. More advanced functionality would be handled in a tucked away but simple manner. Most importantly, the plan is to unify the controls and functionality across web, mobile, tablet, etc. One Twitter to rule them all. You can get a glimpse into this thinking by visiting . And all of this makes the make even more sense. Twitter wants and needs to control the experience. At the same time, Twitter is also focusing on a way to surface information that users may find important, but may not match a social graph. Costolo noted that during the recent Arab Spring uprisings, people were coming to Twitter to look for information, but would have to do so via a hashtag, and that was cumbersome to most. “We want to figure out an interface that captures the roar of the crowd, as well as the volume,” he said. It’s also important to note that 40 percent of Twitter’s “active” users don’t actually Tweet. Instead, they lurk and browse. Costolo feels that simplifying the interface will help users like this, and there may be ways to get them more engaged by retweeting and replying at first, instead of explicitly Tweeting. No word on when we may see #newnewtwitter, but I would imagine it will be sooner rather than later. |
Twitter CEO On Google+: It’s Complicated | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 9 | 8 | Twitter CEO held a press briefing at Twitter HQ this morning in order to talk about the Twitter’s path moving forward. Costolo indicated how important it was that Twitter focus if it wants to compete in today’s saturated social ecosystem, “We used to say if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there,” he said, implying that was a bad thing. When asked what he thought about Google+ after the talk, Costolo, who was briefly a Googler after the acquisition of Feedburner, said, “There’s no doubt that they’re going to draw in a large amount of users. You can’t not see that red notification alert on the sandbar,” he said, referring to the fact that you could basically advertise any product on the Google homepage and it would draw in a significant amount of people. He said that Twitter takes a different route than current social contenders, preferring to pare down its services, “We’re thinking about how we can simplify the product even further. That’s what makes it different. [We’re looking] for what can we ‘edit’ out.” He said. “These other products are adding services and we are trying to simplify ours down.” Costolo insisted that this simplification is needed if Twitter wants to achieve the ambitious goal of being available on over 2 billion devices, without the added benefit of being able to bundle with already existing popular products like YouTube and Android. When asked about how an advertiser should view Twitter’s liberal pseudonym policy versus that of Google+ and Facebook, both of which require users to sign up with their real names, Costolo said that the primary difference between how the companies make money is that is that brands like Virgin America pay Twitter when someone, whether it be @bozo123 (his example) or @johnsmith clicks on a link. “We’re not wedded to pseudonyms. Other services are declaring that you have to use your real name, because it will help them monetize. We want to serve our users first.” Costolo’s comments about Twitter’s simplicity are reminiscent of John Battelle’s about the service, “Twitter is a pencil. Facebook, on the other hand, is Photoshop. There’s so much you can do with it, the pencil function gets lost.” So what exactly is so distracting about Google+, or for that matter Facebook? “You go to Facebook and there’s a 100 billion things to keep track of, ‘I’ve got to do a status update, I’ve got to look at a photo.’ Google is the same thing, ‘Oh I’m playing games and now I’m playing with Sergey and I’m hanging out,'” said event attendee and Danny Sullivan. Sullivan went on,”If Twitter doesn’t want to be duking it out with Google+ and Facebook, not adding all those features perhaps keeps them out of that fray, or keeps them out of the comparison between Facebook and Google. That being said, Twitter did just add in Photos.” Heh. Interestingly enough after the talk, Costolo complimented Sullivan on his beautiful photos of sunsets he posted on, where else, Google+. Be the pencil, Dick. Be the pencil. |
Google Launches A Slick Music Beta App For iOS — Web, Not Native | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 9 | 8 | Now that Google Music Beta has been for a few months, it’s time to focus on how to . One key: mobile. While Google launched an Android app for Music Beta alongside the initial unveiling at I/O this year (it’s baked into the Music app), iOS users were SOL. Not anymore. Today, Google has rolled out an app so they can get in on the fun as well. But it’s not a native app, it’s a mobile web one. And it’s still pretty slick. While the app still has the Safari chrome around it, it functions smoothly. You can easily play all of your songs, search, shuffle, etc. Swiping left and right takes you between Artists, Albums, Songs, etc. The transitions are very well done. The music even continues to play in the background when you exit Safari. And it can be controlled by the iOS music controls. And yes, it all streams from the cloud. You can get to it simply by directing your iOS Safari browser at music.google.com. I’ve asked Google if there are any plans for a native app as well. That will be key for travel, etc. I’ll update when I hear back. Interestingly enough, while Amazon’s rival cloud music service , we hear there are plans of a native app… : Says Google on the topic of a native iOS app, “we’re considering all options to bring the service to more people, but don’t have anything official to share.” [slideshow] |
TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon Details! | Jeffery Bennett | 2,011 | 9 | 8 | . Check-in for the Hackathon begins Saturday afternoon at 12:30 p.m. at the San Francisco Design Center Concourse ( ). Arrive with a brown bag lunch (or eat ahead of time) so you are ready to learn & hack. To help you in your hacking conquests, we’ve got some top-of-the line industry talent leading some great workshops starting at 2 p.m.:
Julius Marchwicki, Julius Marchwicki has played an integral role in bringing Ford’s SYNC application programming interface (API) to life, which allows SYNC to harness the power of smart phones and mobile operating systems to bring applications to the vehicle environment. Taylor Singletary, Taylor Singletary ( ) helps developers build applications using the Twitter platform. Previously a software engineer & technical evangelist for LinkedIn, Taylor also enjoys analogue synthesizers.
Matthew Prince,
Matthew is the co-founder and CEO of CloudFlare, Inc. Matthew wrote his first computer program when he was 7, and hasn’t been able to shake the bug since. After attending the University of Chicago Law School, he worked as an attorney for one day before jumping at the opportunity to be a founding member of a tech startup. He hasn’t looked back. CloudFlare is Matthew’s third entrepreneurial venture. Matthew holds a degree in English and Computer Science from Trinity College. He graduated with highest honors from the Harvard Business School where he was a George F. Baker Scholar and was awarded the Dubliner Prize for Entrepreneurship. He earned a JD from the University of Chicago and is a member of the Illinois Bar. He teaches technology law as an adjunct professor at the John Marshall Law School where he serves on the Board of Advisors for the Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law. He is also the co-founder of Project Honey Pot.
Neil Mansilla,
Neil is the Director of Developer Products at Mashery. He is an entrepreneur, application developer, business and technical consultant. Founder of Internet software and service companies dating from 1995 to present.
Joey Simhon,
Joey is CTO and Co-Founder of DoAT. He is a seasoned professional with over 10 years of deep involvement in web and mobile products, UX design, technology development and the Israeli start-up scene. At the age of 21 Joey founded his first company, a professional services firm, which focused on providing the backing technology to many of the top digital agencies in Israel.
He later founded Netcraft, a professional services firms which was one of the first to introduce UX as a discipline to the Israeli market and to promote front-end development and standards compliance as critical requirements for technology companies in early stage product development. He served as Netcraft’s CTO for the entire time he was at the company and also became the acting CTO for many startups that chose Netcraft to develop and launch their products.
Ana Martinez,
Ana Martinez is the Senior Technical Product Director for CityGrid Media where she is responsible for the development of the Ad, Place, Content APIs and the Ad Center and Developer Center applications. Previously, Ms. Martinez served as the Director of Engineering – Technology Director for SpotRunner where she was responsible for the creation and tactical execution for the company’s online platform for media buyers. During her tenure with SpotRunner, she directed the design and development of their platforms intellectual property. Prior to joining SpotRunner, Ms. Martinez was Engineer Manager – Product Manager for Strix Systems, where she defined and lead development for all the company’s device and network management software. Ms. Martinez also held engineers positions for !Candle Corp, Infocorp, Microsoft subsidiary in Uruguay, South America and Enter AG in Zurich Switzerland. Ms. Martinez holds a MBA, Entrepreneurship Concentration from Pepperdine University and a BS, Computer Science from California State University, Northridge.
Sean Rose,
Sean Rose is a Platform Manager at Box, a leader in cloud content management providing services to over 73% of the Fortune 500. He is responsible for scaling the Box platform and APIs to meet the needs of thousands of businesses and developers that rely on it daily. Prior to Box, Sean was a product manager at Bill.com, an online billing and payments platform. He graduated with a BS in Symbolic Systems from Stanford in 2011, specializing in Behavior Design and HCI.
Gil Hirsch,
Gil Hirsch is the co-founder and CEO of , the largest face recognition platform on the cloud. Gil brings more than 10 years experience in software architecture, product and general management in computer technology to the team. Before founding Gil held multiple R&D, Product and Sales executive roles at Amdocs, Xacct Technologies and Telrad Networks. Gil is also the co-founder of the garage geeks community in Israel, combining the smart and the useless to drive non-commercial innovation activities. Gil lives in Tel Aviv Israel with his wife and two children.
Brian Whitman & Shane Tobin,
Brian is recognized as a leading scientist in the area of music and text retrieval and natural language processing. He received his doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2005 in Machine Listening and a masters degree in Computer Science from Columbia University’s Natural Language Processing Group. His research links community knowledge of music to its acoustic properties to “learn the meaning of music.”
Dinner is served to participating hackers.
David Pio,
David Pio is a Partner Engineer at Facebook, where he focuses on helping developers achieve magical platform integrations. Prior to joining Facebook, David was a Senior Software Developer at Crownpeak Technology where he developed a realtime dynamic content targeting system. David holds a MS in Computer Science from Cal Poly Pomona and a BS in Computer Science & Engineering from UCLA.
Ryan Boyd,
Ryan is a Developer Advocate on the Google Developer Relations team, helping businesses build applications integrated into Google Apps. Wearing both engineering and business development hats, you’ll find Ryan writing code and helping businesses get to market.
Breakfast will be provided for hackers
Submit your hacks for the Hackathon presentation
Submission for hacks closes
The Hackathon presentation begins! Each hacking team will present their hacks to the audience and our esteemed group of judges, including:
Kevin Marks is VP of Open Cloud Standards at Salesforce.com, and a host and co-founder of TummelVision.tv Over the last 20 years he’s moved between giant companies and founding startups -BBC, The UK MultiMedia Corporation, Apple QuickTime, Technorati, Google, BT. The common thread has been working out how people, computers and media can complement each other, and solving the engineering and social problems where they meet. He is one of the driving forces behind microformats.org, activitystrea.ms and portablecontacts.net. He is an advisor to the Open Rights Group. He wants you to remember that URLs are people too, and his URL is
Raj Vemulapalli currently serves as Vice President of Mobile Engineering at Betfair. In this role, Raj is responsible for the mobile strategy, building innovative mobile products and building the mobile center of excellence in Silicon Valley. Prior to joining Betfair, Raj was the Head of Engineering and one of the founding engineers of Yahoo! Real Time Communications groups and the most used products in the world including Yahoo! Messenger, Yahoo! Mobile Messaging, iPhone, iPad and Android Applications, Yahoo! Chat, Instant Messaging in Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Voice and Video, Real Time Talk in Y! Sports and Y! Groups, Yahoo! Avatars and open APIs. Raj has spent over 11 years at Yahoo! and has led Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Mobile Messaging to #1 position in US and to #2 in the world with a reach of 280+ million active users and $150+ million in annual revenues. In addition to being a technical leader for Yahoo and publishing extensively on the topic of distributed systems, Raj has filed several patents. Raj also currently serves as Board of Director, Technology and Strategy advisor to emerging and disruptive companies. Raj received an MS in Computer Science from the University of Iowa and a BS in Computer Science & Engineering from Osmania University. Raj graduated at the top of his class and received a gold medal for being the valedictorian and summa cum laude in his Bachelors degree.
Dr. Rohit Khare is an serial entrepreneur and award-winning researcher focusing on decentralized systems. He has been working on the Google+ project since the acquisition of Ångströ in 2010, which itself debuted at TechCrunch40 in 2008. Previously, he was a founder or early employee at the World Wide Web Consortium (1995), the O’Reilly Web Journal (1997), KnowNow (2000), and CommerceNet Labs (2004). He received his Ph.D. in Software Engineering from U.C. Irvine in 2003.
Since dropping out of college in 1995, Eric has had a hand in creating several companies. Some were successful, some not so much. They include IGN (IPO, later acquired by NewsCorp), Minerva Games, MyBlogLog (acquired by Yahoo!), Gnip and OneTrueFan. Eric also invests and advises early-stage startups, including Chromatic, CitizenNet, Everlater, Foodzie, Intense Debate (acquired by Automattic), Zemanta and Zynga. Eric splits his time between Boulder and San Francisco, sees loads of live music and listens to vinyl whenever possible.
Vishal Shah is director of engineering, mobile and platforms at Ask.com. In this role, he is crucial to the research, design, development and deployment of industry leading mobile and platform products, such as the Ask for iPhone app and Ask.com, which serves more than 60 million unique users. Prior to this role, Vishal was director of engineering at Ask.com Partner Network where he worked on the prototype and creation of the group’s infrastructure, backend and JavaScript based clients and add-on strategy. During this time, he led a team of 16 client and server developers and was the chief software architect of the team. His key area of focus was customizing the Web browser and building extensions that build upon and leverage evolving Web technologies (such as HTML 5) and sophisticated server and cloud technologies for backend business logic using distributed computing, algorithms and data processing techniques. Vishal has held various software engineering positions at Ask.com and Parametric Technology Corp. He has bachelor’s degrees in computer science with Summa Cum Laude Latin Honors from the University of Minnesota and a bachelor of fine arts in industrial design from the Academy of Art University. He?s also an avid gamer. More information on Vishal can be found here: So, as you can see, there’s going to be a lot of hacking and learning going on this weekend (not to mention some primo networking). If you’re interested in being a part of it, be sure to ! For the most up-to-date information regarding the Hackathon, you can keep yourself informed with the wiki at:
Details regarding company-sponsored Hackathon challenges, contests & awards will be announced later today. Stay tuned! We look forward to seeing you this weekend! |
Zagat’s Price: Under $66 Million | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 9 | 8 | : Google has disclosed the purchase price – . So, not under $66 million. A few years ago, Zagat was trying to shop itself around for . Today, for less than $66 million. The price wasn’t disclosed, but there was no FTC antitrust review, which is by any deal worth $66 million or more. Google wants Zagat for its reviews. The mostly-print restaurant and city guides are filled with crowdsourced reviews from 350,000 readers who submit them. It sounds a little bit like Yelp, except with far fewer reviews. Yelp, by comparison, attracts more than a month who have written over 20 million reviews. In fact, the acquisition is very much an attempt to catch up with Yelp, which values its reviews as a major asset, one which Google at one point tried to and then later . But as one Silicon Valley CEO puts it: “If you were losing to Wikipedia would your next move be to buy Encyclopedia Britannica?” The Zagat reviews will become part of Google Places and its overall local efforts. Google has struggled with local over the years, changing its product every few years. First there was Google Local, which was subsumed by Google Maps, and then Google Places (and ). Now it’s got Zagat. Nevertheless, it’s a smart move for Google. It needed to beef up its local reviews and ratings, and that’s exactly what Zagat lets it do. And they are ratings many consumers, or at least foodies, recognize. But will it help Google take on Yelp in local? Both Marissa Mayer, who is now head of local for Google, and Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman will be at next week. We’ll be sure to ask them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzk3hyoDvNA |
Yet More Proof Of “Google Drive” | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 9 | 8 | About a week ago, I noted that , also known as “Google Drive”. The service, which was previously used internally at Google under the codename “Platypus”, was killed off in 2008. But code found in Chromium recently suggested that it may be making a comeback. Specifically, there was a note to add the non-existant (to the public) drive.google.com domain to a secure list in the browser’s code. Today brings another clue. We’ve just been tipped about some language inside of Google Docs which also points to Google Drive. Apparently, when some users go to delete a document in the recently-updated UI, they’re getting a message that the “items have been removed from your Google Drive”. There you go. At the time of my initial story last week, Google would only officially say that “The team is always testing out new features, but we don’t have any details to share at this time.” But others I’ve spoken with suggested there is definitely something here. Google updated Google Docs in to make it a bit more like a “Google Drive” by allowing users to upload any file. But the concept has never taken off because it’s clunky. My thinking is that Google is re-working this idea (probably using the exact same backend functionality — hence, the Google Docs message) to be a product more in line with the popular Dropbox or Box.net. And if that’s the case, I also assume that Android and Chrome (and especially Chrome OS) integration are key. I suspect we’ll be hearing more about this soon. |
Contour Adds Low-Cost Roam Camera To Its Helmet-Cam Lineup | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 9 | 8 | The Contour family of cameras, which competes with GoPro and other small, hardened imaging devices, has a new member. The rounds out the range at the low end, providing the primary functions of the adventure-proof camera for $200, far less than the latest addition and $100 less than the GPS model. Let’s run down the specs. The focus of the Roam is on ease of use and waterproofing. While the other versions of the camera can handle rain or a splash, the Roam is actually waterproof, and is certified to… well, only a meter underwater, but for half an hour. Realistically speaking (though Contour can’t promise it because of the way these things are certified), the pressure difference isn’t going to crack this thing open if you go into the deep end of the pool or kick down to 10 feet to check out a cool eel.
