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DARPA Is Using Oculus Rift To Build The ‘Mega Man Battle Network’ Of Cyberwarfare | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 5 | 23 | In a surprising amount of futuristic visions of how hacking will work in the future, the experience is immersive, rather than something done hunched over a computer looking at lines of code scroll by. DARPA appears to agree with the full-body submersion vision of hacking’s future, as it’s working on an Oculus Rift-based interface for use by U.S. military hackers, one part of its Plan X project for making digital warfare easier to train for and operate. The project was on display this past Wednesday at the Pentagon, and . You can see the demo in action in the video below. But note that the demo itself is more movie magic than real code combat; it was created by SF-based creative firm Frog Design and Austin-based software simulation co. Infific. But DARPA is building a real version that’s designed to make both cyberdefense and attacks using computer technologies more immersive, giving military hackers a way to look around the data and go “swimming in the Internet,” as DARPA Plan X program manager Frank Pound explained to WIRED.
Oculus Rift software is currently in development, with the DK2 version to enter testing with DARPA later this summer. Part of the logic behind building for the platform is that DARPA’s senior staff sees this as the type of interface the young, fresh-out-of-school tech-savvy cybersecurity recruits they want to hire will be using and familiar with. Plan X is set to run for the next few years, through 2017, and it could take a very different form before it’s ready for actual use by soldiers. In fact, Pound told WIRED he’s already been informed of new features on future versions of Oculus the rest of us can only dream about. I guess that’s one of the perks of preparing for tomorrow’s virtual cyberwars, but the rest of us can probably safely assume it’ll Megan Man Battle Network and its sequels were 100 percent accurate in their depiction of entering a virtual world to fight off incoming cyberattacks. Gaze into my crystal ball: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5vqY-FSejo] |
Google Is Building A Creator-Focused Mobile App, Channel Donations And Crowdsourced Captions | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 5 | 23 | [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR8XBZRkkao] Google’s letting YouTube creators know they’re special and important with a new series of videos (via ) to keep the updated on new developments, and the first one reveals some of the upcoming YouTube-focused features the search giant is working on. Among the new developments are a creator-focused YouTube management app, new revenue options via direct channel donations, and crowdsourced captions in over 60 languages. The roughly three-minute video doesn’t describe the creator app in too much detail, but it gives the impression that it’s designed to provide more backend information and feedback for YouTube creators to access on the home. The donation mechanic is similar to one that Vimeo already has in place, and would offer an additional, completely YouTube-contained way for channel creators to solicit and collect funds directly from audience members. Captions would make it possible for YouTube creators to reach international audiences in any language. Additionally, Google talked about plans to build a revenue share model for covers and mashups so that people who riff on popular tracks can also manage to make money for them, without having to worry about finagling rights and all that other tedium on their own. Google has good reason to make this process better for creators, as this kind of content makes up a big chunk of what drives views on the site. Last year, Google made it possible for creators to derive ad revenue from select content like this, but now it seems it has additional plans to help creators share the wealth. There’s more still, like additional royalty-free music coming for creators to use in building their stuff. And Google plans to make these videos a regular thing, so stay tuned for more if you’re in the business of developing an online video fan base. |
Stash For iPhone Finds The Best Prices For Beauty Products And Personal Care Items, Makes Re-ordering Easy | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 5 | 23 | A company called wants to take the hassle out of shopping for beauty and personal care items, while also scouring the web to find the lowest prices and best products, as recommended by experts, including fashion and beauty magazines, websites and blogs. The company has been quietly testing over the past year with a couple thousand beta testers, and is now ready to make its public debut. The idea for Stash was originally conceived by MIT alum who, as a New York City resident, grew frustrated with the crowded drugstore shopping experience and the drudgery that involved. But although he had been thinking mainly of a product that could make this sort of shopping more efficient, while also helping customers find better prices, it was Stash’s co-founder, , who saw the potential for the service to do more with regard to actually making product recommendations. Gledhill’s background is in fashion, having previously spent several years at Vogue before becoming a senior fashion editor at New York Magazine where she works today. With Stash, the idea is to offer a beauty dashboard of sorts, where customers can search for products by brand, keyword, hashtag, or even barcode scan, which allows you to add products you have at home. The app, currently available on iOS, then lets you comparison-shop for tens of thousands of products across a number of online sites, including Amazon, Sephora, Soap, BeautyBar, Drugstore, Beauty, Nordstrom, Walmart, Macy’s and Saks. And no, Amazon is not always the site with the lowest prices, the company found. “Our beta users have saved 16.1 percent off retail on average, of which 13.4 percent was from our automatic price comparison tool,” notes Henderson. Stash also makes re-ordering your preferred products easier, without the commitment of a subscription service, like Amazon’s “Subscribe & Save” program, for example, which lets you put common household goods or personal care items on regular shipment schedules. “I think there’s a tendency, whenever women go shopping…they’ll get this new product and bring it home. But then they forget about it when they go back to the store,” explains Gledhill. “What’s nice is that I can see everything I do have [in Stash]. It keeps track of everything, and it assigns a lifetime to that product,” she says. That is, Stash tracks how often you order a product, like shampoo, in order to determine when it should be added to your cart again. But the final step in the checkout process — actually completing the transaction — is up to you to approve. When you do, the order processes right within Stash itself. And shipping on orders of $25 and more is free. Stash’s business model today involves taking a cut of those transactions, but in the future they may explore doing more around their product recommendations. While many women (and men!) today use a combination of drug store products and high-end brands in their personal care and beauty routines, what makes Stash interesting is that it has an editorial element to its service that helps you discover new products. In the left-hand corner above the product image, you’ll see the logo of the editorial outlets (e.g. Glamor, W, Vogue) that have endorsed the item. And when you click on that logo, it brings you to that website where it’s actually talking about the product in question. This understanding of what experts have recommended products also comes into play when doing a search, as it influences how the results are ranked when you search for general keywords or hashtags. The app is primarily aimed at women, but will also cater to men with recommendations from GQ, Esquire and various men’s grooming blogs. The bootstrapped startup, also co-founded by AI expert Jon Pearce and Yale alum John Wang, is headquartered in NYC and is a team of five. Stash is a free download, . Now, please excuse me while I go scan everything in my bathroom. |
Personal Assistant Startup Fancy Hands Taps New CEO To Focus On Growth | Colleen Taylor | 2,014 | 5 | 23 | , the New York City based startup that lets you book a remote personal assistant to for a flat fee, has hired a new CEO to focus on business partnerships and growth, founder tells TechCrunch. Roden has handed over the CEO role to , who was previously a founder of Amie Street, the online music store and social sharing service which . Boltuch’s focus will be on managing Fancy Hands’ business operations and partnerships, such as its , who is using Fancy Hands’ API for a promotion. “This hire lets me focus on what I’m best at: building the product of Fancy Hands,” Roden said. “When I started the company, I did every job. Then, I started giving away jobs to people that I hired: design, front end development, customer support, etc. This continues in that tradition of finding people who can do things better than me and then handing over the reins.” Fancy Hands currently has seven full-time staff. |
The Kairos Mechanical Smartwatch Blends Tradition And High Tech | John Biggs | 2,014 | 5 | 23 | As a watch fan I’ve seen them all: the Fossils, the Rolexes, the Omegas, and now the . Created by a team of engineers, designers, and entrepreneurs, these watches feature a standard automatic mechanical watch (the kind you wind) behind a tinted crystal that can show notifications right on the surface. How does it work? The mechanical portion is a standard Miyota Japan 82S7 movement, a manual-wind/automatic mechanism that you can find in many mid-range non-Swiss mechanicals. The crystal, however, uses a semi-transparent TOLED QVGA screen to display notifications and icons right on the crystal. Another simpler display system will show dot matrix letters along the bottom and light up bright icons that will help maintain battery life. “The functions are very similar to Samsung’s smartwatches or ,” said Sam Yang, one of the founders. “You can see notifications, remote control functions, fitness tracker, etc. The major difference is that it comes with the transparent display.” Yang started his first company at 17 building remote starters for cars and then built a fashion brand management business in Korea. This is his latest venture and marries his love of hardware for his passion for fashion. “As a watch enthusiast, I wanted to create a smartwatch that other watch enthusiasts would want to wear proudly,” he said. The other three founders include Ken Yoon who worked at Renault, Kyo Young Jin, late of Samsung and LG, and Gabriel Gonzales, a firmware programmer. Frederic Weber built the mechanical parts of the watch. Weber is a Patek Philippe trained watchmaker and marketer with roots in the Swiss watch industry. Thankfully Yang and team decided to go mechanical with this watch, thereby shattering the single complaint I have about most analog smart watches: a ticking seconds hand isn’t very cool, and most watch fans prefer the . But why put a mechanical movement into a smartwatch? Because Yang can. “So we actually started out by saying ‘Ok, we’ve got this fancy Swiss Watch. How can we make this into a smartwatch?’ That’s how it started,” he said. He also sees watches a huge business. “In terms of numbers, last year alone, it was reported that 1.9 million smart watches were sold. In contrast, 1.2 Billion units of regular watches were sold worldwide. 77% of them were mechanical movements, and 29 million of them were Swiss Made,” he said. By connecting the old and the new world, Yang and team hope to change the way people think about wearables. The company raised a seed round with investors from the banking industry and are doing a Series A with companies based in Singapore and Hong Kong. They’ve pre-sold 500 watches and they start at $499 for preorders. These sorts of projects often fizzle out, but given the experience of the management team and the simplicity of the design, I foresee this thing actually coming to fruition. While most watch manufacturing is actually watch marketing, there’s a lot of cool tech in here and I could definitely see a market for this sort of clever hybrid watch. [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndycU_dUHNQ] |
SV Angel Leads Pinterest Financing At A $5 Billion Valuation | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,014 | 5 | 15 | News broke this afternoon that Pinterest valuing it at $5 billion. We’ve just confirmed that the massive round, which could fund Pinterest until its monetization makes it self-sustaining, was led by none other than . We’d been tipped earlier that Andreessen Horowitz and others had invested with significant participation from SV Angel, which Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz are a part of individually as LPs. We had also heard that SV Angel coordinated the deal for many of its friends and some of its LPs through a special purpose vehicle, in the past. ReadWrite’s Lauren Orsini the news of the investment. Pinterest PR rep Barry Schnitt confirmed the $200 million raise and $5 billion valuation in an email. He also confirmed that existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Fidelity, A16Z, FirstMark Capital, and Valiant Capital Partners went in on the round, which SV Angel led. SV Angel and its SPV (an investment entity created for a specific purpose) set the terms of the deal. When asked if this was the first in a series of later stage SV Angel investments, SV Angel founder told me, “Probably not, our core business is seed investing. This is not a change in our strategy or our normal day-to-day business, this is just a unique opportunity which speaks to how much we believe in the founder and the company. This is pretty rare.” Previous investor Rakuten did not participate, and hasn’t participated since , Schnitt said. Pinterest held that the new money would be used primarily for international growth and monetization. The company plans to open worldwide offices beyond the ones it has in France, Japan and the UK. Pinterest its first paid Promoted Pins three days ago, which actually should have clued us in to its need for capital — in order to further implement a product that could eventually make it profitable. To monetize, a company needs to develop a paying user base, prove out ROI, and then get clients to ramp their spend. That takes awhile, and some dough. “It’s basically a visual commercial search” one person told us, of Pinterest’s lofty ambitions and valuation. RW’s Lauren Orsini described its goal as a referring to its mobile as one of the weapons in its arsenal. Lee said that the Google positioning wasn’t exactly accurate, “I wouldn’t position it to take on Google, it’s a new platform. Whether it is planning your next vacation, planning your wedding, or planning things to buy for your home, all those activities blend discovery and search.” It’s notable that vacations, weddings and home decorating are also all retail sectors with high cart sizes. And the ROI on successful ad conversions could be huge on these big-ticket items, so Pinterest could potentially charge sky-high ad rates. “Google is ‘I’m looking for this particular camera and model number.'” Lee said, emphasizing the big difference between Google and his potential golden goose, “Pinterest is discovery: ‘What are the cool cameras?'”
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9 Tech Firms Receive Perfect Scores In EFF Ranking Concerning Data Protection From The Government | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 5 | 15 | Apple, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and Dropbox were each awarded perfect scores in the (EFF) yearly scoring of major tech companies’ practices when it comes to protecting user data from government eyes. The six companies posted various improvements in the year interval regarding their work to defend user privacy. Twitter and Sonic.net repeated their perfect 2013 scores this year. The six categories that the companies were ranked on when it comes to protecting user data from the government are as follows: Requires a warrant for content; Tells users about government data requests; Publishes transparency reports; Publishes law enforcement guidelines; Fights for users’ privacy rights in courts; Fights for users’ privacy rights in Congress. For each category a company meets the mark in the EFF’s eyes, they are awarded a star. Companies can therefore be awarded up to 6 stars per year. Apple picked up 5 new stars from 2013 to 2014, as did Yahoo. Facebook snagged 3 new stars. Microsoft picked up a more modest 2 stars. ( from the same survey isn’t comparable as only 4 categories were ranked.) What follows are the , and their star differential, either positive or negative, . I’ve broken them into various classes, so we can better understand who does well now, and who has improved since last year. If you compare the 2013 ranks to 2014, it’s clear that the average score has gone up. There were 2 companies that had perfect scores in 2013, and 9 in 2014. I think that it’s simple to put the onus for that gain on the leaks of Edward Snowden, who kicked off a global discussion about the intersection of government, and user data. |
ANTVR Is An Open-Source, Cross-Platform Virtual Reality Gaming Kit | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 5 | 15 |
Products like the and have revolutionized the gaming landscape by making virtual reality headsets accessible to the average gamer, but they have a major drawback. Each are married to their platforms and only work with a . To address that issue, a hardware startup called has created an open-source, cross-platform virtual reality gaming set, called the ANTVR kit. “We wanted to solve the compatibility problem because all the virtual reality products on the market are not compatible with mainstream gaming platforms,” said Qin Zheng, the Beijing-based company’s founder. Currently on , the kit has raised nearly $86,000 of its $200,000 goal in just two days. The set starts at just $300, which the company explained on its is because ANTVR Technology is not only located near Chinese hardware manufacturers, but also currently selling the ANTVR kit at cost in order to get it on the market. The campaign ends on June 23, 2014. The ANTVR kit is compatible with games designed for the Oculus Rift, as well as most PC and console platforms. It can connect to all devices that support HDMI, including desktop computers, XBox, PlayStation, iPhones, iPads, Android devices, and Blu-ray players. For devices with no HDMI output, a HDMI adapter can be used. The headset has a 1920X1080 HD display and aspherical lens (one of its key differences from the Oculus Rift), which Zheng says causes less distortion when it projects standard ratio pictures. It can be worn with prescription lens and one-step positional tracking helps keep players from feeling dizzy when gaming. The transformable controller opens into a gamepad or folds up into different shapes to simulate a gun, lightsaber, or steering wheel. ANTVR also works with mobile games, so you can even treat yourself to a more immersive Candy Crush experience. Zheng notes, however, that the set works best with first-person shooter and role-playing games. In addition to open-sourcing its hardware, ANTVR Technology will also make SDKs available to software developers so they can create games for the kit. “We wanted to make a gaming system that is universal, but it’s very difficult to make your product compatible with every kind of gaming platform. We’ve worked on making it compatible with Xbox, PC, and PlayStation, but there are many other gaming systems,” says Zheng. “If there are developers with other gaming systems or just device developers, they can choose to modify the firmware inside our hardware,” he adds. To be sure, there are other companies that are working on cross-platform virtual-reality headsets, including . Zheng says ANTVR Technology has a working prototype of the kit and will start mold testing next month. Then the company will send prototypes to early backers in July, make changes based on their feedback before mass production, and ship the final product to other backers by September. Below is a chart comparing the ANTVR kit with Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus. To learn more about ANTVR, . |
Circle Emerges From Stealth To Bring Bitcoin To The Masses | Jonathan Shieber | 2,014 | 5 | 15 | the bitcoin-based financial services company, is emerging from stealth with a suite of products and services aimed to take bitcoin’s blockchain to mainstream consumers. Since its launch in 2013, Boston-based Circle has been very quiet about its planned offerings based on bitcoin’s exchange technology. Now, as the international bitcoin conference in Amsterdam shifts into gear, the venture-backed company is unveiling a host of financial services offerings for the everyday consumer. Indeed, Circle’s founder and chief executive, Jeremy Allaire, believes that bitcoin’s true value is as a payment medium rather than as a store of value. To him market speculation — which has waned in recent months — is actually a bet on the longer term efficacy of bitcoin as a medium of exchange. A serial entrepreneur who made millions with the online video company he founded, , Allaire says the bitcoin adoption curve is similar to that of any other new technology — which he segments into an embrace by early innovators and then early adopters; followed by acceptance from a group that he calls the “early majority” before finally a technology gains mass appeal. “At Circle we are very focused on creaing a product that allows us to move from early adopter to early majority,” Allaire says. It’s consumer financial services built in an all-digital, instant, universally accessible, and free platform for consumers — for now. “It’s a free service to store, send and receive bitcoin,” Allaire says of Circle’s prodcuts. Existing bitcoin (or other digital currency) services require users to understand public key cryptography or the installation and management of specialized desktop software, or demand that users act more like traders than like bank customers, according to a blog post on the Circle web site. Allaire’s company is looking to change that by providing an instant conversion process from a customer’s fiat currency to bitcoin — and back again. “The ‘best in class’ experience in the market still required consumers to wait almost 10 days to get their first digital assets, and presented a user experience focused on buying and selling bitcoin, not storing and using digital money,” Allaire writes on the Circle blog. Unlike other sites that promote buying and selling bitcoin, Circle is designed to have customers create accounts, send and receive money and make deposits and withdrawals. Instead of forcing customers to learn what amounts to a new language to use bitcoin, Circle tries to make the experience as similar to retail banking accounts as possible. Circle immediately converts fiat currencies into bitcoin and stores it, and then when a customer withdraws bitcoin from a Circle account, it automatically converted back into a local currency to be transferred into an existing bank account. And… the service is entirely free to consumers. “We don’t think consumers should be charged for using their own money,” Allaire writes on the Circle blog. Furthermore, the process is nearly instantaneous. Users can open a Circle account and see bitcoin in it within minutes, rather than the days that some sites take to confirm a bitcoin transaction. The company also offers customer support including telephone support as of today. Behind all of this is a security system built not only , but also with an eye toward any future threats. Circle’s founder touts its systemwide security architecture which has been audited by cyber security firms and is routinely tested by black hat and white hat hackers. There’s a multiple signature architecture and most keys exist in offline cold-storage vaults, . “We maintain several geographically distributed secure vault facilities protected by multiple layers of access control, monitoring, and armed guards,”Allaire writes. “Offline funds can be brought online only through multi-signature transactions, and no active private keys are ever moved or accessible in physical transit.” Circle also offers free insurance for deposits and as a regulated Money Transmitter in the United States, the company is required by law to maintain full reserves. It holds all of its customers’ deposit value and cannot invest those assets for its own profit under U.S. law. Moreover, Circle has to provide audited financials that prove its full reserves and associated accounting to government agencies. Allaire has always stressed the importance of regulation for the mass adoption of bitcoin, and at Circle he’s definitely practicing what he preaches. Compliance is serious business and in his blog post Allaire notes that Circle will report anyone that the company suspects of engaging in illegal activities. Probably wise in light of the criticism still leveled at bitcoin purveyors by consumers worried of stumbling on to . Looking beyond American shores, Allaire already has his eye on a global market for Circle’s financial services products. The company has offices in Dublin and has guaranteed that any bitcoin holder anywhere inteh world can create a Circle account and get free and insured usage and storage of bitcoin. For folks who haven’t yet bought in to the blockchain, Circle’s services are available — but by invitation only. “The criteria is less around who the users are than the volume of users,” says Allaire. “We want to scale out in a metered way.” from investors including Breyer Capital, Accel Partners and General Catalyst Partners who were joined by Oak Investment Partners to lead the company’s $17 million Series B round, which closed earlier this year. Other investors include Pantera Capital; SecondMarket founder Barry Silber’s Bitcoin Opportunity Fund; Leonard H. Schrank, the former head of the global banking industry’s transaction fulfillment network, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications; and Circle board member M. Michele Burns. Circle board member Raj Date has invested through his firm Fenway Summers. “For us bitcoin is the most interesting form of digital currency today,” says Allaire. “But we don’t believe that mainstream consumers are in any way thinking about bitcoin as a currency.” |
Marketing Exec Ivy Ross Is The New Head Of Google Glass | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,014 | 5 | 15 | Some significant HR changes at Google Glass we’re hearing. First off is the departure of lead electrical engineer Adrian Wong, Oculus. Second off is the bringing on of Art.com’s Chief Marketing Officer to head the division. The Harvard-trained Ross has a rich, non-tech background, having held several high-level marketing positions at companies such as Mattel, the Gap, Disney, Coach and Old Navy. Perhaps Ross’ most applicable experience to Google Glass is a stint at contact lens manufacturer Bausch & Lomb in the early 90s, where she was Vice President of design and development for Outlook Eyewear. ? While last we heard, Google X was officially overseen by Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Astro Teller, the individual Google Glass project was helmed by before Ross. It’s possible that Google is looking for someone to turn Glass’ perception around as it to the , someone to take it from a “niche” dorky gadget ( ) to the next frontier in mobile computing. With her heavy background in retail, Ross seems as qualified as any for the task. |
Grand Theft Auto III Series Lands On The Fire TV, Kindle Fire | Matt Burns | 2,014 | 5 | 15 | There are finally quality games available for the Amazon Fire TV. The entire GTA III series just launched today on Amazon’s Fire platform, finally giving owners a legitimate reason to buy Amazon’s $40 gaming controller and use the box as a casual gaming machine. Up until now, the Fire TV has lacked a must-have game besides, maybe, the Sonic titles. But thanks to Rockstar, , and are all available individually. San Andreas buyers will net 2,000 Amazon coins that can be used to on other content in the Amazon Appstore. Chances are GTA III’s availability alone won’t lure buyers to the Fire TV yet it shows Amazon is working to fill its Appstore with worthwhile content. The $99 device sports not only video streaming apps like Netflix, Hulu Plus, and soon HBO Go, but it also supports some Android games. Amazon’s Fire TV is shaping up to be a quality platform. Engadget’s Richard Lawler recently detailed available to the device thanks to its open nature. As more tweaks are found and applications are ported to the platform, it’s quickly filling the wide gap between Google TV and Chromecast. |
Apple Is Testing Promo Codes For In-App Purchases | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 5 | 15 | Apple’s app store has let developers create promo codes for ages. It’s also supported In-App purchases for ages. But promo codes in-app purchases? That’s You want to give a user a promo code for a free bag of virtual cat food to feed their virtual cat? But that might be changing! While it doesn’t seem to be a widely rolled out feature just yet, Apple looks to for a free allotment of gold (usually valued at 2 bucks) in their latest racing sim, . As points out, 148Apps’ has a few screenshots of the process: The most interesting part? You can use the code the user has the original app installed. If they already do, they unlock the in-app purchase. If they don’t, the relevant app is automatically installed. Why that matters, of course, is because it’s a damned good form of promotion. Giving someone a code and saying “Here, have an app!” is one thing. But saying “Here, have an app “? That’s an easy pitch. The bad news, of course, is that this really just further encourages the nickel-and-dime freemium model that has turned many an App Store chart topper into a matter of smashing your wallet into your phone until you win or get bored. Alas, that ship sailed a while ago. |
Google Glass’ Lead Electrical Engineer Adrian Wong Defects To Oculus | Josh Constine | 2,014 | 5 | 15 | Adrian Wong still lists himself as a “professional daydreamer” on LinkedIn, but he’s just left Google[x] where he was a lead electrical engineer on Glass to start “Building the Metaverse” at Oculus VR. Wong had been at Google since December 2010 following a stint at Sandia National Laboratories, but now he’s working at Facebook’s latest mega-acquisition. A source clued us in to Wong’s move, and while he still lists his employer as “Google X” on Google+, his the shift. I got in touch with Wong but he politely declined to comment. On May 2nd, Wong posted his to his fellow Googlers…on Facebook, which should have been a clue. He wrote “#FreshStartFridays Wong’s LinkedIn lists him as the former hardware engineering manager on systems, camera, and RF for the consumer edition of Glass, and the Senior Hardware Engineer on the Explorer edition, where he handled end-to-end rapid prototyping, display subsystem design and HDI PCB layout. On AngelList he characterized his time at Sandia as being a “former spy gadget maker for US gov’t”. Wong holds , many that relate to Glass-style smart eyewear, including “ Wong’s skills could help Oculus make its Rift VR headset more capable of rendering virtual worlds without making people sick. He could also help shrink the headset into a more graceful consumer product. Wong discusses Google Glass with entrepreneur Falon Fatemi at a Google Ventures event in 2012 The ability to poach high-profile employees like Wong is surely one benefit of Oculus shifting from Kickstarted startup to being backed by one of the biggest companies in the world. Why Facebook has pledged to let Oculus operate independently, it’s known to with things like recruiting. Google is known for its generous counter-offers, so Oculus may have needed Facebook’s piggy bank behind it to make the steal. While there was plenty of developer rabble-rousing when Facebook bought by Oculus, its CEO Brendan Iribe told me last week that because its longevity was assured. The potential to not just make an indie gaming device but to potentially turn the Rift’s virtual reality into the next big computing platform may have lured Wong to Oculus as well. |
Crazy Dude Builds Fully Automatic Wolverine Claws In His Garage | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 5 | 15 | Hello! Welcome to this week’s edition of “Things You Really Probably Shouldn’t Do At Home! Seriously.” Armed with a pinch of ingenuity and a heaping fistful of insanity, garage inventor Colin Furze has recreated Wolverine’s signature claws. They extend! They retract! They… look incredibly dangerous! [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdcGek-NoFQ&w=640&h=390] Others have taken a stab at this sort of project before, but all of those I’ve seen only do one half of the equation: the claw extension. Once the claws came out, they had to be manually set back in place. . With the help of a super clever compressed air system, Furze’s claws are able to extend and retract on command. Sure, he needs to wear a big ol’ backpack to make it all work — but besides swappin’ out your skeleton for one with , this is probably about as close as you can get to the real deal. As much as I’d love to play with a pair of these, I’m pretty sure I’d end up stabbing myself just putting on the backpack. If the guy in the video looks familiar, don’t be too surprised. This isn’t Furze’s first venture into the land of insane DIY. Back in 2007, he made a massive (and terrifyingly shoddy looking) “Wall Of Death” so he could ride around almost horizontally on his lil’ Honda Skyride. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T5UOtMcjIo?feature=player_embedded&w=640&h=360] In 2012, he modified a mobility scooter, originally meant to go about 4 MPH, to blast around at just past 70. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy5rkw4SeP4?feature=player_embedded&w=640&h=360] Furze is promising more X-Men themed projects in the coming days (presumably thanks to the upcoming opening of the new X-Men flick, ), so we’ll keep an eye out for more absurdity. |
Mens’ Personal Shopper Site The Cloakroom Raises €1.2M | Mike Butcher | 2,014 | 5 | 15 | Online personal shopping has become something of a ‘thing’. In the UK we’d seen the launch of , for instance, which matches you with an online personal shopper. Now is getting in on the act, but aiming at men. This online personal shopping service from Amsterdam launched 11 months ago but has now raised €1.2m from lead investor Connect Ventures, who are joined by angel investors Hein Pretorius (Naspers) and Kees Koolen (Booking and Uber). Started in a tiny apartment, The Cloakroom now has a team of 30 fashionistas and developers at their 300m2 showroom in the center of Amsterdam. It now plans local offices across Europe. Started by Danes Kasper Brandi Petersen and Asbjørn Jørgensen, the site assignes a personal shopper to each customer for free. After doing an online style quiz a personal shopper will contact the client and discuss their needs. A box with hand-picked items and a handwritten personal note will be sent to him. He chooses what to keep and send the rest back. Everything is free and the client only pays afterwards for the items he decides to keep. Connect’s Sitar Teli says “the vision Asbjørn and Kasper have of building a global customer-centric fashion retailer and the team they’ve recruited to achieve it” was what attracted them. Since the launch The Cloakroom has created partnerships with bespoke fashion brands such as Hugo Boss, Tiger of Sweden, Scotch & Soda, Filippa K and Tommy Hilfiger. |
Watch A Myo-Controlled Humanoid Robot Lay The Groundwork For Real-World ‘Real Steel’ | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 5 | 15 | [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8nCyrRMuGU&w=854&h=510] The gesture controller is already in the hands of some early developers, and it’s producing some pretty interesting looks at what might be possible using the gadget. The device is an armband worn on the forearm that detects electrical impulses and translates that into input for computing devices. The Myo has strong possibilities for interacting with robots in particular, and while we’ve seen it manipulating some industrial bots, a new demo video from a Korean robotics firm shows what it might be capable of pulling the virtual strings with more human-like automatons. The movement isn’t one-to-one, but it is impressive. And the company behind it has plenty of experience in making humanoid bots (inspired by Marvel superheroes) , but usually they go through a pre-programmed routine instead of responding to direct input. Also, this is the result of very little time with the Myo dev alpha unit, too, so there’s likely a lot more possible in terms of getting these mini superhero robots to parrot the actions of their human overlords. I am yet but a man, but one day I wish to be more, and maybe, just maybe, the Myo and a house-sized battle bot will let me fulfill my potential. I vow to smash only bad things. |
Here’s The FCC’s Language Asking For Comment On Banning “Pay-For-Priority Service” | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 5 | 15 | After much sturm und drang, the Federal Communications Commission this morning voted to proceed on a set of controversial net neutrality rules. The proposed regulations now enter a four month comment period. Expect there to be shouting. This morning the FCC voted to move forward with a to collect public response. Most controversial in the proposals is the potential for the legal codification of paid prioritization agreements that would allow so-called edge providers — content companies, etc — to sign contracts with ISPs that could see their bits delivered more quickly than those of other companies. The proposed rules would set a floor, by my reading, under which regular ISP customers wouldn’t be allowed to fall in terms of access, with blocking and slowing banned. But the FCC’s proposed ruleset isn’t in the business of setting a ceiling, at least in its current format. The FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rule Making was released after the vote, tipping the scales at nearly 200 pages. The section on potentially allowing for broadband providers to apply “commercially reasonable” tests to contracts with content companies and the like isn’t short itself. As the FCC points out, its “proposed approach” might “permit broadband providers to serve customers and carry traffic on an individually negotiated basis,” in a way that would be not be held to other rules that force non-discrimination. After asking for input regarding potential harm stemming from such agreements, the FCC asks if it should ban outright pay-for-speed, noting potential regulatory authority issues: At issue in the above is that such agreements are currently legal. As : As Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said during today’s meeting, there are against Internet service providers blocking traffic or prioritizing some content over others. That’s because a federal appeals court this year the FCC’s previous net neutrality order, issued in 2010. While the FCC’s latest proposal doesn’t specifically authorize fast lanes, it didn’t have to: they’re legal. ISPs can charge Web services like Netflix (“edge providers” in regulatory parlance) for a faster path to consumers over the last mile of the network because there aren’t any enforceable rules against it. The important thing is that today’s proposal apparently doesn’t fast lanes. That’s correct. Might the proposal to ban paid prioritization manage to become the rule? I’d say momentum on the government side of things is opposed to the idea. Happily, perhaps, the Internet industry — aside from technology firms with a potential financial upside in paid prioritization — is . And technology is incredibly cash rich at the moment. Regarding the larger , you should read at least a few dozen pages for flavor. You’ll certainly see endless digests over the next few days, but spending some time with the source material is always a good choice. |
null | Frederic Lardinois | 2,014 | 5 | 23 | null |
Madesquare Turns Square Pictures Into Home Decor Objects | Mike Butcher | 2,014 | 5 | 15 | You’re reading TechCrunch. So you’re probably heard of FourSquare. Well, now there’s , and, well, other than having square in the name there’s no resemblance. This is an app which takes square photos. But wait… Its iPhone app takes square photos, and then auto-magically turns those into square photo products, which can be conveniently shipped to you, or friends and family. You order products from straight inside the app which would present the photo in such a way as to brighten a home. Instagram popularised the square picture, but this product sets them free. A competitor includes . What we’re talking about here is a sort of photo app re-imagined for the era of interior design. Square photos decorating rooms, projects and gifts, and integrating easily with Pinterest, Facebook, email and text. There are 20 products, featuring square photos ranging in size from 2.5 x 2.5 inches to 30 x 30 inches. The “MADESQUARE” do-it-yourself projects complement the product line, and mean users can have a go at crafting something themselves. Here’s an example: Photos are printed on Fuji Archival Paper, then mounted
on basswood blocks for a homely frame-free display. There are other products like recipe cards, canvas scrolls, photo strips and others. The range of products it integrates with is quite extensive. “Thanks to smartphones, people are taking more awesome pictures than ever before,” says Laura Buick, Co-Founder and President, but, as she says, this app and service is designed to “bridge the world of photography with tangible products” you might enjoy in your home. The rest of the team also has extensive experience in home retailing and design: Laura Buick (President, co-founder) , Jill Mroz (Director of Ops & Co-Founder), Danielle, Moore (Creative Director, co-founder), Molli Sullivan (Marketing, co-founder). |
Is Adding Live Video Mobli’s Last Throw Of The Photo App Dice? | Mike Butcher | 2,014 | 5 | 15 | , the social-mobile photo and video-sharing app which competes with Instagram and the like, has a major update out today that adds one, single important new feature: live broadcast streaming. The question is, will this be enough to attract the attention of the millions sharing images on Instagram and, now, WhatsApp? mobli has over-hauled the app to make it faster, improved the UI, the website and is now opening up to 3rd party developers. However, I put it directly to CEO and founder Moshe Hogeg, that although this might seem like a significant move, the fact is that live streaming from mobiles has not proved as viral as photos, straight recorded videos and, latterly, short Vine-like videos. Live streaming, to put it bluntly, is unlikely to be the magic bullet to take Mobli out of it’s also-ran status at 15 million active users, into a new stratosphere. “Standalone live streaming apps like Qik were boring. It’s the combination of being able to post pictures, video AND do live streaming – the integration – that we think users will be attracted to,” he tells me. However, one can’t but get the feeling that this is a last throw of the dice for Mobli – since no live streaming app has been that successful. It also faces competition not just from Instagram but WhatsApp which has about 600 million pictures shared a day. Mobli’s integration of live streaming is going to have to fly in the face of evidence that live broadcasting really just not that interesting enough of a feature – even when it’s been implemented in the YouTube app. Of course, far be it for me to criticise – let’s see what Mobli’s numbers look like in six months to a year. Maybe I’ll have to eat my leather jacket. But I doubt it. |
FCC Passes 2015 Spectrum Auction Framework On Party-Line 3-2 Vote | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 5 | 15 | Following its historic vote to proceed with new, and contentious net neutrality regulatory proposals, the Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 to approve a framework for its coming spectrum auction, which it calls the ‘Broadcast Television Incentive Auction,’ that will ensure that the largest providers can’t snag all the new capacity. The sale, to take place in 2015, will see broadcast companies voluntarily shed spectrum, that will then be sold to wireless companies, with the original broadcast firms collecting a cut of the proceeds. Why is the plan controversial? Because the FCC intends to limit how much spectrum the two largest players in wireless in the United States — AT&T and Verizon — can purchase. The plan will preserve some of the new spectrum for smaller players like Sprint. The mechanism at play is the reservation of spectrum in each market for those who do not, as , “already have substantial blocks of low-frequency airwaves there.” The goal is to ensure that smaller players can in fact compete, given that spectrum isn’t something that you can just whip up more of. As , however, less spectrum was set aside in the end than expected, something that it called a “win” for AT&T and Verizon The dissenting votes voiced opposition to the plan as limiting competition, and thus slanting the market. Here we can see the tension between short-term and long-term competition: If Verizon and AT&T were allowed to scoop up all the spectrum that will be offered, it would grant them a higher competitive edge than they already enjoy. This would be in essence allowing them to their incumbency to their incumbency, to the detriment of smaller players. That would lead to a more tilted market in favor of a duopoly, harming competition. Philosophical ramblings aside, the framework is now roughed out, if not fully fleshed. Timing and pricing information, as , are key next steps for the auction. |
Apple’s Podcasts App For iOS Gets Siri And CarPlay Support | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 5 | 15 | An update to Apple’s for iPhone and iPad brings Siri integration to the app, as well as support for its new CarPlay mode for in-vehicle entertainment systems. You can can now voice command Podcasts, essentially, or interact with it from your in-car interface with your physical or touchscreen console controls. The app update also improves browsing with the addition of an ‘Unplayed’ tab for episodes you’ve downloaded but haven’t yet heard, and a way to save them for offline playback. Automatic deletion upon playback is also new, and you can also share links to specific podcasts with friends nearby using AirDrop. The big additions really are the Siri and CarPlay support, however; with Siri, you can now simply say “play podcasts” to start your queue rolling, or ask for specific podcasts or entire stations by name (so, for instance, “play the TechCrunch Gadgets Podcast.” This helps for hands-free operation when in a vehicle, too, and supplements the CarPlay support, which adds Podcasts content to the car infotainment system-specific player that iOS 7 now offers. |
U.S.’ Text-To-911 Service Goes Live, But You Probably Can’t Use It Yet | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 5 | 15 | Starting today, all four major U.S. carriers, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint, have begun to offer in select markets. The new service, as the name implies, allows you to reach emergency call takers through text messaging. However, there are a few caveats about this service’s usage, the most important being that the new option has yet to go live across all states and counties in the U.S. Meanwhile, the way these texts are handled on the backend will vary from region to region. Because of the service’s still limited availability on its go-live date, the FCC advises that, for now, you should “not rely on text to reach 911” and reminds visitors to its about the new service that “in most cases, you cannot reach 911 by sending a text message.” Those who attempt texting 911 in areas where the service has yet to go live will receive a bounceback message informing them of that fact – a system the four major carriers actually implemented in June 2013, ahead of the FCC’s September deadline. Caveats aside, as of today, May 15th 2014, the four carriers have voluntarily committed to switching on the text-to-911 service in areas where call centers are able to receive these types of calls, which is a significant milestone towards a more universal text-to-911 system. However, a full rollout across the U.S. could still take years. A by the Federal Communications Commission offers a detailed breakdown as to where the service is available at present, as well as what platform is used to receive and process the incoming texts. Select counties in the following states now have the text-to-911 option, the document states, including Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Montana, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, and Virginia. Some call centers are taking these “calls” by way of their TTY systems, which are designed to help the hearing impaired communicate by phone. However, others have upgraded to newer, technology. Even though the world now seems to over phone calls when in comes to communications, there are a number of reasons why a basic text message should not be used as the primary way to contact emergency services, if at all avoidable. For starters, you have to remember to type in your full address along with your emergency before hitting send, and you can’t share photos or videos. If you can speak, details about the emergency may be easier to share over the phone. In addition, emergency responders often have to ask for more information while on the phone with a caller, not only about the location (like the cross-streets or neighborhood, for example), but they also learn more about the type of scene by listening to the noises and voices in the background. For instance, they listen to what others nearby are shouting, if they hear a commotion – that sort of thing. Even the disposition of the caller is something they take into account when sharing the info with police or other responders – e.g., the person sounds “panicked,” or “calm,” or “nonsensical,” or is slurring their speech, etc., all of which can point to things like a person’s mental states or possible medical condition. That being said, a text-to-911 system, when more broadly available, will be useful in cases where a caller can’t speak or hear, or is otherwise unable to place a voice call – for example, like when placing a phone call could put them in further danger. You can learn more about the text-to-911 service . |
Google Play Store Adds Wallet Rival PayPal As A Payments Option | Frederic Lardinois | 2,014 | 5 | 15 | Here is a somewhat surprising move by Google: starting today, the company as a payment option in its Play store in twelve countries, including the U.S., Germany and Canada, as well as While users will be able to buy apps and other digital content with PayPal, the service can’t be used to buy devices and accessories from the Play store yet. Google also expanded its today from seven countries to 24. Among the new countries are Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan and in many of these countries, Google is working with at least two carriers to offer this service. While Google also offers this feature in partnership with most of the major U.S. wireless services, carrier billing isn’t quite as popular here as it is in other countries, likely because people are used to making payments with their credit cards they have on file with Google, Apple and other vendors already. |
Are Tech Companies Overvalued? Top Investors Think So | Josh Constine | 2,014 | 5 | 15 | Is Winter coming? It may already be here, according to VCs like Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures and John Lilly of Greylock. We asked some of the world’s most respected investors about state of valuations at TechCrunch Disrupt NY. The consensus is that public tech company prices soared too close to the sun, and their fall is now dragging down fundraising and IPO potential for private companies. Late 2013 and early 2014 saw companies rushing to take advantage of boom-time valuations. , , and all raised rounds north of $200 million, stockpiling cash in case the market went sour. and Facebook’s share priced hit new heights, . Companies like , , , , and jumped at the chance, and many had big first-day pops. But then everything went to hell. Twitter, LinkedIn, and many other public companies . Suddenly, the IPO door slammed shut, and reports indicate until things get sunnier. What happened? Wilson gives the most direct answer, explaining: “I think in general the public market valuations got too high, and then that went down into the private market, and the private market valuations got too high, and now the public market valuations are correcting, and now there’s a bunch of companies that raised money at really high valuations in the private market and they’re going to have to deal with that.” While others like Y Combinator’s Sam Altman agreed parts of the tech industry got too big for their britches, he believes the Standard & Poor’s index is even more overvalued. Bijan Sabet of Spark Capitol cautioned this isn’t a bubble that’s about to burst like in the dot-com crash because many of these companies generate real value and earn real revenue. But Sequoia’s Alfred Lin admits things go in cycles, and Greylock’s Lilly believes the tech sector is destined to thrive but will be a rough sea to sail for some time. In the meantime, companies will have to take a long, hard look at the metrics that really matter. Not eyeballs and existing revenue but . If those don’t look right, they better grab a jacket. It’s going to be a cold summer. |
OpenGov Secures $15M Series B Led By A16Z To Bring Cities’ Financial Data Online | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 5 | 15 | , a company that helps cities and other local governments bring their financial data onto the cloud, has picked up a $15 million Series B round of capital, led by Andreessen Horowitz, and participated in by Thrive Capital and Formation 8. Previously, OpenGov had raised around . The company’s product brings years of a local government’s financial data online, allowing for the information to be graphed and sliced in endless variety. As you likely would have expected, many municipalities have incredibly archaic data systems, making generating reports of past expenses over time difficult if not nearly impossible to execute. OpenGov changes that by applying modern tools to previously hidden data. OpenGov customers’ data is online, so you can peruse your city’s data, or the data of any other local government on the system. As an example, here’s Palo Alto’s expenses and revenue for the past few years: And, here’s Palo Alto’s revenues, sorted by departmental source: The company has around 100 clients so far. With its fresh capital, that number should quickly expand. OpenGov told TechCrunch that there are around 90,000 to 100,000 local governments that are potential customers. I asked if there was a size of city that was best for OpenGov, to which its co-founder and Zac Bookman demurred, noting clients as large as Los Angeles, and locales with a mere few thousand inhabitants. The product is also surprisingly cheap, with contracts for the basic OpenGov service costing in the thousands, to low tens of thousands of dollars per year range, depending on how large the client is. OpenGov has plans, of course, to build out its feature set, and sell more advanced tooling, but its base product is affordable enough for nearly any budget. I like OpenGov because it’s a simple tool that will allow more average folks to understand where their tax dollars are going, and whether or not their city is spending more on one category or another than cities of commensurate size and ilk. Anything that makes government less opaque, especially financially, is worth pursuing. |
ReShare App Offers International News Articles Translated Into 11 Languages | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 5 | 12 | is targeted at news junkies who are tired of relying on Google Translate to read articles from foreign-language publications. Instead, the app offers articles translated into 11 languages by humans. The and was created by , a . After raising a total of , Conyac grew its base of translators from 10,000 to 17,000. That amount increased so rapidly that the Tokyo-based company didn’t have enough job requests for every person. ReShare was created to give Conyac’s translators something to do so they wouldn’t move to a competing service, like or . Translators will participate in a revenue-sharing program from money earned through ReShare’s in-app advertisements. ReShare has translated news articles available in 11 languages: Japanese, English, Chinese (traditional and simplified), Indonesian, Spanish, Polish, Russian, French, Vietnamese, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean and Italian. All stories are picked, translated, and uploaded to the app by the translators, says Conyac founder Naoki Yamada. While translations for Conyac’s clients are edited by second readers, I found that some of ReShare’s English-language articles had minor grammatical errors or were written in a more casual style than most news stories. Some language sections are still sparse. For example, Italian only has one article: a One Direction profile in Spanish. Yamada says that his company plans to increase quality by doling out bonuses to translators based on how often their articles are shared to social networks. Another helpful feature would be to allow users to rate articles by readability. There is already a wide range of stories from publications around the world, even though the ReShare only launched on iOS in March and on Android last week. Yamada says the app currently gets about 15 to 20 new articles per day in Japanese, while most other languages see about 5 to 10 new articles uploaded per day. Yamada says that Conyac checked with lawyers to make sure that ReShare does not violate copyright laws. In the future, however, Conyac hopes to form revenue-sharing alliances with publishers to translate original content and publish it in different languages so it can be shared on social media networks around the world. |
Inside Jobs: Why The Best Software Engineers Never Stop Learning | Colleen Taylor | 2,014 | 5 | 12 | How often are you so impressed by a website or technology service that you think, “I really want to be a part of that” — so much that you set out to get a job at the company? That’s what happened to Surabhi Gupta, who first became a user of travel accommodations marketplace while she was working as a full-time software engineer at Google, and was so enthusiastic about the product and its promise that she made the switch to working full-time at Airbnb. There’s a real passion that Gupta has for her job, so in this episode of , I sat down with her to find out what her day to day work life is like at Airbnb and the path she took to her current career. I especially liked what she had to say about the nature of being a software engineer, and how it’s about much more than studying computer science at school. No matter where you’re at in your career, it seems, it’s best to keep a . Gupta said: “I think as long as you’re willing to learn, that’s sort of the most important part. A lot of people feel that they have to go through a certain training to learn the skills that they need. Yes, you learn some basic foundational skills [at school], but a lot of it you have to pick up on the job. Even though I came with experience, there was still of ton of things I had to learn. So I think you’re just always learning, and as long as you expect that, that you’re not going to know everything, I think that it makes the job just a lot easier.” Watch her talk about that and much more in the video embedded above. Producing, shooting, editing, sound, and lighting for Inside Jobs is done by . Production coordination and creative direction is done by . Original logo design by . Motion graphics and graphic design by . |
NSA Allegedly Intercepts Shipments of Servers To Install Spying Backdoors | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 5 | 12 | Today in a of his forthcoming book, reports, citing documents from 2010, that the NSA intercepts routers and servers being shipped from the United States overseas and compromises them. The document that the revelation is based on, , will be released tomorrow. Backdooring American technology not only dramatically undercuts its potential attractiveness to potential foreign purchasers, but also represents an almost comical hypocrisy given that the U.S. government has repeatedly fretted that China could be compromising technology from local firms such as Huawei. : Chinese telecom provider Huawei represents an unambiguous national security threat to the United States and Australia, Gen. Michael Hayden, the former director of the National Security Agency (NSA) […] When asked to confirm that hard evidence exists that Huawei has spied on behalf of the Chinese government, Hayden said, “Yes.” As Greenwald notes in the excerpt: “It is quite possible that Chinese firms are implanting surveillance mechanisms in their network devices. But the US is certainly doing the same.” Intercepting devices, which is called “interdiction,” is part of the NSA’s toolbox. It was that the NSA intercepts laptops and other electronic devices. That it would do so with American servers to foreign countries is therefore not too surprising. Currently in the U.S. Congress, the USA Freedom Act, a bill to reign in the NSA, has a . TechCrunch is tracking the issue, and if it clears the House we’ll let you know. |
Original Stitch Is A Shirt Company That Offers 1 Billion Computerized Style Combinations | John Biggs | 2,014 | 5 | 12 | Menswear, like sewage treatment and rabies, needs to be disrupted. I’ve already seen about a dozen folks trying to change the space, most notably Bonobos and Indochino, but no one has quite cracked the “older, odd-shirt-wearing tech dude demographic.” Until now. is a custom shirt generator with a bit of a twist. Instead of offering a few basic styles, you can choose from over a billion shirt permutations. That means you could change shirts every half second for your entire life and still not exhaust the potential possibilities. The company is differentiating itself with a $75 starting price (extras can add a few more dollars to the price) and over 200 patterns and colors. It has a unique 3D “fitting room” that shows the shirt as you build it and a fitting expert then contacts you for your measurements. The shirts come a few weeks later. “Our shirts are made in Japan,” said founder Jin Takahito Koh. “We have no inventory, no warehouse, no retail. Every shirt is made on demand so we can pass on the savings to customers.” Koh began his foray into custom shirts with back in 2012. The technology then was solid but he wanted to add more features and fix the branding. By choosing something simple – Original Stitch – and expanding the choice, he was able to create an entirely new site. He’s also upped the ante when it comes to custom clothing. “Why did we pick shirts? Because the shirts market alone is a $10B a year market worldwide. Plus, it offers a lot of options for customization. It is also a problem for a lot of people. We think we now have a better solution for this gigantic market,” said Koh. “We think tailors hand-cutting fabrics are old school. We developed embedded software to integrate with fabric cutting machines. Result, every fabric is precisely laser-cut by machines to your exact sizing,” he said. “I don’t see us a retail company. I see us as technology company. We are in the ‘Mass Customization’ market. We invest and build software to enable mass customization of all types of products.”