Operation has been simplified, too. They wanted this one to simply be recording or not. So you slide the big top slider forward and it records, slide it back and it stops. The button on the back lights up the battery indicators and fires a laser level for keeping your shots straight. The one I’ve got seems skewed a bit counter-clockwise, so you might want to check that before you record. The battery is built-in, which means you won’t be able to quickly switch it out, but hey. The lens is still nice and wide and fairly flush with the body (helps water and dirt off it), and it rotates 90° in one direction and 180° in the other, meaning it can pretty much be mounted anywhere. So what do you give up for this lower price? Well, you can’t use Contour’s cool Bluetooth pairing app that lets you see what the camera sees live. And the image processor and lens aren’t of the same quality as the other cameras. Less configuration options. And there’s no GPS. That said, the construction feels as solid, and the video must be as good as , which is to say over-compressed but sharp and colorful. It’s shipping today. or your local electronics place. |
Samsung’s New Windows 8-Powered Tablet May Debut As Early As Next Week | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 9 | 8 | Though Windows 8 is slated for a , we may get our first official taste of it next week. Samsung is reportedly building a new tablet based on the Windows 8 operating system, which is set to be unveiled at Microsoft’s BUILD developers’ conference. The conference will be held September 13-16 in Anaheim, California. According to the Korea Economic Daily source (as relayed by ), “this new product manufactured by Samsung will be the company’s first collaboration with Microsoft in its hardware devices.” speculates that Samsung may give the device away to attendees based on an earlier statement by Microsoft, and also suggests that NVIDIA’s new Kal El quad-core processor may be tucked away inside the Samsung slate. Samsung’s extension into Windows turf is likely a product of two things. First, . Samsung will probably remain a heavily Android-based hardware developer, but a little diversity can’t hurt. Motorola is one of Samsung’s largest competitors both with smartphones and tablets and their new-found agreement with Google is hardly comforting. Secondly, , looking to kill Samsung as a rival manufacturer, and Android as a rival OS. If Samsung continues to build glossy black, 10-inch tablets in rectangular form, it still may not be able to circumvent Apple’s for the iPad. At least not in Apple’s opinion. Still, the more distance between Samsung and Android, the less attractive Samsung becomes as a target for Apple. As far as Windows 8 goes, here’s what we know so far: There will be , which will include Windows Phone-style live tiles and replace the standard “Start” menu. Windows 8 will be , and support tablets and all-in-ones alongside laptops and desktops. Unfortunately, that’s all we have for now, but we’ll probably have plenty more where that came from after BUILD next week. |
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt Weighs In On Patent Issues: They’re ‘Terrible’ | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 9 | 1 | Eric Schmidt, Google’s Executive Chairman and former CEO, took the stage at the conference in San Francisco today to talk about a host of topics, including , , Google’s recent , with the conversation with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff even ranging into Schmidt’s thoughts on the current landscape facing the U.S. patent market. The executive chairman began by addressing the purchase of Nortel Networks’ roster of patents by a group of buyers that included some of Google’s rivals, including Microsoft and Apple. Fellow TechCruncher MG Siegler covered the between that unfolded in regard to the supposition that the group that bought the Nortel patents was effectively attempting to . Today, Schmidt was less incendiary than Google reps have been in the past, saying that when the price rose to about $4.5 billion on the Nortel patents, Google dropped out of the running because the patents had become “too pricey” and that the value of these “questionable patents” had gone through the roof — perhaps for the wrong reasons. Schmidt suggested that the real problem with the current patent landscape in the U.S. has longstanding causes; in the early ’90s and early 2000s, he said, there were a lot of patents issued that “were very broad”, and that patent clerks are now spending a lot of time combing through and invalidating these older patents. The best way to address this problem, he said, is to take the patents as they’re published and crowdsource them. The best way to potentially curb these patent wars, then, would be to publish the patents publicly and allow “everyone to comment to see if there’s any prior art”, he said. Of course, as Schmidt pointed out, under current law, this is illegal — the contemporary U.S. patent system does not allow for this kind of disclosure. However, the executive chairman said that there is currently legislation in the Senate (that he hopes will pass this year), which will “both fund the patent office more” and give them the rights to kick out a lot of the bogus patents earlier. Luckily, he said, the software industry was able to avoid this patent controversy because it was an industry “defined by creativity” rather than by its patents. However, with the oncoming patent wars (especially in mobile software), Schmidt said that he’s very worried that “overbroad patents will somehow slow” the progress of the software industry down. And he’s probably right. “You all may not know that essentially all the patent fights that are interesting are done in one district, the East District Court of Texas”, he told the audience. “How this is possible is beyond me. But again, it doesn’t feel quite right. Patents are important, but let’s do them in a way that’s systematic”. The executive chairman really does have a point here. Regardless of how valuable Motorola’s patents are (and Schmidt made sure to say that Google acquired Motorola for its team, not its patents), the impending patent wars are just beginning and are likely to inspire more bitterness, if not sides being taken. While Schmidt said that Google does indeed have the money to go out and fight these wars, certainly these patent battles are just a distraction from what’s really important — making products (and innovative software that underlies them) that people care about — not fighting over the pieces. Certainly, Google has a lot at stake (and the InterDigital patents are at play), and it’s true that Schmidt may have been understating the company’s level of future participation in the war over patents, but crowdsourcing the patent system doesn’t sound like such a bad idea considering what may lie ahead. The patent issue is, as he said, a “terrible” one, and hopefully the Senate can do something to fix it. Though I’m sure many of us aren’t exactly holding our breath. |
Pico Dolly: A Diminutive Dolly System For Smaller Cameras | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 9 | 1 | Everyone’s a filmmaker these days, what with the widespread availability of fairly high-quality HD video and the tools to edit and distribute it. But the camera isn’t the only thing you need to make movies. Without a tripod and some kind of motion control system, you’re limited to shaky hand-holding and standing the thing up on tables and chairs. A baby tripod and hacked-together stabilizer are easy enough, but what about a dolly? The addresses this need with a simple, affordable, and really quite cool little platform. CheesyCam, the creators, were concerned that existing dolly options were either too big, too expensive, or too poorly built. So they’ve made this one with serious bearings, all-metal construction, and room for three screw-mount arms — all while taking up as little space as possible. The wheels can be adjusted so the camera describes a small circle, or straightened out to make a straight line. Check out the video to see how it works: [youtube w=640 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkaP4Oz0-RU] It’s not heavy enough to swing a DSLR out over the edge too far, but you can counterbalance it with a weight or an accessory so it doesn’t flip over, as you can see here: The best part? (they’re shipping in two weeks). That’s peanuts for anyone interested in spicing up their amateur cinematography. The repositionable arms are sold separately for $25 each, or you can rig up your own solution. Yeah, in a way it’s just a bit of metal with some skate wheels on it — the way a tripod is just three metal bars stuck together at the top. I could really see myself using one of these. [via ] |
Eric Schmidt: ‘Steve Jobs Gave The Best Performance By A CEO In 50 Years’ | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 9 | 1 | In a with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt said that Steve Jobs is probably the best CEO in the past 50 years, maybe 100 years. He said of Jobs: As you probably know, Jobs from his position as Apple’s CEO last week. Of course, Schmidt until Android came in the way and started competing with iOS, causing a major conflict for the then Google CEO. He did say that he was proud to be on the board of Apple in the past. When asked about the differences between the ‘Steves,’ (meaning Steve Jobs and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer), Schmidt quipped, “there are differences in ability.” As for what will be hot in the future, Schmidt says definitively: He explains that we’ve exhausted the limits of the PC as a platform, the future will be mobile first. |
Eric Schmidt: Google Apps Has 40M Users; Adding 5K Companies Per Day | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 9 | 1 | Google’s Chairman and former CEO took the stage at CRM giant Salesforce’s annual conference this evening. Salesforce founder and CEO Marc Benioff is interviewing Schmidt. Google’s chairman started out with complimenting Salesforce how they’ve managed to become a company that defines modern enterprise computing, and that the company has the ‘best vision for how enterprises will organize themselves.” Schmidt explained that enterprise customers can now be empowered with simpler solutions and don’t have to access a complicated system, but thing are turnkey. “We went through a phase that is basic connectivity, then we have a connection and publishing phase (early parts of the web), and now we have a connecting phase,” explains Schmidt. Schmidt reminisced about his days at Sun Microsystems and then at Novell, where he was the CEO. Of course, after Novell, Schmidt became the CEO of Google. “I went to Google not understanding very much about Google but I liked the people,” he said. “Life is short, work with people you like.” The superstars are these creative computer scientists that can get people together and work to build products. He said that businesses are much better off working faster, “just run faster.” And he says there are collaborative tools to help that. Benioff said that Google has cleaned Microsoft’s clock and asked Schmidt how he feels about that. “It’s hard for incumbents to move to new, faster model,” he explains. In Microsoft’s case, the company couldn’t innovate fast enough. “And we had the best data centers at the time, so we were able to get the best talent,” Schmidt explains. He also plugged Google’s productivity suite, Google Apps, which he says has 40 million users, and 5,000 firms are joining per day. Android has 550,000 phones activated per day, a number that doubled in four months, says Schmidt. There’s a hunger for a multi platform, multi-vendor highly competitive mobile platform, he says. And that’s Android. |
AppRedeem Launches In-App Deals To Drive Users Of Free Apps To Their Paid Versions | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 9 | 1 | In January, raised $750,000 from SV Angel and Blue Run Ventures to offer mobile app developers innovative, effective solutions aimed at driving app installs and engagement. Since then, the startup has been quietly working its way into a hot new category: Deals. Today, the Mountain View-based startup is officially announcing AppRedeem Deals, a new mobile in-app promotional network that rewards users for continued app engagement, while helping developers to drive conversion to paid versions of their apps. To test the waters, the startup began with , currently the third ranked free app on the iTunes app store. To use this app as an example of how AppRedeem Deals works, AppRedeem presents a promotional discount for Moron Test’s paid app. The startup is currently offering 50 to 100 percent off those paid apps from within its free counterpart. Unlike Tapjoy, said AppRedeem Co-founder Sheffield Nolan, AppRedeem Deals aims to ensure that people taking advantage of the discount have already installed the free version without any incentive, so the motivation to buy the paid version is fully aligned with that of Apple and its policy. According to Nolan, this enables users of the free app to take advantage of the opportunity to upgrade at no cost to them, whereas for developers, their paid apps are then monetized more effectively, and they get to use those promotional dollars targeting people who already tried and enjoyed their apps. Since launching the beta 6 weeks ago, AppRedeem membership has grown from 55,000 to over 580,000 — in other words, membership has grown by more than 34K members per day since adding Deals. Here are the key numbers that came from the first 6 weeks of AppRedeem ‘Deals’. Nolan tells me that, at first, AppRedeem will use their new deals network as a customer acquisition tool. At present, they are not taking a cut of the discount they are offering gamers, so all the money earned from the discounts is going straight to the developers. The team plans to offer cuts and take a small percentage of the deal in the future. The startup’s next focus, the co-founder said, is to begin helping developers drive increased engagement of their apps, and to begin implementing deals with more partners to enable further functionality to promotional offers for in-app purchases. In the last week, Nolan said, AppRedeem hit profitability, so they will also be looking to raise a series A round in the coming months. (They will also be announcing the addition of a top executive of a big deals company in the near future.) For more, . |
64GB PlayBook Gets Price Cut To $550 At Best Buy | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 9 | 1 | It may not be quite the savings we got from the , but taking $150 off the top of the price may help move a few more units. There hasn’t been much action lately regarding RIM’s first tablet, which received and promptly dropped off the radar. The last thing we heard was that coming some time this month. But wait! A wild news item appears! It looks like . That’s not a bad deal… if you want a PlayBook. Unfortunately, it’s still not a particularly good deal if you just want a tablet. RIM hasn’t followed up much on adding value to the device, and while the new features due this month will make it more of a contender, playing catch-up isn’t going to do it for this thing. The early adopters are still waiting on the promised Android app support, which may be scheduled for a 2012 release alongside the QNX Blackberry devices. By that time, though, there may be a new iPad and a dozen or so new Android tablets. No word on whether the 16GB or 32GB model (the latter costs the same as a 64GB now) will be getting similar price drops. |
Review: The Syma S107 R/C Helicopter Is The Coolest Thing $20 Can Buy | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 9 | 1 | If you’re one of the brave souls who dares , you probably know exactly where this post is going. I haven’t been able to shut up about this thing for over a day. As someone who writes about shiny electronic things for a living and just generally spends far too much time rummaging around the Internet, I’ve come to be wonderfully adept at spotting up-and-coming trends. When three unrelated individuals from all walks of life all started talking about this little $20 RC helicopter (the Syma S107) within a few days of each other, I figured it was something worth looking into. It arrived yesterday. Any time it’s left my hands since, it because it had either run out of juice or had been commandeered by someone else. It is, without a doubt, the coolest little gadget I’ve nabbed for under $20 in a really, really long time, and I fully intend to convince AOL we need a fleet of these for the office. Insanely Easy To Fly
All metal chassis, with a surprisingly high build quality
Charges over USB, making it a killer office toy
It’s sub-$20!
Replacement parts are equally dirt cheap You’ll only get about 7 minutes of flight per charge, but that’s not really a surmountable issue; current battery tech is just too heavy for anything that lasts much longer. Doesn’t work outside (Too light for even the slightest of breezes, sun kills infrared signal)
No wall charger included Now, this isn’t my first trip to the ol’ air show. While I’m not about to be crushed to death by the weight of my helicopter collection or anything, I’ve picked up a flyer or five in my days. From Air Hogs, to the pricier $200-$300 Walkera choppers, to one random little junker that we quite literally bought up out of the back of some dude’s van, I’ve flown (and totally wrecked) more of these things than someone who doesn’t consider himself a hobbyist probably should. If only in terms of learning curve, the S107 is king. Of the five people who have blasted this thing all around my office since it arrived yesterday, not a one took more than a minute or two to figure out the basics. Sure, you’ll crash plenty. Yeah, you’ll probably get your directions reversed and send this thing spinning toward your face at LEAST five times on day one. But, like a good video game, the difficulty comes from things inherent to the act itself (that is, ) rather than things introduced by poor design. When we first opened it, our goal was to fly from a table to an ottoman without careening into a wall or clipping a ceiling fan. By the end of the day, we were launching from the desk and landing on an iPad case (that we convinced ourselves looked like a landing pad) across the room. For a group that was mostly made up of ne’er-flyers, that’s one heck of a nice learning curve. Hell, I took the above super-classy photo (Note the camera lens hiding in the nook of my elbow.)
The controller has three primary parts: two control sticks and a central knob. The leftmost control stick accelerates the propeller, sending you up or down. The right control stick allows you to lean forward or back, or turn left or right. The center knob can be twisted left or right to cancel out any subtle but constant turning tendencies — if your Chopper always seems to be turning slightly to the right, for example, you can bump the center knob to the left to compensate. Though it’s simple enough for anyone to learn, I’d still consider this something of a big-boy toy. The plastic blades don’t hurt too bad when they clip skin (it’s like stopping a battery powered hand fan), but they’re by all means sharp enough to at least scratch the hell out of a bare eyeball. Add in the fact that animals seem to be intrigued by this terrifying little creature flying around the living room and that a brief skimming of the ceiling will send it hurdling toward whatever’s below it, and it’s probably best to keep this one to sober/supervised play time. It’s also worth noting that the S107 . It’s light enough that even the slightest gust of wind will send it spinning out of control, and the Infrared-based control system doesn’t play friendly with sunlight. For $20, I completely expected to open the box to find a wonky, styrofoam-core piece of junk. Nope. Though the blades and body are plastic (“Thank God”, says my skin and every other surface that we clipped with a propeller last night), the inner construction of the helicopter is all metal. By the time we called it quits last night, we’d sent this thing into walls, lamps, windows, couches, and door frames. This morning, it still looks and flies like it just came out of the box — which is considerably more than I can say for similar products I’ve tried that come at twice the price. You shouldn’t go and drop kick it, but it should fair well with reasonably responsible use. And if you crack a blade or lose a tail rotor, replacement parts can be found all around the Internet for cheap. The thing that feels a bit chintzy? The provided USB charging cable. Speaking of which.. As with most helicopters of this size, you don’t get a ton of flying time out of each charge — but that’s really just a limitation of current battery tech. Batteries are heavy, and spinning a motor fast enough to get something off the ground and keep it there takes a good amount of juice. You’ll get around 7 minutes of fly time for every 40 minute charge. There are apparently mods that can get you around 30% more fly time in exchange for a $7 replacement battery and a bit of solder, but I can’t speak to how well they work. There are two ways to charge the S107: via the provided USB cable (which if you’re using this thing as an office toy), or, if you’re on the go, through a pull-out cable built into the controller. The controller itself requires 6 AA batteries, which seems pretty steep. The USB cable feels cheap — which is too bad, because it’s not a very common type. Lastly, it’s a bit annoying that they don’t include a USB wall charger. It’s acceptable at the price-point, but sacrificing a USB port isn’t always convenient. Fortunately, most phones these days come with USB wall chargers so it shouldn’t be too much of a bother to track one down. If you have kids that you want to introduce to the basics of aerodynamics and physics, buy this. If you’ve tinkered around with other wallet-friendly RC helicopters and were left disappointed, buy this. If you’ve got $20 bucks to burn and have ever wanted to experience the joys of sending a little spinning chunk of terror screaming around your house, buy this. At just , this is going to be my go-to stocking stuffer of 2011. |
Microsoft Sued For Collecting WP7 Location Data Without Consent | Chris Velazco | 2,011 | 9 | 1 | While Apple has been catching for collecting iPhone and iPad user location data without consent, it turns out that rival Microsoft may have been quietly up to the same. A recent class action lawsuit filed in Seattle district court alleges that Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 operating system collects users’ location data, even after offering users the chance to opt out. That Microsoft can work with location data is itself no big secret, but what makes this case so egregious is that users are apparently given a choice, and are then summarily ignored. The offending bit of code rests in Windows Phone 7’s camera application. When fired up for the first time, WP7’s camera app asks users if they want to allow the device to use their location. No matter what option is actually selected, the device begins to collect the data anyway. Much of the poking around was done by , who was able to determine that not only was location and identifier data being transmitted, it started even before users had the chance to make their decisions on-screen. Kamkar’s packet analysis, pictured above, shows what information is being transmitted: the device’s model number (in this case a Samsung Omnia 7), device ID number, time and date information, and longitude and latitude readings. The lawsuit claims that Microsoft’s actions were part of a plan to create a location-aware marketing system which would generate ads based on the device’s physical location. Whether or not this is true remains to be seen, but it seems like an awfully large risk for Microsoft to take for something so mundane. In a similar situation, Apple was successfully sued for the same offense, albeit in a . Ironically, after Locationgate first started making headlines, Microsoft sent a letter to Congress stating among other things that Windows Phone 7 will not store any location data unless a user has “expressly allowed an application to collect” it. Microsoft has yet to release an official statement, but it’s probably because they’re busy dusting themselves off after falling off of their high horse. [via ] |
Airbnb Launches Sublets, Tempts Early Adopters With $200 Off Each Month’s Rent | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 9 | 1 | Last May, at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC, cofounder Brian Chesky that there would be a new category of rentals coming soon: . It’s been a few months since then (the launch may well have been delayed as the site worked to ramp up its after a major in late July), but the wait is over — and the new feature is sure to save quite a few headaches. Now, Airbnb has always been focused on helping people rent out their apartments and homes, but historically the service has been all about rentals. Sure, it’s possible to book longer stays, but most people turn to the site as an alternative to booking a hotel room for a week, as opposed to renting out a condo for a month or three. With the launch of this new Sublets section, that’s changing. And, as someone who spent way too much time scouring through Craigslist sublet listings over the summer, I can only say this: I wish they had launched this three months ago. So what’s different about Sublets? From a UI perspective, there isn’t much that’s changed— you can still browse through listings, sorting them by price and reviews, with a map plotting out the location of each. And, as with the ‘normal’ Airbnb rentals, you can see reviews for each user left by past subletters. All of which are huge improvements over the unstructured listings on Craiglist (and you can pay by credit card, which is a nice plus). To help kickstart the new section of the site, Airbnb is tempting users with a $200/month discount — but you’ll have to act quickly, as it ends in a week. We’ll even help pay the rent, use the code “SUBLETS” and we’ll pay $200 of your rent each and every month for up to 6 months. The offer is good until September 8th on stays longer than 28 days, so get in there and become a local in the place you’ve always dreamed of. Disclosure: Michael Arrington has a pending investment in Airbnb. He is not currently an investor. [youtube=”http://youtu.be/hM8dt-pQXUA”]
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A Deeper Look At Blackbox’s Data On Startup Failure And Its Top Cause: Premature Scaling [Infographic] | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 9 | 1 | Earlier this week, we covered , the young company responsible for creating , an ongoing, collaborative R&D project designed to take a comprehensive dive into what makes Silicon Valley startups successful — and not. ( ) On Tuesday, of what it calls the , a benchmarking tool for startups that helps founders monitor their progress in different growth categories. Since then, more than 6,000 startups have signed up to use the Compass. Along with the diagnostic tool, Blackbox also released a new research report on the major causes of startup failure, including perhaps more significantly, the primary cause of startups kicking the bucket: Premature scaling. While this was touched on in our prior coverage, we thought it might be worth elaborating on their findings, including presenting a nifty infographic created by the team over at . To refresh, since February, Blackbox has collected a dataset from over 3,200 high-growth tech startups, with the results of their studies showing that premature scaling is the primary cause of startup failure, afflicting 70 percent of all the startups that went to meet their maker. And, a related point that’s worthy of note: Based on those 3,200 startups, the experience of entrepreneurs, gender, country origin, education and age had no influence on the predicted likelihood of failure. But, as some astute readers in the comment section of our prior post pointed out, it certainly can seem dangerous to mine a large and diverse set of data created by startups (and in turn by actual — and equally diverse — human beings) to claim that the world has found one single, ultimate cause of failure that can be used as a prescription for startups of every stripe, across the board. While the Blackbox team may disagree slightly, the study is aimed at helping early-stage companies avoid the deadpool. Simple as that. The Startup Genome is an ongoing research project seemingly intended to illuminate, not force-feed prescriptions. It is scientific in its approach, some of its language may seem dry — and it may not work for everyone. What’s more, “premature scaling” may seem an overly simplistic term, and it may be easy to misconstrue. The Blackbox team defined premature scaling in their research as a way of denoting the fact that a startup’s core dimensions (product, customer, team, finances and business model) are out of sync. That is to say: One (or more) are moving at different speeds of growth than others. As Blackbox Co-founder Bjoern Herrmann pointed out, “in some cases dysfunctional scaling may be a better description”. With this description in mind, the research found some fairly striking differences between those startups that scaled prematurely (or dysfunctionally) as opposed to those who were more in sync. Most notably: Not a single startup that scaled prematurely passed the 100,000 user mark. Not only that, but 93 percent of those startups never crossed the $100K-a-year-in-revenue threshold. And, perhaps somewhat counterintuitively, startups that scale properly grow 20 times faster than startups that scaled prematurely. Investor and serial entrepreneur Brad Feld weighed in on premature scaling to say, . As a further means of elaborating on how the Blackbox team defined their research, Hermann said that they defined startups as “temporary organizations that are designed to evolve into large companies”. Once defined, the team then attempted to bring a scientific approach to understanding the lifecycle of those startups — almost like a behavioral psychologist — by defining six stages of development they evolve through: Discovery, Validation, Efficiency, Scale, Sustain, and Conservation. Early stage startups are designed, Herrmann said, to search for product/market fit under conditions of extreme uncertainty, whereas late stage startups are designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model and then scale into large companies designed to execute under conditions of much higher certainty. Sounds reasonable. But they went further: Every startup, they determined, has an actual stage and a behavioral stage, in which the “Actual stage” is measured by customer response to the startup’s product, through looking at metrics like numbers of users, user growth, activation rate, retention rate, revenue, etc. The “behavioral stage”, then, is made up of five top level dimensions that the startup can control, like Customer, Product, Team, Financials and Business Model. Each dimension, both the Actual and Behavioral are always classified, Herrmann said, into one of the six developmental stages. In terms of how this model relates to premature scaling, a startup received this label in the research when its behavioral stage became “larger” than its actual stage. An obvious example of premature scaling, the Blackbox Co-founder said, would be a startup that rapidly scales up its team to 30 to 40 people before it has any customers. In this example, the Actual stage of the startup would be in Validation but the Behavioral stage of the team would be in Scale. On the other hand, Blackbox tends to define “dysfunctional scaling” as a case in which the Behavioral Stage is lower than the actual stage. Startup that provide examples of this, according to Blackbox, include: Tokbox, Friendster, Orkut, Wesabe, Digg, SixApart, Myspace, abd Chatroullete. But rather than go into each of the individual stages, here’s an example from one: Specifically, that of the olde “customer acquisition” category. Blackbox labeled a startup as scaling prematurely in relation to its customer acquisition when it, for example, spent too much money on acquisition before truly refining its actual product or market fit — or, alternatively, overcompensating or missing product and market fit with too much of a focus on marketing and press spending. An illuminating stat in this case is that startups are 2.3 times more likely to spend more on customer acquisition before getting all other categories in sync. Blackbox cited Color, Webvan, and Pets.com as examples of startups that spent too much, too early on the customer acquisition dimension. For now, we’ll leave it at that. But for those who are interested in more, . And without further ado, Visual.ly’s infographic on premature scaling is below: |
Starz Ends Renewal Negotiations With Netflix; Will Cease Content Distribution In 2012 | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 9 | 1 | Starz and Netflix have been in negotiations over the network’s premium movie content. For the past year, the Liberty Media-owned Starz has had ongoing discussions over the terms of the agreement, which is set to expire in February 2012. The reported earlier this year that a renewal would cost Netflix more than $200 million per year. And today, Starz stating that renewal discussions with Netflix have ended and the network would be removing its content from the Netflix library once the agreement ends next year. From the release: The Starz gave Netflix more than 1,000 movies per year, including Sony and Disney titles. The deal with Starz is important to Netflix because it actually provided the movie streaming service with newer titles. It’s definitely not a good sign that content owners are fleeing Netflix’s platform. The assumption is that Starz and Netflix couldn’t come to a financial agreement that would fit both parties (Perhaps $200 million is too much). Starz could have also from companies like Disney, which reportedly wanted to limit the movie channel’s ability to provide movies to Netflix. Showtime also some of its content from Netflix. But Netflix has been able to strike for its international markets. The first day of September hasn’t been a great day for Netflix, whose just rolled out today. Shares of Netflix over 8 percent in after-hours trading. |
Fujifilm Makes The X10 High-End Compact Official | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 9 | 1 | Earlier this week, I posted a review of the , a unique and highly-anticipated camera that, while compelling, I felt simply wasn’t living up to its own promises. But we’ve been hearing rumors for weeks about a model for half the price that offers the same styling and high quality build, but compromises on sensor size and omits the sweet hybrid rangefinder/EVF. Fujifilm has just made that model, the X10, official. The X10 is really a different camera for a different kind of shooter. Instead of the fixed 23mm lens of the X100, it has a 28-112mm f/2.0-2.8 zoom, which really is not bad at all. I actually like the idea of manual focus on this one better, though it does appear to extend quite a distance when zoomed. The optical viewfinder looks nice for getting the shot, though I’ll miss the hybrid features. The sensor is much smaller, however. As you can see to the right, the X100’s APS-C sensor (the same size as found in many consumer DSLRs) dwarfs the 2/3″ sensor of the X10, though both produce 12 megapixels. It’s not quite to the point and shoot level (their sensors are often much smaller), but it’s a very significant reduction. At least it’s Fuji’s EXR sensor, which is a nontraditional one focused on optimizing light rather than maximizing megapixels. That hasn’t stopped them from including a 1080p/30 movie mode, though. Some changes to the body include a few tweaks to the back (refinement to the button placement and design, looks like), a new location for the focus mode switch, and unfortunately, the replacement of the shutter speed dial with a more traditional mode dial. The X10 is also somewhat smaller and lighter: it’s half an inch shorter from side to side and a third of an inch shorter from top to bottom, though it adds a tenth of an inch in depth. At a reported price of $699, it’s no cheap buy, and its competition (Olympus , Canon G12, Nikon certainly beats it on price. The question will be whether its good looks and build will be competitive with the more versatile interchangeable-lens bodies like the and series. We’ll post a full review after we’ve had some time with the device. It should be available in November; more information is available at the . Here’s the full press release with additional details, if you’re interested: Valhalla, N.Y., September 1, 2011 – FUJIFILM North America Corporation today announced the all new premium compact FUJIFILM X10 digital camera, featuring a new larger 2/3” 12 megapixel EXR CMOS sensor and a bright, high-definition FUJINON1 F2.0 wide-angle to F2.8 telephoto, 4x manual zoom lens (28-112mm)2 with a proprietary Super EBC (Electron Beam Coating) that produces superb image quality from edge to edge. The sleek X10 is a sophisticated compact digital camera that follows in the footsteps of the multi-award winning FUJIFILM X100, and it now combines a trim and refined blackout design, an easy-to-use manual barrel zoom lens and a traditional optical viewfinder with a wide 20° field of view for exceptional image composition. The X10’s stunning body is built from lightweight, yet ultra strong, die-cast magnesium alloy and has an upper control deck with mode dials and an aluminum milled, textured finish lens ring. The 4x manual zoom lens ring doubles as an on/off power switch, ensuring fast start times to capture even the most fleeting shooting scenario. “Fujifilm is dedicated to elevating the art of digital photography, and the X10 premium compact underscores that commitment by offering first-class image quality, beautiful styling and the innovative technology that exceeds consumers’ expectations,” said Go Miyazaki, division president, Imaging and Electronic Imaging Divisions, FUJIFILM North America Corporation. “The X10’s thoughtfully laid out design, large EXR CMOS sensor, bright lens and manual zoom make it an outstanding choice when image quality simply cannot be compromised.”