The company has only 12 employees around the world and is based in San Francisco. Jin sends the designs to the cutting factory and then produces them with a two-week turnaround time, a speed matched only by some online tailors. The company entered beta in December and has been running full steam since April. They have taken no VC funding but added a few advisors and angels including Lucas Ryan of , Jia Shen of , Shogo Kawada of , and Koichiro Yoshizaki the founder of Cool Japan Fund. They’re seeing revenue of $89 per user and 10% of their customers return to order more shirts.
Mass customization is huge. It’s a fascinating space and by automating much of it you reduce the cost of production considerably. While the frou-frou still prefer their shirts to be hand sewn by little old Italian men smoking Partagás cigarillos, I can also imagine a world in which getting a robot to cut your shirt in Japan is pretty cool, too. After all, who doesn’t want a robot to dress us in the morning? |
A Random Walk Down Hardware Alley | John Biggs | 2,014 | 5 | 12 | I’ve been in a lot of alleys and my favorite one is Hardware Alley. Every year at I get to invite a few dozen hardware companies to show off their wares on our show floor. Every year we also get a chance to walk through the alley for a meet and greet where we get to , , and . Without further ado, here’s our visit with the heroes of the alley. Here are a few very cool little projects we thought you might enjoy. First, we have the amazing SCiO, a molecular food scanner that can tell you the caloric content of food just by shining a light through the surface and identify medicines with the help of a little mirror-lined box. It’s amazing stuff. Next there’s the , an all-in-one projector with a computer built in. It’s basically a teeny Android device with a bright, long throw projector and touchpad. You can use it to view presentations, watch movies, and even play games. Finally, we met the folks at who are creating Raspberry Pi-based robotics projects. By adding a mini circuit board to laser cut Lucite parts they’re able to create clever, programmable robots for kids. Until next Disrupt, alley-goers, I bid you happy hacking! |
Mute Me | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 5 | 12 | I remember the moment I fell in love with Twitter. I was crashing on a couch in Portland, Ore., with the guys back in 2008, and we were watching the live stream of a TechCrunch conference. I had joined Twitter the summer before, during my first internship at , but had found it roughly as interesting as sawdust. When I realized that day that I could share a never-ending string of opinions on Twitter about what was going on at the conference, and that people who had elected to follow me would see them , and not on an individually selected basis, I was hooked. I’m sure my eight followers were delighted. Probably not. Today, Twitter that will allow people to silence others that they follow. This means you can follow someone, giving them the right to send you a DM but not listen to a thing that they say. My gut reaction is that this is going to make Twitter a more boring place. Previously, if I wanted you to go away, I had to be up front about it by blocking or unfollowing you. Tales of “accidental” unfollowing abound on Twitter as people get caught trying to sneak away from their half of a digital relationship. Now you can cut your end of the contract with impunity. We don’t live in the world of ‘follow back’ anymore (thank heavens), but until now, following someone meant just that — you were tapping into their set of thoughts, quips, bad jokes, and links. The “Following You” image on their profile page meant it. Now it doesn’t. Follower counts are now meaningless. And instead of following people for one reason or another, and getting their entire feed, we can now allow for social custom and retain DM rights but not imbibe as much material that might annoy or offend or bore us. I don’t think that this will make us better informed or more interesting. I have skin in this game as I’m one of the more annoying people on Twitter, and I know it. But I’ve always had a rule with friends: Not following me is perfectly okay, as I’m noisy as hell. I take zero offense (looking at you, Casey). But I liked that we did that honestly, instead of a granting a faux follow that in practice means all but nothing. It’s letting us lie to ourselves and each other. There’s a certain moment of internal panic when you realize that someone you respect in real life follows you on Twitter and you’ve tweeted nothing but heavy metal jokes all day. But they had made the choice, and so they got the full you. And as its easier to mute someone than to unfollow them, I suspect that we’ll now tweet less freely, somehow worried that we’re garnering new mutes from people who wouldn’t have unfollowed us before. Now you can’t tell if someone actually wants to follow you, or is merely being courteous, political, or whatever else. The honesty of the follow is gone, and so therefore is some of the honesty that Twitter engenders in us. Mute me. But I miss Old Twitter already. |
The New Dynamics Of Unicorn Startup Acquisitions | Danny Crichton | 2,014 | 5 | 12 | The rumors of a possible spread far and wide last week, and rightfully so. It wouldn’t just be the largest acquisition of all time for the 38-year old computer company — dwarfing — but also the seventh billion- or near-billion-dollar “unicorn” acquisition by the major forces in consumer tech in just the last year (for those who need a reminder, these companies are and by Facebook, and by Google, by Microsoft, and by Yahoo). To put that in perspective, there have only been eight billion-dollar acquisitions by these consumer companies in the last decade (all data in this analysis comes from CrunchBase and Wikipedia). While news stories about these recent unicorn acquisitions have focused on the specifics of each deal, such as its financing, strategic premise, and chance for success, collectively, they usher in a radically different understanding about the future of the consumer technology business, and how startups and investors must adapt to this changing exit environment. Even though enterprise acquisitions don’t get nearly as much popular press attention as those of more photogenic consumer startups, budget-buster M&A deals have traditionally been the almost exclusive domain of enterprise corporations over the past decade. Companies like EMC, Oracle, IBM, and Cisco regularly conduct multi-billion-dollar acquisitions across a whole range of product verticals. For instance, in the last decade, , and . Enterprise companies use an aggressive acquisitions strategy for myriad reasons, but one key element is their ability to rapidly grow acquired products using their existing sales channels. As companies targeting the enterprise space, these massive acquirers already have deep sales relationships across the Fortune 500 and even into medium-sized businesses. For startups, building these relationships in the enterprise is extraordinarily time consuming given the sales cycle typical of large clients. Thus, acquirers have an opportunity to purchase a market-tested product from a startup through an acquisition, and then immediately start selling it through their sales channels, hopefully increasing the sales growth of both the startup and the acquirer. Consumer companies never had the same ability to quickly grow their acquisitions through sales, and thus were hesitant to acquire new product lines. For this reason, (YouTube an exception) were related to the advertising business, which is not only the revenue center of the company, but also the location where the sales leverage was highest in order to quickly begin growing the revenue of the new acquisition. Now that companies like Apple, Google and Facebook have their own consumer platforms to grow products, this hesitation has disappeared. A possible Beats transaction makes sense, since Apple can sell the headphones in its own stores alongside its existing product lines. Nest made sense for Google, both because of its centrality in the home and also for (note: ). Apps like Tumblr, Instagram, and WhatsApp – while not currently integrated well with their parent companies’ core products – have the potential to act as a multiplier effect on their respective platforms. The wide gap in the M&A culture of enterprise and consumer is closing, and I would expect to see more of these large transactions in the future. It has been a truism that competition for a startup drives up its price in the marketplace. Whether it’s previous companies like Groupon or Twitter that have entertained multiple exit paths, or just supply and demand, investment bankers and advisers often emphasize the need to get multiple buyers into the process in order to sell at the maximum price. While finding multiple buyers certainly helps, the current wave of unicorn acquisitions are intriguing because many of them had only a single interested acquirer, yet continued to command a high price in the market. Nest Labs comes to mind here. Google appeared to be the only company interested in the Nest’s device, a highly engineered and beautiful thermostat that is making a play in the Internet of things. Even though Tony Faddell was , the acquisition never made sense for the computer company. The same argument can be made for Beats (not a likely Facebook or Yahoo purchase) as well as Nokia and Tumblr, which didn’t seem to have any other buyers in their processes. The only two unicorn acquisitions in the last year that were competitive were Waze and WhatsApp. In the former case, , although speculation toward the end suggested that the company was (however, the social network would proceed to do just that a few months later ). WhatsApp for a lengthy time (the company has it never made a formal offer), although it seemed that the founder Jan Koum was not interested in a deal with the search company. For entrepreneurs and VCs, it can be frightening to have only a single exit option. However, these cases indicate that the cause for alarm should be a bit more muted than it has in the past. Analysts of tech acquisitions often discuss the tax implications of acquisitions headquartered overseas. The notion that companies are willing to pay a higher price for companies overseas is almost commonplace today among columnists, given the current U.S. policy toward corporate taxes. Revenue generated overseas is not taxed until the money is repatriated to the U.S., which has the effect of incentivizing companies to leave their funds overseas. However, of the last seven unicorn transactions, only two have been located overseas – Waze in Israel and Nokia in Finland. Indeed, the only company on the list with deep interests overseas appears to be Microsoft, which also bought Luxembourg-headquartered Skype as well in 2011. Even more interesting is that the majority of these transactions happened outside of Silicon Valley. Only WhatsApp and Nest were located in Silicon Valley, with the others located in the Los Angeles area (Oculus and potentially Beats) and in New York City (Tumblr). This is not entirely different than the past, given that Google bought DoubleClick out of Boston, for instance, and Yahoo bought Overture from Burbank, California. This small amount of data doesn’t definitively prove that tax advantages aren’t a factor in acquisitions. Smaller startups may benefit from an overseas effect, and for talent acquisitions, being headquartered near the acquirer is probably an advantage. But we should stop using this theory without qualification, since the available data shows that companies care a lot more about the product, team, and growth of a startup than its location and tax implications when making a transaction. One interesting dynamic to watch out for in the next few years is what effect the growing number of massive Asian Internet companies will have on the exit profiles of startups. Viber, the Cypress-headquartered calling and messaging app, . The giant has the goal of becoming the world’s largest Internet services company, and thus, it would not be surprising to see it begin to acquire startups more aggressively. Another example is Samsung, which is believed to have . Then there are the Chinese Internet juggernauts, with Alibaba and its upcoming IPO being a prime example. With its newfound liquidity, the company could greatly expand its M&A if it were to . In addition, in Silicon Valley such as Snapchat and Kamcord, and such actions could certainly be a dress rehearsal for more extensive M&A activities in the future. There is some haziness in this story, as the politics surrounding trade between the United States and China are complicated. Nonetheless, Chinese companies will eventually expand, and their impact will be felt in the startup exit market regardless of American policy. There is no doubt that this is a hot time for technology companies. Even with sagging stock prices, companies like Apple and Google have incredibly large war chests to purchase what they want at almost any price, and they all have incredible access to additional capital on the bond markets, giving them even more financial flexibility. However, all of this excitement can freeze up quite quickly if investors start to get skittish, and companies pause and wait for more macroeconomic stability. But that is the roller coaster experienced by startups in both good times and bad, and sometimes, the new dynamics of acquisitions can help you Beats the market. |
Office For iPad Apps Have Racked Up 27M Downloads In 46 Days | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 5 | 12 | In just over a month, Office for iPad has picked up another 15 million downloads of its applications. Microsoft reported in early April, and . That’s a massive figure. The apps have for , implying an average daily download rate of . It will be interesting to see where that number rests in another month — how much of pent-up demand has been met isn’t clear. Word for iPad is still the most popular, currently ranked 11th in the United States, and in the top 100 in 109 countries. Google Docs, the Office for iPad suite, has fallen to 23rd in the U.S. on iPad. Office for iPad is part of Microsoft’s cross-platform, cloud and mobile-focused business model. Financially, Word has lost some of its luster in the U.S. since launch. Here’s its grossing rank chart since its debut: Productivity on tablets is a surprisingly nascent space, given that tablets themselves aren’t a particularly immature market segment. Frame the download number as part of the platform wars, as always: Microsoft gets more downloads on Apple’s iOS platform, bolstering OneDrive usage and Office 365 sales, which helps it combat Dropbox, Box, and Google. Make sense? Probably not, but Microsoft isn’t supporting iPad to help Apple if you catch my drift. |
Tech Puts Points Back On The Board As Twitter, FireEye And Netflix Surge | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 5 | 12 | The recent decline in tech stocks has led to a : The market’s appetite for young tech stocks in late 2013 and early 2014 led to valuation excesses, and the ensuing declines have all but closed the IPO window. Today, in a nice bucking of that trend, beleaguered companies that posted large declines are picking up big gains. Twitter, probably the most famous of the so-called “momentum” technology stocks, is up more than 5 percent. FireEye, which has shed most of its value, is up 9.3 percent. Palo Alto Networks is up 6.5 percent, Netflix is up around 4 percent. Facebook and Tesla are up smaller percentages, as well. The broader market is up, technology as a segment up a little more, but it’s the younger tech companies that are pushing ahead today. Not a bad start for the week. The bounce is almost ironic, given the negative press that many of the surging companies picked up over the weekend. The Wall Street Journal wrote a much-shared article entitled “ .” The article’s main thrust is that when you compare current valuations to next year’s earnings, technology companies like Twitter are quite overvalued. The Journal cited Mitch Rubin of RiverPark Funds saying that, with the declines, “we’ve gone from three times silly to two times silly.” Make it 2.1 times silly after today’s gains. |
Google Hangouts In Gmail Gets New Presence Indicators, Improved Search | Frederic Lardinois | 2,014 | 5 | 12 | Google is today. It’s not a major new release, but the update brings back the green “availability” bubbles that Google did away with when it replaced Google Talk in Gmail with Hangouts. Instead of the bubbles, Hangouts in Gmail would show a very subtle green line underneath a user’s profile picture when they were available for chat. Because Google considers Hangouts to be a universal chat tool that users can use across devices, it pretty much did away with traditional presence indicators because the company assumes that you are always online anyway — either on the web or on a mobile device. This approach is markedly different from how other IM tools like Skype work, and it looks like Google decided to bring back the old status indicators because many users were simply confused by them. Unlike in other IM apps, however, you can’t manually toggle your availability between available/unavailable (or invisible). As part of today’s update, Google is also giving its users the ability to show what mood they’re in by choosing between 80 emoji that others will then see in their status lists. This feature is a bit hidden in the Hangouts settings menu, so chances are people will select a mood once and then forget about it. The other new feature in this update is an improved search tool that makes it easier to select multiple users for group chats and video calls from Hangouts in Gmail. [gallery columns="1" ids="1001368,1001369"] |
Shortwave Shows Off Anonymous Chat As Another Consumer Use Case For iBeacons | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 5 | 12 | Apple’s iBeacons are being all over the place, but they’re slowly becoming more interesting to average users, too. A new app called offers up an everyday use case for iBeacon tech that could prove either terrifying or exciting, depending on your perspective; the software uses iBeacon protocols to turn your iPhone into a location-based anonymous messenger, letting you talk to anyone else using the app within a 70-foot radius. The app uses simple one-color icons to identify users, the same way that Secret does with poster and commenter identities within its anonymous app. The localized aspect of the software is the interesting wrinkle, and the one with the most potential for both spontaneous positive outcomes and trouble. Imagine it being used in a schoolyard setting, for instance; anonymous bullying made both local and digital could be a powerful thing. Already, Secret and Whisper are criticized for their potential for misuse in bullying scenarios. Shortwave is bound to be up to that kind of scrutiny as well. But it could also really thrive as a companion service for those and for other anonymous services, especially when people are looking not only for privacy but also for contextually specific conversations. And Shortwave founder Alonso Holmes is conscious of the risks inherent in the app. “Our goal was to build something useful for concerts, conferences, and the like – but if we’ve learned anything from comments on the web, it’s that some people feel empowered by anonymity and use it for evil,” he explained in an email conversation. “We’re kind of in unproven territory here – our hope is that being near the people you’re talking to will keep the conversation civil. If you’re in the same room as someone and you happen to see a flash of color on their phone, you know who that person is on Shortwave. So we’ve built-in a few subtle features to push people in the direction of civility, but ultimately it’s up to the users.” Holmes says the app is still “very much an experiment,” and adds that they’ll introduce features to supplement privacy and user protection if there are issues, including a possible downvote-style community-based moderation mechanism similar to that built into Reddit. The app is free in iTunes right now, but of course you’ll need one or more people using it in your immediate vicinity for it to be useful. Also, you’ll need to have Bluetooth enabled. But if you satisfy both of those conditions, it’s a well designed little piece of software. Also, this is not to be confused with the app of the , or the anonymous location-based sharing app called ” That last sentence looks like a parody, but it isn’t, and these apps are actually all different; that’s the world we live in. |
Heading For A Vote, The FCC’s Spectrum Auction Plan Draws Mixed Reactions | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 5 | 12 | AT&T might not be a big fan of the FCC’s plan to reserve some spectrum for smaller carriers in the coming 2015 auction, but that doesn’t mean the effort doesn’t have supporters. Recently, ten Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives signed endorsing the proposal. In their words, the “proposal to reserve a portion of the available licenses for carriers with limited nationwide low-frequency holdings will stimulate auction competition and revenues” while at the same time “ensuring opportunity to bid and win spectrum to enhance and extend rural build out and improve coverage in all areas, while guarding against excessive concentration of spectrum resources.” Previously, AT&T had . The FCC . AT&T then decided that yes, after all, . It was a pretty decent episode of bluff calling. On the other end of the, ahem, spectrum on the auction is Rep. Darrel Issa (R-CA). The current plan to buy back spectrum from television companies and sell it to wireless carriers is a , as we’re selling a bloc of public assets for a one-time fee. He compared the auction to “selling each and every mile of the Mississippi.” That’s a reasonable point. The previously quoted letter does mention that “reducing the national debt” would be a benefit of the auction. That’s a minor point, given the comparative scale of possible spectrum revenue next to our accumulation of debt. So the spectrum auction is more the government helping with the re-allocation of spectrum to a more efficacious part of the economy. The money is nice, but if the country was out to maximize profits, it wouldn’t execute the sale as it currently intends to. Long-term leases with competitive rents, expiration periods and re-bidding might generate more revenue, and keep more power in government hands. Rep. Issa is not alone in his opposition to the plan. As the Wall Street Journal , other House Republicans are opposed to a sale that doesn’t allow for more intense competition. Here’s Rep. Fred Upton “The FCC must not be in the business of picking winners and losers by excluding parties from the auction or constraining parties’ ability to bid.” House Republicans also : “ |
Jason Hirschhorn Goes From Teen Club Promoter To Internet DJ | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,014 | 5 | 12 | is no stranger to media But before Mischief New Media in his twenties, and before stints at Viacom, MTV, News Corp, and Sling Media, Hirschhorn was a 17 year-old club promoter of the alcohol-free NYC dance club “Club promoting was my first curation job,” Hirschhorn — who a music subscription service to Steve Jobs — tells me, half joking. Creator of the influential newsletter, Hirschhorn started to see the beauty in collecting links when he joined Viacom through an acquisition in March of 2000. After a period of post-bubble downsizing, Hirschhorn began sending links of informative articles to his team — versus using pure preaching as a leadership tactic. He viewed, and still views, himself as a “DJ of links.” (The capitalization of MediaREDEF itself is an homage to hiphop and remix culture.) “That turned into an early form of the newsletter,” he told me via email, “A compendium of what I found interesting in the broadly defined and ever-changing world of media, technology and pop culture. It helped me sell the fact that digital media was not a trend or fad. It was here to stay.” Nowadays Hirschhorn’s newsletter — formerly named REDEF in 2006 — reaches way beyond his original staff at Viacom, and on a given day thousands receive stories , female rap mixed in with Aaron Levie and Run DMC videos. It is a quirky, eclectic and robust read. I’m into it. The media equivalent of Dan Primack’s , the REDEF newsletter has a loyal following, which includes Evan Williams, Dick Costolo, Brian Stelter and my boss Susan Lyne. But Hirschhorn rightly wants to quickly move beyond the email format, launching an iOS app that blends media, fashion and sports (sneak peek below) in the summer. Like another popular news aggregator, , REDEF may have started as a hobby, but unlike Techmeme, Hirschhorn finally decided to raise outside money to pull it off full time, recently bringing in $2.25 million from Bloomberg Beta, The Chernin Group, Upfront, Brett Ratner, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Mark Cuban, Troy Carter and James Murdoch and other useful media moguls. Right now REDEF’s core product is quite simple, it’s a daily assortment of articles related to media or fashion, in addition to interesting images, aphorisms, videos, songs and thoughts sent every morning. “Media of any form” is Hirschhorn’s description of what can comprise a MediaREDEF or FashionREDEF mix. As the Internet’s roaring inferno of data gets flung at our faces daily, infophiles and even your average reader is finding a need for a ‘meta information layer,’ that sits on top of the roar. Tools that put the information in context and prioritize it have become incredibly valuable. that they’re a much higher value commodity, in fact, than the information itself. “What makes REDEF unique is our voice and point of view,” Hirschhorn explains, “The way we see common elements in sectors, our curiosity and some cool tools we built to help us. We call what we do, interest mixes for curious minds, ” he says, “Every channel we have is a mix. Media = media + tech + pop. Fashion = fashion + biz + tech + culture.” In addition to a sports vertical, he’s also planning a REDEF TV show, which will steer away from newsy topics, towards opinion and analysis from the authors of his links. The New York-based REDEF team is six people strong, with two curators right now, and one per new channel as they launch. The team finds its content through a custom curation CMS, RSS feeds, social, search and plain old reader suggestions. The perennial question with aggregation apps is always, “How are you going to make money?” and Hirschhorn reveals that he is toying with a small monthly subscription fee after a free trial, with the price point as of yet undetermined. “The audience really loves REDEF, it’s about more than price,” he says, “They’ve become a club. That’s my hope.” And on a very topical note, Hirschhorn says that he was inspired to build REDEF by his mother, Susan Hirschhorn, who passed away earlier this year and was a “big fan” of the arts, “Music, movies, TV, Broadway, books, etc. I was exposed to all that at a very young age. And she always insisted we ask why, what, who, how if we didn’t understand something.” Every newsletter ends with a dedication to her. |
Very Foundation, Much Wow: A Conversation With Dogecoin’s Jackson Palmer | Contributor | 2,014 | 5 | 12 | We discuss the Dogecoin community’s ability to raise money for good (like sending the ), and Jackson’s views on what digital currency will look like in five years. Jackson on how to grow the bitcoin community: “The way to win more people’s hearts and build adoption is to unpeg from get-rich-quick schemes. Unfortunately Bitcoin today is sold incorrectly. Telling friends and family, ‘you’re going to get rich off bitcoin’ is completely underselling. Bitcoin is a fast, decentralized way to conduct payments online without transaction fees. We’re revolutionizing the future way that people trade.” Bonus: If you’d like to continue the conversation, we created a on Reddit.