Exceptional Image Quality
The X10 features a newly-developed, larger 2/3″ 12 megapixel EXR CMOS sensor that combines Fujifilm’s proprietary EXR technology with CMOS technology to provide bright, sharp images in all shooting conditions. The intelligent EXR CMOS sensor automatically selects the optimum shooting mode from a total of 99 different variations to capture every type of scene perfectly, even in the most difficult photography situations. The X10’s EXR CMOS sensor selects the optimum shooting mode for any lighting situation:
• SN (Signal to Noise) High Sensitivity and Low Noise – produces clear and sharp high-sensitivity images while keeping noise levels low, which is ideal for capturing night scenes or indoor situations with poor lighting.
• DR (Dynamic Range) Wide Dynamic Range – delivers an increased dynamic range (up to 1600%) to deliver rich gradations and detail in both shadows and highlights.
• HR (High Resolution) – takes full advantage of the 12 megapixel resolution to reproduce the finest details in landscape and portrait scenes, perfect for use on bright clear days. The X10’s fast EXR processor also delivers high-speed continuous shooting –
up to 7 frames per second – at the full 12 megapixel resolution (L size), and 10 frames per second at the reduced resolution M size. Bright Optical System
The X10 features a newly-developed high-definition FUJINON 4x manual zoom lens (28-112mm) with a Super EBC (Electron Beam Coating) that achieves superb image clarity from edge to edge. By treating all of the lens elements with the multilayer Super EBC, the X10 expertly reduces ghosting and lens flare and delivers an impeccably sharp image. The lens consists of 11 glass lens elements in 9 groups, including 3 aspherical glass lens elements (6 sides) and 2 extra-low dispersion lens elements. Together with its wide-angle maximum aperture of F2.0 to a maximum telephoto aperture of F2.8, the X10 delivers beautiful, bright images with outstanding clarity. In its spacious glass optical viewfinder, the X10 uses an arrangement of 3 aspherical lenses plus a special 2 glass prism configuration to give the photographer a composition experience that is marked by superior brightness and superb field of view with its extra wide 20° viewing angle. X10 Premium Shooting Experience
In less than one second, photographers can be ready to shoot in almost any situation thanks to the X10’s power switch that has been aptly integrated into the manual zoom barrel. This smart and simple design feature allows faster photography response times and helps to avoid missed photo opportunities. Once ready to shoot, the X10’s all-metal lens barrel and smooth zoom rotation helps you compose photos quickly and easily, and its remarkably quick shutter-release lag time of approximately 0.01 seconds lets you capture even the most momentary of photography scenarios. The X10 also features a newly developed Optical Image Stabilization mechanism that all but eliminates motion blur by maximizing sensor performance, and its 49-point matrix contrast auto focus provides high-speed and high-precision focusing thanks to the fast CMOS capabilities and the advanced EXR Processor system. The X10’s lens is capable of taking super-macro shots as close up as 1cm, and combined with its 7-blade aperture, the X10 generates a stunning soft-focus “bokeh” effect that makes it the ideal choice for shooting perfect portraits. The X10 is proudly manufactured in Japan, and as a mark of true quality, it prominently features the words “made in Japan” along the rear of the chassis near the viewfinder. X10 Key Features:
• 4x manual optical zoom featuring Fujifilm’s new Intelligent Digital Zoom technology that doubles telephoto capabilities and provides up to 8x zoom
• Fast power start-up; the X10 is fully ready to shoot in approximately 0.8 seconds using the on/off power switch built into the lens ring (must be in Quick Start mode)
• High-contrast and wide viewing-angle 2.8″ 460K dot high contrast LCD screen that provides excellent viewing even outdoors and in bright sunlight
• Diverse manual shooting modes that can be selected according to scene type (Program / Aperture Priority / Shutter Speed Priority / Manual)
• Four diverse auto bracketing functions for exposure, ISO sensitivity, dynamic range and film simulation
• RAW shooting and in-camera RAW processing (SilkyPix RAW conversion software supplied in-box)
• Best-in-class3 1080p Full HD movie recording capabilities
• Film Simulation Modes (eight setting are available, including Velvia / PROVIA / ASTIA)
• Manual pop-up flash with a range of 7 meters (approximately 23 feet)
• Electronic horizon leveling gauge to ensure that the camera is being held level, and histogram display to check image gradation
• Motion Panorama 360° for seamless 360-degree panoramic shooting Premium Accessories
To perfectly complement the look and first-class feel of the X10 camera body, the following premium accessories will be available:
• Case – a retro-style “quick shot” case with matching strap made from luxurious leather (LC-X10)
• Lens Hood – precision milled from metal, the lens hood with adapter ring is also compatible with commercially sold 52mm filters and lens caps (LH-X10)
• TTL Flash – Fujifilm External Automatic Flashes EF-20 (Guide Number:20) and EF-42 (Guide Number:42) are compatible with the X10 The X10 will be available in early November 2011. 1 High quality FUJINON lenses are used widely in the broadcasting industry worldwide. For more
information please visit: http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital_cameras/fujinon/
2 35mm equivalent
3 Digital cameras equipped with a 2/3″ image sensor |
Andrew Mason’s Silicon Valley Problem: He’s Not Here | Sarah Lacy | 2,011 | 9 | 1 | Earlier this year at All Things D, CEO said one of his regrets was not opening an office in Silicon Valley earlier. The implication was that he was talking about not taking advantage of the superior coding talent, but I took it another way. Being in Silicon Valley is like playing for the Yankees. You get knocked around more than anywhere else, the glare of the media spotlight is more brutal and the expectations are higher than they’d be in any other city. You also get the coaching and, say, run support or bullpen arms that the most outrageously rich franchise in baseball history can afford. If you’ve got the chops, all of that undoubtably makes you a better player. Don’t get me wrong: I hate the Yankees. But I can understand on a professional level, why so many players leave teams I love to go play there. Similarly, a young wunderkind with a great idea coming to Silicon Valley will find no better place with more freedom to build his dream. This is perhaps the only place where millions are thrown at someone with no management experience, and board members will fight for a 20-something kid to stay CEO, even as mistakes are continually made. The cult of the founder can verge on reckless at times. But there’s a flipside to that: Every founder who makes it– no matter how much of a maverick they are– surrounds themselves with mentors and staff who help them avoid pitfalls. Mark Zuckerberg, for instance, has always been headstrong and no one would say Facebook is run by committee. And yet, he’s constantly sought out mentors and others with more experience who could guide him in certain areas. He’ll be the first to say without Sean Parker, he wouldn’t have known the importance of keeping so much control of Facebook’s board– a move that saved the company from being sold prematurely. Similarly, Marc Andreessen– another person who isn’t exactly shy and retiring– has frequently cited the impact of mentors like Jim Barksdale on his career, not to mention the sometimes moderating force of his partner Ben Horowitz. Most iconoclast founders I’ve covered in more than a decade in the Valley, bend far more from good advice than their personas would project. (Yes, even the headstrong Michael Arrington.) Behind all of the founders we like to think of as playing by their own rules are a team of people they’ve chosen who are have experience they lack. People who have been there before. They don’t always listen to them, but they recognize the value of surrounding themselves with them nonetheless. It’s that old adage of understanding the rules before you can break them. Mason simply hasn’t benefitted from the raft of mentoring, gut-checks, constant scrutiny, in part because Groupon is based in Chicago. But also because the company was such a phenomenon, growing so quickly, that many of its investors have come in on the company’s terms at much later stages. Like a spoiled only child, it has the dually corrosive reality of being a big fish in a small pond as the startup who put Chicago on the high-tech map, and a big fish in a big pond getting global attention, and all the kiss-ass press and money it could ever want. I don’t say this to knock Groupon or its CEO Andrew Mason. The company and the team have shown extraordinary natural ability. But like a child prodigy it’s been a victim of that easy success too. Because as every entrepreneur knows and Groupon is learning now, that phase of being the darling doesn’t last forever. An entrepreneur who’s grown up in the somewhat schizophrenic Valley ecosystem– a place where they are constantly built up with valuations and cash but also constantly torn down by haters and the endless scrutiny of the blogosphere and competitors– rarely has quite the same honeymoon Groupon has had. Or if they do, they are well aware from looking around them that there’s a shelf life to it. Witness the first backlash Groupon ever faced: Those Superbowl ads. They had to know, people would be offended. The ads were intentionally cheeky, like most things Groupon does. You don’t start an ad talking about saving the whales and then switch to a sushi ad and not expect to ruffle feathers. In terms of backlash, it wasn’t that severe, and yet the company pulled a dramatic about face pulling the ads and apologizing. People close to the company told me the executives were shocked at the modest hate mail being written about them, because frankly, they’d never experienced it before. Oh, but the would be so much worse, and Groupon has had little it can do about it thanks to the quiet period. Or should we call it the “quiet” period because the company’s frustration with the press and potential investors’ concerns about its financials and the future viability of its business have been clearly telegraphed, through and and by PR firms. Whatever Mason’s desired effect was, it’s not working. Even if it doesn’t piss off the Securities & Exchange Commission and derail the IPO, as Dan Primack of Fortune aptly this morning, “It’s beginning to act like ex-child star who can’t believe the world is no longer enthralled by his cute-ness.” Perhaps the biggest misstep Groupon has made: Filing to go public so early in the first place. Every other break out company of this era has had one thing in common: Learning from the past that there’s nothing magic about going public and no reason to rush. Zynga, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn all have had the benefit of all their ugly secrets and skeletons coming out well before they were in a quiet period and couldn’t respond. It’s the lesson that was made so clear by Google’s IPO: Wait until you are dominant enough that you can do it on your own terms. It’s hard to believe that would have been lost on a Valley-based Groupon. I’m not saying the stodgy old men of the Valley (read: People in their 30s and 40s) are the experts on how things should be done. Quite the opposite. The best entrepreneurs know when to ignore sage advice. After all, the advantage of the 20-something founder who has never had a job is that he isn’t personally invested in all the rules he’s breaking. But there’s nothing wrong with being told what those rules are and having a founder who will listen. |
Gootip Turns Twitter Into A Location-Based Q&A Service; Launches iPhone App, APIs, and More | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 9 | 1 | , the location-based Q&A startup from France, launched in May to take on (we think, as Hipster is still stealth) and other sites like it trying to make Yahoo Answers, for example, a valuable, realtime service. Gootip was founded by alumni Mathieu Bidart, Eric Gagnaire and Thierry Sebba, and operates out of a small garage in the South West of France. I’ve seen the pictures, and these guys are bootstrapping all the way, looking like the Jobs and Woz of Southwestern France. But Gootip, in spite of a questionable name, is trying to separate itself from other Q&A services out there, like LocalMind for example, by not only enabling users to ask and answer questions in context of a particular city, town or specific location, but by going a few steps farther. Gootip allows users to sign up and link their accounts to Foursquare and Facebook to integrate their check-in data, along with their home and work location. Users then categorize their questions (be it by nightlife, shopping, arts and entertainment, etc.) and enter an expiration date for when they need their question answered by, whether that be 24 hours or one week. , Gootip is proving that the barrier to entry for location-based Q&A sites taking advantage of Facebook and Twitter’s data sets has “gotten lower” and young, savvy startups can quickly build services that offer worthwhile expansions of the popular social networks. However, at the time of their beta launch, as he noted, there were a few key pieces missing. So, to make Gootip more than a simple website or mobile app, the startup is aiming at building a platform that can retrieve and analyze local questions and answers from both internal external services: Web, mobile, APIs, SMS, social networks, and beyond. It’s an ambitious goal, but to get started and showcase how functionality can work with other big social networks, Gootip has created , which it calls a “mentioned application” that works with Twitter (and soon Facebook, Foursquare, and Gowalla) to ask questions of their favorite social networks — in this case, Twitter. Askgtip allows users to ask questions directly of Twitter, whereupon the startup will analyze the question, pull location data, and post it to Twitter and Gootip.com so that users of both will be able to see the question and post an answer. The application retrieves answers given on Twitter and displays them on their homepage, specifying locations given in the answers. Askgtip also supports Twitter’s topics, which are often linked to an event (like #tcdisrupt, for example), which will be analyzed by the application and linked to a specific location. That’s the main pain point Gootip is trying to address: The difficulty of finding locations and analyzing questions to produce the correct location and location-correct data. So, for example, if you were to ask “Who is the best doctor in the ‘Mission District’ in San Francisco?” Gootip would convert “Mission District” to a location that exists on the Gootip website so that when Askgtip answers the question (because users have answered on Gootip), transforming it into a map and location on both sites, in short, bringing Gootip’s functionality to Twitter. As the startup rolls out its service for various social networks, it is also opening up its APIs and plugins. In the coming weeks, Gootip Co-founder Mathieu Bidart says, (one of the biggest local, daily press groups in France) will be integrating the startup’s API to allow users to ask local questions directly from, in this case, Sud Quest’s website. Beyond the addition of plugins and widgets to enable partnering websites to take advantage of Gootip’s features, the startup is also launching to enable users to search, ask and answer questions, with content presented based on a user’s GPS location — all from the comfort of your iPhone. The cool thing about Gootip is that it’s already working with over 30 million locations, so that every Gootip search can be performed by keyword (or by using your GPS default on mobile) from millions of towns and cities across the globe. Results are presented with the number of answers to the question, with locations pinned on an interactive map with all the details, including address, phone numbers, etc. Gootip has also enabled Facebook and Twitter authentication to the new mobile app to allow users to sign in through the social networks, on top of simply signing in through the Gootip.com — the website already offers authentication with Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla and Google — plus, the service is now available in English and French, with German and Spanish translations launching in the next few weeks. O’hear pointed out several things that Gootip would need to accomplish after launching their beta, and with a new iPhone app (Android is coming soon), plugins and widgets, open APIs, Twitter functionality, and new languages, Gootip has certainly made some great progress. The UX does still need a little tweaking (along with some of the translations), but for three guys bootstrapping in their garage, Gootip has already made leaps and bounds. Hipster better be ready. For more on Gootip, , and play with . |
Toshiba Outs Monstrous 55″ 4K, Glasses-Free 3D TV With Facial Recognition | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 9 | 1 | This TV is a beast. It’s called the ZL2, and to be honest it’s the only TV I actually have gadget envy for right now. The rest of the 3D TVs out there rely on end-of-life active shutter glasses or immature polarized 3D, but this monster is going straight to the lenticular lenslets. This technique involves a layer of tiny lenses that direct the light in the direction of the viewer, with a slightly offset to send a different image to each eye. No glasses required. Oh, and did I mention that this TV has a resolution of 3,840 x 2,160? That’s “quad-HD,” twice the height and width of 1080p and four times the pixels. The ZL2 can provide 3D for up to nine positions, adjusting its lenslets to send information in the right direction (it tracks faces with a built-in camera). There’s no saying how well it’ll actually work, but Toshiba seems pretty confident about it. And as long as it’s tracking your face, it will adjust the TV to your personal preferences once it recognizes you. Favorite channels, shows, that kind of thing. And there’s an iPhone app! And it’ll record to and play from USB drives! Honestly, I rarely get excited, or even slightly interested, in TVs. I don’t own a TV, I don’t particularly want one. But this one sounds just plain amazing. The only thing I’m worried about is the price. I don’t see this thing hitting for less than five grand. I guess we’ll find out what the damage is when December rolls around. : Yes indeed, the price is enormous. €7999, or around $11,500. |
null | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 9 | 8 | null |
Twitter’s Dorsey To Developers: With Apple, We Can Take This To A Whole New Level | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 9 | 1 | Twitter founder just a note to third-party Twitter developers, asking for feedback. He writes: What’s interesting about the post is that it mentions that “Very soon, anywhere there’s an iPhone or an iPad, you’ll always find Twitter.” He’s referring to Twitter’s He writes: Here are some details from our post on Apple and Twitter’s announcement earlier this year: Apple will provide a single sign-on for Twitter use on the phone, and with any app you download, it will just ask you for Twitter credential permission. There’s no need to re-login. Apple has taken it a step further to integrate Twitter into many of its own features and applications like camera and photos. You can also Tweet articles and content directly from Safari, Maps, videos from YouTube, etc and add location as well. And Twitter photos and @usernames can be autopulled into the phone’s contacts. You can see screenshots In his note, Dorsey is saying is that Twitter and Apple iOS are now joined at the hip and that any iPhone or iPad app can integrate deeply with Twitter. Dorsey wants to become the realtime communications layer for iOS apps, which is a highly coveted position (and one that Facebook may want too). And what better way to take this position than to create network of third-party apps building with Twitter for iOS. It’s important to mention that Twitter has had a tenuous relationships with its developers. In March, Twitter to avoid competing with them on native clients. It’s not that Twitter doesn’t want developers to build off their platform, they just don’t want developers to build clients that mimic Twitter’s own services. As we’ve written in the past, this is But the FTC is making inquiries about whether the company’s developer policies are anti-competitive. Clearly the tone of this note is more inviting and collaborative, and Twitter is trying to make nice with third-party developers as the integration with iOS 5 debuts. |
Mobile Social Gaming Platform OpenFeint Launches GameFeed On iOS And Android | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 9 | 1 | , a plug and play mobile social gaming network with 115 million players, is extending its popular feature GameFeed to its iOS SDK. OpenFeint’s plug and play mobile social platform and application for smartphones includes a set of online game services such as leaderboards, virtual currencies and achievements running in a cloud-based Web environment. GameFeed is a social gaming newsfeed integrated into the platform that aims to improve player engagement by elevating social activity from the OpenFeint network in games. The feed will stream informations like updated player profiles, player achievements and more. By adding the GameFeed plugin to their existing OpenFeint integrations, OpenFeint claims that 24 beta participants increased sessions-per-user by an average of 25 percent. Some developers are experiencing growth as high as 60 percent. OpenFeint also announced that game developers Big Blue Bubble (makers of Burn the Rope), Get Set Games (makers of Mega Jump), PikPok (makers of the Flick Kick™ series) and Sibblingz (publishers of Island Tycoon) will integrate GameFeed. Interestingly, OpenFeint the GameFeed to Android first, and now the feed is cross platform with iOS support. |
The Nexus S Powers NASA’s Lightsaber Sparring Spheres, In Space | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 9 | 1 | Yes, that headline sounds a little ridiculous. But it’s not much of an exaggeration. Today Google has posted a video how the Nexus S is being used by NASA to power its SPHERE satellites — the free-floating devices that NASA says were by the lightsaber sparring droid seen in Star Wars. The satellites have been on the International Space Station since 2006, so they obviously predate Android, but they include a special expansion port that lets NASA add additional sensors and other capabilities. Which is where the Nexus S comes in. After taking a ride up to the ISS on the last manned Shuttle launch, two Nexus S devices are being used by NASA to give these droids — err, robots — more powers. The SPHEREs are taking advantage of the Nexus’s CPU to power its ‘brains’, and the phone’s sensors allow it to monitor more external data. One of the neatest new features: NASA is planning to use the phone’s Wifi connection to control devices remotely from Earth. In the video, NASA lays a lot of love on Android, which it says is “the first commercial smartphone certified by NASA to fly on the space shuttle and to be cleared for use on the space station”. Research engineer DW Wheeler says that NASA went with the Nexus S because “the phone is very easy to take apart. Android is easy to program, we’re familiar with it, and we needed to make a lot of customizations that are easier to make with Android”. The fact that the Nexus S would be sent on the Space Shuttle to the ISS was back in July, but the new video includes some footage and background videos of it in action. This is actually Android’s second adventure into the great beyond — back in December, Google footage of some Nexus S devices taking rides through the atmosphere on some large weather balloons. [youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REsEgrhmMjc”] |
Chill Raises $1.5M From Kleiner Perkins And Others To Make Online Video Social | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 9 | 6 | , the infamous for video, is announcing today that it has raised a $1.5 million angel round from , , and investor . The site, entry to which was then shut down at some point due to popular demand, is also now open to all users. Chill co-founder tells me that a lot has happened to Chill since early this August, when the startup from mainstream media due to an offhand Facebook comment from Mark Zuckerberg on the app’s Facebook wall spamming. In the past month, interest from content partners like MovieClips, Break and USTREAM has been “off the charts” according to Norgard. Much like the actual Turntable.fm, the app, which allows people to DJ sets of YouTube videos for spectators, also seems to have celebrity appeal; SnoopDog ran a branded Chill set today and Norgard is planning on on-boarding a few more celebrities in the next week. Norgard plans on using the new financing for hiring and building out the product, and has his sights set on partnerships. He says that he’s already talked to some Hollywood studios about holding their own content premieres on Chill. “Collaborative consumption around long form content is really interesting too. We’re seeing huge opportunity there — Basically watching movies with friends,” he explains. “That will take time though but the market clearly wants an offering like this. If we can mange to make video social we’ll have created something millions of people will love. That’s the hope.” Chill will be closing the angel round with other high-profile angels and as mentioned in our original article, TechCrunch founder has agreed to participate as an investor. |
Mobile And Broadband Push In India To Cost “Tens Of Billions” – Let The Bidding Begin | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 9 | 6 | In markets like China and India, which are showing explosive growth in the connectivity and tech sectors, there’s a bit of a gap between supply and demand. Not that the two are ever at parity even under the best of conditions — but the very thing that makes these markets volatile is what makes them harder to grow: the lack of infrastructure. When it comes to mobile and broadband, you can sell it as fast as you can make it, but nobody ever said making it would be easy — or cheap. The government of India has just gotten a in order to take the next step in rolling out their broadband network. What happens next? A bloodbath, as corporations worldwide compete to get their foot in the door. It’s times like these when the foundation is laid for the whole next period of the sector. Like the AT&T-T-Mobile merger, the game being played is a long one, and while however expensive some billions may seem in 2011, these things have a way of snowballing down the line. The Telecom Regulatory Authority in India issued a report saying that only 12-13% of the demand for growth is being met by domestic production. That leaves plenty of room for foreign companies with deep pockets and 15-year plans to step in. Lots of the cost is simple things like labor, common parts, and licenses. But the technologies and methods adopted are far from universally agreed-upon, and should, say, Mitsubishi supply the flux capacitors instead of Qualcomm, the die is weighted in their favor for both future hardware and future licensing agreements, and it sets the stage for carrier and OEM decisions for years to come. They’ll be willing to shell out billions, or borrow it from whatever government is feeling lucky and pay it back when the investment matures. But that’s all business 101: India’s broadband push is just another chance to buy low. The familiar faces here in the US no doubt have their fingers in the pie somehow, but the connections are too tortuous to follow. But when there are a billion phone numbers at stake, it’s a safe bet that they’re watching closely. : in my haste I used an outdated map as the basis for the graphic at the top. I’ve redone it. : Apparently the second map also was wrong. God damn! |
Paul Graham Will Bring Office Hours Back To Disrupt SF, Sign Up Now | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 9 | 6 | One of the most popular sessions from our last Disrupt conference was (watch the video below). And next week at Disrupt SF, he will be back giving startups advice onstage. Graham and his partners at Y Combinator are famous for their , where startup founders can ask questions about anything from product design to company strategy. Graham will be conducting office hours onstage at Disrupt SF on Monday September 12 at 11:30. Five companies will be chosen to spend 8 minutes with Graham in a rapid-fire mind meld where he will try to grok what each company does and offer his best feedback. You must be an attendee to participate (you can still ). If you are attending Disrupt and would like to be considered, please fill out the form below. We’ll consult with Paul to narrow the applicants to those that will benefit the most, and provide insightful content. Then, at the start of the session, Paul will select five companies from those finalists. All finalists need to be prepared and ready to walk on stage immediately. Startup Battlefield companies are not eligible to participate, and neither are existing Y Combinator companies (Paul says he gives you all the time you need already). But any other conference attendees, including Startup Alley startups, are welcome to apply. |
Video: Learning About Picture And Color Modes On Your DSLR | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 9 | 6 | DSLRs are a powerful and popular tool for creating video, but it’s likely that very few users of this fairly new product category have gone deep into its settings. For taking pictures and the occasional video, the defaults are fine, but if you’re interested in putting a little more love into your production, it pays to know a few tweaks you can make. has put together an informative and well-made little video describing the fundamentals of white balance and a few obscure or hidden features that you can use to personalize your video before it even hits the SD card. It’s Canon-specific, but still worth checking out if you’re new to, say, a Nikon or Pentax system. Check it out: [vimeo w=640 http://vimeo.com/28669523] Sure, some of the changes aren’t really visible unless you’re looking for them, but even the little things matter. They can also affect the way you think, as he notes a few minutes in: you start noticing the temperature of the light, thinking about how your apartment would look with more sunlight and less tungsten. Color is a powerful tool for expression, even when you don’t know what you’re doing. A while back I accidentally had my camera set to a cooling white balance while shooting outside in a warm afternoon light, and all my pictures had an icy, bright cast that at first bothered me but soon delighted me. I hadn’t thought of the urchins and buoys and things I’d shot as looking any way other than the way I saw them. Yet with a slight change in environment, they would look completely different. I didn’t “correct” the white balance after the fact because it ended up being a unique and interesting take — that I can’t exactly take credit for. They’re going to have a second tutorial later in the month for post-processing color effects. If you haven’t played with Lightroom or Aperture (to say nothing of Photoshop and the like), you owe it to yourself to give one a try. The versatility of DSLRs made me fall in love with photography all over again, and as nerdy as it sounds, knowing my way around menus and applications was a big part of that. [via ] |
Bartz Fired; Morse Named Interim CEO; Yahoo Board Creates Circle Of Elders To Decide Company Fate | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 9 | 6 | is officially out as the President and CEO of Yahoo. , Bartz, who has been in the top role at Yahoo since January 2009, confirmed that she’d been fired by Yahoo’s Chairman of the Board, Roy Bostock, by phone call. At least it wasn’t via text message. of Bartz’s departure. Yahoo that Tim Morse, who joined Yahoo from Altera as the company’s new CFO in June, will become Interim CEO as Yahoo searches for a permanent replacement. Morse will also continue to serve as CFO during the interim. Boystock’s statement, via press release, is as follows: . But Morse replacing Bartz is not the end of this shakeup saga, as Yahoo announced in its statement that it will also be creating an “Executive Leadership Council”, which will consist of Michael Callahan, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary; Blake Irving, Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer; Ross Levinsohn, Executive Vice President, Americas; Rich Riley, Senior Vice President & MD, EMEA Region; and Rose Tsou, Senior Vice President, APAC Region — all banding together to support Morse during the interim. According to the statement, Yahoo Co-founders David Filo and Jerry Yang will each continue as Chief Yahoos, counseling Morse as well as the Circle of Elders — er, the Leadership Council — during the interim. While Yahoo is undoubtedly attempting to take steps to ensure the future stability of the company, this Council does remind one of the age-old saying, “a camel is a horse designed by committee”. When Bartz replaced Yahoo Co-founder Jerry Yang in 2009 as CEO, the fiery new Yahoo Chief Executive had a lot on her plate, to say the least. Yahoo was once a great company, but the end of Yang’s tenure — and some would say the whole of it — . Yahoo needed a strong leader to replace Yang, and many hoped Bartz would bring the gusto the once-big-search company needed. But, as Mike Arrington wrote six months later, the honeymoon was somewhat short-lived. By February 2010, one didn’t have to go far to find . In fact, last year at San Francisco Disrupt, Arrington’s pointed questions about Yahoo’s shaky present and unstable future . Between March 2009 and March 2010, Bartz held a 77 percent approval rating among her employees, whereas , her approval rating dropped to 50 percent. While that approval rating still remained higher than that of her predecessor, it seems that the Yahoo board has since become antsy. Yahoo’s declining relevancy in the tech world is no secret, and I think we’re all across the board eager to see the company return to some shade of its former self. We’re all rooting for Yahoo, but (who was there for 5 years), the reactions to Bartz’s departure are not exactly lamenting in nature. Hopefully, the board’s newly formed Thought Leader Council will indeed be successful in “supporting a comprehensive strategic review” that positions Yahoo for strong growth and future victories, but doesn’t this just feel like a slightly depressing reel we’ve all seen before? |
Carol Bartz Confirms Her Own Firing — From Her iPad | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 9 | 6 | Title says it all. Well, except the fact that Yahoo CEO was apparently . Harsh. This is the note Bartz just sent out to Yahoo employees: To all, I am very sad to tell you that I’ve just been fired over the phone by Yahoo’s Chairman of the Board. It has been my pleasure to work with all of you and I wish you only the best going forward. Carol Sent from my iPad that Yahoo was quietly looking for a replacement for Bartz — something which Yahoo (obviously) denied, and . Yahoo even at their shareholders meeting and essentially called it “bullshit”. Funny. The moral of the story: how do you know a company is lying about something potentially damaging, even (and perhaps especially) in an official capacity? If their mouths are moving. Crazy day. . |
Report: Groupon Delays IPO | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 9 | 6 | Groupon is thinking about delaying its IPO, according to a in the WSJ today. The company had intended to go public after Labor Day, according to the article, but is now “reevaluating plans for an initial public offering in the face of stock-market volatility” and has canceled its plans for its IPO roadshow, which was slated for next week. The news comes two weeks after an internal memo penned by Groupon CEO Andrew Mason was during the company’s quiet period, during which Groupon isn’t allowed to make public statements — SEC investigators are currently looking into the matter. However, according to the WSJ’s anonymous source, the delay has more to do with “recent fluctuations in the stock market” rather than the SEC scrutiny. Groupon spurned a $6 billion acquisition offer from Google last December, and for its IPO in June. It’s been the target of plenty of over its financials and business model since then, and there’s speculation that the aforementioned memo was intentionally leaked to combat this criticism. |
Zuck’s New Favorite Song Lyric: “Had A Dream I Was King. I Woke Up, Still King.” | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 9 | 6 | Days after headlining list for the second year in a row, Facebook CEO and TIME Person of the Year has updated his Facebook status with the following somewhat Machiavellian Eminem song lyric, to which he adds the commentary “Favorite lyric in awhile.” Okay okay, so Zuckerberg probably doesn’t mean the update in the obvious, personal, way … But still the association is interesting, as at this point there’s little contesting as to whether the Facebook founder is the king of social networking and maybe even the Internet. While we already know from his that Zuck <3s Green Day and Lady Gaga, the song referenced here is bolder (and more curse word-filled) fare, a collaboration between Eminem, Bruno Mars and Royce da 5’9″ off the EP . Eminem’s entire verse is a spurious message to haters, the rapper’s bravado coming through in statements like and at the verse’s end, According to the Internet, Zuckerberg himself is “Lighters” lyrics and music video below. [Chorus – Bruno Mars:]
This one’s for you and me living out our dreams
We are right where we should be
With my arms out wide
I open my eyes
And now all I wanna see is a sky full of lighters
A sky full of lighters [Verse 1 – Eminem:]
By the time you hear this, I will have already spiralled up.
I would never do nothing to let you cowards fuck my world up.
If I was you, I would duck or get struck like lightning.
Fighters, keep fighting, put your lighters up- point ‘em skyward uh
Had a dream I was king, I woke up, still king.
This rap game’s… mine for the milking (Martin Luther King)
Till’ nobody else even fucking feels me till’ it kills me.
I swear to god I’ll be the fucking illest in this music.
There is or there ever will be, disagree? Feel free.
But from now on, refusing to ever give up. Only thing I ever gave up, is using
No more excuses, excuse me if my head is too big for this building.
And pardon me if I’m a cocky prick, but you cocks are slick.
Popping shit on how you’ve lived your life around crock of shit.
Who you dicks tryna’ kid, flip dick you did opposite.
You stayed the same ‘cause cock backwards is still kcoc you pricks!
I love it when I tell ‘em shove it cause it wasn’t that long ago when Marshall said..’cause he couldn’t cut mustard, muster up nothing brain fuzzy.
‘Cause he’s buzzing woke up from that buzz, and now you wonder why he does it?
How he does it, wasn’t cause he had. Was it circled around his head?
Waiting for him to drop dead, was it?
Or was it cause some bitches wrote him off?
Little hussy ass, fuck it guess it doesn’t matter now does it?
What difference does it make, what’s it take to get it through your thick skulls.
That this, some… people don’t usually come back this way.
From a place that was as dark as I was in just to get to this place-
None of these words be like a switchblade to a hater’s rib cage.
And let it be known that from this day forward I wanna just say thanks,
‘Cause your hate is what gave me the strength.
So let them… raise cause I came with 5’9” but I feel like i’m 6’8” [Chorus – Bruno Mars:] [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7ZmEN2HqC8&w=630] |
SF Port Authority Shuts Down Tech-Hub Pier 38; Boots All Tenants Including Dogpatch Labs, Polaris Ventures, Automattic, True Ventures | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 9 | 6 | A few weeks ago, we heard that the San Francisco Port Authority had red-tagged Pier 38 — putting up warnings that the space was unsafe. This is a big deal because Pier 38 is something of a tech hub. It’s home to tenants including Dogpatch Labs, Polaris Ventures, Automattic, True Ventures, 99 Designs, EGG HAUS, and more. While Robert Scoble showing just how serious these notices were — it’s never good to see a big red sign with the word “UNSAFE” on the door to your business — Polaris’ Ryan Spoon downplayed the warnings. Here’s what he said to us at the time: Over the last few days, Pier 38 has undergone a management change (we have always been sub-tenants). The City of San Francisco has notified Pier 38 building management of specific code violations. We are in close contact with building management and the port authority – and we have been informed that normal operations should continue at this time. Meanwhile, the pier is as vibrant and active as ever: home to Dogpatch Labs, Polaris Ventures, Automattic, True Ventures, 99 Designs and many more. We’re working to better understand what the management change and ports plans mean for us all. Fast forward to last week. The Port Authority put up new signs indicating that all tenants had to vacate the property within 30 days. But some tenants were trying to negotiate ways to extend this window, and there was hope they could do that. But today, after a meeting between the Port Authority and the Pier 38 tenants, that hope has died. Everyone must be out by September 30. Again, this is awful news for the tech community that has thrived in the space which resides right on the water in the city. An important part of WordPress operates out of here. And the Dogpatch space Polaris set up gave a first home to startups like Instagram. Reached for comment, Spoon confirms the decision today and writes: The Port Authority of San Francisco notified all Pier 38 tenants, including us, that we must move out by September 30th. This is obviously unfortunate for the Pier and for the Dogpatch Labs – which has hosted over 250 entrepreneurs and 100+ companies like Instagram, Formspring, TaskRabbit, Recurly, Yardsellr, LOLapps, Appjet, etc. In total, these companies have raised over $100m in seed and venture funding. We are actively working on finding a great new Dogpatch Labs home and hope to be settled and taking applications by end of Q3. |
Reminder: Help Us Celebrate TC Gadgets And Mobile At Our First San Francisco Meet-Up On 9/15 | John Biggs | 2,011 | 9 | 6 | San Franciscans, start your thrusters. On September 15 at 6:30pm TechCrunch Mobile and Gadgets will host our first meet-up at in sunny SF. Sponsored by Samsung, this meet-up will be the first chance for our readers to get ahold of some of Samsung’s latest products including the just-announced Galaxy S II. It is an event not to be missed. We’ll have some finger food, a little dancing, maybe some networking and an open bar (It’s 21 and over, obviously). We invite you to meet the entire TCG/M team and chill with some of Samsung’s newest gear and the chance to win a new Samsung Infuse 4G.
Date: Thursday, 9/15/11
Time: 6:30-9:30pm
Location: To RSVP pop over to this and sign up. We’ll be releasing six hundred tickets over the next two weeks so there will be plenty of chances to sign up. This next batch of 250 tickets is waiting for . Special thanks to Samsung for the sponsorship and we hope to see you in SF on September 15. Samsung Telecommunications America, LLC, a Dallas-based subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., researches, develops and markets wireless handsets, wireless infrastructure and other telecommunications products throughout North America. For more information, please visit . |
Android TouchPad Project Finally Gets Working Touch Screens | Chris Velazco | 2,011 | 9 | 6 | Regardless of your thoughts on , work on getting a fully-featured version of Android up and running continues unabated. There’s been in the past few weeks, but a group of devs revealed today that one crucial piece of the puzzle has just been popped into place: the finally works! In addition to getting a TouchPad going on Android 2.3.5, a video released by earlier today shows that their new multitouch drivers seem to work without a hitch. The TouchPad can detect up to ten input points simultaneously, which is utter overkill for most applications, but it’s heartening to see nonetheless. With this, HP’s FrankenPad is one step closer to being a reality. It’s not clear whether or not Team TouchDroid’s experimental TouchPad has anything else going for it, like working WiFi or audio, but it’s certainly within the realm of possibility. These are, after all, the guys who managed to get a TouchPad to successfully dual boot into both Android and WebOS. Considering the collective amount of time poured into this project, it’s starting to look like a feature-complete Android TouchPad is going to materialize sooner rather than later. It could happen just in the nick of time, too: with HP possibly churning out a , a user-friendly port process (which is required to claim ) could give clamoring consumers yet another reason to mob their local retailers. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZwhbJiad8Y&w=640&h=345] |
AT&T’s Response To Sprint’s Lawsuit: Bring It On | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 9 | 6 | And the fun just goes on, and on, and . Following this morning’s news that in an attempt to block their proposed merger, AT&T has just returned with a response. As you might expect, it pretty much boils down to “Yeah, yeah, see you in court. Oh, and here are some reasons we’re awesome.” This simply demonstrates what we’ve said all along – Sprint is more interested in protecting itself than it is in promoting competition that benefits consumers. We of course will vigorously contest this matter in court as AT&T’s merger with T-Mobile USA will: help solve our nation’s spectrum exhaust situation and improve wireless service for millions; allow AT&T to expand 4G LTE mobile broadband to another 55 million Americans, or 97% of the population; and result in billions of additional investment and tens of thousands of jobs, at a time when our nation needs them most. How else could they have responded, really? Tucked tail and given up? Of course not. AT&T’s not about to give up on this one — if only because doing so would mean they still have to cough up around $6 billion to T-Mobile thanks to a few fail-safes in the deal terms. AT&T’s already battling the Department of Justice and trying to maneuver their way through investigations lead by just about every other branch of the government — in the grand scheme of things, Sprint’s lawsuit is just a means of forcing AT&T to spread their legal team that much thinner. |
eBay Nabs Former Thomson Reuters Exec To Head Global Marketplaces Business | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 9 | 6 | eBay has on former Thomson Reuters Exec Devin Wenig as President of its global Marketplaces business unit, which includes eBay’s online marketplace; eBay’s classifieds sites and ticket marketplace StubHub. Wenig will report to eBay President and CEO John Donahoe. Wenig most recently served as Chief Executive Officer of Thomson Reuters Markets, where he led the company’s global financial services and media businesses. Wenig also led the integration of Reuters and Thomson following the merger of the two companies. Wenig joined Reuters in 1993 and held a number of senior management positions during his time at the company. Donahoe says of Wenig in a release: “We are focused on shaping the future of commerce with retailers and sellers of all sizes across multiple formats, including mobile, local and social commerce. Devin will be a strong leader to drive our vision of enabling retailers of all sizes to grow their businesses and enabling consumers to shop anytime, anywhere for whatever they want.” In 2010, eBay Marketplaces net revenues were more than $5.7 billion, representing about 62 percent of total eBay net revenue (but PayPal is slowly ) More than half of eBay’s revenue is generated outside of the US.; and worldwide, more than $60 billion of merchandise volume is transacted annually on eBay, with the majority sold at fixed price. eBay has nearly 100 million active users. There’s no doubt that eBay is into new platforms and technologies. But it’s interesting to see that the company is looking to breathe new life into its marketplaces segment with leadership, which hasn’t been performing as well as eBay’s other companies and properties like payPal. But eBay’s marketplaces segment in Q2, so perhaps there is still life left in eBay’s auction business. |
Video: Kinect-Controlled Gigapixel Image Exploration | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 9 | 6 | Obligatory Minority Report reference. There, it’s out of the way, and we can enjoy this interesting video without worrying about when the allusion is going to drop. The University of Lincoln in the UK recently hosted an interactive exhibition in which users can navigate a number of gigapixel photos by using over-sized gestures tracked by a Kinect. Meanwhile, your experience is enhanced by ambient noise recorded at the location of the photo. Of course, the people and cattle in the pictures don’t move, which kind of breaks the illusion, but it’s a nice touch. Check out the video: [vimeo w=640 http://vimeo.com/28636369] I’m surprised Microsoft hasn’t shown off something like this already. Their Seadragon demo for the Surface was one of the more impressive uses of the large, touch-friendly interface. Perhaps they have something in the works, but I doubt it’s as immersive as this super-sized exhibit. This kind of thing is fun to think about in relation to teaching and presentations. Whether it’s actually more practical than a slide deck and a laser pointer is questionable, but it’s a hell of a lot cooler. Unfortunately the exhibition was just this last weekend, so you’ll have to wait for the next one. for news, and check out the images they had on show. As usual, it’s stunning to be able to zoom in from a panoramic view to the point where you can read the ads on the back of a guy’s newspaper a hundred feet away. |
Reddit Evolves Into Reddit Inc., Begins Search For New CEO | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 9 | 6 | Happy Tuesday after Labor Day everybody! In , beloved Internet hangout reddit has spun out of Conde Nast and will become its own independent entity, reddit inc., owned by Condé Nast parent company Advance publications. In a blog post coincidentally enough entitled reddit General Manager Erik Martin implies that the organizational change was due to a combination of technical issues related to company’s and a culture clash with Condé Nast. “When reddit was acquired in October 2006 by Condé Nast, it was receiving about 700k page views per day,” Martin writes. “Now, reddit routinely gets that much traffic in 15 minutes. This explosion in traffic created technical, cultural, and organizational growing pains.” According to Martin, reddit Inc. will now directly report to a board, which will include co-founder Alexis Ohanian, reddit President Bob Sauerberg, Condé Nast CTO Joe Simon and Advance VP Andrew Siegel. Martin tells me that the company, which employs eight people out of its SF office and two out of NY with another salesperson based in LA, is looking for a new CEO in the Bay Area. “It’ll be a much more direct process now, we go to the board like any other company and say that this is the business case for why we’re doing XYZ,” comments Martin on what he thinks will change organizationally moving forward. “It allows us to operate more independently,” he says. Contrary to (hilarious) reports, Gawker writer Adrian Chen in the running for Reddit Editor In Chief. |
Nanotech Electrical Motor Is Made From A Single Molecule | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 9 | 6 | Researchers at Tufts University have put together a “molecular motor” that is only about a nanometer across. It’s not the first single-molecule motor ever made, but this one, unlike others, can be activated singly by the minute tip of a scanning electron microscope. They’re working with Guinness to get certified as the smallest motor in the world. This incredibly small machine — and although it really is just a molecule (and not a big one at that), it a machine — was created by simply stacking a butyl methyl sulphide molecule onto a substrate of copper. The conformation of the molecule ends up sticking the sulphur “downwards”, where it acts as a sort of pivot, with the carbon atoms sticking out on either end. Add a little bit of charge and it starts to spin. Both directions, as things at that scale aren’t always as consistent as they are here in the Newtonian world, but it tends to go more in one direction than the other, which makes it predictable. What can they do with this? Not much right now. It’s just really cool. But the researchers note that this is the first such molecular motor that works electrically, and furthermore can be activated singly while another sits idle mere nanometers away. They accomplish this by passing the charge through a scanning electron microscope, which normally uses a stream of electrons as photon analogues to create an image. Now the electrons are simply a current, and one applicable with such precision that it can be pointed at a single atom at a time. The advantages of this make it exciting for nanotech developers and engineers, who can almost certainly use a part like this. To anyone who has studied microbiology, this might seem rather underwhelming. Our bodies are homes to molecular machines that are almost unbelievable in their sophistication and elegance. But even so, they were not engineered by Man and are difficult to repurpose. Plus, many of them run on ATP or some other chemical fuel, which is nearly impossible to apply with the same level of precision as the current from a scanning electron microscope. The research was published in the most recent issue of Nature Nanotechnology. |