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Researchers Teach A Robot To Catch Flying Objects Like Yogi Berra | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 5 | 12 | When the robot uprising begins, don’t try to take on our new overlords by throwing assorted household items at them. It won’t work, man. Meet Ultra-fast, a robotic arm built by researchers at the . By analyzing an object’s shape and trajectory a few hundred times per second and combining that data with the knowledge gathered through previous attempts, Ultra-fast can learn to catch just about any solid, palmable object you might throw its way. [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M413lLWvrbI] A ball? Easy. A hammer? Why not! One of the crazier bits: because it’s programmed to learn the unique characteristics of each new object, it can adapt for the differing trajectories of, say, an empty water bottle versus a half-full water bottle. Need it to consistently catch a certain of an object, like the handle of a tennis racket? It’ll do that, too. They probably wouldn’t want to pit this thing off against Brian Wilson’s fastball just yet, but hey — if we’re going to march ourselves toward the Robacalypse, we might as well take baby steps. So what’s the end goal here? Besides having awesome household robots that can play catch-the-half-empty-water-bottle with you, the team envisions robotic arms that can catch and/or bat away the hurtling space debris that challenges our satellites and space stations. (Downside: that’d probably put the kibosh on ) |
Twitter Officially Introduces The Mute Button For Android, iPhone And Web | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 5 | 12 | Twitter has a new feature for its Android, iPhone and web clients that lets users selectively turn off the posts of certain users they follow, without unfollowing them. Muting the users will stop their posts from showing up in your timeline, including their own posts and native retweets, and it also means you won’t get push notifications or SMS notices from them. No one knows the mute is active except for you, and it’s reversible at any time. Muting is available from the “more” link on any individual tweet, and you can also mute someone from the gear icon of their Twitter profile page. It’s going to be rolling out starting today for everyone, and should be available to all over the next few weeks. For those who haven’t used third-party clients, some have offered this feature before now. Tweetbot, for instance, has it in both its native web client and iOS applications, and it also features scheduling (and you can mute hashtags or keywords as well as users, too). It makes it easy to stop dealing with those annoying Twitter chat groups and events that take place, without necessarily burning your network to the ground at the same time. Hopefully Twitter follows Tweetbot’s lead on the hashtags and keywords, too. |
SalesPredict Lands $4.1M In Series A Funding | Ron Miller | 2,014 | 5 | 12 | , a company that helps sales teams find the best customers using predictive analytics, announced $4.1M in Series A funding today. The chief funders in this deal are Yandex and KGC Capital. SalesPredict CEO says the two-year-old company was started by himself and , who is chief technology officer. The two had previously worked together for several years at Microsoft and wanted to start a company to help salespeople make better decisions about where to focus their time using data to drive their decisions. The way the product works is by looking at successes and failures from past deals as a starting to point to teach the algorithm which deals are most likely to succeed, but it doesn’t stop there. They also throw in other data, looking at the open web and sites like Wikipedia and using Google and Yahoo APIs to gather information about people and companies. Finally, they look at public social profiles of people in companies and combine that with commercial lists and data they buy from Alexa and ZoomInfo. “At the end of day, we have a comprehensive look at a firm’s demographics, as well as tons of data on each lead and account,” Zakai-Or said. He added, “We look at the data and figure the key factors that define success for [each] customer.” Based on this information, SalesPredict gives the company a grade from A to D based on how likely the prospect will turn into a sale with A being the most likely and D the least. It then provides information on the best way to pitch the customer, what their likely pain points are, what vertical they are in and their most likely buying persona, and based on all this information give the sales person the tools to sell the right products to the most likely customer. For now, the product works as a plug-in for Salesforce.com and is available in the Salesforce App Exchange. Zakai-Or says a version for Marketo is coming soon. The Series A funding comes on the heels of . The company is based in Israel, but has already opened an office in San Francisco, and they hope to use the additional funds to build the business. “The first goal is expand sales and marketing. We have done a lot in the last two years to mature the product and make it useful for our first customers. Now we can scale, and do a lot more in marketing and gaining benefits of market success,” Zakai-or told me. And of course, SalesPredict has the benefit of providing its growing sales force with the use of its own product. |
AllTheRooms Lets You Look At All Available Rooms At Your Destination | John Biggs | 2,014 | 5 | 12 | Air travelers have to aggregate flight deals, but once you land you need . Founded by a former Travelocity exec and Morgan Stanley investment banker, the company has raised $1.1 million to help find all the rooms in a particular city. In short, the system scans all potential room sources. They can bring up hotels and hostels without issues but they can also grab data from Airbnb and other rental services in order to give you a full picture of what’s available in a city. The service works just like any other hotel service except that you get, well, all the rooms. Hotels appear with lofts alongside cottages in the woods. The system finds the best spots nearest your desired location and takes into consideration rental availability. You simply click through to reserve the room or house. The company has been growing 20-30% a week for the past few months and they found a few interesting statistics. In San Francisco, 56% of their customers chose Airbnb apartments while in New York 43% chose apartments. Overall, 39% of their customers chose apartments over hotels. Most of their funding came from New York Angels as well as EF Angels and 37 Angels, which is an interesting point. As Airbnb explodes in the Valley, it’s clear that investors on this side of the land mass are looking towards hospitality as the next big thing. “We’re still the only site besides Airbnb that has all of Airbnb’s inventory, allowing it to be compared directly with hotels,” said co-founder William Beckler. “We have dozens of other home stay sites that aren’t as famous as Airbnb but all worth checking.” The service has already raised a lot of attention in the budget and professional travel sites like and . The pair call their site “the world’s first and only truly complete accommodation metasearch engine,” which, given the alternatives, is true. Just as Kayak can miss a few smaller airlines in their search, most hotel aggregators aim solely for the hotel traveler. As a result, you get a limited view of the potential market. “Existing hotel-focused metasearch engines, such as Kayak and Trivago, never present travellers with all the rooms available in a given destination, forcing the consumer to visit dozens of sites. We save the customer time and money by combining absolutely every room on the internet into one well designed and incredibly fast search engine,” said Beckler. I, for one, welcome our hotel and apartment-sharing aggregator overlords. |
Square M&A Lead Rishi Garg Joins Twitter To Head Corp Dev | Leena Rao | 2,014 | 5 | 12 | Twitter is on a new head of corporate development — . Garg joined the company from Square, where he headed corporate development for the payments company. Twitter has only its acquisition spend over the past few years so Garg should be kept busy in his new role leading M&A. And of course, he’ll be working on other strategic partnerships for the company. Garg joined Square in early 2012, and along with working on M&A transactions, he helped form partnerships with T-Mobile, Verizon, Angie’s List, Obama for America, and Romney for President, according to his He was also previously an EIR at General Catalyst and was the director of strategy and business development and corporate development for MTV. |
Nvidia Shield Gets Half-Life 2 And Portal As Valve Classics Get Their Android Moment | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 5 | 12 | Nvidia’s has two powerful new titles under its belt today – Half-Life 2 and Portal, both from celebrated developer turned platform creator Valve, and both appearing for the first time on Android. Nvidia worked on these ports with the guidance and blessing of Valve, so they’re understandably exclusive to the graphics company’s unique Shield gaming handset for now, but earlier announcements suggested Portal at least might make it to other Android devices eventually, so the Shield-less can hold out hope. Or you pay the $199 for the Nvidia Shield, which is a steep discount from its original price tag, and a good deal for a device that is making a case for itself as the most powerful and versatile mobile gaming device out there. While critics are clamouring for Nintendo to bring its mobile IP to mobile operating systems like Android and iOS, Nvidia is quietly but consistently building out the library of titles available to its Android-based device, and answering criticism that an Android console comes with too many compromises. Half-Life 2 and Portal are perfect titles to sell the console, as they’re no less fun to play than when they were originally released, and can appeal both to gamers new to the series or to fans of Valve’s later work who missed the boat on the initial launch of either. Both are just $10 on the Google Play store now. Next up, let’s see a Shield console original exclusive that starts a franchise, and then Nvidia will really have a platform on their hands. |
Backed By John Legend, Adventr Allows You To Build Choose Your Own Adventure-Style Videos | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 5 | 13 | Startup (pronounced “adventure”) is betting that it can make online video even more addictive with interactivity. For example, here’s — at the beginning, a girl finds a camera in her closet, and you can choose whether she takes it or leaves it. (Trust me on this one — it’s a lot more interesting if you take the camera.) Founder Devo Harris also showed me a sample movie trailer, where you can make choices through, like “save the girl” or “save the city”, which determine the footage that you see. At its heart, Adventr is overlaying graphics on a video and presenting viewers with multiple choices, but that doesn’t mean you have to stick to a Choose Your Own Adventure-style interface. For example, musician (and Adventr investor) John Legend created a video where , and you have to actually pick the right keys on the piano — it might not make you a talented musician, but it’s a lot more interactive (and kind of stressful!) than just watching him play. If you’re wondering how a New York City startup managed to enlist a big-name musician like John Legend, well, it might help to know that Harris, the founder, is better known as music producer and songwriter — he won a Grammy for his work on the Kanye West song “ “. Harris told me that a few years ago, he decided that he’d “done my thing in terms of music,” so he went to Columbia Business School. Before leaving music entirely, Harris helped form the band . He recalled that when the band posted a music video in interactive and standard formats, the interactive version did dramatically better, and people started asking to use the technology. The problem? “I didn’t have any technology.” A few years later, Harris has an MBA and he’s launched a company to build the technology. The videos are created on the Adventr site but can then be posted to Facebook, Twitter, and on any site that supports . (The formatting got weird when I tried to embed the videos on TechCrunch, but our website can be unusually finicky about these things.) Harris said he’s already been working with brands to create videos that see 9.5 percent clickthrough rates (an order of magnitude higher than most ads), and now that he’s opening the site to everyone, with the hope of seeing other uses. “This is what I believe is the future of video,” he said. “This isn’t about clicking, this is about controlling your content. Your experience is personalized and interactive.” If he’s right and this is the future, there will probably be competition. Harris acknowledged that other companies could create interactive videos, but not necessarily with the simplicity of Adventr’s interface. In a demo, he created a video in just a couple of minutes — once the video clips and graphics are in the system, you just use the drag-and-drop interface to stitch everything together. In addition, Harris argued that the real power here is in the data and analytics that Adventr provides. Going back to the movie trailer example, a movie studio could see which choices get the most response from an online audience, and then make sure that footage is included in the version shown in theaters and on TV. |
Tracour Locks Up $335K To Help Uncover The Best Financial Analysts | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 5 | 13 | , a company building a web-based tool to track analyst rankings of stocks, has raised a $335,000 seed round of funding. The company expects to enter a beta period in July. The modest seed round was led by , and participated in by angel . The company performs two key functions: tracks financial ratings information in real-time and frames past ratings data in historical context. Tracour wants to know which ratings groups are the most influential for each stock and what impact those ratings have over a set period of time. Sounds boring? Ratings changes can move the price of a company by quite a bit, especially if a rating cuts across the current consensus. Some ratings have no impact at all. So, if you wanted to trade a stock (say, Google) you’d want to know who to listen to and who ignore. Tracour, provided that it can deliver on its promise, should make that a feasible task. I’ve gotten a peek at what the company is building, and had a bit of hands on time at TechCrunch Disrupt SF last year (Tracour actually met their lead investor at the event). I’ll dig more deeply into the product once it’s finished. While the guts of Tracour are its most important component, its user interface remains a work in progress. The company is also notable for its co-founder and CEO , who, along with his duties running the two-man firm, is the managing editor of Neowin, a blog that covers Microsoft closely. The service won’t start from scratch. Sams told TechCrunch that years of data will be pre-loaded into the system from the start. Keep in mind that this interface will be replaced with something less Microsoft-cum-2006, but here’s a Tracour widget that shows the impact that a TheStreet buy rating has on Microsoft in a 45-day period: The chief effect of Tracour should be publicly shaming the incompetent. Not good at rating a firm you cover? Tracour will essentially blow up your spot by ranking your firm low. Tracour, a BizSpark company, will charge for its product on a subscription basis. I’ll have more once Sams and his co-founder |
Conductor Says It Wants To “End” Ads And Turn “Web Presence Management” Into A Real Thing | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 5 | 13 | first built its business (and ) by helping companies improve their search engine rankings. Now it’s pursuing broader ambitions with the launch of a new product, and some new catchphrases, to go with it. The big goal, according to co-founder and CEO Seth Besmertnik, is to “end paid media.” He pointed to showing that most traffic comes from non-paid channels like search and social media, while advertising, on search and elsewhere, accounts for most of the spending. “Marketers have built up this incredibly aggressive addiction to paid media,” Besmertnik said. It would be better, he argued, to invest in a new category that Conductor appears to have coined — “web presence management.” It’s a broader conception of search engine optimization that encompasses other forms of non-advertising promotion, like social media and content strategy. In other words, he’s hoping to draw attention away from all the different forms of advertising that companies are paying for, and to direct it toward tools like Conductor’s, where companies can try to promote their content on search, on social networks, and on their own websites (all areas, Besmertnik said, that people who used to focus exclusively on SEO are now having to learn) without needing an extra boost from ads. The phrase itself might sound a little generic, but when I Googled it a few days ago, it’s only been used on a few scattered websites. Besmertnik said that as he talked to SEO managers about the idea, they started to embrace it and even change their titles, a claim that seems to . When I suggested that he was trying to give the tired old title of “SEO manager” a facelift, Besmertnik countered, “It’s not a facelift. It’s really becoming the epicenter of the marketing department.” Today’s announcement isn’t about trying to . Conductor is also announcing its Web Presence Management platform. To some extent, the product is giving a new name to work that Conductor has already done to expand beyond SEO with social media and content features, but Besmertnik said the company is introducing new tools today, too, like workspaces where teams across a company or campaign can collaborate. And just to be clear, Besmertnik doesn’t actually expect advertising to go away. He compared his efforts to Salesforce.com’s declaration that we were seeing “ ” — it may have been hyperbolic, but it also attracted attention and helped people think about the industry in a new way. [vimeo 94979010 w=500 h=281] from on . |
All The Important Stuff From TechCrunch Disrupt NY | Josh Constine | 2,014 | 5 | 13 | So what happened at ? With 25 panels, 27 startup demos, and a hackathon, TechCrunch’s annual gathering in New York produced plenty of news, insight, and controversy. Even if you were there in person it was a lot to process, so we’ve compiled a Cliff’s Notes for the conference. For starters, here’s a supercut of the best soundbites: – Union Square Ventures’ boss Fred Wilson sees Apple as “too rooted to the hardware, and I think that hardware is increasingly becoming more a commodity.” As Android devices make leaps forward in terms of quality, Apple’s iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks seem to be stagnating. If the hardware playing field levels out, the big differentiator could become software where Wilson told TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington how Google Glass is going in the right direction, but the implementation is wrong. – Kickstarter does not plan to let project supporters get equity or other financial bonuses for backing successful campaigns, and will stick to physical rewards and gifts. – When pushed by Arrington, YC’s new president admitted “I do think, unlike other stages of investing, there is a monopoly in the accelerator space…I think we get the best companies, which is 90 percent of the hard work.” To further that mission, YC is bringing its , which could help it keep up with 500 Startups’ global aspirations. YC is also investing in a bigger team for its Hacker News site. Altman concluded that going public can make companies evil as it forces them to optimize for the short-term. – Cryptocurrency experts of Blockchain.info and of Stanford University say bitcoin isn’t just a proof of concept. They predict it will remain a powerful component of the magical Internet money space. They cautioned about using centralized services like Mt.Gox that hold your bitcoins. Instead, they recommend storing them yourself and using a decentralized management tool. – Despite the backlash, Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe says being acquired by Facebook gave large game developers the confidence in its longevity to start building for Oculus Rift. He also revealed that Oculus has that works with universities to get students developing for VR. – Vice’s video footprint is big now, but it aims to hit 2 billion to 3 billion views a month to become 10x the size of CNN, ESPN, or MTV according CEO Shane Smith. The company is looking to capitalize on the shortcomings of traditional news outlets to engage Generation Y with content that “should punch you in the face,” and plans to make acquisitions. – Disrupt’s most controversial talk was with Asana co-founder Justin Rosenstein, whose keynote asked those lucky enough to have job mobility to find professions where their passion intersect with a way to help others thrive. Critics derided the push as naive or too tough to execute, while others agreed that the tech industry has become too obsessed with making money when it has the potential to assist in reducing global suffering. – Jawbone CEO Hosain Rahman believes the evolution of wearables will be in devices that know who you are and can communicate that to other technology around you for personalization. – The subscription beauty package startup’s founders say they’ll be cautiously bringing the service international and won’t expand to other subscription verticals like clothes. stressed that people shouldn’t have to put their personal lives on hold to build a business. – Lerer Ventures’ partners gave an update on BuzzFeed’s traffic, saying it’s going to double last year’s and hit 150 million uniques per month. They also noted another of their portfolio companies is planning a partnership with Snapchat to strengthen the short-form news service’s existing presence in the ephemeral app. Partner Eric Hippeau noted, “in order to be a media company going forward, you need to be a tech company first.” – In response to winning the horrible distinction, Comcast CEO Neil Smit said improving customer service is his top priority, and he wants customers to be able to know exactly when a technician will arrive. – Managing Partners David Lee and Brian Pokorny said – Anil Dash and Kevin McCoy launched a new tool for artists at Disrupt. uses cryptocurrency technology so creators can watermark versions of their work as originals, which could help them earn money from digital art. – Secret is building its own native version of Anonyfish, the anonymous one-on-one third-party chat service Secret users currently use to bring conversations offline or reveal their identities. Regarding the content of Secrets, co-founder Chrys Bader-Wechseler said about “most of them are positive to neutral,” though many users frequently encounter posts that bully or insult people. – Shapeways CEO Peter Weijmarshausen explained that people with skill and passion will 3D print at home, but everyone will have access to cutting edge 3D printers with a wide variety of materials thanks to end-to-end services like Shapeways. – Literally, the cast discusses how the TV show parodies our conference for several episodes. The panel is hilarious, . – High-profile venture capitalists John Lilly of Greylock, Alfred Lin of Sequoia, and Bijan Sabet of Spark all admitted their firms could do better in terms of gender equality, as none have female partners. – The success theater of traditional social networks where people only share a highlight reel of their lives is causing a decline in empathy, Whisper CEO Michael Heyward argued. But while claiming his app features authenticity and a caring community, Heyward stumbled when trying to defend why it’s all right to bash public figures in Whisper. – There’s enormous potential for startups abroad, said Atomico fund boss Niklas Zennstrom, citing research that in the last 10 years, 44 “billion dollar” companies came from Silicon Valley, but there were 18 from China and 55 from the rest of the world. Still, startups can’t try to internationalize before their products are ready. Zennstrom noted “Sometimes, we’ve been too eager to help companies expand” when discussing e-commerce site Fab that has suffered layoffs. – Mayer disputed claims that Yahoo is worth nothing because its market cap is roughly equivalent to the value of its Alibaba and Yahoo Japan stakes. That calculation doesn’t account for taxes, plus Yahoo has several popular properties and revenue is inclining. Mayer said she’s staffed up since joining, as the company pursues becoming “the world’s digital daily habit.” Search, mail, and digital magazines are top priorities, as are design-oriented apps. As for video, Mayer has so it can focus on making a few hits. Before Disrupt’s main event kicked off, we hosted 96 teams for a weekend-long hackathon. We saw a DIY Oculus Rift called , new ways for business travellers to , and a Tor-powered Linux box called that secures your Internet connection. In the end, an that lets city planners explore hypothetical changes to cityscapes won the 2014 Disrupt NY Hackathon. During the Startup Battlefield, 27 companies competed onstage in front of panels of expert judges that included Marissa Mayer, Ryan Sarver, Fred Wilson, and Chris Dixon. Along with 25 chosen by the TechCrunch team, two Startup Alley exhibitors (a robotic guitar tuner) and (a Google Docs for developers). After two days of presentations and Q&A, 6 finalists emerged: – A 3D printer for makeup. Mink lets you find a color online and print customized makeup at home rather than paying high prices for limited selections from stores or big brands. – An app-based hearing aid system. Mimi can test your hearing and simulate enhanced hearing with its app plus your phone’s microphone and headphones. The plan is to make Mimi into a government-approved medical hearing aid. – Makers of a smart water heater called the Heatworks Model 1 that saves energy and water by instantly heating the h20 through graphite electrodes. It provides pinpoint temperature control, and can be used through a smartphone app. – A dynamic pricing engine that helps ecommerce sites increase sales. Merchants can run Boomerang’s big data system to track 100 factors from traffic to competitors’ prices to optimize how much their items sell for in real time. – A reimagination of search that aggregates answers to questions onto content-rich cards rather than returning a list of search results. For example, a Vurb web or mobile app search for movies in theaters could return a card with quick access to average review scores, showtimes, directions, info on the theater, and nearby restaurants. – A licensable video customer service system that can be embedded in any app. Showkit can be conjured with a tap to start a live video chat with a customer service agent that can see your screen, draw on it, or take control to help you. After some tough deliberation, ISI Technologies won runner-up, and the 2014 TechCrunch Disrupt NY Startup Battlefield . Thanks to everyone who came, spoke, demoed, or sponsored. Next year we have plans to make the whole event feel more cohesive with a better integrated Startup Alley and more exciting after-parties. Most of all, we want to share our gratitude to the city of New York for welcoming us. There’s no denying NYC has a vibrant tech ecosystem that’s getting stronger all the time. While it’s rightfully known as the center of the universe for so many industries, it’s amazing how a little friendly competition with Silicon Valley has fostered a cooperative atmosphere between New Yorkers as the Big Apple strives to grow its slice of the tech industry pie. |
Google Will Now Sell Glass To Anyone In The US Who Wants It, Indefinitely | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 5 | 13 | With surprisingly little fanfare, Google has gone ahead and opened up Google Glass sales to anyone and everyone in the US, indefinitely. If you’ve got $1,500 and the desire, Google is down to sell you a pair of robo-glasses until they run out of stock. But before we go and call this the “public launch” of Google Glass, note that Google refers to this as part of the “Explorer Program”. In other words: this is still a test project, and Google seemingly still isn’t 100% sold on keeping Glass around. To quote’em directly: We’re still in the Explorer Program while we continue to improve our hardware and software, but starting today anyone in the US can buy the Glass Explorer Edition, : Note that veeeery last sentence. “As long as we have it on hand” seems like a way for Google to comfortably seat themselves right atop the fence, saying “we may very well not make any more of these. Unless we do.” For most of Glass’ lifespan, being able to snag a pair of Google’s robo-lenses required either being invited into the program by Google or having a friend kickdown an invite. A few weeks back, however, Google briefly opened up sales of Glass to the public for one day — now, it seems, they want to see how Glass sells if it’s first-come, first-serve, sans time limits. If you find yourself smack dab in that venn diagram overlap between “Wants Glass” and “Still hasn’t managed to get Glass”, |
NSA Docs Detail Efforts To Collect Data From Microsoft’s Skype, SkyDrive, And Outlook.com | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 5 | 13 | Last July, Glenn Greenwald regarding a number of Microsoft services that were, especially at the time, unsettling: That Microsoft had helped the NSA “circumvent its encryption” relating to web chat on Outlook.com, that it had worked with the FBI to bring OneDrive (then called SkyDrive) into better fit with PRISM, and that government data collection from Skype had increased. Today, coinciding with the release of his book on the NSA revelations, Greenwald , some of which were not new and some that were. Inside the set were four slides detailing the NSA’s relationship with Microsoft, as well as the company’s work with the FBI to provide for quicker and easier deliverance of required files and the like. Last July, Microsoft (Greenwald had not released the source material, and Microsoft was under stronger legal censure in what it could say in response), thusly, for Outlook.com: First, while we did discuss legal compliance requirements with the government as reported last week, in none of these discussions did Microsoft provide or agree to provide any government with direct access to user content or the ability to break our encryption. Second, these discussions were instead about how Microsoft would meet its continuing obligation to comply with the law by providing specific information in response to lawful government orders. OneDrive/SkyDrive: Skype: In each case, Microsoft was adamant in saying that it only complies with data requests when legally required to. So, where are we today? The simple gist is that what Greenwald indicated last year as fact has now been better supported through the release of specific documents. Microsoft’s response seems to square with both the initial report and the documents, though, of course, the NSA’s telling of the story isn’t probably to their liking tonally. Here are the documents themselves: TechCrunch will be reading Greenwald’s book in short order. TechCrunch today about slides indicating that Facebook is another target for surveillance. |
Yahoo Acquires Self-Destructing Messaging App Blink, Which Will Soon Disappear | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 5 | 13 | , a mobile messaging application that lets users share self-destructing messages, has been acquired by Yahoo, TechCrunch has confirmed. The app competed in an increasingly crowded space alongside Snapchat, of course, but also newer entrants like , , , and others. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. All seven Blink team members, including the founders, will now be joining Yahoo. Blink is a product of Meh Labs, a company founded by ex-Googler Kevin Stephens and Michelle Norgan. Originally, the startup had been focused on a location-based service called which grew popular around the time of , when apps like Highlight and Banjo were starting to take off. However, Kismet never gained the necessary traction, so the team turned toward another mobile trend – that of private mobile messaging. Blink first just over a year ago on iOS, and today users are able to text and share photos, videos, voice and more, with individuals or groups. These messages’ visibility could be controlled with a timer, so users can set how long they could be read or viewed after tapping. When the company its arrival on Android earlier this year, it reported having around 100,000 downloads to date. Just over half of its user base was located in the U.S., but Blink was beginning to gain some ground in the Middle East, which became its second-largest market. Stephens said at the time that Blink would begin to cater to that market more heavily with localization in Arabic, and hinted at plans to introduce pro features that would help make Blink something that could be used by contractors or business users, for example. Those efforts are not coming to pass, however, as we understand that Blink will now be shut down in the weeks ahead. That implies that the deal for Blink was one that was more about the talent behind the app, rather than the app itself. Stephens, for instance, is a good hire for Yahoo, having previously served as senior director of device product partnerships at Boxee, as a PM at Google and YouTube, and as an engineer at Apple. Through its earlier work with Kismet, Meh Labs had raised $1 million in seed funding from Triple Point, NEA, AngelPad, and various angel investors, including Shiva Rajaraman, Steph Hannon, Roham Gharegozlou, Ben Narasin, and others. We’re hearing that the investors are “pretty happy” with the exit, but it’s not a significant win by any means. We also hear that Yahoo M&A is hesitant to call anything an “acquisition” these days. Apparently, they got burned by the notion that they have to buy companies to get talent, and investors are starting to question if the strategy works. That could be why Blink’s team declined to provide much detail about the deal, beyond its confirmation, when asked for official comment. Update: Here’s the full text from the website: We’re excited to announce that as of May 13, 2014, Blink is joining Yahoo! We built Blink because we believe everyone should be free to show the same honesty and spontaneity in their online conversations as they can in person. We look forward to the possibilities that will come from bringing the Blink vision to Yahoo. We can’t begin to express how grateful we are for your support throughout this journey. We hope you stick with us through the next chapter. |
ISPs Claim That If The FCC Reclassifies The Internet As A Utility, “Paid Prioritization” Wouldn’t Be Banned | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 5 | 13 | In a letter signed by a swath of broadband CEOs, the ISP industry pushed back against the idea of reclassifying Internet service into a Title II utility, under which it could be more heavily regulated. Private companies pushing back against increased potential regulation is no surprise, but some of the claims that the CEOs made are worth examining. Later this week the FCC will vote on a proposed set of open Internet rules. Among the “notice of proposed rule-making,” provided that it can pass, will be a question regarding whether the FCC should reclassify the Internet as a Title II utility. The key argument so far among advocates net neutrality opposed to the creation of and its requisite “fast lanes,” is that under Title II classification, such contracts could be stymied. Not so, say the CEOs: There are a number of concepts and tactics at play in all of this. There’s traditional net neutrality, non-discrimination of content on ISP networks, peering agreements by which content companies pay ISPs to directly load traffic onto their network, and paid prioritization, a proposal by which companies could pay ISPs for faster delivery of their content. The last option, with its requisite ‘fast lanes’ is viewed two ways: Those in favor of the plan seem to view the split as between regular, robust Internet delivery, and an even more robust channel for those who can afford it, and want it. Opponents into something that is fast and something that is not. When it comes to setting the rules, the broadband CEOs are not convinced that the FCC could reclassify the Internet under Title II: This is the promise of a legal fight. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has indicated that if the FCC were to choose Title II as its goal, the legal fight would take years, in his estimation. The ISPs are essentially making good on his fear. Things are coming to a head this week, out earlier today: FCC officials are expected to vote on the proposal Thursday, after which the draft would be made public so people can finally see details of what Wheeler is proposing. All told, the battle lines are arrayed for the coming scrap: Internet companies and activists against ISPs and lobbyists. Let’s see who comes out on top. |
TC Cribs: A Stroll Through Shutterstock, Up Sky High In The Empire State Building | Colleen Taylor | 2,014 | 5 | 13 | For today’s episode of , we crossed the continent and headed to New York City to check out the headquarters of online stock photography powerhouse . Fittingly, Shutterstock has created its home in one of Manhattan’s most picturesque places, the Empire State Building. The recently renovated office, which takes up two whole floors, puts its own clean and modern spin on the building’s historic Art Deco bones. Check out the video embedded above to see Shutterstock’s sky high cityscape view, wacky Alice and Wonderland style game room, the secret hidden “Steampunk Library” that I’m told even most Shutterstock staffers aren’t aware exists, and more. As an added bonus, I was even able to squeeze in a workout in the yoga room. All in all, a good visit. Here are a few photos our team took of Shutterstock HQ:
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New Snowden Docs Highlight “Weaknesses” In Facebook Data Security | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 5 | 13 | Journalist Glenn Greenwald released from “the Snowden archive” today to coincide with the publication of his book . Those documents include a presentation from Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) about obtaining user data from Facebook. The presentation is titled, “Exploiting Facebook traffic in the passive environment to obtain specific information” and, according to the book, was given at the Five Eyes conference back in 2011. It describes social networks like Facebook as “a very rich source of information on targets,” including personal details, connections, and “patterns of life.” The challenge, GCHQ says, is the fact that many profiles aren’t public, “but passive offers the opportunity to collect this information by exploiting inherent weaknesses in Facebook’s security model.” The slides then point to the way that Facebook worked with content delivery network Akamai to serve photos, which apparently left an opening for government eavesdroppers to obtain Facebook IDs and images, as you can see in the slide above and read about in more detail on page 82 of . Again, the presentation dates back to 2011, and it’s not clear whether anyone ever actually followed the method outlined in the slides. (I’ve emailed Facebook and Akamai for comment and will update if I hear back.) Nonetheless, it seems noteworthy for the way it illustrates government interest in social networks and in circumventing those networks’ privacy safeguards. In a recent presentation, Facebook chief security officer about its security measures. A Facebook spokesperson sent me the following statement: We don’t have any evidence of these allegations. The slides are dated several years ago, during which time our security technology improved in many important ways. We continue to believe that governments should be more transparent about the requests they make of companies like Facebook, and that they should use established legal channels. |
The Gi-Bike Is Electric, Foldable, And Looks Like The Future | John Biggs | 2,014 | 5 | 13 | When I head into the future in my magical time machine, I’m going to want to bring a few things with me. One of those things is a Rambo knife. Also a CD of . And also the . Created by adopted New Yorkers Agustin Agustinoy, Eric Sevillia, and Lucas Toledo, the Gi-Bike is a foldable electric bike aimed at creating simple, portable, and inexpensive public transportation for big cities. Toledo came up with the idea in Córdoba, Argentina during a public transit strike when he looked around and saw a true mess. “It was during this difficult time that we realized the importance of independence and the need for a better method for daily commuters to regain their independence. After researching different means of transportation, we realized that the bicycle was the most efficient means of transportation throughout the world,” he said. The feature list is huge and includes a one second folding time, a carbon drive belt, electrical assistance for hills, and 40 miles of riding without recharging. It also includes a GPS tracking system that locks the bike when it’s out of a certain range and the battery can recharge your cellphone. Note that this isn’t exactly an electric bike (which are, sadly, illegal in New York) but more of a pedal assist system. The first bikes will sell for $2,995 on Kickstarter and will ultimately cost $3,390 when they begin shipping. The bikes are under 37 lbs and the tires and rims look like something out of Minority Report. “I describe the product as the bicycle of the future or how we like to call it internally ‘the next Tesla bike,'” said Toledo. Toledo, the CEO, is a former economist with experience in lean startups and capital trading. CTO Agustinoy is an industrial designer with an electronic engineering background and Sevillia is a financial advisor for families and startups. Together, the team basically built their dream bike, culminating in the sinuous beast you see before you. The team is looking for $400,000 to fund the production of these bikes and they’ve hit $20,000 so far. They expect to ship bikes in March. Electric bikes at this point are a dime a dozen. However, cleverly manufactured and handsomely-styled ones are rare. Like the , this bike is sort of a stealth e-bike, the special sauce hidden in the frame and the power coming from a powerful battery. It’s a cool idea and I’d love to take it for a spin.
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Julep Is Heading To iPhone With App That Lets You Customize A Monthly Box Of Beauty Products | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 5 | 13 | , the beauty brand whose nail polish shades are virtually is today launching its own personalized subscription-based “box of the month” club, as something of an alternative to quasi-competitor Birchbox. While the latter helped pioneer the concept of monthly boxes shipped to your home on an automatic basis, Julep’s box is now going in the opposite direction. Instead of beauty samples, Julep’s subscribers can individually customize their monthly shipments with full-size products and limited-batch nail polishes. Julep will also be introducing a mobile application later this month to help its users build out their boxes, we’ve learned. The company previously had a subscription box program called The Maven Program, but what’s new as of today is that women can now customize that box to their liking by choosing exactly what products they want to purchase that month. Because Julep offers full-sized items instead of samples, its boxes are a bit pricier than Birchbox’s ($10/month) offering, with the “My Maven” box starting at $19.99 for a box of 3 products, chosen for you. The new, personalized box is $24.99. However, these boxes contain $40 worth of full-size beauty products, and/or nail polish, so there is a markdown from full retail at least. A $34.99 personalized box is also available, which includes $60 worth of products. While competing in the same general space as Birchbox – that is, in beauty product subscriptions – the two companies’ business models are different. Birchbox is a far more affordable box, charging roughly the equivalent to a Netflix or streaming music subscription for its sampling of beauty products. But Birchbox uses its boxes to turn on customers to new products they wouldn’t have otherwise encountered, and then makes it easy for monthly subscribers to order the full-sized items through its own service. This now accounts for 30% of its revenue, recently reported, which is, in total, $125 million per year. Julep, on the other hand, is offering its boxes as another means to selling its own full-sized items to an already heavily invested audience of beauty product connoisseurs. Its “Mavens,” as they’re called, are invited to view and discuss the company’s newest products in a window of five days every month, and then create their boxes after chatting with others and offering their own feedback. The company, which manufactures and launches its own nail polishes, skincare and makeup items each month, totaling around 300 new products per year, uses the data from customer discussions and selections to help it better identify trends and then meet those demands accordingly. Julep was already collecting this sort of crowdsourced social feedback on online forums, and social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, as well as in-person. Now it’s able to directly connect that feedback with buying decisions. Obviously, this ability to quickly learn from then respond to consumer demands is how Julep believes it will have a competitive advantage versus the traditional beauty brands. And it’s a helpful factor in other aspects of its business, too, as Julep is not only an online brand, but also sells products on QVC, and in stores at Sephora and select Nordstrom locations. Founded by former Starbucks executive Jane Park, Julep is backed by over $50 million in outside funding from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Madrona, Maveron and others, with its most recent round, , announced just last month. What’s unclear is how many “Mavens” are helping contribute to Julep’s bottom line. The company declined to say how many monthly subscribers it had before today’s launch of the personalized box. It also doesn’t share revenue specifics, though some pegged the company at $20 million in total revenue in 2013. Julep , however, that its e-commerce revenue tripled last year. The app (screenshots below) will clearly play into the company’s larger e-commerce strategy. The app will go live on May 20th, when the first window for feedback also launches for the new boxes. [gallery ids="1001981,1001980,1001979,1001978,1001977"] |
Coatue Adds Top Goldman Tech Banker | Jonathan Shieber | 2,014 | 5 | 13 | Multi-billion dollar hedge fund investor Coatue is getting a new, heavy-hitting talent with the addition of former Goldman Sachs investment banker Anthony Noto, TechCrunch can confirm. News of the move by the former global co-head of technology, media, and telecommunications at Goldman Sachs to the hedge fund investor was first reported . The move to shore up Coatue’s tech investment team comes on the heels of the hedge fund’s announcement that to investors due to losses earlier in the year. Noto is leaving Goldman Sachs after a 13-year career which saw him climb from a position on the firm’s Global Investment Research desk in 1999 to a managing director by 2003 and a partner by 2004. In the memo announcing Noto’s move, Goldman Sachs honchos Richard J. Gnodde, David Solomon and John S. Weinberg praised Noto for growing the firm’s TMT franchise. “He has been a trusted advisor to a number of our clients and played a central role in several industry leading transactions,” the memo read. With Noto’s departure Goldman is moving Simon Holden, Nick Giovanni and Michael Ronen into co-chief operating officer positions within the global technology, media and telecoms group. In that slot the three will work with Dan Dees, Goldman’s global head of TMT, along with Gene Sykes and George Lee, the two co-chairman of the division. |
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Outlook.com Bests Gmail’s Filters With A New Inbox Automation System | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 5 | 13 | Microsoft’s Outlook.com a new method for users to create complex “rules” for how to handle email today — think of them as similar to IFTTT recipes for your inbox — along with a number of quality-of-life improvements. Outlook.com has been a success for Microsoft. When Microsoft completed the Hotmail transition roughly a year ago, it that Outlook.com had 400 million active users, of which 125 million were active on mobile. It’s time for some new numbers. (I’ve asked Microsoft how it counts an “active user” on the service, and will update this post when I hear back.) Outlook.com, of course, launched as a new service, eventually absorbing Hotmail’s user base after a period of open transfer. The new “advanced rules” capability allows users to create multiple “conditions,” like the age of an email, if you know the person who sent it, and if it is read, to drill into your messages and then apply a few actions to the missive. The tool could be a boon to power users. Gmail has filtering technology as well, of course. Here’s Outlook.com’s old rules tool: The news rules, shown below, will begin rolling out today, so be patient if you haven’t received them yet: Moving on, according to Microsoft’s post on the new features, Outlook.com users press the “reply” button 8 million times per day. Aside from that number feeling somewhat small, inside of the webmail service you can now reply in-line to emails, remove the need to shunt to a new view to do so. Also, Outlook.com is introducing an “undo” feature akin to what Gmail has offered for some time. Lastly, you can now change the chat service that you are using to speak to a contact inside of Outlook.com. The updates help bring Outlook.com into better parity with Gmail in some areas, and also help advance webmail. Outlook.com fits into Microsoft’s mobile-first and cloud-first segment of its “services” business model. Outlook.com also fits closely into the OneDrive and Office Online ecosystem, meaning that driving usage of the email tool could help seed usage of other Microsoft cloud products that the company is determined to grow. |
Judge Strikes Down NY Attorney General’s Subpoena In Airbnb Case For Being Overly Broad | Ryan Lawler | 2,014 | 5 | 13 | Airbnb received some good news in New York today, as the State Supreme Court quashed a subpoena issued by the attorney general there. The decision puts an end to the first part of a legal battle there between the peer-to-peer lodging marketplace and local officials. Last fall, the NY AG’s office related to hosts in an effort to identify bad actors and illegal activity happening on the platform. That request included a spreadsheet with the name, physical and email address, and other personal information of hosts, as well as a full list of all dates, duration of guest stays, and rates charged by the host, among other things. Airbnb argued that the request was overly broad and filed a motion seeking to block what it called a “fishing expedition” on the part of the attorney general. It also claimed that the subpoena asked for personal or confidential information about its users. After several months, State Supreme Court Judge Gerald Connolly ruled in Airbnb’s favor, generally siding with the company’s argument that the subpoena was overly broad. (Full decision embedded below.) Connolly writes: While petitioner bears the burden of demonstrating that the subpoena is overbroad, as petitioner argues, a plain reading of the subpoena in light of Multiple Dwelling Law §4 and the tax provisions and materials at issue meet such burden. Based upon the foregoing, the subpoena at issue, as drafted, seeks materials that are irrelevant to the inquiry at hand and accordingly, must be quashed. The decision is a victory in a market in which Airbnb has faced continued regulatory pressure. On the weekend ahead of its initial court date, the attorney general’s office who had dozens of listings on the service and were clearly not renting their own residences. Airbnb, in response, said that it was of those who appeared in that list of hosts. The Attorney General’s office pointed out that the judge actually sided with it on most of Airbnb’s arguments, and said it would narrow and reissue the subpoena. It pointed to the following quotes as support for that claim: 1. “[Airbnb’s] assertions that a factual predicate has not been established are without merit as there is evidence that a substantial number of Hosts may be in violation of the Multiple Dwelling Law and/or New York State and/or New York City tax provisions…”
2. “[t]he record before the Court indicates that there are Hosts regularly using their apartments to provide lodging to guests who may not be complying with the state and local tax registration and/or collection requirements.”