Beats Wireless Headphones Unveiled By The FCC | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 9 | 6 | Monster Beats by Dr. Dre has a new set of cans on the horizon. Per the headphones are appropriately named Beats Wireless and feature the brand’s trademark unibody construction. Bluetooth is tapped for wireless connectivity but the rest of the headset is pretty much a standard affair. The right can features playback controls along with a mic, making these perfect for your Beats-equipped HTC headset. These upcoming headphones will be the first model after for a 51% stake in the company. Thanks to Bluetooth the headset will of course work with nearly any cell phone or media player, not just HTC’s kits. But it remains to be heard of the wireless link will provide the same sort of deep, rich sound normally associated with Beats headphones. Pricing and release info isn’t available just yet since the info here came from the FCC database. Chances are though, they’re going to be stupid expensive and launch sometime before the holiday spending madness starts. |
It’s Official: WebOS Is Divorcing From Palm’s Hardware | John Biggs | 2,011 | 9 | 6 | You’re excused if you didn’t notice a pair of memos leaked to this weekend. It was a holiday and, more important, neither of them particularly matter. They involved HP’s WebOS initiative and they state, in short, that the hardware part of the team is hitting the bricks while the software group will remain ensconced close to HP’s putrescent heart. Why? Because HP wanted some leverage against the coming juggernaut that is Windows 8 and, more important, HP needs a small and light platform for future enterprise devices that doesn’t cost them a few dollars per seat in royalties. I doubt seriously that that’s what Mark Hurd wanted before he screwed up but that’s what we got: a neutered platform that may or may not exist after the next shareholder’s meeting. Here are some pertinent paragraphs: SHANE ROBISON
EVP, Chief Strategy and Technology Officer
Office of Strategy and Technology
TO/ OST Employees
SUBJECT/ Organizational Announcement: webOS Teams to Join OS&T Two weeks ago we announced the transformation of HP for the future. As part of that change we made a very tough decision to exit the webOS hardware device business. At the same time we recognized the value inherent in the webOS software platform. Not only because of its elegant, intuitive interface, but because of our strategic focus on cloud, connectivity, services and software, and printing. I’m pleased that the executive team has decided that the webOS software teams will be best served joining the Office of Strategy and Technology while we investigate how to leverage the webOS platform and its ecosystem. This move also supports the teams’ continued efforts with over-the-air updates and the application catalog. First, note the “strategic focus:” cloud, connectivity, services and software, and printing. This is one of the first times we’ve been able to see where we’re really headed here. HP seems to want to be something like Sun used to be – a full-service provider of infrastructure and business systems for a select clientele with, and this is important, their own intellectual property and OS. Will this OS ever show up in a consumer product ever again? Probably not in any way we’re thinking. WebOS is more than just a bunch of cards on a screen but, given the Linux underpinnings, it seems like a heck of a price to pay for what amounts to an open source kernel. The Office of Strategy and Technology is HP’s “skunkworks” and bizdev team and, presumably, this gives them some other biz to dev. They can point to it and say “Sure, we can do a cheap point of sale system and sure we can build some field devices for your insurance adjusters.” WebOS an arrow in their quiver whereas it used to be the bow itself. For my money, I’d avoid buying HP hardware right now. A blogger buddy of mine turned down a review of one of their latest laptops because it’s unclear whether anything, from the simplest PC to that $99 Touchpad will ever be supported again. It’s hard to take HP seriously as a consumer play anymore and it’s clear they won’t keep WebOS hardware and software together just for the sake of us, the consumers. [Image: / ] |
null | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 9 | 1 | null |
Seedcamp flexes upwards with its biggest week yet | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 9 | 6 | (Above, Carlos Eduardo Espinal, Saul Klein, Reshma Sohoni) , the annual week-long session run by Europe’s oldest tech startup accelerator, has kicked off in London, and it looks like the biggest yet. In particular, this week sees changes to the way Seedcamp has operated in the past which indicates a clear uptick in how the European tech scene is fairing. When Seedcamp first started in September 2007 – the same Week TechCrunch Europe launched – out of 20 companies that pitched. This week 16 of the 20 Seedcamp companies presenting this week have already received the initial Seedcamp investment. Seedcamp normally invest €50,000 (for 5-10%) as standard but sometimes they invest less for less of a stake, (though these exact terms are not usually disclosed). The contrast with last year is that 13 companies got the investment and there was no follow-on funding. Another change is that last year there was a competition by all the teams for investment. This year the four remaining that haven’t had the initial investment (out of the 20) will be interviewed at the end of the week. And, at the end of the week, the companies considered by Seedcamp and mentors to be the top three of all 20 will receive a cash prize, which they can use as a part of a ‘follow-on’ round. The winner gets €25,000, second place gets €15,000, third place wins €10,000. Lastly, there are no “new” teams at Seedcamp this week. All of them have appeared at Mini Seedcamp days already at events around Europe. In years gone by there were always a few wild-cards – this year, this is the “creme de la creme”, if you will. Now, after four years you would think we would be starting to see some exits among former Seedcamp companies and a new eco-system develop around it. But only was for a reputed $50m – a pretty good “European” exit. Meanwhile many former Seedcamp companies are still going, though exits are, as I point out above, thin on the ground. However, we shouldn’t worry. As a Seedcamp investor told me yesterday “We might see an exit soon form a former Seedcamp companies, but we’re relaxed about that. We’d rather see these companies build up to the point where they can knock it out of the park.” I think that’s the right take on this. It’s unusual for companies to see liquidity events in this short time period, and it’s better not to focus on an exit anyway. In addition, the trend amongst the companies chose this year are a mix of evolution on existing business models and disruption of traditional industries. So thus, is targeting the traditional sector of engineering. is about targeting the agriculture sector. is about the evolution of the third generation of telephony – you get the picture. But I’ll be exploring the startups selected in a separate post shortly. |
Australian Judge Asks For iPad Sales Stats In Galaxy Tab Case | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 9 | 6 | In its (as if it hadn’t yet achieved such a feat), Apple has been asked by the Australian court to provide iPad sales data from the U.S. and the U.K. Samsung originally sent Apple with the hopes that the fresh “redesign” would coax Apple into dropping the case. As we expected, that didn’t happen. A Galaxy Tab is still a Galaxy Tab, and Apple clearly wants to destroy it. No number of modifications seems to be changing that. Getting seemed to be pretty effortless for Apple, but a permanent one requires more scrutiny from the court. Australian judge Annabelle Bennett has asked for sales data from the UK and the U.S. to ensure that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 has in fact hurt Apple’s iPad sales, reports . The disclosure of those numbers isn’t mandatory, but since Samsung has vehemently denied claims that its tablet hurt iPad sales, Judge Bennett sees those figures as pretty necessary if Apple wants to walk away with a win. Everyone already knows that the iPad is the dominant tablet in the market. Sales are up 183 percent in Q3 2011 from the same time last year, though Apple argues that those numbers would be higher if it wasn’t for the Galaxy Tab and its similar “functionality and appearance.” It may be difficult to argue that the GalTab hurt sales while simultaneously seeing such amazing growth out of the iPad. Especially since Samsung has been persistently arguing the opposite. “People want an Android product, so they will buy an Android product,” said Samsung counsel Neil Murray. “This is not impacting the sales of Apple.” Whether or not that’s true remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure. No one in Australia will be playing with a Galaxy Tab 10.1 until Apple’s happy. |
If A Motorola Android Tab Leaks And It’s Just Like The Rest, Does It Really Matter? | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 9 | 24 | So apparently there’s in the works. Big surprise, right? The old one is nearing its eight month birthday and thanks to the rapid Android aging process, it’s about as a relevant as a Handspring Visor at this point. But in all seriousness, does anyone care any more? I ask that with void of snark or sarcasm. I’m serious: Does anyone care about Honeycomb tablets anymore? Honeycomb was supposed to be the iOS killer. It was supposed to stand-up, challenge the mighty iOS and ultimately slay the champion through a power combo of multitasking and openness. But it didn’t happen mainly because consumers don’t care about that nonsense. They want apps, which Honeycomb has very few. So here’s Android tablets now, sitting on retailers’ end-caps and shelves, huddled together, sharing the warmth of a single power brick just hoping someone will figure out how to unlock their screens. Back to my question that’s not influenced by any nefarious bias. It was almost a given that Motorola would release a successor to the original Xoom. The original Xoom was the first Honeycomb tablet and it was supposed to be the Android faithful’s Joshua and purge the consumer landscape of the iPad insurgents. Companies don’t release a product, see what happens, and then start developing the next model. No, they map the course and what leaked today is just details about the next stop on Motorola’s Android trip.
: an 8.2-inch HD IPS screen, an unnamed 1.2GHz CPU, faster RAM, Netflix HD, 1080p cam, and an IR emitter just in case you want a massive TV remote. Per ThisIsMyNext, all this comes in a casing that’s 9mm thick. That’s 0.2mm thicker than the iPad 2’s 8.8mm thickness in case that matters to you. ( ) But specs do not sell tablets. Most consumers are looking for a different experience than what they can get on their desktop or notebook. Without knowing it, they’re looking for lasting novelty. Sure, some consumers want multitasking, some want a tweakable interface, perhaps some out there even want a tablet with seven homescreens and an app drawer. That’s where Android tablets come in. The iPad, however, captures consumers with a slightly new paradigm in portable computing and does so with style and class. Android tablet makers are going to steal their own revenue by following the PC notebook’s time-honored tradition of releasing new products every quarter. This upcoming Xoom model will steal sales from the original Xoom while seemingly offering nothing but a smaller casing. It will further divide the Android fanboys and ultimately dilute the appeal. Little is really known about this next Xoom tablet. It could perhaps follow the trailblazing spirit of its predecessor by launching as the first Ice Cream Sandwich tablet, which would restart the iPad hype machine but would likely fall short again. Some commenters will no doubt cry that it’s premature declaring a product irrelevant or unwelcomed prior to its announcement, let alone release. They’ll state that we don’t have all the facts, or that this tablet could be different, or even, consumers are looking for something more than a large iPod touch. That’s what they said when I stated the BlackBerry Playbook, then called just by its codename of BlackPad, would crash and burn. ( , but the hundreds of comments were lost when TechCrunch swallowed CrunchGear) Look, I’m not an Android hater. I’m a very curious onlooker. I look at new Android tablets like I look at my Droid X vs the new Android phones and conclude that the new phones, say the Galaxy S II, lack any new compelling features besides the 4G radio. Choice is good. But often, and this is coming from years of working retail, too many options overwhelm the average consumer who is just looking to get in and out of a store with the latest gadget and minimum hassle. So on one Best Buy shelve is a baker’s dozen of Android tablets, priced within a $100 of each other, all featuring nearly identical processing speeds and RAM types. Then, five feet away, is the iPad 2 advertised with its blockbuster apps where the only choice is 3G or WiFi and white or black. Apparently rather soon a new Motorola Android tablet will join its friends, but unless it features a $100 price tag, it will fail to get any attention. |
Clues To Amazon’s “Prime eBooks” Loan Program Found In Kindle Code | John Biggs | 2,011 | 9 | 24 | Some forum-goers at found evidence of something called Prime eBooks in the online code. Searching for images of the new Kindle Tablet, he instead found a variable describing something called PRIME_EBOOKS_COMPATIBLE. There is also some text that will show up when trying to deleted a “loaned” book, specifically: prime_active_delete = “Are you sure you want to permanently delete this loan? Doing so will return the loan and remove it from your account.”
This code is distinctly different from the library loans text also found in the same app. Sadly, there was no evidence of the Kindle Tablet in the code. However, we did confirm that these loans will exist as an “Prime” subscription service, suggesting a Netflix-like method for downloading many books for a set price. |
Tools vs. Toys: Why The Timeline Changes Nothing | John Biggs | 2,011 | 9 | 24 | Yesterday Erick and I had an about Facebook vs. Google+ and I came down on the side of G+. Why? Because tools are important, toys aren’t. Granted Facebook’s 500 million visitors a day proves me wrong in numeric terms, but in general usability and quality, I’m coming reluctantly down on the side of Google Plus. As you well know, with its app features and new timeline feature, a view of your data that offers a sort of time machine into the distant past. I saw pictures of my kids from years ago, their faces implike and far more natal than they are now. It was a great feeling but it lasted maybe fifteen minutes. Now Facebook is showing me a list of things that happened since I was born, a fairly impressive feat given I spent two thirds of my life without the Internet. Google Plus, on the other hand, introduced enhanced Hang-Outs. Leave it to Google to blow its wad on productivity software. While I find the value of Google Plus dubious at best, I think hang-outs are a great tool and quite disruptive. A room that I can use to share sketches, documents, and photos? Without having to download WebEx or GotoMyPC some other garbage screen-sharing app? That’s the world I want to live in. I like Google’s tools. They are good and strong and useful. Google Wave was great (while it lasted) and hang-outs are great for tech folks who want to work together. Their goal is the steady erosion of friction between Google’s ad product and the Internet and they do it through the release of tools that Google programmers want to use themselves. Facebook, on the other hand, is looking for the magic trigger that will turn all those eyeballs into paying customers. Zynga seems to have solved some of the riddle by selling social games, but by releasing Timeline Facebook has clearly decided to mine the valuable content they already have – your pictures, your preferences, and your recommendations. The fact that I can now embed songs onto my timeline is very telling: add in a music feature and you’ve got a music store to rival iTunes. This is tools vs. toys. Google gives you tools to work in the information economy while Facebook gives you the toys to play in it. I’m not sure what’s better. I’ve come to bury Google Plus Facebook, not to praise them. Both services are essentially time sinks designed in both cases to stroke the souls of thousands of lonely people. I use them both, to be sure, but are they changing anything with these additions? Are they improving our lot in life? Fans of Neil Postman will recognize a bit of stridency in my voice and I feel it is justified. Just as broadcast media controlled our minds two decades ago, one-to-one media control our minds in the early 21st century. It will take a few generations for us to become immune to the siren’s call of social media and by then the technology will have moved on. There is a certain territoriality brewing in the G+/FB wars right now and I worry that soon it will be as corrosive as the Android/iPhone fights that pit brother against brother and father against son. I’m not saying I particularly care who wins here – I could take or leave both services and neither of them has offered me anything beyond an impressive list of human beings with whom I can interact. I thank both of these services for that opportunity, certainly, but I believe I’ve talked with perhaps 100 people in my social graph online and even fewer in real life. In short, if I’m so popular why am I still lonely? In general, however, I can see people G+ while people simply play with Facebook. It’s an important distinction for every day men and women put away their childish things and want to get down to business. Google is there for them at least in some regard and clearly Facebook is not. |
Yes, Google Drive Is Coming. For Real This Time. | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 9 | 24 | About a month ago, some additions to the code in Chromium (the open source browser behind Chrome) that the long-fabled “GDrive” may be on the verge of actually launching. A week later, user-facing proof started . Then earlier today, sharp-eyed social media consultant, Johannes Wigand, during a presentation at a Google-sponsored event: something that sure looks a lot like Google Drive. And it is. Over the past month, we’ve been able to dig up more information about Google Drive. First of all, it is very real. And it is being used internally at Google. Of course, it was also real back in 2007 and 2008 before it was eventually killed. But talking to employees back then who saw and used the service all agreed that it was pretty wonky and not ready for prime time. This new version is expected to be much better. As you can see in Wigand’s picture (above, with important elements circled by me), Google Drive on the web will essentially be Google Docs rebranded. This shouldn’t be a big surprise since Google has been positioning Docs as a . The difference is that Google specifically didn’t want to call it that at the time. Now they do. And it makes a lot more sense. Few people are using Google Docs for online storage beyond the files they use in Docs. Most still probably don’t even realize they can. Something as simple as changing the name to Google Drive should help with that. There will also be a new “My Google Drive” area for various folders in Google Drive. There will be other Drive-specific tools as well. But here’s the real key: there will also be native syncing software that you install on your various computers and mobile devices. Yes, like Dropbox. This was also true back in the day with GDrive, but again, the service (codenamed: Platypus) was said to be very buggy. Now it is said to work well. If you have a document on your computer that you want to move to another one, you simply drag and drop it into this new Google Drive sync app. Or, of course, you can use the web. We haven’t heard the timetable for the Google Drive roll-out, but we imagine it will be fairly soon. Again, Google is using this internally right now and has been for some time. One thing that Google may be waiting for is Ice Cream Sandwich, the new version of Android due next month. There may be some built-in Google Drive component to it (though that’s just me speculating). And it seems that it will be at least a part of Chrome, and more importantly, Chrome OS. Expect Google Drive to reside at drive.google.com (not live yet). It’s not clear how docs.google.com (the current home of Docs) will be used — perhaps as the home of the word processor app or maybe it will just redirect. Also not clear is how Google will allocate storage for this service, but presumably it will be the same as they currently do for Docs/Gmail/etc. You get a certain (ever-increasing) amount for free, and if you need more, you can buy it. |
Droning On Towards A Date With Destiny? | Jon Evans | 2,011 | 9 | 24 | Have you been watching the skies? I have. As the US its unmanned air force, and the UK plans its , researchers are testing and demonstrating — ones that could “hunt, identify and kill the enemy based on calculations made by software, not decisions made by humans.” (According to the author of the wonderfully-titled Army-funded study , “Lethal autonomy is inevitable.”) Philosophers are penning learned monographs on the . Universities are beginning to offer in unmanned autonomous vehicle design. The US Air Force is even developing an unmanned “ .” system. Yes, that’s right, the . Which gives us this immortal quote in the linked article: “…there is perhaps also an indication here that a conceptual revolution is underway within the Air Force, where the earth itself—geological space—is seen as merely a thicker version of the sky.” Truly, we are entering the Age of Drones. Unfortunately, the governments, militaries, and philosophers leading us there appear to be suffering from a catastrophic failure of imagination. Only nation-states wield drones as weapons right now: therefore, they seem to reason, only nation-states will have weaponized drones, forever and ever amen. But in the real world, other researchers are developing that “could build a wireless botnet or track someone via cell phone” ( “even when it’s not being used to make a call.”) Meanwhile, from Chris Anderson’s site, I give you the awesome thermal-vision pig hunter, : “We now have our very own predator drone”: (This may spark memories of my .) The same university now granting UAV degrees is also perfecting . (See also: ?) The Parrot AR, aka the of the drone world, can be controlled via a , as can . We haven’t quite gotten to hobbyist autonomous drones yet, as far as I know, but it’s only a matter of time, probably measured in months. And then it’s only a matter of time until someone packs a drone full of and a detonator, and sends it to the GPS coordinates of the home or headquarters of someone they really don’t like. I don’t mean to be alarmist. I’m certainly not suggesting that anyone try to ban or even regulate drone technology or DIY drones. For one thing, that particular genie has long since escaped its bottle; for another, I think they’re both very cool and ultimately incredibly useful. But I’d like to see The People In Charge at least about what we’re going to need to do when drone weaponry is no longer the exclusive plaything of nation-states. UAVs, more than any technology, have the potential to entirely decouple criminals from their crimes. How do you stop mostly-3D-printed kamikaze drones from wreaking havoc? How do you even track them back to their sender(s)? I’m not pretending that I have the answers, but it worries me greatly that I hardly see anyone else asking these questions — because I think they’re going to become extremely important a lot faster than most people realize. |
Gillmor Gang 9.24.11 (TCTV) | Steve Gillmor | 2,011 | 9 | 24 | Soon we may see Spotify play the role of ABC to iCloud’s Disney, which in fact is already the case. In turn, smaller producers such as turntable.fm will take the role of satellite producers in much the same way Dick Wolf and the CSI producers orbit NBC and CBS respectively. Where Facebook, Twitter, and G+ stand is TBD. @borthwick, @scobleizer, @kevinmarks, @stevegillmor |
Weekly Wrist Watch Round Up | John Biggs | 2,011 | 9 | 24 | How does Switzerland do US patriotism? With a watch of course. Like it or not, Perrelet has just released this spinning stars and stripes version of their Turbine watch called the . We don’t care that this watch is made for a Dutch soccer team – what we do care about is that this highly limited edition Netherlands-made is great looking with a sweet mix of classic, modern, and sport. If you don’t have the right watch to wear while assembling your new computer rig – you know, to really get you in the mood- look like circuit board parts and are probably your best bet. New from Porsche Design is the pretty neat looking . We like the case the best, and with it you’ll have that comfy feeling knowing you are wearing something “designer.” Sober and presentable is often how you want to go with a nice watch. No one is better at that than the British. English watch brand . Since when to high-end timepieces and obscure comic strip character go together? They don’t, well save for this one-of-a-kind . The best part of these is that the guys who made them take them seriously. In reality they are an actually nice looking high-end joke. If you are a Rolex fan you’ll understand.
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Daily Crunch: Sabre Rattling | Bryce Durbin | 2,011 | 9 | 24 | Here is a selection of yesterday’s Gadgets stories:
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Go Beyond Ticker, Use Facebook Music Dashboard To See What Your Friends Listen To | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 9 | 23 | After yesterday’s announcement of its expanded , Facebook has been sharing your music listening activity over its News Ticker, allowing for music discovery and the realization that as TechCrunch founder , “A lot of you have just really terrible taste in music.” Well, in case you want to further delve into your friends’ terrible music taste, Facebook has just launched its Music Dashboard as a permanent bookmark in your profile’s left side bar. Inside Facebook’s Josh Constine that you can access it and dock it on your sidebar by clicking through to a friend’s or through this direct link Right now the Music Dashboard shows you what songs your friends are listening to — aggregating friend listening patterns by band– as well as Top Songs and something called Featured Music Services which for me at least is currently advertising Earbits and Spotify. While it seems like you must have at least one music playing partner app to listen to music through Dashboard, one of its coolest and most seamless features is that if you click on a song from a music player you don’t currently have Facebook gives you the, albiet mitigated, option to listen to it in your preferred player. Of course because it’s Facebook you can like or comment on user music listening activity, and also judge your friends on their song selections because, as we all know, Dave Matthews is lame. But, before you judge too harshly, please keep in mind the serious serious issue with all this music integration … As notes, “The problem with this Spotify integration is that I end up clicking a lot of friends’ terrible selections (out of curiosity) and then it looks like they’re *my* pics :(.” So, yeah, be care before you click on your old college roommate’s update that they’re listening to the Divinyls “I touch myself.” Openness a double-edged sword. |
Motor City Mojo: The Startup Renaissance In Detroit | Contributor | 2,011 | 9 | 23 | I heard them say they’re shutting Detroit down.