3. “[Airbnb] has failed to demonstrate that the subpoena is unduly burdensome.”
4. “[Airbnb] has failed to demonstrate that the requested information is confidential…”
5. “All other remaining arguments were denied as “unpersuasive or unnecessary.” As a result, it’s likely that Airbnb still has a long way to go before convincing regulators and lawmakers to come around in New York. But it’s hoping to. The company issued the following statement after the decision was announced: This decision is good news for New Yorkers who simply want to share their home and the city they love. Now, it’s time for us to work together. Airbnb hosts and the Attorney General share a common goal: we all want to make New York a better place to live, work and visit. We look forward to continuing to work with the Attorney General’s Office to make New York stronger for everyone. Meanwhile Matt Mittenthal, spokesperson for Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, issued the following statement: The judge’s decision specifically found evidence that a ‘substantial’ number of Airbnb hosts may be violating the tax laws and the law that prohibits illegal hotels. This comes as no surprise, given that Airbnb itself removed some 2,000 New York-based listings from its site. Our office is committed to enforcing a law that provides vital protections for building residents and tourists alike. The judge rejected all of AirBnb’s arguments except for a narrow technical issue, and we will reissue the subpoena to address it.
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Microsoft Improves Windows Store Navigation And Discovery, But Pricing Pitfalls Loom | Frederic Lardinois | 2,014 | 5 | 13 | Microsoft wants its to be the main gateway for buying apps on its platform, but the store was always hard to navigate, and the quality of the apps in it is often dismal. Today, Microsoft is launching an update to the store that tries to fix some of these issues. In addition, it introduces a couple of novel features made possible by Microsoft’s platform unification strategy. To improve app discovery, Microsoft is also now highlighting manually curated sets of app collections on the landing page for the store. Given that Microsoft has long been criticized for having a large number of low-quality apps in the store, this is clearly a way for the company to highlight some of the better applications. This isn’t the first time Microsoft has offered these collections, but until now, they were hidden behind a number of links, swipes and right clicks; now they’re front and center when users open the store. Today’s update is also very much in line with the overall changes to Windows in the 8.1 Update the company launched earlier this year. To help desktop users, the Store now features persistent navigation with links to top charts, categories and collections at the top of the screen. Previously, you either needed to use a touch gesture or a right-click to see these options, which meant they often went undiscovered by users. Just like the rest of the Windows 8.1 Update, this is an admittance that there are still desktop users out there and that the original design decisions of Windows 8 confused those users. Given how strange this pricing scheme is, we asked Microsoft for clarification, and a spokesperson did confirm that this is indeed what’s happening. “ Starting today, developers will also be able to link their Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 apps and sell them as a bundle for a single price. Users who buy these linked apps can install them on all of their Windows devices, and in-app purchases will also sync between machines. Microsoft’s own , for example, is one of the first apps to support this new pricing scheme, but any developer who offers a mobile and desktop version of an app can make use of this feature. It’s important to note that this feature isn’t just available for the recently announced universal apps that use a single codebase for both the mobile and desktop platform. Developers can link any Windows 8/8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 app in the Dev Center to create these “bundles.” One interesting — and very odd — thing to note: Developers can set different prices on mobile and desktop, but once you’ve installed one, you also own the other. This means there is really no incentive for developers to set different prices for a phone and desktop version of their app, as users who may buy a more expensive version will just be upset when they realize the mobile app was cheaper and would’ve scored them the desktop app, too. Why Microsoft decided on this policy is unclear to me, but if developers end up using this split pricing scheme, it will surely lead to confusion and frustration. In addition to these changes, Microsoft is now highlighting featured apps and apps that are on sale more clearly. |
The Case For Censorship In The New Social Age | Geoff Yang | 2,014 | 5 | 13 | Intellectuals for centuries have campaigned against censorship. From Ben Franklin to John F. Kennedy to Justice Earl Warren, the argument has been much the same: Censorship is antithetical to democracy. More recently, megastar Jay-Z reiterated the point in his 2011 book, , writing simply that “we change people through conversation, not through censorship.” It’s pretty hard to argue with Jay-Z — let alone Franklin, Kennedy and Warren. But I find myself, uncomfortably, thinking more favorably about the concept of censorship as we in Silicon Valley grapple with the emergence of several social networks built around the concept of anonymity. Companies like Whisper and Secret, among several other lesser-knowns, have attracted outsized attention and funding as the next generation of social media platforms. While each has its own unique features, they all allow users to send messages to groups without names attached. Let me first say that anonymity can be a very good thing. Having the ability to speak freely without fear of repercussions can spark honest discussion about important, delicate or emotionally charged topics. Just being able to share feelings and fears within a supportive network can be a productive mental health exercise and even connect people in meaningful and fun ways. Upstart Secret, for one, has shown strong success in the quality of discourse on its mobile app. It isn’t perfect. I mean, some of it is silly and some of it is a little mean and petty. But overall, it’s much better than I expected. In general, the content is about real emotions, real fears, real aspirations and real desires. Part of the genuine nature of the conversations on Secret stems from the fact that users are only sharing their personal reflections with people somehow relevant to them, as they come from their personal networks (via phone contacts). Secret is more like going to a masquerade ball with your friends versus being in a completely dark room with a bunch of strangers. You sign on to Secret with a verified identity and then can exchange messages anonymously with other people to whom you are digitally connected to, and who are also on Secret. This is an important distinction and works because the lack of total anonymity on Secret forces users to refrain from sending truly offensive messages they may otherwise send if they were among strangers. Deep down you worry that people might be able to figure out who you are. I think of Secret as qualified anonymity, and this aspect of a company’s network is hugely important in establishing both credibility and value — and why startups like Secret have a shot at real success. But it is not enough by itself. Here comes the tough part. As abhorrent as the concept of censorship is to many people who embrace the ideals of anonymity, including me, we need censorship to keep the dimly lit corners of cyberspace safe. It is just too tempting for people under the protection of anonymity to devolve into irresponsible and immoral behavior. We have all seen how damaging it can be to offer an unbridled platform for the worst kind of human impulses, particularly for teens. Prejudice, bigotry and sheer meanness can easily proliferate, transforming a winning concept into little more than a digital bathroom wall. That is why any platform leveraging anonymity will have to have some group of moderators that delete inappropriate and dangerous posts in real time — and then banish those posters from the site forever. To be clear, I am only in favor of striking comments that are truly hateful or dangerous. Unpopular or controversial viewpoints that are part of honest discourse should be allowed to flow freely. Whisper, for one, has already hired dozens of employees whose sole job is to constantly monitor the site for inappropriate content. These are important actions because they ensure consequences for behaviors that deliberately cause harm. To purists, it may inhibit free speech, but to me it’s no different than why we prohibit people from yelling fire in a movie theater when one doesn’t exist. Neither Franklin nor Jay-Z may like it. But I believe this is the only way these anonymous platforms can survive and thrive. Otherwise they will turn into walls in a New York subway station. And we all know how that will go. Image by |
Fly Or Die: Garmin Vivofit | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 5 | 13 | The Garmin is the company’s answer to the relatively new craze around wearable fitness trackers. After all, Garmin became relatively useless after every smartphone in the world got access to Google Maps with a GPS chip. Except for their sportswear, which is what we’re focusing on today with the Vivofit. Like most fitness trackers, it can measure steps, distance, calories burned as well as the time, but doesn’t necessarily feel as expensive as competitors like the FuelBand or the Fitbit Force. However, the folks at Garmin have a mind for battery life and with the removal of some LEDs, etc. they’ve managed to make the VivoFit last a whole year on a single charge. You can also get a bit more in-depth and monitor your heart rate and sleep patterns with a chest strap, which is meant to be worn 24/7. While we’re concerned about accuracy and competition from more established, stylish brands, the Vivofit is actually a perfectly acceptable fitness band, albeit poorly named. The Vivofit comes in five color flavors and costs $130 and is available . |
Google Glass Aims To Entice Travelers With New TripIt, Foursquare, And OpenTable Integrations | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 5 | 14 | A day after Google announced that , the company is unveiling some new “Glassware” (basically, Google Glass apps) that’s supposed to be particularly useful for travelers. This isn’t the first travel-related Glassware. last fall, so if you saw a sign written a language that you didn’t understand, Word Lens could superimpose the translated text, as if you were reading a sign in your native language. (Even though Word Lens isn’t brand new, I got to try it out today and it was cool.) Plus, the new Glassware isn’t only useful when you’re traveling — you might just want to find a restaurant near your house. Nonetheless, the company seems to be making a concerted push around travel with today’s releases. It’s even asking Glass owners (“Explorers”) to share photos and videos they record while abroad with the hashtag #travelthroughglass. Today’s three main additions are Glassware from TripIt, Foursquare, and OpenTable. Once you’ve connected your TripIt account to your device, Glass will add live cards with your flight information to your timeline — so you don’t even need to open a TripIt app to see the info. (Google already provided some of this data through Google Now, but TripIt usually has more detailed information.) With the Foursquare integration, you can also say that you want to check in, and Glass will allow you to swipe through a list of nearby locations. ( , and expanding beyond manual check ins with constant, ambient location sharing.) Similarly, you can now use Glass to browse nearby restaurants and make reservations through OpenTable. If you’ve made reservations before, Glass will automatically bring your most recent one up, though you can also change things manually. (That’s OpenTable in the image above.) Developer Advocate Timothy Jordan and Glass Guide Soji Ojugbele gave me a quick demo of the new features, and the whole thing probably took 20 minutes. (It probably would have been even briefer if I wasn’t a relative Glass newbie, and if we didn’t occasionally have to swap devices to find one with the proper Glassware installed.) Jordan said that’s intentional — these should be quick, intuitive interactions. Jordan also argued that the new Glassware furthers the mission of removing barriers between you and your technology. For example, if you enter at a bar, you no longer have to tell your friends to wait for a minute while you whip out your phone and check in (though you may still want to wait until you’re not mid-conversation or halfway through ordering a drink from the bartender). And if you’re at the airport running late for a flight, you don’t have to stop walking (or sprinting) in order to look up your gate number. You can read a little more about . By the way, if you do travel with Glass this summer, it probably wouldn’t hurt to have a little refresher on and . |
Now Processing $2B Annually, Swipely Adds Support For Multi-Location Businesses | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 5 | 14 | , a company that helps physical merchants collect credit card payments and market to their customers, now processes $2 billion in annual sales for its customers, it told TechCrunch. The company released the figure in conjunction with new product features that will allow its product to be used by businesses that have multiple locations, harmonizing data, and allowing for partial access for leaders with single-location purview, for example. Throughout its life, Swipely has reported its processing rate, allowing us to track its growth: According to company CEO Angus Davis, Swipely has grown more than 50 percent for seven straight quarters. It most early last summer. Swipely charges retailers a percentage of dollars processed, of course, and also fees for its other services. The company declined to comment on its potential to raise new capital. The company also declined to comment on its financial metrics, but did indicate that it operates in a similar fashion to other SaaS companies, with high expected gross margins, and a “strong [Customer Acquisition Cost] ratio.” It was that Square, another payment-processing company, has gross margins of 34 percent. Square is processing payments at a rate of $30 billion per year, or around 15 times as much as Swipely. The two companies have different customer bases, which Swipely has stated publicly a few times. TechCrunch reported when the company raised its last traunch of capital that its average customer processes around $1 million in payments annually. Can Swipely keep growing at its past percentage rates? I asked the company specifically if the new product updates designed to better support companies with multiple locations will help it sustain its percentage growth rate. Davis estimated that the new capabilities could perhaps let them grow 20 percent more quickly than they otherwise might be able to, but also cautioned that since the technology is new, it’s too soon to be sure. Also the law of large numbers comes into play at some point, at which Swipely will likely report the change in dollars processed in dollar, not percentage, terms. Swipely has been growing quickly, and almost quietly. Let’s see how long it takes them to get to $3 billion. |
OpenDNS Raises $35M From Cisco For Its Cloud-Based Enterprise Network Security As A Service | Leena Rao | 2,014 | 5 | 14 | Cloud-based enterprise network security company has raised $35 million in Series C funding from Greylock Partners, Sequoia Capital, Sutter Hill Ventures, Glynn Capital, Cisco, Evolution Equity, Lumia Capital, Mohr Davidow Ventures, and Northgate Capital. This brings the company’s total funding to $53 million. Founded in 2005, OpenDNS originally launched as a way for consumers to connect safely to the Internet. The company offered free DNS controls alongside parental and organizational filtering (i.e. giving parents control over what their kids have access to on their home network, etc.), providing an alternative way for consumers to protect themselves from having their search terms hijacked by ISPs. But around 2009, founder David Ulevitch saw a broader opportunity in the network security space for large companies and enterprises that are increasingly susceptible to sophisticated malware and botnet attacks. The company launched a cloud-delivered security solution, , that protects businesses and their users regardless of where they work and what devices they use to connect to the Internet. OpenDNS is now extending their platform to be a pathway to layer on solutions, giving IT admins an extension of their network perimeters. The company has built out 22 data centers that had the ability to carry tremendous volumes of traffic needed by these enterprise companies. From a product standpoint, OpenDNS gives IT cloud-based software that monitors and secures every device that connects to a business’ network, from anywhere in the world and even for the devices that leave. The onboarding process takes minutes as opposed to days with traditional incumbent security networks that offer on-premise hardware. And admins can create different security policies for different offices and users. For example, an admin can set from the cloud that all iPhone users in a particular network cannot be logged. From the actual employee standpoint, there is no app to download and users barely interact with OpenDNS. And the company’s Umbrella Security Labs research team is mining much of the security data to help predict malware attacks before they actually take place. The goal is to create a threat intelligence platform that predicts future threat origins, and the company says that every second, it processes and learns from more than 1 million new Internet events to discover and predict when and where on the Internet new attacks are being staged. The new funding will be used to hire engineers, invest in R&D, open an East Coast sales office and expand internationally. OpenDNS currently has 50 million daily active users of its services and more than 10,000 enterprise customers using its security solutions. We’re told the company’s clients include some of the largest multinational corporations in the world, including BP. H&R Block and Nvidia are also customers. We’re told sales have grown over 100 percent this past year. The key to OpenDNS’s success is that it is cloud-based, explains Ulevitch, and it can scale easier without having to worry about hardware. The other contributing factor to OpenDNS’ success is the way we work these days. Employees view and access content on mobile devices, and old-school networks that most businesses invested in years ago will not protect this data. The traditional security appliance approach of “build a firewall around the corporate network” fails to scale and can’t be applied to the mobile enterprise world. Clearly networking giant Cisco agrees. |
MakerBot Patents An Automatic Filament Switching System While Parent Company Stratasys Enjoys A Financial Bump | John Biggs | 2,014 | 5 | 13 | A patent shows that the company is working on a dual-filament solution that can change print colors on the fly. By leading the filaments through the heated extruder using a sort of “slider” system, the patent suggests that future MakerBots should be able to change colors mid-print, a vast improvement over current dual-color solutions. Current dual-filament solutions use two heads to extrude two different colors. The extruders squirt out hot filament onto the build tray like toothpaste. This solution would enable the same extruder to squirt out different colors, much in the same way toothpaste dispensers can extrude blue and white paste (which is later mixed, if needed). This could enable easier non-monochrome builds. The goal of the patent is to allow multiple types of materials to be printed into the same object. For example, you could print “wood-based” filament along with plastic filament or even embed conductive traces into a plastic object. The patent states: The system also manages output in order to ensure there is no overlap or mixing between the two filaments. In related news, Stratasys, MakerBot’s parent company, has announced $4.1 million in net income Q1 2014. They sold 8,802 printers last quarter, over 7,000 more than Q1 2013’s numbers for an increase of 653.6%. According to an earnings report released last week, the company “experienced strong revenue growth of 54%, including 33% organic revenue growth, driven by sales of higher-margin products and services.” Much of this success can be attributed to the sale of home printers like the MakerBot. In fact, the company writes: “MakerBot product sales strong as we continue to invest for future growth in the rapidly expanding desktop market.” This information should give hope to smaller 3D printer companies as larger corporations realize that the desktop 3D printer market is finally and decidedly heating up. |
Monk’s Hill Ventures Launches $80M Early-Stage Fund For Asian Startups | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 5 | 14 | Though there are many promising startup ecosystems in Asia, founders there have to cope with a lack of venture capital funding and mentorship. hopes to address those challenges with a $100 million SGD (about $80 million) fund that will provide early-stage funding and guidance from experienced entrepreneurs, including founders of , and , to Asian startups that want to expand globally. The new firm currently has offices in Singapore and Jakarta. Monk’s Hill Ventures wants to help close the gap for startups in Asia. While the firm plans to seek out startups throughout Asia, it will focus especially on ecosystems in Southeast Asia, where there are many opportunities for tech companies because of the . These cities include Singapore, Jakarta, Bangkok, and Manila. Monk’s Hill Ventures will provide portfolio companies with early stage and Series A and B funding and also support startups from other parts of the world that want to expand into Asia. All members of founding team are experienced entrepreneurs. Peng T. Ong was the founder and CEO of content-management systems firm , which went public on NASDAQ in 1999. Ong was also a co-founder of Match.com and and last served as a partner at , a VC firm based in China. Kuo-Yi Lim was formerly CEO of Infocomm Investments, a $200 million venture capital fund that invested in startups including , , and . Stefan Jung is the co-founder and managing director of Rocket Internet properties Zalora and . Jung was as venture partner at , a $200 million early stage fund, where he led the investment in Indonesian startup . Special advisor Thomas Clayton is the founder of Sequoia Capital-backed Bubbly. Before Bubbly, Clayton led the mobile business unit at BEA Systems, which was acquired by Oracle in 2008 for $8.5 billion. Combined, companies launched by Monk’s Hill Ventures’ partners have reached major Asian markets including China, Japan, India, and Indonesia. In a press statement, Ong said, “There are clearly two big gaps in the market. One is the much talked about Series A funding gap. However, the more significant one that we see is the lack of seasoned entrepreneurs, with deep operating experience, as investors–people who can roll up their sleeves and really help entrepreneurs.” |
Comcast Wants To Put Data Caps On All Customers Within 5 Years | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 5 | 14 | If you’re a Comcast customer living in one of the many states where they’ve imposed no real limits on bandwidth usage for the last few years… enjoy it while it lasts. During an ( ), Comcast executive VP David Cohen said that he predicts bandwidth caps (or, as ISPs prefer to put it, “usage-based billing”) to be rolled out network-wide within the next 5 years or so. The reason they haven’t done so already? They’re still working out exactly they can cap things before they start getting phone calls — that is, before people start calling up to cancel. Meanwhile, making things more complicated tends to scare people away, so they don’t want to just offer up multiple plans/tiers — so before they make any changes, they need to find that plan that works for everyone. “I would also predict that the vast majority of our customers would never be caught in the buying the additional buckets of usage, that we will always want to say the basic level of usage at a sufficiently high level that the vast majority of our customers are not implicated by the usage-based billing plan.” So, the good news: Comcast wants to find a data cap level that consistently works for “the vast majority”. The bad news: if you’re reading this, you’re probably something of an avid tech blog reader. The sort that… tends to use a little more bandwidth, from day to day. In other words, you may well already be outside “the vast majority”. For reference: if Comcast starts their bandwidth caps at 300 gigabytes (as they have in the select “trial” regions where caps are already in place), my house would pass that cap nearly every month. That’s almost entirely just because of our moderate-to-heavy use of Netflix/Hulu — I’m not hostin’ leet warez over here or anything. And thats just with two of us, neither making any particular effort to watch things in HD. Once 4K streaming comes into the mix in a few years and Netflix/Amazon/et al. get more stuff worth watching, those caps are gonna burn up . Comcast is already “trialing” data caps in select parts of Alabama, Georgia, Tenessee, and other states. If you go over the 300 GB cap in one of these regions, your next 50GB costs you an extra $10. |
There’s An Upcoming TV Show Called Selfie And I Hate Everything About It | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 5 | 14 | [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5-9qDF36I4&w=560&h=315] So, have you heard about these things called “selfies”?
What? No.
Didn’t you watch ?
Are you kidding me? That thing’s like six hours long.
It was on ABC.
… Your point being?
Uh, anyway, they’re a huge deal now. .
Let’s assume that I believe you. I still have no idea what a selfie actually is.
Basically, it’s where you take a photo of yourself with your phone? Sometimes you force your friends to get in the picture too. I’m telling you, everyone’s doing it. There was even .
God, I hate millennials.
Yeah, but they’d totally watch a show called .
A show … about taking photos?
No no no, that’s just hook, see? It’s really a way to talk about our modern condition as a technological society.
Forget millennials, I hate .
(quickly) Not as a serious drama. As a comedy.
Really? How many jokes can you tell about … whatever the hell they’re called?
That’s the beauty of it. You don’t need jokes, because technology is funny. We’ll just throw in lots of smartphone screenshots and random buzzwords like “Insta-famous” and “oh-em-gee” and the kids will laugh and laugh. You won’t have to hire any actual writers!
Interesting.
Plus, this will tell our viewers that we’re totally with it.
I pretty hip, and I’m not sure that always comes across. But hold on now. You’re not just selling this as a comedy so you can shoehorn in some tedious message about how technology is making us drift apart as human beings, are you?
(to himself) Yes.
What?
No, not.
And who do you see as the lead?
Karen Gillan from ? The nerds her.
Doctor Who? Isn’t that British?
We’ll give her an over-the-top American accent. It’ll be .
Perfect. I want a script on my desk by tomorrow morning. So I missed the fact that it’s . (Yes, yes, she’s named Eliza, he’s named Henry Higgins, they reference in the trailer, whatever.) How about this: In my alternate universe script, they come up with that part later. |
Health Data Startup SolveBio Raises $2M From A16Z, Max Levchin, SV Angel, And Other Investors | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 5 | 13 | Even though is becoming increasingly accessible, it is still difficult to glean helpful information from an individual’s DNA. That is because there is a lack of reference data compiled from other people’s DNA. Most reference data is currently curated by academic institutions and is often compiled in different formats, making it difficult for doctors and researchers to use. wants to solve this problem by making DNA reference data easy to access. The health startup announced today that it has raised $2 million from Andreessen Horowitz, Max Levchin, SV Angel, and other investors. “There are other companies and hospitals working on ways to interpret the genome. However, no one that we are aware of is working on better ways to deliver and distribute the content necessary to make these interpretations happen. We’re the only ones focusing on making the jobs of developers easier in this field,” SolveBio’s CEO and co-founder Mark Kaganovich said in an email. Comparing a patient’s DNA to reference data will allow doctors to find other people with similar DNA variants and see how they were diagnosed and treated. SolveBio’s founding team is currently focused on building a system that can integrate genomics data into diagnostic and research applications, which it will make available as an API. “SolveBio helps patients by making it possible to run diagnostic applications. Genetic diagnosis involves taking a person’s DNA and comparing it to the world’s information on the relationship between DNA and health,” said Kaganovich. “We provide that reference data in a simple, easy-to-use set of APIs. It’s ‘clinical-grade’ in that it is accurate, secure, up-to-date, and versioned (you know exactly what version of a dataset you are using).” Right now, it is difficult to collect reference data because of the vast amount of information out there since DNA information can, of course, come from everyone in the world. “The more reference data, the more accurate the test,” said Kaganovich. “Right now there is a very limited amount of useful data out there. Whatever open data is out there, it is in inconsistent formats and quality, and not programmatically accessible. It takes a team of internal programmers to build the infrastructure to collect the data, parse it, normalize it, connect it, and serve it up to clinicians.” He added that as more molecular data is collected from both healthy and sick people in the future, health data startups will have to meet the challenge of making sure that information remains private and secure. “We are partnering with other organizations to collect and distribute this kind of data. Some people will want their data to be openly available while others are interested in monetizing it. We are working within those requirements.” SolveBio’s founding team consists of Kaganovich and David Caplan, who both have a bioinformatics background. Paul George formerly worked on organizing data systems as a forward deployed engineer at Palantir Technologies. Designer David Gross makes SolveBio’s data easy to interpret. “Design is very important to us since we are building an interface to some pretty complicated data,” Kaganovich said. |
Former About.com CEO Darline Jean Joins Ad Tech Company PulsePoint | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 5 | 14 | , a startup offering tools for automated ad-buying and selling, announced today that it has hired Darline Jean as its chief operating officer. Jean spent the past decade at , which she joined as vice president of finance in 2003. She also served as the company’s chief finance officer and chief operating officer before becoming president and CEO in September 2011. During her tenure as chief executive, The New York Times Company for $300 million. (Jean left shortly after.) The company says that her role will include growing PulsePoint’s real-time bidding business in the United States and Europe. “Darline is someone who understands the importance of investing in talent and fostering growth and innovation within a company,” said CEO Sloan Gaon in the hiring release. “Given her professional trajectory, and her intimate understanding of the importance of content and advertising, we’re excited to welcome her to the PulsePoint team.” PulsePoint is backed by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Gotham Ventures, New Atlantic Ventures, and others. |
Airbnb’s NY Battle Continues, With Attorney General’s Office Issuing A New Subpoena | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 5 | 14 | won yesterday, but the AG’s office hasn’t given up. Airbnb was , with Schneiderman seeking records on all hosts in New York. A judge in the state Supreme Court struck down the subpoena, siding with Airbnb’s argument that it was “overbroad.” However, the AG’s office responded that would reissue the subpoena in a way that addressed the judge’s concerns. It seems that’s exactly what happened today. We just received the following written statement from Schneiderman’s spokesperson Matt Mittenthal: Since the judge rejected all of AirBnb’s arguments except for a narrow technical matter, our office has served the company with a new subpoena that addresses that issue. The judge specifically found evidence that a ‘substantial’ number of Airbnb hosts may be violating the tax laws and the law that prohibits illegal hotels. The time has come for Airbnb to stop shielding hosts who may be violating a law that provides vital protections for building residents and tourists. And here’s a statement from Airbnb in response: The Airbnb community wants to pay New York more than $20 million in additional taxes this year, bring more travelers to the state, and support more jobs. And when we discovered that some people were abusing our platform, we removed them from our site altogether. It is certainly disappointing that the Attorney General’s office continues to demand private information about thousands of Airbnb hosts, so many of whom struggle every day just to make ends meet. We are reviewing this new demand, but remain eager to work with the Attorney General and we will continue to advocate for New Yorkers who simply want to share their homes. |
Contextly Launches Its Editorial Tools To Find “Related Content” That’s Actually Related | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 5 | 14 | If you’re tired of seeing “related content” widgets that are full of links that are, at best, kinda, sorta related, a startup called is trying to make things better. The company was founded in 2012 and aimed, , to create online publishing tools that were “actually designed by journalists, rather than marketers or advertisers or techie guys that don’t actually get how journalism works.” It was in closed beta testing until September of last year, when it quietly opened up its platform, and it’s officially launching the product today. With Contextly, publishers can add recommended content widgets at the end of their posts, and there are additional tools for adding links and sidebars. Singel said the technology looks at a number of different factors — including tags, links, and “semantic similarities” — to figure out which other articles to recommend. It combines all of those approaches, tests out different “weighting” systems, and goes with the combination that’s most effective. (Singel noted that articles can attract different types of readers over time, so the strategy can also change.) Not that every recommendation has to be generated by an algorithm — editors can manually choose them, too, or they can combine the manual approach with automated selections. One big difference compared to companies like Outbrain or Taboola is that Contextly’s links are entirely internal — it’s not trying to link to any sites except your own. Singel described the other companies as “traffic arbitrage” businesses. He argued that it’s important to convince visitors to read additional articles on your site — not just for the extra pageviews, but because . (This is an area that TechCrunch-owner AOL is interested in, too — it .) At the same time, Singel said “there is a place for sponsored content and native advertising” in Contextly — it’s just that the team is still figuring out what that place is. Publishers using Contextly include , , and . It can also be used by businesses that aren’t strictly in the news or editorial business, like DIY electronics company . Contextly was part of the Matter.VC incubator for media startups and recently joined Turner Media Camp. You can . |
Betaworks-Backed Giphy Launches Gif Link Shortener For Twitter And Facebook | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 5 | 14 | , the betaworks-backed search engine for gifs, has released a brand new tool that makes sharing gifs on social networks even easier and more efficient. is a search platform that is based entirely around gifs, with so that creators can get more exposure and easy sharing tools for social media. However, without in-line integration on Facebook or Twitter people still have to click through to view the content. Otherwise, users had to save the gif and upload it to the network, thus stripping Giphy of any and all credit for the image. Launching today with the help of brands like , Giphy is now able to shorten links (to your own content, like a blog or product page) and automatically attach an in-line gif of your choosing. Here’s an example: I can go on Giphy, find the image (at right), and insert a link to this post. It will then generate a shortlink, which can be shared on Twitter or Facebook, and the gif itself will appear as the preview image on Facebook or in-line on Twitter. However, when users click through to the link they’ll be directed back to this post. It’s brilliant, and according to the company, Giphy is the only service that is whitelisted to do this on Twitter. Giphy was first born out of Hacker In Residence program, which is the same program where Dots and Poncho launched. The team is now at 12 people, and still working out of the betaworks office in Lower Manhattan. The Gif Shortener tool is available now for free on the site, and already being used by Nike and BuzzFeed. You can check out . |
Bid To Meet With SV Angel, First Round Capital And Others In VC Auction For Cancer Charity | Josh Constine | 2,014 | 5 | 14 | Getting a meeting with a top venture capitalist is tough unless you’ve got the right connections. For all the talk of meritocracy around product development, raising money is still a bit of an old boy’s club. The is offering chances to break into the club house with today’s launch of its 5th Annual VC Auction. Meetings with A-list VCs and founders go to the highest bidder, and the money goes to cancer research. The “win a meeting” fundraising model isn’t . Everything from the screening of Veronica Mars to our own Disrupt Conference has been used to raise money for a company or cause (and not always a good one). Heck, CharityBuzz and Prizeo are making a whole businesses out of it. But this isn’t about winning a meet and greet with Paul McCartney. Pitching a prestigious fund could change your business, but getting access can seem impossible to some. Those of us entrenched in the Bay Area may forget this as it seems like everyone has a roommate, friend, old college buddy whose company was funded by [insert VC name here] and can provide an introduction. For those new to the area or living outside it (gasp!), navigating the network to get these meetings can be an uphill battle. Scouring LinkedIn to find your 3rd degree connection to 500 startups isn’t an unheard practice for many early companies. Providing an opportunity to meet, albeit for those few with the required financial means, can be small way of granting access. Australia, Philippines, Poland and Russia. Of course, funding ecosystems exist in the locales but perhaps aren’t as robust as SF or NYC. Last year, a founder, Ray, from the Philippines, bid for and won meetings with Battery Ventures, NEA and Blumberg Capital. One of the key take aways for him was to focus his company where it has the biggest competitive advantage, which ended up being NOT in the US. Earlier this month, he soft-launched his app and cites the insights from his VC auction meeting as particularly helpful in focusing his company on the local market. Sean Parker has raised over $500,000, 100% of which is donated to LLS Research Fellows at UCSF, Stanford and UC Berkley. This funding stays local and helps support PhD level research at California schools. So why don’t the VCs, flush with their IPO earnings, just directly donate to LLS or whatever cause they see fit? Well, that’s a fair question as there are more creative ways to auction off time than taking ramen money out of the hands of aspiring entrepreneurs. Maybe one of the VCs can win another’s auction and they can have a monocle-clad lunch while fighting cancer. Keith Rabois (Khosla Ventures), Geoff Lewis (Founders Fund), Josh Kopelman (First Round Capital), Dave McClure (500 Startups), and Rob Coneybeer (Shasta Ventures). Plus, this year you can bid on NY based VCs including Jeremy Levine (BVP) Eric Paley (Founder Collective) CeCe Cheng (First Round Capital) Mo Koyfman (Spark Capital). There are also founders available like Brian Chesky of Airbnb, as well as tours like one of Facebook’s campus with product manager Dwight Crow). And if you don’t have the cash to win one of the auctions, you can join me in trying to stalk these people for free at the Creamery. |
Flappy Bird Creator Promises Game’s Return – With Multiplayer And Fewer Addictive Qualities | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 5 | 14 | It’s Episode XVII of the , and this time the formerly recalcitrant (he’s on a media tour at the moment) creator of the addictive game is promising the game’s return, eventually, complete with multiplayer. Nguyen told CNBC’s Kelly Evans the news on the network’s program today, albeit with the caveat that the game wouldn’t be coming anytime “soon.” It’ll also be less addictive, he says, which is great news for people who enjoy their lives and living them to the fullest. creator bringing game back. Tells it will be multi-player, less addictive. — Donna Burton (@DonnaBurton) Flappy Bird is a very simple, very hard game that used to be available on mobile phones until Nguyen decided it shouldn’t be anymore, potentially because it turned everyone who played it into tunnel vision maniacs who probably harassed him to no end. Nguyen had previously , in a somewhat altered form though he didn’t specify how it would change at the time. He now says it’s coming in August, so there’s a very high likelihood we all will have forgotten about this anatomically incomplete bird and his pipes as the next shiny bauble is sure to catch our eye long before then. |
Fab Unveils Private-Label Products And A Physical Showroom In NYC | Ryan Lawler | 2,014 | 5 | 14 | Senior executives at design-oriented e-commerce startup are in the midst of in a series of strategy meetings this week. But that’s not stopping it from moving forward with a bold new initiative to introduce a series of private-label and exclusive products for its customers. In an , Fab introduced the first wave of its new private-label offerings under the “ ” brand. The products — some of which were designed in-house and some of which were licensed but sold exclusively through Fab.com, are being released under a series of collections designed to appeal to different aesthetic sensibilities. The collection is what Fab calls “a celebration of great design and quality craftsmanship at amazing price points,” and gives us a view into what the future of Fab’s e-commerce business could look like as it pivots away from partnering with third-party manufacturers to develop its own distinct line of products. Fab will be introducing the products to customers on a rolling basis over the next several weeks and months, but gave customers a preview of what is to come. The first group of products falls under the “ ,” which includes a series of bedding, rugs, and bath textiles. Other products to be announced over the coming weeks include the Nordic Collection, which appears to feature Nordic-influenced furniture pieces, a sofa collection, and an exclusive collection of scarves from Caroline Z Hurley. Later this evening it will be unveiling the new products in a press preview at a new . That space will remain a home for Fab’s physical products until the end of June, according to Fab spokesperson Amy Juaristi as the online retailer seeks to showcase its new goods in an offline space. For Fab, the focus on designing its own products and licensing exclusive products from partner designers comes as the latest in a series of pivots that the company has made over the years. Once a social networking site, then a flash sales site, Fab is now looking to differentiate itself with a line of private-label and exclusive merchandise. To do so, it’s hoping to leverage the large customer base that it had amassed over the previous few years. But those changes don’t come easy. Fab has seen that plenty over the past year, which has seen it shed hundreds of employees through — and it . As it approaches this latest pivot, Fab executives are meeting this week to discuss the company’s next strategic plan. While it’s unclear what that means for Fab’s remaining employees or the company’s business going forward, it appears that CEO Jason Goldberg might be comfortable with focusing the business solely on private-label and exclusive merchandise, and just trying to be really good at that. Facing the choice of trying to be the biggest or being the best, be the best. Better to be amazingly great at one narrow thing. — Jason Goldberg (@betashop) |
MakerBot Scores Sesame Street As The First Big Partner In Its 3D Printing Store | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 5 | 14 | If MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis’ dreams come true, we’ll one day see a 3D printer in every home. And when you’ve got a 3D printer in every home, what do you need? Things to print, of course. A few months back, MakerBot for premium 3D printable objects — sort of like an iTunes for 3D printing, if you will. MakerBot put up a few offerings of their own to get the ball rolling – but today, they found their first big partner: Sesame Workshop, the legendary company behind Sesame Street. For , you get a prepped-and-tested digital version of Snuffleupagus that’ll let you print as many snuffies as your heart desires. It’s important to note, though — and really, this is the reason I find it interesting enough to write about — that this is all part a very long term play. As of January of this year, MakerBot had sold just shy of 50,000 3d printers since launch. Even if it turns out that MakerBot owners are just for ol’ Snuffie and, say, one in four of them buys the model, that’s just $15,000 — a tiny drop in the bucket for Sesame Workshop, who brings in somewhere around $45 million in merchandise licensing each and every year. Sesame Workshop isn’t doing this to rake in the cash; they’re doing it to be a part of something cool, early on. MakerBot, meanwhile, is prepping the foundation for the larger customer base, with the assumption that 3D printing eventually goes ubiquitous. If one day soon there really a 3D printer in every home, they’re trying to make sure they own the pick-and-print market early. |
Share The Music With The Wearhaus ARC | John Biggs | 2,014 | 5 | 14 | True story: a few years ago I was in the East Village when I heard the disco version of the Superman theme playing loudly. A man on a skateboard was riding back and forth, around and around, blaring the Superman theme for all and sundry, sharing the horns of John Williams’ most uplifting hymn with the world (to a disco beat). The is not like that at all. These headphones connect with a special app on your phone and on phones around you. When you play music, folks nearby can connect to your headphones and listen along or you can create a massive, quiet listening party from one phone. While you listen you can chat with other listeners, a feature that could get a little creepy if you’re listening to death metal or Pat Boone. Created by ex-Berkeley engineering grads Richie Zeng and Nelson Zhang, the company began when Zhang left Berkeley in June 2013 on a Thiel Fellowship. They came up with the idea for the ARC and began working on it at the Highway1 accelerator. I saw it in a very simplified form last year and they are finally now going to market. Interestingly, the team took to the stage at a PennApps 2013 hack competition where they created a that can tell when you’ve loaded your bag up with the proper gear. They are, in short, smart guys. The pair received $20,000 from Highway1 and a few hundred thousand from angels who are helping them prepare the product. “Originally, headphones were just tools for channeling audio. They’re now becoming more and more about good design and self-expression. With Arc, we wanted to take that creative, personal aspect to the next level by creating an entirely new social experience around the headphones,” said Zhang. “We’ve always believed that music connects people. In particular, we’ve always believed in the power of listening to music together in person, either at a party, splitting earbuds, sitting around a record player, etc. Nelson put together the first audio syncing proof of concept while visiting China that summer, then we got together at a hackathon and put together a prototype that you could actually use – even though it looks like a bomb strapped to your head,” said Zeng. They’ve since updated the headphones and added LED lights for a bit of customization and simple controls on the side for playback and volume as well as broadcast and join buttons. The team is offering the ARCs for $149 each and you can . It has a standard headphone jack if you want to listen to things without running down the battery but the Bluetooth receiver lasts 16 hours on a charge, 10 if you’re sharing. It has a nice 20Hz to 20kHz frequency response and a built-in microphone. How often will you want to share your music, let alone the disco theme song to Superman? I don’t know. I’m not you. But these headphones make it pretty easy to do so without annoying passers-by and, as we all know, the best music is shared between two people, not with the entire population of St. Mark’s Place. [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Fo8CYQ2lpk] |
null | Frederic Lardinois | 2,014 | 5 | 13 | null |
Clever Kinect Hack Brings This Guy’s Full Body Into Virtual Reality | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 5 | 14 | It’s one thing to bring your mind into virtual reality. Get some snazzy VR goggles in front of your eyes, bump the framerate up high enough — bam, you’re a good part of the way there. But bringing your into the mix? Thats a whole different challenge. Crack that one, and you’ve got yourself a holodeck. It’s far from perfect (even as a spectator) but [ ] has managed to pipe a super-glitchy, yet totally passable rendition of himself into his lil’ VR world. How? He took three Kinects, placed them carefully around his room, and pushed the combined video feeds through an algorithm that reconstructs a model of his body. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ghgbycqb92c?feature=player_embedded&w=640&h=360] The system has its faults — it’s fuzzy from the start, and freaks out pretty hard a few minutes in when one of the Kinects gets jostled. But, with a bit a polish… is this a glimpse of the way the VR setups of the not-so-distant future will work? Probably not. Even if you solve challenges like wires dangling around and bumpable cameras, you’ve got one huge, rock-hard challenge left: walls. With the Oculus mostly blinding you to the real world around you, you’d need something like a gym-sized room (or , which, if we’re being honest, few will buy) to avoid smashing into walls every few seconds. I’d bet on virtual reality primarily being a sit-down experience for quite some time. |
Ask Pinterest Anything? Site Tests Q&A Feature | Ingrid Lunden | 2,014 | 5 | 14 | , , (sometimes to ), and others have looked to question-and-answer services as a way to boost user engagement and advance conversations. Now another player could be entering the fray: Pinterest has confirmed to us it is testing out a new Q&A feature, too. “We’re always gathering feedback from Pinners to make Pins more useful,” a spokesperson tells us. “We’re currently testing the ability to ask and answer questions in a more structured way on Pins, with a small group of Pinners. We don’t have any additional details to share at this time, but we’ll keep you posted.” The feature was first pointed out to us by Tom Waddington — a UK-based developer and designer who has been known to spot upcoming social network by behind the scenes. In a , he writes that he got his first hint of it while digging through the Pinterest analytics for , a craft tutorial community that he co-founded, and noticing a new option called “Questions.” It linked only to a blank page with a Questions tab: But it tipped him off to look through Pinterest’s code to see what else was there. “I took a look through the code, and found a whole load of references to a feature that looks almost ready for release,” he writes. There is code in there for users ask questions about the pins that they are viewing, and code for the original Pinner to get a notification to answer the question. Among the 100 or so references to Questions is code for Questions to appear on the web site, as well as iOS and Android apps. (It’s not clear whether that “original” will be the person you follow who posted something, the very first person to pin something to Pinterest, or even the originator of the image in question — eg, Who will answer my questions about : my friend Jacqueline, her connection Mattie, or theyummybits.com?) And it looks like Pinterest will try to detect whether a user is asking a question rather than simply commenting, and will be prompted to confirm that is indeed what it is. “All the usual functions to delete, report and like/unlike questions are present in the code,” he writes. Of course, it’s not a given that just because you can use social networks or any website to answer questions, you will. Facebook had high hopes for its own Questions feature, which lasted for all of two years before it . Google Answers also been . It will be worth watching how new app Jelly — perhaps a closer comparison to Pinterest’s Q&A ethos, given the visual anchor — will develop longer term with user traction. On the other hand, what’s interesting about a Q&A feature is that it is one more way, in addition to basic comments, that users will be able to put more text into a site that has been largely built around images. It will also encourage people to engage more with the content — engagement being one of the key metrics for social media sites to demonstrate how attentive their monthly active users really are. It also helps pin down (pun!) and make more useful something that people have already been doing on the site informally: asking questions through the comments section. If you are a brand, this could end up being a golden opportunity to connect with customers. It’s the more open-ended counterpart compared to some of the other features like , which “steers” you in certain directions as it focuses your searches on the site. |