But I won’t leave ‘cause this is my hometown. — Kid Rock, “Times Like These” San Francisco. Palo Alto. New York. Cambridge. Austin. Boulder. Detroit. One of those doesn’t seem to fit in there right? After all, Detroit’s a mess isn’t it? . Half of the adults . . Some people would say that Detroit epitomizes what is wrong with America. But for a group of talented and motivated entrepreneurs in Detroit it’s something else. It’s a chance to show what’s right about America. Last week I had the pleasure of meeting with a dozen of Detroit’s top founders to discuss what it’s like to start a company in what’s probably the most economically depressed city in the country. While their businesses were different and they didn’t agree on everything, they all shared one thing: a strong feeling that the Detroit of the future will be better than the Detroit of the present. The meetup came together in large part due to the efforts of Ben Bator, the founder of , a somewhat random idea that spawned a website with four million monthly unique visitors, and a development deal with Sony Television. Ben is the kind of the guy who could start a company anywhere but instead has chosen to grow his company in Detroit and help to provide jobs in the community that he grew up in. If that attitude sounds familiar it might be because of a guy named Dan Gilbert. Gilbert, a Detroit native, founded Rock Financial back in the 80s and the company was acquired in 2000 by Intuit and rebranded as Quicken Loans. In 2010, Quicken Loans moved its headquarters and 1,700 employees to downtown Detroit and plans to move an additional 2,000 people downtown by the end of this year. , plenty of money for him to buy the Cleveland Cavaliers and perhaps more importantly plow some of his cash back into the Detroit startup scene through . Jake Cohen, who joined DVP in November, feels that Detroit is on the verge of a startup renaissance. “There are a number of advantages to starting a company in Detroit including lower costs, strong talent at the local schools like the University of Michigan, Michigan State and the College for Creative Studies at Wayne State and an an opportunity to fill a local hiring void left by the downsizing of the auto industry.” DVP has written checks for 10 companies in the last year alone and the company’s roster of investors includes impressive guys including Josh Linkner, DVP’s CEO and founder of the ePrize and, most recently, Michigan’s favorite son, Magic Johnson, . The renaissance in Detroit is one that spans generations. It includes guys like Andrew Rauh, a guy who Peter Thiel should be actively recruiting for his 20 Under 20 program. Andrew, a freshman at the University of Michigan, and been featured by Fast Company. Andrew’s resume is one of the most impressive of any teenager I’ve encountered and includes being published by Johns Hopkins University, finishing 3rd in an International Science Fair and raising money for Haiti after the earthquake. But it’s not just young guys starting companies in Detroit. Hossein Nivi might be a bit older than your average tech entrepreneur but he’s no less visionary. Hossein is attempting to disrupt education and training through . Imagine a cross between a flight simulator, a boot camp and a business school and you have a highly effective training model that’s been used within a number of corporations. And if Hossein’s surname is recognizable, it’s likely because you’ve seen the work of his sons out in San Francisco, , the founder of AngelList, and , the founder of . So while it’s easy to look at Detroit and feel discouraged by what’s going on, spend an hour with one of Detroit’s entrepreneurs and your mindset will change. Raji Bedi, the founder of (think Plancast for where you’re going out tonight), put it well with an emphatic statement. “We don’t want your pity or to be someone’s charity project. We want Detroit’s startup companies to stand on their own.” After spending time with the founders of other innovative companies like (game-based CAPTCHA), (a social game best described as “Clue meets The Amazing Race”), (disruptive play in the collections space) and Own Point of Sale (social point of sale) and with the people behind incubators like and Tech Town I was left with a strong sense of hope for Detroit. The numbers are pretty clear. . So if Detroit is to come back it’ll be the founders that assembled last week (and hopefully many more who will follow in their footsteps) who will be part of driving that job growth. No pity here. The kids in Detroit are definitely alright. |
Book Excerpt: Bloggers Boot Camp By Our Own John Biggs | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 9 | 24 | Our own John Biggs and his former Gizmodo co-worker, , have just released a book about blogging called . These gents produced tens of thousands of posts between them, written for some of the biggest names in blogging, and are generally good blokes. Their goal in this to teach how to write for blogs. This isn’t a book on starting a Tumblr or a WordPress.com. It’s about thinking about your blog posts in terms of content, value, and sharing and it discusses search optimization not through dirty tricks but through good, hard work. Here is an excerpt of the book and they’d love you to pop over to their they’re running with .
Ignore these two rules at your peril. Understand that blogs take on a life of their own, and if your goal is to blog to make money, or you are blogging as an extension of your interests or job, these two rules – part of what we would call a “blogging plan” – are absolutely paramount. Blogging is a job. It may be your second job but it is a process that takes hard work and discipline. We have been blogging for almost a decade, and it’s a constant struggle as well as a source of constant reward. Our days begin at 8 a.m. and end whenever the last news item flickers across our screens. The best blogs are updated daily, if not hourly. There is nothing worse than a ghost blog, a site that seems to be updated sporadically at best. Readers are becoming experts at sensing the freshness of content. If you leave your blog sitting for weeks at a time with no new posts, they’ll catch on quickly and your audience will migrate elsewhere. Keep posting! What do you mean, there’s nothing to write about today? Of course there is! There’s always something going on that would interest your readers every day. Your goal is to be the person “in the know” about all things involved in your topic. If you truly love what you’re writing about, you won’t have any problem writing something at least daily. If you find you’re having trouble, you may be facing a serious problem in your choice of topic. There is no topic too mundane that you can’t pull a post out of it. Can’t find news? Post some pictures from a recent activity related to your topic. Talk about what other bloggers in your niche are doing. Prepare a round-up of news from other sources. Your posts don’t always have to be news. They can be a personal story, a reaction to the news of the day, or a simple link to another site with information you enjoyed. However, if you find yourself getting lazy and failing to post, you’ve broken the first cardinal rule of your blogging plan. However, don’t fall into the “personal blog post” trap. Don’t tell the story of your problems at the DMV or your relationship issues. Don’t tell us what you had for dinner last night (unless you’re a food critic), or fill us in on every detail of that dream you had last night. Don’t spring your heartfelt musings on your unsuspecting audience. But if you can somehow creatively weave some personal experience into your posts, that could be the very thing that makes the story yours. Lacking inspiration? Create a calendar for yourself and a to-do list. Add items to the to-do list as you think of them and then add them to the calendar. These “evergreen” post ideas can be published at any time. If you find yourself frustrated or facing the dreaded writer’s block, simply go to this list of items you haven’t gotten around to yet and do one. That doesn’t mean you’ll have to sit in front of your computer 24 hours a day. A lot of blogging is thinking, observing, and discovering a fresh angle on a topic that’s already been covered elsewhere. If you keep your blog top-of-mind, you’ll find yourself coming up with ideas wherever you go. Who knows where you’ll find inspiration? Beethoven went for daily walks, and heard a bird singing the first four notes of his Fifth Symphony. Occurrences, people, objects and new experiences that have great potential to be turned into blog posts are everywhere, and it’s up to you to tease them out, write about them, make them interesting and grab your readers with them.
What sort of voice will your blog have? You want readers to become familiar with the way you do things, the way you express yourself, and the way your blog is laid out. Do you want to do long posts, daily? Many short posts each day? Digests of news with simple links? Videos? There’s a variety of ways to build a blog and most of us would choose a scattershot approach to posting daily. However, if you find you enjoy writing longer posts, you may want to stick with that style. It gives your readers plenty to chew on on a regular basis, and you can still add shorter posts in between. Establish your style at the beginning, and keep it consistent. Having a style doesn’t mean you have to be snarky, mean, or silly. It means you need to be clear, concise, and you need to stand out in a vast sea of “me-too” content. Be the person people link to when they want to prove a point. Be the expert other experts trust when it comes to matters of technical accuracy. Pride yourself on a consistent and readable style. And make it sound like you. However long your posts will be, it’s most important to decide on a writing style. Will you embrace vulgarity with your site, cussing like a sailor in every sentence, or will you be prim and proper? Will you attack your topics with sarcasm and snark, or will you play it straight? Will you have a happy, carefree and uplifting approach, or will you incite your readers to share your anger? Will you find a way to be different, standing out from the crowd of blogs blanketing the earth with your dazzling insights? Maybe you’re funny. However, comedy, as they say, is hard. One of the pitfalls we’ve seen in new bloggers attempting a snarky style is the descent into meanness for meanness’s sake. When you focus on a topic with any intensity, you “go native” and allow things to affect you more than they should. The antidote to this is to write everything in a hard news style or a more conversational style. Also avoid lashing out at figures and major players in your niche. And remember, a bit of self-deprecating humor and personality goes a long way. Don’t forget to make it personal. The one thing the “big newsrooms” can’t do is inject personality into their work. Sure, there are some exceptions, but on the aggregate many news sites are stale and boring by dint of their mission. Will this be a log of your experiences and opinions? Unless you’re going to be simply rewriting news stories, or doing straight reporting, you’ll probably insert many of your experiences and opinions into your writing. In the early days of blogging, much of the writing was a lot like the early days of Twitter, where writers would talk about everyday trivialities such as what they just ate for breakfast. Now, writers have taken it way beyond that level, by orders of magnitude. If you’re a solo act, let the readers inside, bare your soul. That’s entertainment! If you’re writing a blog with a group of colleagues, your blog style will need to reflect the fact that there is a group of people working together. Referring to yourself as “we” is probably the best idea here, but that’s not to say you can’t use the proverbial “we” when you’re writing a solo blog, either. This is an important element of your blog style: Will you write is a group or as a collection of individuals? You can choose whether each post will reflect the separate opinions and attitudes of individual writers, where all the writers in your group strive to set themselves apart. Or, you can work as an editorial team, akin to how newspapers editorial boards write, and speak as a group. We’ve asked you a lot of questions in this first chapter, and we would suggest you carefully contemplate each one and come up with solid answers for yourself. Be honest. If you do this, you’ll be on a sturdy foundation for starting up a successful enterprise. After you’ve gone through that period of self-examination, you might be thinking this sounds like a lot of work. You would be right. In fact, writing might seem easy to you, but the daily dedication needed for a successful blog is hard. You must summon all your energy and enthusiasm, applying a steady and dedicated work ethic to this venture. Set yourself realistic goals, and meet them every day, and you’d be surprised how even a small amount of work – applied consistently – will turn a series of seemingly small efforts into a monumental achievement. You can buy Nook and Kindle versions of the book and check out the course . |
null | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 9 | 6 | null |
TechCrunch Founder Michael Arrington Launches A New Blog, Uncrunched | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 9 | 23 | TechCrunch founder , who recently the company he founded over six years ago, is back in action. Or at least, he has proven that he still knows how to set up a WordPress blog. Arrington just tweeted a link to , which will be his personal blog from here on out. There isn’t really much there yet, save for his first titled, ‘ . That’s it — the post consists of just the title — but presumably his later posts will be a little more content-heavy (fingers crossed that this new role as General Partner at CrunchFund is just a ploy to unearth all of Silicon Valley’s dark secrets). Which brings us to the comments. Arrington has apparently decided to use the basic WordPress commenting system. It’s a brave move (you may remember the TechCrunch comments of yore), but the trolls haven’t overwhelmed the blog just yet. In keeping with time-honored Internet tradition, the first comment on the blog is “omg. first.” — congratulations to former TC developer and Cake Health cofounder for claiming the top spot. And an ‘A’ for effort to , who wrote “first” despite being the blog’s twelfth comment. The remainder of the comments are generally positive, though there are a few outliers, like the one embedded below. |
HTC Vigor Packs Beats Audio, LTE, But No DROID Branding? | Chris Velazco | 2,011 | 9 | 23 | Here’s a noodle-scratcher to ponder over the weekend: the was supposedly going to hit Verizon as the Droid Incredible HD, but files leaked from the forthcoming device hint that the phone may not carry the Droid distinction after all. Someone who was lucky enough to have a Vigor in their possession managed to rip the device’s boot sequence, wallpapers, and sound files, and shared their findings with . When the Vigor is fired up, it runs through the HTC, Beats, and Verizon LTE logos in quick succession, but something is strangely absent. The animation lacks the traditional giant red eye that has graced all of Verizon’s Droid series phones. Considering that the eye has been a strong part of Verizon’s Droid branding efforts, it doesn’t make sense to ditch it so unceremoniously. On top of that, the phone’s notification sounds were also released, and to my dismay there was no “ ” sound to be found. It’s possible that the eye is to be added to the boot sequence later, and the sounds weren’t properly dumped, but it looks at this stage that the Bionic will rule the Droid roost for the time being. Though the boot sequence manages to raise a question or two, the wallpapers that come with the phone manage to answer one. The wallpapers are all 1440×1280 in size, meaning that it’s quite possible the Vigor’s display will run at the reported 1280×720, making it one of the first 720p Android phones. Unless something gets changed between now and the phone’s release, these files cast quite a bit of doubt on last week’s . I’m still holding out hope that it’s real though, if only because I do so love the idea of an October launch. |
Imagine K12’s 2011 Startup Class Aims To Invigorate Education With Technology | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 9 | 23 | [tc_speakertext_off]One of my favorite bits from Disrupt SF was the set of rapid-fire presentations from Imagine K12, an incubator for education-related startups. We that some 200 applicants had been narrowed down to 10 companies, and those 10 made brief presentations in front of the audience at Disrupt. We couldn’t write them up at the time, so here is a belated rundown of these interesting new companies and services. I urge our readers to watch the video or at least skim our summaries and evaluations. Startups too seldom directly address social issues like this, and one of these services might be something that can really benefit you or your kids. I’ll go through these in the order they gave presentations, and I’ll give timecodes for each so you can skip directly to them if you like. The disconnect between group-based teaching and individual learning is addressed by Goalbook, which hopes to produce for every student a single, shared learning plan. The alternative, parent-teacher conferences and counselor meetings, is totally out of date, and simple social networking tools can improve the situation significantly, in their opinion. Instead of a file in a cabinet somewhere and a few notes jotted on attendance sheets or classwork, every student is a node in a network of educators, administrators, and parents. A database of goals, strategies, and so on will be used to create a recommendation engine for helping students. They’re launching in a number of Bay Area districts and private schools. The question for me is whether teachers will in fact have the time or inclination to do much more than rubber stamp this profile when homework is or isn’t put in, when they do or don’t attend, and so on. Rich data is a good thing, but someone has to create it, and teachers are already hard up for time. Training of teachers, while an expensive and highly necessary process, is stuck in the past, with paper-based tracking and feedback, and irregular goals and recommendations. Formative learning hopes to put all this teacher training in a single location, where everything is done in a universally-understood way and that data is used to recommend courses, videos, and so on to improve teaching. Naturally this is only one part of the training process, and the most important bit is still attracting and retaining motivated teachers. And no matter how right-on your recommendations are for this or that skill, hands-on learning and a supportive, happy staff is going to be more key. Of course, that’s a whole problem. There are a number of reasons why the means of communication between teacher, student, and parent are limited. There are questions of authority, privilege, and so on. Yet effective and timely communication is an important part of education, and something that’s far more likely to be found in small class sizes and private schools. Remind101 wants to provide a safe and effective tool for this using a form of communication kids seem to prefer over face-to-face interaction anyway: text messages. The founder describes it as “Twitter for teachers,” but with careful controls to make it secure and private. Instead of having teachers use personal cell phone numbers and so on, Remind101 acts as an middle man between teachers, their students, and the parents of those students. I honestly can’t think of any drawbacks to this. It’s safe, it’s simple, and it uses existing infrastructure. It can be integrated with school databases in a day and engagement level is up to the participants. We did a follow-up interview with Remind101’s founder . Crowdsourcing tutoring, who’d have thunk? TutorCloud thinks that they’re going to be the ones who make the $8 billion tutoring market a little more modern and accessible. Their service works as a marketplace for college students hoping to shop themselves out as tutors to younger kids or peers who can’t quite get the hang of organic chemistry. They use the Facebook Connect API to make personality matches as well as subject and pricing. All the communication happens within the system so personal information remains secure, and more responsive tutors get higher rankings. The actual tutoring occurs via video chat with a shared whiteboard space. The marketplace for tutors sounds fine, but to be honest, I don’t think video-based tutoring is going to engage enough to make people want it over a real-life person, the advantages of which are many. I’m afraid parents would rather pay for a tutor’s gas or drive their kid to the library for a meetup. Perhaps as online collaboration tools become richer and more accepted this will seem more of a viable option. Kids these days don’t play Carmen Sandiego or Mavis Beacon, and that’s a tragedy, but they do like to play games online. Why shouldn’t these games be interesting, social, competitive, and educational? BrainNook is putting together a lot of new games and experiences aimed at elementary-level kids that hopes to be engaging while providing some standard lessons in arithmetic, spelling, and so on. The information from these games would be available to kids’ parents and teachers. I have to admit here that I’m a bit disconnected from the world of online kids’ games. But BrainNook sounds like a great thing to have available to teachers for extra credit. Miss a homework assignment? Get to level 3 in the math game. Home sick? Sign in and talk to your friends in the virtual classroom. Whether they can actually make the games fun is a question yet to be answered, however. Kids are fickle creatures. What BrainNook needs is personality. Schools collect a ton of data just in order to be compliant with various laws and regulations: keep this many years of counselor records, teacher evaluations, etc. on file in case they need to be checked. But all these years of data, from which something meaningful might be gleaned or trends detected, are sitting in drawers or stuck in separate databases. Few schools really organize this information well or provide access to people like teachers and administrators. Eduvant integrates all this data into a single platform. You can put all kinds of data and analytics in one place with quick, browser-based access. There are tools for creating new data as well — referrals for counseling and such. Again, my issue is that producing this data may be more work that teachers and others in the system can’t handle. The principal dashboard they showed would be handy, but how live is it? Who is generating that data? Who’s scanning in paper reports? Expecting a quick changeover to this online system is optimistic in my opinion, as useful as it could be. But whether it’s Eduvant or one of its descendants, I definitely see systems like this in place a few years from now when these hurdles have been cleared. There are a number of services available to teachers for various in-class tasks like putting together quizzes, distributing work and resources, and receiving homework online. Unfortunately, they lack connectivity, and one useful tool may not communicate to another, or it may require extra work on the part of the teacher. ClassConnect wants to offer a one-size-fits-all package that lets teachers create lectures, test and assess students, and manage class content. They also made a rich lecture presentation tool that lets students interact with the content. The trouble here is that it requires a certain level of savvy on the part of students as well as teachers. Students who aren’t motivated will take the path of least resistance, and that will likely be the old tools: paper, pencil, and excuses. And underprivileged kids and districts are going to be left out of this, so it’s going to be hard to make it a standard tool. That said, the easy creation and sharing of class data could shave precious minutes off teachers’ schedules and leave more time for the all-important in-person interactions. The creation and distribution of rich educational media is a space Educreations feels is going to blow up, but the tools required to effectively make content are disconnected and not aimed at beginners. They’ve created a simple online service where you can draw, type, and bring in external content that gets automatically encoded and shared in a single place. It’s like an Open Khan Academy. I have no doubt of the company’s ability to deliver what they’re describing, but is it really that valuable? This form of visual aid (essentially a whiteboard recording) may or may not be a good match for the content teachers are presenting. I feel like they’re hitching their wagon to the nearest star, and not looking forward far enough. Also, writing with a mouse sucks. The $13 billion textbook industry is ripe for disruption, says 11 Learning’s founder. The existing system of working for perhaps years on a single large volume is inefficient and expensive. They’ve put together a platform on which authors can create and edit textbooks and publish them for minimal cost. If I’m not mistaken, this whole startup is essentially valuing the contributions of authors and professors at zero. A few professors may be okay with donating some of their time to editing a textbook, but are the 40 or 50 overworked profs, copy editors, and artists really going to continue giving away their work with the promise of some rev share later on? 11 Learning’s $5000 “fixed cost” figure is meaningless. Producing high-quality content is time-consuming and expensive because the people who create that content value their time. Furthermore, many subjects simply do not lend themselves to “crowdsourced” editing and content creation. And the way teaching is moving, centralizing content is on its way out anyway. This is like making improvements to steam engine production lines when the automobile is about to make its debut. Managing student behavior is a major problem in our school systems, wasting tons of class time and monopolizing the attention of new teachers in particular. In ClassDojo, students in classes are publicly awarded points and badges via a web or smartphone app, and that data (+1 for answering, -1 for passing notes) is automatically tracked and shared with parents. From the moment this guy said “we’re making software that fixes bad behavior in class,” I was skeptical. And when he said it “improves behavior in real time,” my alarms went off. This is just gold star stickers in a web app. It’s a huge overpromise that relies on way too many assumptions and ignores the realities of bad behavior. If students behave poorly because they don’t respect the teacher or value their time in school, that’s not something that will be fixed by a simplistic virtual point system — it will be either ignored or resented by the majority of students. Real behavior problems and real behavior management require time and work. There’s no way around that, especially not with something as flimsy as this. The test for many of these startups is whether they last beyond the trial phase, which all of them are clearly in. The big numbers they’re seeing are like the initial bump in any new service. You hear about it (in this case Imagine K12 certainly pitched the local districts), you give it a try, and then, organically, you either continue or stop using it. Some I can see truly picking up. Remind101, Eduvant, and ClassConnect I give a good chance of being picked up, if at first only for a fraction of what they do. I think some of these may be forced to fold or pivot when confronted with non-theoretical use scenarios. And of course every teacher and school is different, and has different requirements, so support is going to be a full-time job. Also, and I recognize this is an industry-wide problem with young startups, but it would help to have a little more proving time under their belts. Sure, a few weeks or months in however many districts is good, but what these guys really need is to pick two or three very different classrooms and work very closely with them for an entire school year, or failing that, at least half of one. What they need isn’t skyrocketing user counts, which often fall under the cooked numbers category, but real-life case studies. No principal is going to care that you have 10,000 classrooms being tracked by your tools. They will, however, care when you tell them about classroom that dramatically improved engagement, or showed a 50% increase in parent involvement, or what have you. Too many of these startups are under the impression that a burst of momentum in the beginning means their service is effective. Not true. The service is effective if it is effective, and education isn’t a sprint, it’s a long haul. Even though I don’t agree with the ideas or execution of all the companies in this first “class” of Imagine K12 companies, I’m all admiration at the fact that they are being attempted at all. Too much of startup culture is focused on bleeding-edge consumption, totally ignoring areas where even minimal applications of the tech we take for granted could improve conditions significantly in education, social services, and so on. I look forward to the next generation of Imagine K12 startups. |
KISSmetrics Helps You Hone In On Stats That Actually Matter With Cohort Reports | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 9 | 23 | , an analytics startup that helps you keep tabs on how your users are using your website, is adding a new tool to its suite of products today: . Cohorts, for those that aren’t familiar with them, are groups of users who sign up during a given time period (say, everyone who signed up between January 1 and 7, 2011). And analyzing them can offer some valuable insight into how people are using (or have stopped using) your service. Kissmetrics cofounder Neil Patel explains that the we often see being discussed in the press, like total user count, can be misleading. For example, your site might have growing overall usage each month, but that growth may be fueled entirely by a rise in new signups — who could mask the fact that your older users are fading away. That’s where cohort reports come in handy: they’ll let you break your overall user base into different groups, then see how each of those groups use the service during, say, the following six months. This can be helpful both to gauge the lifetime value of users, and to see how much of an impact new features are having on each group of users. Kissmetrics will also let you further break your users out into cohorts based on how they were referred to your site. Patel acknowledges that there are other services that have set out to offer Cohort Reports as well, including Mixpanel and RJMetrics, but says that their products, at least as far as cohorts are concerned, give users less flexibility (he also believes Kissmetrics is easier to use). Patel says one key feature offered by Kissmetrics that the others don’t have is the ability to ‘zoom in’ on each cohort down to the individual user level. Kissmetrics is available for free for a 30 day free trial, with premium plans available after that beginning at $29/month (prices increase depending on the size of your size and how many datapoints you’re tracking). If you’re interested in learning more about cohorts, Evernote CEO Phil Libin has previously about how his company uses this kind of data. |
350Green To Add 400 More EV Charging Stations Across U.S. | Sarah Perez | 2,011 | 9 | 23 | California-based electric vehicle charging station developer will purchase and install over 400 charging stations from manufacturer , the company has announced. The new additions will be rolled out across the U.S. to help build out 350Green’s network to over 1,000 stations. In addition, the stations will be powered by the ChargePoint Network, Coloumb’s EV-charging infrastructure which also includes for use by hosts, fleet managers, drivers and utilities. 350Green currently has projects in New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana and California. It’s in the process of installing Level 2 and DC Fast chargers in various consumer-friendly locations like Walgreens drug stores and at properties owned by real estate developers like the , which owns of malls, outlets and stores across the U.S. to Miami-based , a move which could indicate that a single EV charging station provider can’t handle an entire nationwide rollout on its own. (Car Charging Group’s stations will also support the ChargePoint Network). Meanwhile, Coulomb, which charges over 26,000 vehicles in 14 countries worldwide, will be providing its ChargePoint Network services to 350Green’s new stations. The ChargePoint Network will allow 350Green to track revenues, fees, costs, utilization and other EV services. Drivers will be able to use ChargePoint’s 24/7 support, billing options and mobile apps (iPhone, Android, BlackBerry) that offer charging status, plus station location, availability and navigation. According to , anywhere from 13 to 40 million plug-in electric vehicles will be on the road by 2030, including models like the Nissan LEAF, GM Chevrolet Volt, Fisker Karma, Tesla Model S, Ford Focus EV and others. Station rollouts like this will be critical to help make the transition more feasible for drivers. |
Groupon Loses Second COO This Year — And Restates Revenue | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 9 | 23 | Groupon has lost its second COO in six months. Back in March of this year, , who the company in March 2010, announced that he would be leaving the company. A month later, Groupon former Google VP Margo Georgiadis to replace him. And today, just five months after she joined the executive team, Groupon is that Georgiadis is leaving the company to re-join Google as President, Americas. Given that Groupon is currently in the process of going public, this doesn’t seem to bode well for the company. In the blog post announcing the news, Groupon CEO Andrew Mason vaguely attributes the departure to the fact that Groupon added 8 members to its executive team since the beginning of the year, and says that it’s rare for any company to “bat 1000%”. In addition to announcing Georgiadis’s departure, Groupon has also filed an , which includes revised revenue numbers based on a change in accounting. In its previous , Groupon reported that it had $1.5B in revenue for the six months ended in June — it now reports $688M for the same time period. The key difference: before now, Groupon has included the full value of a purchased Groupon as part of its revenue figures, and now it’s only considering the portion of the Groupon that they actually keep (a significant percentage of each Groupon goes back to the merchant). Finally, the revised S-1 also discusses Andrew Mason’s internal memo that last month. Here’s the Groupon blog post announcing Georgiadis’s departure: As a fast-growing company, we’ve done a lot of hiring this year, including on our senior executive team. Since the beginning of this year, we’ve made a total of 8 additions – that’s 57% of the total executive team. It would have been great if I could say that we batted 1,000%, but that’s rarely the case; after five months at Groupon, Margo Georgiadis, our COO, has decided to return to Google (her former employer) in a new role as President, Americas. We’ve built a fantastic team that has proven itself highly capable, so this change won’t have an impact on operations. In fact, we are using it as an opportunity to reorganize in a way that reflects our evolving strategic priorities. Sales, Channels, International, and Marketing will now report directly to me. Here’s a note from Margo: “Groupon is a great company and I feel privileged to have worked there even for a short time. It was a hard decision to leave as the company is on a terrific path. I have complete confidence in the team’s ability to realize its mission.” We wish her well. |
Fly or Die: How Long Is Qwikster For This World? | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 9 | 23 | If you get your DVDs from Netflix, soon the name on the familiar red envelope will be Qwikster. But how long is Qwikster for this world? In this episode of , John Biggs and I dig into the pros and cons of the service. Earlier this week, Netflix announced it will be its DVD-by-mail service from its streaming movie service. The DVD-by-mail business will be renamed Qwikster and include videogames. The streaming business will keep the Netflix brand. Customers can still subscribe to both, but in my mind Netflix is effectively hastening the death of its DVD business by making it inconvenient to manage both services. Instead of one site and one queue of movies and TV shows, the two services will require different accounts. Netflix is really forcing customers to choose which service they want and it is hoping that they choose the streaming one. All of this is going on while Dish Network is trying to revive Blockbuster, which now will offer its own s to Dish subscribers called BlockBuster Movie Pass. (Which brand do you think is stronger? Take our ). |
TechCrunch Giveaway: DROID Bionic #TechCrunch | Elin Blesener | 2,011 | 9 | 23 | After being teased for months and months, nine months to be exact, of when Verizon and Motorola would release the DROID Bionic, the wait is finally over. The is now out in stores and the reviews have been nothing but positive. In fact, people are so in awe of the phone, some even believe it will be the only phone to compete with the up-and-coming iPhone 5. So, since this is Friday, and we like to give things away on Friday, we are going to give one DROID Bionic away to one lucky reader. Thanks to Verizon, this giveaway is going to last for one whole week. To enter, all you have to do is follow the steps below. 1) 2) – Retweet this post (making sure to include the #TechCrunch hashtag)
– Leave us a comment below telling us why you want it The contest starts and ends September 28th at 12:00pm PST. We will pick one lucky reader at random next week and contact them via email. Anyone in the U.S. is eligible. Good luck! Update: Congrats to Scott Leither! |
Gillmor Gang Live (TCTV) | Steve Gillmor | 2,011 | 9 | 23 | The Gillmor Gang – Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, John Borthwick, and Steve Gillmor – recording concluded at 2pm PST. |
Samsung Asks To Ban iPads, iPhones In The Netherlands | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 9 | 23 | So remember that one time I said that Samsung was planning on against Apple? That was no joke. In the same court that granted an , the Hague Court in the Netherlands, Samsung has asked that the iPhone and iPad get pulled from shelves. Rather than being based on design (like Apple’s GalTab injunction request), this complaint is based solely on 3G technology patents held by Samsung and is aimed specifically at the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and both generations of the iPad. Within the request, as seen by , Samsung claims that all four of those products infringe on four different Samsung patents. The preliminary injunction request asks that Apple be banned from trading, importing or selling these devices within the Netherlands. Past that, Samsung also wants all current iPhone and iPad models pulled from store shelves. The four patents in question are the same ones that Samsung has brought against Apple across much of the globe, including the U.S., France, Japan, the U.K. South Korea, and Germany. They are essentials patents, which means that they cover technology necessary to the industry as a whole. With essentials patents, the right holder must license the patents to third parties without discrimination — this is known as FRAND terms. Samsung has recently said that Apple was “freeriding” with regards to Samsung patents, and this may very well be the point at which Samsung cashes in. Obviously, a few bucks here and there from Apple would be nice, but what Samsung really needs is an injunction of some sort on any iProduct. As I mentioned in my , there’s very little chance of a settlement unless Samsung can prove to Apple that it won’t be knocked around. A ban on the iPhone or iPad would be ideal, whereas a licensing agreement is really just a continuation of this whole dramatic mess. Apple’s lawyers have set up a hearing in which both companies can discuss the FRAND licensing issues. This would allow for talk of an injunction to fall by the wayside, as Apple and Samsung would merely have to negotiate licensing fees. Of course if Apple refuses to take the licenses (which would be a shocking decision), then Samsung can move forward with its injunction request. |
Deal Decor To Launch A Groupon For Furniture | Sarah Perez | 2,011 | 9 | 23 | I’m not often the fan of startups that are “the this, for that,” but I think I could get into something like : it’s the Groupon for furniture. This San Francisco-based startup is using the group-buying model made popular by Groupon to connect customers with factory-direct deals from overseas furniture manufacturers. The company is launching on Monday in San Francisco, which will serve as the pilot program for the service for 6 months. Afterwards, the plan is to launch in one new city every month, scaling up to reach the 20 largest metro areas in the U.S. Although consumers might not realize it, isn’t exactly a direct rip of the Groupon model. Where Groupon uses group-buying to promote coupons, Deal Décor uses group-buying to get better prices on furniture orders from manufacturers. Savings range anywhere from 30% to 70%, the company says. A closer competitor would be something like home goods-focused flash sales site , or others in the space like or . But those sites are offering steep discounts on high margin retail items, they’re not getting factory-direct deals. The first deal being offered to San Francisco shoppers is a 3-piece sectional sofa that comes from Vietnam. for $949. for $706. at $829. Deal Décor’s price? $399. Items are selected through the founders’ relationships with factories – they find out the top-selling items, and tack on their extra volume to the end of the production run, which keeps costs down. Further discounts are possible, too, because typical gross margins for furniture retailers (sometimes even 100%) over wholesale pricing. But because Deal Décor is purchasing directly from the manufacturers, not the importer or wholesaler, its gross margins can be lower. As is its overhead. However, its net margins are closer to what furniture retailers make. In addition to Vietnam, the company’s founders, and , have built up a network of over 100 factories in Asia, including China, Malaysia and Indonesia. The network was developed over the past decade or so through their experience at furniture retailers and companies like Home Depot, Target, Home Decorators Collection, William Sonoma and Hamilton Spill Furniture Group, where they worked in management, consulting and hands-on roles throughout the supply chain. Of course, with , you might not have the plethora of options that a furniture retail store would offer in terms of customizations to the furniture itself, value-added services like leather or fabrication protection, in-store warranties, financing options and more. But like some brick-and-mortars, Deal Décor operates locally, allowing the company to able to handle customer deliveries and returns locally, too. In San Francisco, the company partnered with a third-party logistics firm (also a FedEx partner), to handle warehousing, delivery and customer notifications. On top of the sofa’s purchase price, customers pay $6 to pick it up at the warehouse or $33 for home delivery. Deal Décor says it’s not making delivery a profit center for the business, though. For those wanting to see the sofa in real life first, it will be on display in local venues like the , for example. The same model involving third-party logistics and local venues for showcasing the items will be used as Deal Décor moves into other regions. (To see if Deal Décor is coming to your area in the future, check out the sign up form at the bottom of the company .) Eventually, the company hopes to offer more than one item at a time on its website per region, so there’s always a bedroom, dining and living room item available at all times. Deal Décor is funded by Sakuma and Lok at present, but is in talks with several Bay area VCs and angels. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sDD2n5E5a8] |
Keen On… Yossi Vardi: Cow’s-Manure-Over-IP (CMOI) | Andrew Keen | 2,011 | 9 | 23 | Along with being one of the world’s leading seed investors in technology start-ups, Israeli entrepreneur is also an acknowledged expert in renewable energy. He once ran the Israeli Ministry of Energy and was involved in a number of pioneering projects to develop non-commercial, indigenous and alternative energy resources for oil-poor Israel. One of these projects involved an attempt to make cow manure the engine of the Israeli energy economy. And at his recent unconference in Athens, Yossi revealed – for the first time ever on camera – the details of how he became the world’s leading authority on cow’s manure and how this World Bank funded green energy project could have powered the Internet. As always with Yossi, there might be a slight exaggeration here. But beneath all his bullshit, there is clearly a massive opportunity to develop a cows-manure-over-IP (CMOI) protocol for the Internet. Perhaps this could even be a future business model for AOL. |
Amazon To Hold Press Conference on 9/28, New Tablet Incoming? | Chris Velazco | 2,011 | 9 | 23 | Word of an Amazon press conference slated for September 28 at 10 AM is making the rounds. Could the fabled Amazon tablet make its first appearance? If so, then the invitation does a great job of playing it cool. Aside from a mention of the time and date, it offers little else to chew on. That hasn’t stopped speculation from running wild, and the potential unveiling of their new tablet is on everyone’s mind. Let’s let cooler heads prevail for a moment: while likely big, it may not necessarily be their much-vaunted Android tablet. The press conference could be used to announce any number of things, from a new version of the Kindle to a national rollout of their 7-11 delivery lockers. That said, the announcement of a tablet couldn’t come at more perfect time for Amazon: news of Barnes and Noble’s new complement of has just begun to surface, and their 3rd generation Kindles can’t stack up to shiny new hardware when the holiday season rolls around. Recent reports from Gartner also indicate that if uncontested, the iPad will for the next few years. The timing and the landscape seem ready for a tablet contender with Amazon’s full weight thrown behind it. When our own MG Siegler got a chance to , he discovered a few tantalizing tidbits. A 7-inch WiFi model is slated to sell for $250, and it’s going to run a very-Amazon centric fork of Android. It looks to be a compelling package of price and functionality, and hopefully we’ll catch our first official glimpse of it come the 28th. |
eBay To Announce Something Big With Facebook In Two Weeks | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 9 | 23 | At in New York today, revealed that PayPal is launching something big with Facebook in two weeks, and that it would be a more expansive partnership than the existing PayPal-Facebook integrations. This announcement is coming at eBay and PayPal’s Innovate conference in two weeks, we’ve confirmed with the payments giant, and , who leads Platform Marketing for Facebook will be making an announcement. We hear the announcement will be relate of PayPal parent company eBay Inc.’s new developer platform X.commerce. Last year, PayPal announced its which Facebook integrated. In early 2010, Facebook that you could use PayPal to purchase Credits. So what could the new deal or integration be? A likely possibility is a Facebook partnership on the , which is a division of eBay, Inc. and is expected to bring together elements from eBay, PayPal, Magento and GSI Commerce. According to PayPal, X.commerce will feature a “fabric” that stitches the platform together to create new experiences for retailers and their customers. A number of partners will be announced (already Adobe and Kenshoo have been revealed as partners), so Facebook could be part of this group. eBay and PayPal wouldn’t reveal exact details of the integration but did give us this comment from Naveed Anwar, head of X.commerce Community: “We’ve been talking for a while about how the four megatrends of mobile, social, local and digital will change commerce. Yesterday at f8, Facebook made some great announcements that will change social networking. When social and commerce join together great things will be possible and developers will be able to monetize these new developments very quickly.” PayPal could also announce a deal similar to the one American Express which links your credit card account with Facebook to offer users special exclusive deals. If you buy the deal item with your AmEx card, you will be credited the deal amount. The deals you see are influenced by what you and your friends “like” on the Web using the Facebook like button. PayPal but a deeper integration with the social network would . With more retailers flocking to Facebook, and as more money is passing through the network via games, apps and others experiences, there is a huge potential for many integrations with online payments giant PayPal. Another announcement we can expect PayPal to make soon—a and in-store payments integrations with retailers. TechCrunch readers can receive $200 off the registration price for X.commerce Innovate Developers Conference 2011 if they register by Friday, September 30, 2011. You can register using the code INN2011TC. |
Colbert On Defunct Satellite: “UARS All Gonna Die!” | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 9 | 23 | You’ve likely already heard about that defunct six-ton satellite hurtling its way to the Earth’s surface. Unless you’re paranoid, you also know that the chances of this changing anyone’s life, anywhere (save for a few NASA peeps) are very small. Like, microscopic. Still, it’s been a slow news week and the media has to keep pumping things out — and so begins the emergence of a thousand different news stories on several hunks of space metal that will likely land in an ocean. Rather than feign some notion of severity in this situation, my favorite comedic newscaster Stephen Colbert has weighed in. While his stats may be (I mean, he’s no Walter Cronkite, and decidedly so), his analysis of the situation is solid: NASA clearly doesn’t know what the bleep it’s talking about. Have a little giggle at the video below, and try not to fret if you’re one of those people who worries about every possible disaster: there’s only a 1-in-3,200 chance that someone somewhere in the world will be hit. |
B&N Releasing Two New Nooks This Quarter | John Biggs | 2,011 | 9 | 23 | The ninjas at have uncovered the names of two new Nook Color versions – the Encore, priced at $249, and the Acclaim, priced at $349. The Nook Touch (now called the Nook Smart Touch) will remain $139. What are these new devices? Nate at The Digital Reader posits that the Smart Touch is a 6-inch Nook Touch while the Encore is a 7-inch Nook Color. Aside from the fact that the Acclaim is also a shuttered games company, we know very little about the new devices. All of these products should hit in Q4 and given race to build an Android reader, they can’t come too soon. The Nook Color and the Nook Touch are both excellent devices but the Color is a bit dated in these days of retina screens and Honeycomb. A strong refresh should keep B&N’s momentum going for the next few months. I’ve put feelers out but thanks to Nate for his great scoop and read up more on his findings over at the |
Blockbuster Movie Pass: Dish Network’s $10/Month Answer To Netflix | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 9 | 23 | Dish Network has the answer to Netflix: Blockbuster. The company bought the bankrupt Blockbuster six months ago at auction and apparently wasted no time integrating Blockbuster’s current streaming service into Dish’s satellite TV plans. The Blockbuster Movie Pass is a complete media rental service and features streaming movies and TV shows along with movies and games-by-mail. But don’t cancel your Netflix streaming account just yet. This isn’t Blockbuster or Dish Network’s first foray with streaming video. The then-alive (but quickly sinking) Blockbuster launched On Demand complete with . It’s still up and running and features a robust platform support second only to Netflix. Likewise, Dish Network has long offered on demand video content and was the first to offer 1080p videos. In fact the Blockbuster Movie Pass is a relaunch of existing Blockbuster products combined with on demand content from Dish Network. The Blockbuster streaming content adds Starz, Epix, Sony Movie Channel, and Encore to Dish’s on demand library that includes Fox, TBS, TNT, Discovery, AMC, CN, DIY, HGTV, FOOD and History. The combined content can be streamed only from DishNetwork.com. Blockbuster.com will continue to stream its On Demand service. The streaming content can’t compete with Netflix just yet though. Blockbuster announced today that the streaming to TV library includes just 3,000 movies — 4,000 are available if watched via a computer. Of course the DVD mailing service better competes with Qwikster (Netflix) and features 100,000 available titles, which can be returned at Blockbuster location. However, unlike the current Blockbuster By Mail service, you can’t walk out with another title; your next movie will be mailed to you. Today’s announcement leverages Blockbuster’s name in movie rentals. You don’t rent movies from Dish Network, you rent movies from Blockbuster. That’s at least what Dish Network hope consumers think. The service launches next Saturday, October 1 and goes head-to-head with Netflix for $10. However, this isn’t for cord cutters. This service requires a Dish Network satellite TV package and is not available separately. New subscribers can opt for one year of Dish’s Top 200 programming package for $39.99 a month. The Blockbuster service will be billed with the Dish Network TV service, resulting in one bill for subscribers. Blockbuster’s Ira Bahr said , “They [consumers] still need their SpongeBob Squarepants, they still need their Fox News.” However, some people don’t want Fox News or SpongeBob, but for those already subscribed to Dish, this seems like a no-brainer for $10 a month. |
Facebook’s Ad Czar Envisions A Future Where Nearly All Facebook Ads Are Social | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 9 | 15 | When you think about how far advertising has come since its days, it’s a little shocking that Facebook ads will be responsible for a majority of the company’s estimated $4 billion in revenue this year, being predicated on the notion that a user is more likely to spend money on something that a friend has recommended or is otherwise engaged with than anything else. We had the opportunity at to sit down with Facebook Ads Product Director (and Godfather of Google Adsense) and talk about the difference between Facebook’s two and a half-year old “Social Ads,” which are basically promoted messages in a brand’s voice saying something along the lines of “Three of your friends liked Pepsi,” and the six month old “Sponsored Stories,” which are organic branded updates from users that receive featured placement in the Sponsored Stories bin on the right side of your Facebook page, among other things. So where does Rejaram see the future of Facebook advertising heading? “Our hope is that almost every ad on Facebook at some point a few years down the road will be a Social Ad or a Sponsored Story,” he says. Which makes sense, considering the two formats are on a majority of the pages viewed on Facebook. O ! That has such ads ! |
Celebs meet tech – Cheryl Cole collaborates with Stylistpick | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 9 | 15 | In the US celebrities have been investing and collaborating with startups. Justin Bieber using Instagram. Ashton Kutcher investing in and . So why not in the UK? Thus, UK music/TV celeb Cheryl Cole plans to launch a “capsule shoe collection” in association with London startup in December. The collection forms part of a wide collaboration between Cheryl and Stylistpick, which sees her choosing her favourite pieces from the online accessory retailer’s monthly mainline collections and sharing style insights. Cole is followed heavily by the mainstream press and fashion press as she has a lot of influence over what UK women buy. Stylistpick combines a personalised styling membership service with online shopping. Each month members receive a personalised selection of new shoes, bags and jewellery to choose from, edited by celebrity stylists. |
Line2 Now Has 50,000 Paying Customers, Launches On iPad | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 9 | 15 | Back in September 2009, I about — a startup that offers similar functionality to Google Voice, but with a focus on catering to businesses and ‘prosumers’ (it offers easily-accessible phone support among its included features). At the time, the company was getting off to a difficult start: it took Apple three months to initially approve the app, largely because of the dispute between Apple and Google over Google Voice. But they finally made it into the store, and things have gone very well since. Two years later, Line2 has 50,000 paying customers (plans begin at $9.95/month) and forty employees, and is very nearly cash flow positive. The app is available for both iPhone and Android, and today it’s launching for the iPad — you can find the new app . The iPad app looks good, in part because Line2 received input from Apple, which nudged it toward making an iPad version. From a functionality perspective it’s identical to the service’s iPhone version, but that’s not a bad thing. To start using the service you’ll need to sign up for an account, which needs to be done via the Line2 website. You’ll be able to pick a new phone number that you’ll use as your ‘Line2′ or you can port an existing one. After you’re set up, you can place and route calls, send messages, and browse through your message history for each contact directly from your iPad. Calls are placed over VoIP when possible, or you can elect to route a call to your regular phone. Line2 founder Peter Sisson says that the company decided to make the app after it found that the iPad was its top-converting platform, despite the fact that it only offered the 2x scaled view of its iPhone app (in other words, it looked pretty bad, but people were still using it). So they took the hint and built an HD version from the ground up to take advantage of the iPad’s larger screen real estate. [youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eQHSIZz34s’] |
Advertising Network Longboard Media Takes In $6 Million | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 9 | 15 | Ad network is announcing $6 million in Series A funding today, from . Managing the ad inventory for over 30 online properties including , , , and , Longboard Media likens itself to a “Glam Media” for e-commerce sites. Longboard Media has been profitable since it was founded by former eBay employees and in 2008, and its ad network has potential to tap into an audience of over 63 million people, according to its financing release. The company is reporting that it served over 3 billion paid impressions in the 2010 holiday season and grew its publisher base more than 40% in 2011. The formerly bootstrapped company plans on using the money to bulk up on staff and further invest in it its ad targeting technology. |
Bose SoundLink Mobile Passes On AirPlay For Bluetooth A2DP Streaming | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 9 | 15 | Bose has a new toy for your desktop. The Soundlink Mobile builds on the company’s SoundDock pedigree but ditches the physical dock in favor for a bit of streaming magic. But no AirPlay here. Bose instead employs Bluetooth A2DP, which works with most Bluetooth-enabled devices rather than just the fruity ones. Awesome. The unit itself is about the size of a hardcover book and features a decidedly retro leather or nylon lid that folds back to double as a stand. A lithium-ion battery pack is said to provide eight hours of playback at reasonable levels and less if the party gets out of control. And it very well might, too. Bose has backed this little guy with more speakers than some compact cars.
Two “waffle” woofers flank four midrange drivers. This configuration is said to provide full sound without causing the speaker to walk around the desk. Bose of course doesn’t talk specs, but the company’s older iPod docks are still some of the best sounding models so the SoundLink likely rocks just fine. However, it remains to be heard if the sound justifies — $350 if you opt for the chrome/leather model. Both models are available now with additional nylon covers costing $30 each, while the tan leather cover costs $50. Big props to Bose. Thank you for building a device that uses an industry standard rather than an iOS-only technology. I mean that. As an Android user, it’s frustrating watching the hot new accessories only work with the iPhone. I’ve never said this before, but good job, Bose. |
SEC Watch: Social Media Dashboard HootSuite Raises $3 Million | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 9 | 15 | Social media dashboard company has raised $3 million in new funding according to a new HootSuite has previously raised $1.2 million from Blumberg Capital, Hearst Ventures and Geoff Entress. HootSuite offers brands and businesses a comprehensive social media dashboard that allows teams to collaboratively schedule and monitor updates to Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, WordPress and other social networks via web, desktop or mobile platforms. Via the applications, HootSuite users can also track campaign results, analytics and other data. In two years, HootSuite has grown to over 1.5 million users worldwide, is cash-flow positive, and recently an add-on for the Firefox 4 browser called TwitterBar, which enables users to post to a variety of social networks straight from the web address bar. HootSuite was also the first application in which Twitter began in-stream ad product. We’ve contacted the company for confirmation and will update when we hear back. |
Forget Apps, Carbyn Has Built A HTML5 OS | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 9 | 15 | HTML5, HTML5, HTML5 — it seems to be the only thing anyone wants to talk about these days. And that excitement could get kicked into overdrive when Facebook unveils , their platform for HTML5 apps. But why wait? A startup that launched at TechCrunch Disrupt has already built an entire HTML5-based OS: . The great thing about Carbyn is that there’s nothing to install. Because it’s HTML5, it works in the browser. Well, any “modern” browser, as Google often likes to say — that means essentially anything but the older versions of IE. You simply open a browser and log-in to Carbyn and you’re ready to go. The team showed it to me running on both an iPad and a BlackBerry PlayBook. Soon it will work on smartphones as well, they say. Once you load up the OS, you can pin any app to the main OS screen (again, all in the browser). Apps can be tailored for Carbyn from the ground up (still using all HTML5) or there’s a wrapper that can be used to make existing apps work. There’s a SDK for all of this, and the team says that they can get any app up and running in less than a half hour. So how is this different from something like the Chrome Web Store? Well, that’s just a store for HTML5 apps, it’s not an OS to run them. They still run in the browser itself, and that means when you close one, you’re just closing a window or a tab. When you close a Carbyn app, you’re taken back to the Carbyn homescreen. But the key is that there’s much better multi-tasking thanks to their SDK which allows different apps to talk to one another in a way that traditional web apps can’t. In many ways, Carbyn is more similar to the browser itself, Chrome. Or even closer, Chrome OS. But the Chrome Web Store only works on Chrome and only on personal computers. Carbyn is meant to run anywhere (again, anywhere with a “modern” browser). “Google wants to promote their own products, we’re agnostic,” co-founder Jaafer Haidar notes. Carbyn is probably a bit closer to , a startup . But they’re in the process of . And the truth is that they were always a bit different anyway. While the vision may have been similar, Jolicloud perhaps suffered from being a bit too early to the space. When they launched, HTML5 wasn’t on the tip of everyone’s tongue, so they had to build an OS around Linux. As for Facebook with Project Spartan, Carbyn anticipates it will have the same problems as the Chrome Web Store in that it will be too closely tied to the parent company. “Hopefully Facebook doesn’t try to pull a Microsoft and create some proprietary hooks for HTML5,” Haider says. Carbyn is now focused on partnering with some key developers to tailor apps for their platform. They eventually plan to take a cut of app store sales (the standard practice) or possibly do affiliate deals. The Canadian-based startup has 5 employees and has been entirely self-funded up until now. They’re in the process of raising their first outside funding. See Carbyn in action in the video below. |
Pinterest Has Already Pinned Down $10M At A $40M Valuation | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 9 | 15 | If you’ve attended any mass gathering of investors in Silicon Valley lately, you’ve probably heard some buzz about invite-only visual bookmarking site raising a “massive” round. Business Insider the round as having $75+ million valuation last week and then amended its report to reflect that the valuation was actually lower according to another one of their sources. We’re hearing from multiple sources that Pinterest already quietly raised a $10 million Series A from Bessemer late this spring, at a $40 million pre-money valuation. According to the same sources, the company is now trying to raise around the same amount in a Series B whose valuation one source has pegged at around $125 million and another has held at under $200 million (note: one uninvolved investor I talked to said those valuations for a Series B seemed “ridiculous” right now). Why raise money again, so close to your Series A? Well, the simple answer is because founders and can. The site itself is experiencing and a lot of from high-profile techies. Just from personal experience it seems like every other day a random person is now following all of my boards on Pinterest. Some specific reasons for Pinterest’s growth are throughly outlined over on Quora Despite the site’s success, there are whispers that some notable investors passed entirely on both rounds, out of concern that the “virtual pinboard” it isn’t a mass market play. Prior to these funding rumors, Pinterest was prominently the site that Myspace’s most recent (tumultuous) redesign. |
Microsoft Excises Flash And Plugins From Metro Internet Explorer In Windows 8 | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 9 | 15 | Microsoft has confirmed its commitment to a separate and separately-optimized ecosystem in Metro by announcing via the ever-interesting that IE10 in Metro will not support plug-ins. This includes Flash, of course, which gives the announcement the same flavor, if not the same substance, as Apple’s famous rejection of that particular technology. This is much more mild, though it is significant all the same. Microsoft has always been a fan of plug-ins, but the more recent versions of IE have been much more standards-orientated. IE6 was simply a vessel for web plug-ins, but IE9 is far more integrative and streamlined. IE10, at least in Metro, will take it to the next logical step, which is eliminating plug-ins altogether. The decision is a pragmatic one, really. The tablet form of Windows 8 will be focused on basic web consumption, bespoke full-screen apps, and tablet-like long life and ease of use. For many use cases where Flash or other plugins may have been necessary in the past (video and audio are the majority), new standards and containers are making native implementation faster, simpler, and more secure. And since the desktop form of 8 will be accessible at all times, it’s a snap to switch to the more full-featured IE10. Just hit a button on a page that requires a plug-in, and you’re whipped into full desktop mode. It’s not the most elegant solution, but it’s , whereas Apple offers only cold consolation. Some of the internet is inaccessible to iOS users, plain and simple, and this won’t be the case for Windows 8 tablets. That counts as a strength to many, though perhaps just as many have accepted Apple’s premise that if it doesn’t work on the iPad, it probably wasn’t worth it anyway. Having this reduced functionality in the Metro version of the app concerns me a little bit, though, as it seems to make it less of a “real” app and by extension makes a Windows 8 tablet in Metro mode less of a “real” PC. Is this a single-case design decision, or one of many apps in which the Metro/tablet app will be a little bit inferior? On reflection, it’s not so much of a compromise as some may think. The decision to streamline an app has practical benefits. Safari on the iPad is as no-frills as it gets, and it sacrifices a ton of functionality to be that way. Why should we have a double standard for Microsoft? Here they provide a “dumb” version that can either be tolerated or switched to a full version with a single touch. They provide a choice where Apple doesn’t. Furthermore, it’s almost certain that plug-ins will be supported by third-party browsers like Firefox. Microsoft is simply choosing the market it wants to define on its own tablets. Being the Swiss army knife is too much of a commitment, especially on Windows, which is itself already an impractically-large Swiss army knife. Yet I still feel that Microsoft may be unable to follow through on its early promises that the Metro interface would be just as powerful and full-featured as the desktop some of us know and love. I want it to be true, but without some sorcery I don’t think it’s going to be that way at first. Adobe has said something on this topic , where it notes that it will be bringing Flash content to Metro via Air and likely the app store. Whether it will be a pleasant experience remains to be seen (much relies on the content itself; many Flash items aren’t optimized for touch), but it’s worth noting that this is far from the total dissociation from Flash that Apple has been pushing. You can read our , but unfortunately the wi-fi in our device had trouble authenticating, so we were unable to test the browser. Don’t worry: we’ll have ample time to test it over the next year or so before the OS is released. |
Microsoft Shows Off Tango Video Chat App On The HTC Titan | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 9 | 15 | I’ve liked Windows Phone Mango since I , but the truth of the matter is that most of the features being implemented are merely catching up to competing platforms. The Bing integration and voice-to-text capabilities are… pretty cool. But other than that, as I said, Mango is playing catch-up. The addition of a video chat app on the is yet another example of that, but it’s coming. Despite the incredibly unfortunate name sharing situation, the Tango video chat app (unrelated to the next WP7 update codenamed Tango) is actually pretty cool, albeit a bit late to the party. In the video below, Aaron Woodman of the Windows Phone team perhaps too enthusiastically details the way video chat works on that massive 4.7-inch Titan screen (courtesy of the ). Like Apple’s FaceTime and the Tango app for Android, Tango for WP lets you enjoy the “see what I see” switcharoo between front and rear-facing cameras. Oddly enough, Google Talk has yet to get this figured out. What’s cool is that the Tango app for Mango is cross-platform, offering support for iOS, Android, and PC. Microsoft happens to , so this Tango app may have some pretty serious competition on the Windows platform in the future. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNwUv4dQFCk&w=640&h=360] |
Live Your Space Program Fantasies With A Retro NASA Camera | Chris Velazco | 2,011 | 9 | 15 | This beauty is a Nikon F Photomic T, which first hit the streets all the back in 1965. Aside from being a gorgeous piece of retro tech, it’s also one of several NASA-owned cameras from the estate of collector Arthur Keir that have been put up for auction. Keir’s spans the decades, from the Nikon F you see above, to its successor the (1978), to a bulky video camera that flew on the Space Shuttle Columbia (1998). For those less interested in photography, Keir has also amassed quite a bit of NASA effluvia, ranging from a glove bladder to thermal slippers, both of which were meant for extra-vehicular activity. If this blast from the past has you reaching for your wallet, be warned: prices seem to be a bit on the steep side. Still, some of these pieces could be gifts of a lifetime to the maniacal photographer in your life, so feel free to check out the rest of Even if you resist the temptation to buy something, you’re sure to get your daily dose of retro camera porn. |
null | Chris Velazco | 2,011 | 9 | 23 | null |
Longtime Mozilla VP Mike Shaver Steps Down | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 9 | 15 | , one of the founders of the Mozilla project and longtime VP at Mozilla Corporation — the maker of Firefox — has announced that he’s leaving Mozilla Corp. Shaver has worked at the company for the past six years, holding positions including VP of Engineering, and, most recently, VP of Technical Strategy. He’s well known in the open source and Mozilla communities, and his departure has led to responses on Twitter and elsewhere (he that he might add his @reply stream to his resume). From Shaver’s : It’s starting to get around, because my co-workers are bad at secrets, so I’ll summarize for “the record”. I’ve decided that it’s time for me to move on from the Mozilla Corporation, where I have enjoyed 6 years surrounded by incredible people doing incredible things on (and to) the web. I haven’t yet decided what’s next, though I have some exciting opportunities to explore. I am still truly, madly, deeply in love with Mozilla and the web it is building, and grateful for the opportunities that it’s created for me. I have lots, lots, lots to say about my history with Mozilla and what I think the future holds, but that’s for later. This week is about enjoying the company of my Mozilla family, and celebrating the incredible honour it’s been to work here for the last 6 years. And maybe some sniffling. |
Mint Robotic Swiffer Gets An Upgrade | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 9 | 15 | I reviewed the floor cleaning robot just about a year ago, and found it a delightful little device as long as you know what you’re getting. While it doesn’t have the capabilities of the (or ) or the fire-and-forget simplicity of the Roomba, it’s great for hardwood floors, and it’s quiet, compact, and cute. Evolution Robotics has put together an upgraded model of the little guy, and while it’s not bringing it to levels, it does make the device more practical for multi-room houses. Previously, the Mint was more or less restricted to cleaning one room at a time. It has a little cube that helps it track its position, and the cube only maps out one room at a time. My Mint definitely left the theatre of action and went to check out the hallway and kitchen before, but generally it stayed in the room. Now you can use more than one cube, and the bot will travel from one room to the next. It also has a reservoir for wet mopping now as well. Previously, you just wetted the cloth it came with and let it go to town. I found this inadequate, it was more like giving the floor a damp wipe than mopping. But now it has a little internal tank for filling with water, or juice if you want to make your floors sticky. Last, it has an upgraded battery and a new charging cradle that brings it to full power in two hours. I’m still waiting for the version that parks itself, though. And it’s black! – the old one can be picked up for $200 now. |
Sequoia Leads $30M Round In Mobile Business Data Visualization App Roambi | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 9 | 15 | , the developer of business data visualization platform has through its first round of institutional funding led by Sequoia Capital. This brings MeLLmo’s total funding to $50 million. As part of the round, Sequoia partner Greg McAdoo will join MeLLmo’s board of directors, and David Spector will join as a board observer. Launched in 2009, Roambi allows business professionals to access visualized data from anywhere. Roambi’s website and and apps allows for data in spreadsheets and documents to be easily viewed on both the web and mobile platforms in customizable charts and graphs. Roambi users simply upload their data from Excel spreadsheets, Google Spreadsheets, HTML table data, CSV files, and Salesforce CRM reports to the online Roambi Pro Publisher. Roambi also support uploads of data from business applications including those from IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP. After the data is downloaded, you can select a pre-designed template to deliver the data (i.e. pie chart, graphs etc.). Once published, the data transforms into interactive visualizations for the iPhone and iPad. Roambi Trends identifies and visualizes trends in data and offers data comparisons across whatever period a user chooses – years, months, even minutes; users can easily focus on specific time periods by sliding the dateline at the bottom of the graph. CataList view organizes data into hierarchical, categorized lists with the ability to drill down to into detailed summaries, as well as simultaneously compare or analyze different sets of data. The bonus of Roambi is that it can be used by both small and large businesses. For enterprise users, Roambi offers both a Pro version, which is a secure, hosted service that connects mobile; and Roambi ES, a secure, on-premise server solution. As we’ve written in the past, the view of the data within Roambi’s app is impressive as data-filled spreadsheets are automatically turned into interactive graphs and charts which allow you to easily understand the information that’s being delivered. The company recently launched Flow, which allows users to create and share all types of business information and intelligence via a sleek report on the iPad. The new app will be publicly available in the next few weeks. The latest funding round will be used for international expansion regional hires and for the development of localized versions of Roambi Analytics and Roambi Flow. Business intelligence is a hot space and attracting major investments from venture firms. In August Andreessen Horowitz led a round in business intelligence and analytics startup Good Data. |
Congress Members Urge Obama To Approve AT&T/T-Mobile Merger | Chris Velazco | 2,011 | 9 | 15 | Fifteen members of Congress aren’t too pleased with the Department of Justice’s recent , as instanced by a letter they sent to President Obama. Penned by Rep. Heath Shuler (D-NC) the letter urged the president to because of the benefits it could bring to the American people. Though Shuler meanders a bit, the letter essentially boils down to three main points: the merger will help the expansion of high-speed wireless networks, help generate new jobs, and help boost the country’s GDP in the long run. Shuler paints a picture of an America that is ultimately better off from the results of the merger, and ties the potential benefits back to the president’s own hopes for broadband expansion and job creation as laid out during the last State of the Union address. Shuler finishes up the letter by recognizing the intent of the Department of Justice, and goes briefly into why the they should actually a settlement: We recognize that the Department of Justice has intervened in the merger to ensure competitive markets and protect consumers. Addressing these concerns through a settlement agreement that ensures robust competition while preserving the job creation, capital infrastructure investment and wireless broadband deployment benefits of the merger should be the Department’s goal. The claims, of course, are nothing that haven’t been heard before. While members of Congress can voice their complaints all they like, this is a matter that’s ultimately up to the courts to decide. That wasn’t about to stop Sprint, who shortly after the DoJ kicked things off, from vigorously denouncing the merger once again: Make no mistake, AT&T’s proposed takeover of T-Mobile will eliminate tens of thousand of jobs across the country. The flawed economic study embraced by AT&T and its union ignores what Wall Street investors and the Federal Government have been already been promised: that the overall investment for the combined companies will be substantially reduced if the proposed transaction closes. Unless something drastic happens soon, expect the situation to become much hairier before it starts to clear up. A tweet from a reader prompted me to do some more digging, and it turns out that Rep. Shuler has been the recipient of over over the course of his political career. I haven’t yet been able to figure out who the others are, but it’s possible that their campaign contribution histories are similarly tainted. |
iPhone 5 To Launch On October 15th, Suggests France Telecom CEO | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 9 | 15 | Apple is famous — hell, notorious even — for their culture of secrecy. With the strictest of NDAs, discussions between even the closest of teams limited to need-to-know matters, and whispers of creepy internal investigation squads lurking about, people in the know tend to keep their lips sealed up tight. Unless that person’s name is Stéphane Richard and they’re the CEO of France Telecom — then they say just about whatever the heck they want. In this case, he’s stirring up the rumors surrounding the iPhone 5’s launch date. Back in May, Stéphane Richard tested the waters by confirming that Apple was tinkering with the idea of a new, smaller SIM card standard. Seemingly walking away from that without any harsh repercussions, he today shared what he believes to be the launch date for the iPhone 5. In discussions with a small group of French reports, Stéphane mentioned: Gasp! Of course, it’s worth noting that new iPhones dont always launch in all regions simultaneously; while the iPhone 4 launched in the US and across Europe all at once, some countries don’t get the new model until a few weeks later. Previous rumors have pinned this newest model’s launch on days all over the first half of October, and this little slip-up really just helps cement that idea. What do you think? October 7th? October 15th? Place your bets now. The winner gets to point to this thread in all future internet flamewars as evidence of their undeniable prescience. |
Google+ Opens First APIs: Read-Only And No Circle Access For Now | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 9 | 15 | A week ago, we noted the talk amongst developers that a Google+ API . The next day, we learned that Google was — among them, Google Ventures-backed startups — to try out their early stab at the API. Google was not happy we found this out (and went on a witch hunt to find the leaker) — so it shouldn’t be too surprising that today they’re announcing some initial APIs for everyone to use. As they on the Google+ Platform Blog, the initial API is ready to go, but it’s limited. The focus right now is only on publicly-shared data (so no Circles) and it’s read-only. Still, this initial release should placate many of the developers who have been asking for any access to Google+ data since day one. But the main focus of Google+ is clearly on the Circles sharing concept. The API for that is probably one that everyone is really waiting for. And that one could be a ways off since it involves complex connections and tricky privacy implications. Even more important will be the write API. But again, with the Circles element, it’s complicated. Google’s Chris Chabot talks a bit more about this initial API on, where else, . “These APIs allow you to retrieve the public profile information and public posts of the Google+ users, and they lay the foundation for us to build on together – Nothing great is ever built in a vacuum so I’m excited to start the conversation about what the Google+ platform should look like,” he writes. And Google may need a full API . |
Panasonic Creates Triathloning Robot | John Biggs | 2,011 | 9 | 15 | In honor of the Iron Man Triathlon in Hawaii, Panasonic has created a tiny EVolt mascot that will run, swim, and bike the course’s full 142 miles in about a week. The teeny little robot will run on EVolt batteries and, since he’s 10 times smaller than a human, he gets to take much longer to finish the course. This wee robot is going to swim 2.36 miles, bike 111.8 miles, and then run a full marathon. I suspect the wee fellow will probably have some backup robots to help him if he dies in the middle of the open ocean. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7iziy3k0v8&feature=player_embedded] |
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