Windows XP’s Enterprise Market Share Slips Under 10% | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 5 | 14 | According to security firm , Windows XP’s market share among enterprise-level corporations has slipped under the 10 percent mark, falling from 10 percent in April to “close to” 8 percent in May. This matters given that Windows XP is now , as Microsoft has ceased to support and patch the more than decade-old operating system. According to , Windows XP retains more than 25 percent of the global desktop computer market. Enterprise firms eclipsing the 10 percent market around a month after Microsoft removed support for Windows XP is potentially encouraging. At current rates, according to Qualys, Windows XP market share among large companies, using current trends, would reach zero in four months. That won’t happen, of course, but the graph points down and to the left. Why should you care? Windows XP is a security risk. That was in an Internet Explorer zero-day exploit that impacted a number of versions of the browser. More will crop up. And as long as big companies are on un-patched Windows XP, they are unsafe. And those companies often have your data on tap. |
House GOP Leadership Calls For FCC To Abandon Proposed Net Neutrality Regulation | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 5 | 14 | Ahead of tomorrow’s vote on the consideration of new net neutrality rules, House GOP leaders today published to the FCC’s Chairman Tom Wheeler, pushing back against regulating the Internet, especially in the context of reclassifying broadband access as a utility on Title II authority. Their letter is perhaps expected, given that opponents of government regulation have something of a history of opposing net neutrality, given a confused conception of how we got to where we are today regarding the Internet. House GOP leadership: The Internet was born, grew up, and became the engine of social, economic and political change that we know today without net neutrality rules. And, despite the distinctly international flavor of today’s Internet, let us not forget that it is an American invention. Sen. Al Franken as : “We literally have members of Congress—I’ve heard members of the House—say, ‘We’ve had all this innovation on the Internet without net neutrality. Why do we need it now?’” he told TIME in an interview last week. “I want to say, ‘Come on, just try to understand the idea. Or at least just don’t give a speech if you don’t know what you’re saying. Please—it hurts my head.” You can’t square those two positions. What Sen. Franken is pointing out is simple: The growth and vitality of the Internet that the House GOP highlights occurred during a time in which the web operated along the principles of an open Internet. The FCC is now trying, again, to codify that reality so that the very innovation the House GOP wishes to continue, can. Arguing that past innovation under a set of market conditions is best served by allowing for that market to become distorted so that similar innovation can take place in the future is a somewhat confusing position to take. What’s fun when it comes to net neutrality is how there are essentially three takes: First, that net neutrality will hurt the Internet by stifling investment and innovation. Secondly, that net neutrality is a general good, but that the Internet should be at least partially pay-to-play for content companies. And thirdly, that the Internet must remain a level playing field for all, and that distortions thereof by monied parties will harm innovation. In the first corner, you . Chariman Wheeler is two. And in the third corner . Tomorrow is a big day, so strap in. |
The Sure Chill Company Raises Gates Money To Store Vaccines Anywhere | Jonathan Shieber | 2,014 | 5 | 14 | One in five children who need vaccinations can’t get them. And while that fact is neither startling nor incomprehensible, it is tragic. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent several years and millions of dollars trying to cure the diseases that afflict children unnecessarily in the world’s poorest countries, but always run up against the last mile problem with vaccine distribution. Simply put, there are too many children in too many places without access to the necessary vaccines, because those vaccines lose their efficacy without proper refrigeration. Enter with its novel way to store vaccines at the proper temperature without the need for an electrified or gas-powered refrigeration source. “Practically it’s about putting a cooler in a place where there wouldn’t normally be one and enable monthly deliveries of vaccines that can be preserved properly,” says Ian Tansley, the company’s chief technology officer. To help bring Snowdonia, Wales-based Sure Chill technology to market the Gates Foundation has given the company a new $1.4 million, following an earlier grant of $100,000 in late 2013. In addition, the company has raised roughly 2.5 million British pounds sterling for its commercially focused line of refrigeration products which offer greater energy efficiency and cost benefits over traditional refrigeration techniques, according to Tansley. “There’s a discrete task in the Gates Foundation funding to take this proof of concept that we’ve built into a mass manufactured unit available to the market and qualified by the World Health Organization,” says Tansley. The roll-out to the aid organizations and medical groups is the first phase of the company’s development — with products for the commercial and then residential markets to follow. “We’ll go into the commercial market when there’s a real commercial driver. It’s a multiple of the medical market and there’s another leap again to go into the domestic market,” says Tansley. “And the cost differential of building Sure Chill into a refrigerator is quite small. Essentially it’s a plastic molded liner with some water inside it that’s going to transform these refrigerators from what they are now into this amazing new device.” Right now the only gating factor is the company’s production run, and the need for ice as an initial cooling mechanism for the company’s technology to work. Indeed, some of the money from the Gates Foundation will go to a trial project which will run for 15 months in East and West Africa later in the year. The Sure Chill Company’s refrigeration technology harnesses a unique property of water to create a constantly chilled environment within the unit. Water is at its heaviest at 4 degrees Centigrade, which is roughly the ideal temperature for storing vaccines and fresh food and beverages. The technology The Sure Chill Co. developed uses this phenomenon to create a constantly chilled environment in a refrigeration unit — with or without power for up to 10 days. As ice melts, the refrigeration unit receives a constant stream of water at 4 degrees. So the refrigeration mechanism is capable of working even in places where the power supply is intermittent at best. The firm already has vaccine refrigerators operating in the field in more than 30 countries and shipped 200 devices to the Philippines to help with aid efforts in the wake of the Haiyan Supertyphoon. |
YOYO Holdings Snags $1.3M For Its Prepaid Mobile Consumer Survey Platform | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 5 | 22 | , a rewards platform that targets prepaid mobile phone users in developing economies, has secured $1.3 million in funding from Japanese venture capital firms GREE Ventures, CyberAgent Ventures, and Incubate Fund. Based in Singapore, YOYO Holdings operates a reward platform called which is similar to sites like Swagbucks, but with a twist. Candy users receive SMS texts with a “mission” that may include trivia questions, market research surveys, or in-store promotions. Once they complete a mission, they reply to the message with a code and get a free load, or minutes, on their prepaid mobile. Candy is currently available in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand, with about 250,000 registered users, but it is likely that they will continue to expand throughout the region, as the startup says prepaid phone users currently make up more than 90% of the mobile market in Southeast Asia. YOYO Holdings is among several startups focused on figuring out how to reach the “next billion” Internet users by collecting market data in developing countries. The aptly named which allows researchers to survey people in areas with limited Internet access, while for its platform, which allows people to answer surveys through SMS, voice messages, or on the Web. Its new funding will be used to find new revenue streams and on marketing and business growth, YOYO Holdings said in a statement. |
DoorDash Raises $17.3 Million From Sequoia To Expand Its On-Demand Delivery Service | Ryan Lawler | 2,014 | 5 | 22 | is one of many on-demand food-delivery startups to crop up over the past few years, but the company has big ambitions to move beyond food. Thanks to new investor Sequoia Capital, it has a sizable war chest to go after the competition. The company just raised a $17.3 million Series A round of funding led by Sequoia, with participation from existing investors Khosla Ventures, Charles River Ventures, Pejman Mar Ventures, and Ted Zagat, of Zagat Survey fame. Along with the funding, Sequoia partner Alfred Lin is joining the board alongside founders Stanley Tang, Andy Fang, and Tony Xu. That’s a tidy sum for a company that is part of an increasingly crowded and competitive food-delivery space in the San Francisco Bay Area, when you see that Sprig , Spoonrocket just , Caviar , Postmates , and Munchery just . The funding amount seems especially large when you consider that DoorDash is mainly operating in just Palo Alto, Mountain View, and San Jose today. So what separates DoorDash from the rest, and why was Sequoia confident enough to invest so much into it? For one thing, customers seem to love DoorDash — even in its limited launch area, the company has seen impressive growth. In 10 months making deliveries in the South Bay, it’s processed tens of millions of dollars in gross sales. And the company estimates that one in six households in the area has ordered from it. It’s partly that growth and consumer response that led Sequoia to invest, according to new board member Lin. “When you talk to their customers, as well as all the retailers they serve, they get rave reviews,” he told me. “Anyone who uses them raves about them.” But Sequoia was also drawn to the larger opportunity that DoorDash represents in the on-demand delivery space. That’s because the company sees the opportunity as bigger than just delivering food. “We don’t consider ourselves a food-delivery company, but a tech and logistics company that just happens to deal in food,” co-founder Stanley Tang says. “We’re building out the technology and infrastructure to become a super reliant and efficient delivery network.” In fact, DoorDash has built a number of technologies that are designed to make the process of delivery a lot smarter and more efficient. It has a dispatch system that self-learns and adapts to different variables based on driver inventory, time of day, and expected demand. It also uses a capacity-planning algorithm to ensure that it has the right number of drivers available at any given time. DoorDash has smart technology around restaurant preparation time, so that drivers don’t show up too early and wait for meals to be completed. It’s also so that they don’t show up too late while food gets cold. And to help drivers get from Point A to Point B, it uses an automated driver-routing algorithm for taking the smartest route between shops and a customer’s home. All of that is designed to make being a DoorDash delivery driver ultra-easy for drivers, since it does all the routing and planning for them. And it also makes them more efficient, meaning they can handle multiple deliveries at once in batches, rather than rely on the usual one-delivery-at-a-time model for most services. DoorDash also has big ambitions to expand its availability into new markets and verticals. It’s telling that during our conversation, co-founder Stanley Tang kept referring to the company’s upcoming plans for a “nationwide” rollout. It’s clear the company isn’t just thinking about its next market launch, but is targeting multiple cities in a short period of time. It also plans to eventually expand its capabilities beyond just food delivery. The thinking goes that once the company has built its logistical delivery infrastructure in any given area, it’s no longer limited to picking up and dropping off food — DoorDash believes it could deliver just about anything. The bad news is that tackling the local small and medium-sized business market isn’t easy: DoorDash has its work cut out for it as it attempts to sign up merchants and drivers in various new markets throughout the country. The good news is that DoorDash has a good reputation among merchants it works with, and that it can create network effects, according to Lin. And once a company has become big enough, it’s really difficult to unseat them. “If you look at any of these local businesses, whether they’re Yelp, or Grubhub, or whatever… once they’re built, they’re defensible,” Lin said. DoorDash still has a long way to go before it reaches that point, but at least it’s got a fair amount of cash and a high-profile venture firm backing it to help it get there. |
Researchers Plug Google’s Project Tango Into A Drone To Let It Fly Itself Around A Room | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 5 | 22 | Remember ? Google’s crazy project to add 3D environment mapping abilities to a smartphone? Yeah, someone just went ahead and took the next logical step: they plugged it into a drone. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania managed to get their hands on a prototype Tango device, and quickly strapped it into their self-built quadcopter. This is probably a good place for a Skynet joke, but all I can see . Don’t forget your crowbar! The video above can do with a bit of explanation, so here’s what you’re seeing: The important part here: that laptop you see in the background isn’t telling the drone how to get from Point A to Point B. It’s just giving the researchers an interface to point at a location where they’d like the Drone to fly; from there, the Tango-fied drone is working everything out on its own, based on its self-mapped knowledge of the room and where it needs to get. In case you’re curious as to what the data Project Tango captures can look like, here’s a video of what it . To put it far too simply: it’s pretty amazing. [via ] |
Pentagon Report Calls Scope Of Snowden Leaks “Staggering,” Their Impact “Grave” | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 5 | 22 | The , that mix of consciousness raising and potential legal reform of government surveillance, has another side to it: the impact of Snowden’s revelations on those revealed. The Guardian heavily redacted parts of a on the matter, two elements of which are worth reviewing. The report does not detail the impact of what Snowden revealed in relation to “SIGINT,” a term meaning “signals intelligence.” The NSA, the report notes, is reviewing that “separately.” Here are the two key sections that are both left un-redacted and say something worth reading: And: Only 12 of the 39 pages were released under The Guardian’s Freedom of Information Act request. The House this morning passed a . The bill initially garnered support from Congress members and private companies alike. However, as it was later raced to passage, around half of its co-sponsors voted against it; privacy groups joined technology firms in dropping their support because of last-minute changes that could still allow for bulk collection of data — precisely what the bill was written to prevent. So while we continue to work toward firmer reform, it’s worth keeping in mind that to some, all victories of that sort will always be pyrrhic. |
GuideSpark Rolls Out New Platform To Serve Up HR Video To Phones And Tablets | Kyle Russell | 2,014 | 5 | 22 | , a Menlo Park-based startup that provides employers with customizable video templates for conveying what would normally be incredibly boring HR paperwork, is rolling out a new platform for smoothly delivering its content on phones and tablets. In addition to enabling access to bite-sized explainer videos on topics like benefits and compensation to almost any mobile device, the new HTML5-powered platform lets employers integrate surveys and quizzes to help reinforce the information they’re trying to get across. And to make sure that employees are taking advantage of their HR videos, GuideSpark has included a more complete set of self-serve analytics tools so that its clients can verify that their money is being put to good use. “Our new platform, built on five years of knowledge gathering and refinement based on existing customer experiences, is a stellar example of our commitment to always deliver the most innovative and effective solutions for employee engagement and communications,” GuideSpark CEO Keith Kitani wrote to me in an email. “We are proud to introduce this new platform to the world, and are confident that it will drive measurable benefits for all of our customers.” Back in March, in a Series B from NEA, as well as existing investors Storm Ventures and IDG Ventures. Since then, the company has added PepsiCo to its client list, which already included News Corp, Dropbox, and Adobe, and achieved 1 million employees served across its client companies, a figure that has grown by more than 300 percent since the beginning of 2013. |
Apple’s Beats Deal Is Happening, And It’s A Dre Acquihire | John Biggs | 2,014 | 5 | 22 | : Apple on May 28th. A well-placed source has confirmed rumors that Apple’s acquisition of Beats “is happening” but was close to falling apart multiple times. The source said with “70% certainty” that Apple’s planned multi-billion-dollar acquisition of headphone maker Beats will go through. But Apple isn’t buying Beats for the technology; it’s buying the talent. “They want Jimmy and they want Dre,” said the source. “He’s got fashion and culture completely locked up.” The planned acquisition, pinned at $3.2 billion by , has stumped Apple pundits who are anything but impressed by Beats’ offerings. However, the source believes the FT story is accurate and that Tim Cook’s recent behavior — hiring , former Leica engineer Ari Partinen, Nike’s Ben Shaffer, and former CEO of Yves St. Laurent, Paul Deneve — is indicative of an effort to stock the Apple larder with culturally aware and highly skilled managers. But why Beats? Founded in 2006 by entrepreneur and Andre Romelle Young, aka Dr. Dre, the company released their first product in 2008 with the launch of the Beats by Dr. Dre Studio Headphones. The company was last valued at $1 billion after phone maker HTC sold the brand back to the founders in September 2013. While reviews of , the company is valuable for the “record-label-in-a-box” that the Iovine and Dre relationship affords. Iovine is known as a pit bull in the realm of media negotiations and this move will give Apple youth cachet thanks to the brand and business chops with the Iovine/Dre mix. Iovine will be most valuable in negotiations with record labels in iTunes acquisitions. Another source, , also believes this musical expertise will allow to run a streaming music service concurrent to its iTunes sales. The move, then, is far more than just a hardware acquisition. Rumors in Asia also point to previous moves by Samsung to buy the Beats brand, a deal that fell through “earlier in the year.” Apple’s efforts, it seems, will bear more fruit despite the delay. “The deal hasn’t fallen apart yet,” the source said. |
The EFF Blasts Twitter For Censoring Itself In Russia And Pakistan | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 5 | 22 | The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today for censoring itself in Russia and Pakistan, stating that the company has stepped “down from the free speech party.” The EFF’s argument is simple: Twitter’s decision to censor content on a country-by-country basis was the “least terrible option” available to it, provided that it only did so when the company was “compelled” by a court order in a country where the company has “significant assets or employees.” In the case of Russia and Pakistan, where local censorship is now instituted by the company, Twitter does not have sufficient local presence to make presented court orders meaningful in the eyes of the EFF. This makes the censorship in Russia (of a Ukrainian political account) and Pakistan (where takedown requests have ranged from porn to blasphemy) unreasonable according to the EFF, because Twitter’s lack of a local presence precludes it from the behest of the requests. The EFF is blunt in its assessment of the company’s actions. Regarding the case of censorship in Russia: “If Twitter won’t stand up for political speech in a country where independent media is increasingly under attack, what will it stand for?” And Pakistan: “As disappointing as it is to see Twitter cave in response to pressure from the Russian government, it is even more alarming to see Twitter comply with Pakistani requests based on what [“ Bolo Bhi describes ‘little in the way of due process.'” For Twitter, a service that has done much good around the world by helping to unite protestors and allowing for rapid dissemination of information dissent, to crack down on its regular users at the non-binding behest of repressive governments is disappointing. There is a bitter irony of Russia censoring a Ukrainian political account, given that recent Ukrainian protests that drew Russian ire and later incursion to organize. TechCrunch has reached out to Twitter for comment on the presented criticisms. |
Apple Wants Beats Music Because Transitioning iTunes To Streaming Could Kill Download Sales | Josh Constine | 2,014 | 5 | 22 | : Apple on May 28th. Why would Apple buy Beats when it could just evolve iTunes into a streaming music service? Well, it of Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre. But according to a source with direct knowledge of iTunes’ executive strategy, by buying and operating an external streaming service like Beats, Apple can coin off a smooth transition without cratering the record business. The record labels and artists depend on the approximately $1 billion iTunes earns them selling downloads each year which could be disrupted if the 800-million account store shifted to subscription streaming. In short, turning iTunes into a streaming-only service is frightening to an industry fast losing cash to streaming upstarts and — by maintaining iTunes as an album/a la carte music sales service while running Beats as a sideline — the company can have it both ways. The digital music sale business is in decline. As noted in his take on the supposed Beats deal, digital sales fell 13.3 percent in 2013. Even if iTunes’ market share grows from around , the digital sales pie is shrinking too fast to compensate. Apple needs to enter the streaming business somehow. Cloud-based streaming services just make more sense in an Internet-connected, multi-device world than downloadable files stuck on one device. Spotify now has 10 million paying subscribers and 40 million total listeners. Why has Apple delayed? iTunes sales are critical to the music busines. [Credit: Larry MacPhee] It would take time for Apple to ramp up subscriptions to the point where they could make up for the lost download revenue. In the meantime, Apple would forfeit some money that it could easily afford to lose. But the record business would hemorrhage cash. This scenario might make the labels very wary of striking a deal to turn iTunes into a streaming service or working with Apple in the future. But if Apple can grow a streaming business on the side as iTunes fades it could bridge the download and the cloud eras gracefully. Here’s how the numbers work out. My source says iTunes executives believe they could convince the record labels to let Apple sell a $5 a month music subscription. Their goal is to get to 20 million subscribers, which would let the streaming service pull in $1.2 billion. If Apple gave the labels a little higher cut, say 80 percent, it could pay them out $960 million a year. Taking into account the continuing decline of digital sales, that would soon be enough to replace download payouts. On a higher level, a big part of Apple buying Beats is about getting , a well-placed source tells our writer John Biggs. Their design, marketing, and industry savvy could be a huge boon to keeping Apple cool. But the Beats Music service, specifically, is valuable to Apple too. It would let Apple continue to offer a la carte download sales to slower adopters through iTunes, while simultaneously courting early adopters with a separate all-you-can-hear streaming service like Beats. The music business has been a great ally to Apple. Their alliance to power the iTunes store helped Apple sell gobs of iPods and later iPhones, which then encouraged people to buy Macs and MacBooks so all their devices would play nicely together. In the end, the most lucrative part about owning a streaming music service for Apple might still be incentivizing hardware sales. But for now, its best bet is to keep the record labels addicted to iTunes downloads rather than cutting them and sending them into an ugly withdrawal, at least until it has a stronger streaming service to hook them on. |
HP Shares Dip As FQ2 ’14 Revenue Disappoints | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 5 | 22 | Today HP’s earnings earlier than expected, with the company reporting a second quarter revenue tally of $27.3 billion, and earnings per share (non-GAAP) or $0.88. The market had expected the company to report higher revenue of $27.41 billion. Following the disappointment, HP shares fell several points before resurrecting to a decline of just over 2%. That decline in share price is greater the company’s 1% decline in revenue that the $27.3 billion top-line figure represents. The company has yet to post its earnings on its own website. Its earnings call will take place in an hour. The company intends to cut 11,000 to 16,000 more jobs. That will help it constrain costs. HP is in the process of a long transition. Its , the fiscal first quarter, included a modest beat on both the top and bottom lines of its income statement. The most recent mixed quarter casts the strength of its recovery into doubt. Still, a 2% decline is hardly deathly. Put another way, HP’s stock . |
Foursquare Co-Founder Naveen Selvadurai Joins Expa Startup Studio As NY Partner | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 5 | 22 | Foursquare co-founder is joining the startup studio, by former Uber and StumbleUpon founder . Selvadurai joins Expa as a partner focused on New York operations for the organization, which is not to be confused with your standard accelerator, incubator, or investment firm. Instead, Expa runs much more similarly to a betaworks, home-growing companies from within and investing anywhere between $500k and $1 million to get them off the ground. Expa is focused mostly on very early stage products without any set structure as to whose ideas join the program. “It’s a relatively even split between our own ideas, mine and Naveen, as well as smart engineers and entrepreneurs we know who have demonstrated an interesting prototype that we’re excited to build out,” said Camp. Here’s what Selvadurai had to say about it in his own memo: I am excited to announce that I am joining Expa as a partner based in New York City. Expa (Expa.com) is a startup studio that works with founders to develop and launch new companies. We have a few things in the works already at Expa HQ in SoMa. I will be helping on all these existing projects. And soon, I will launch some new products based in SoHo. We plan to work on just a few companies at a time, with our focus directed at areas we love and in which we have deep experience: mobile, platforms and marketplaces. I spent much of the last year tinkering, reading and learning as much asI could from others. In all these explorations and sketches, one desire stood out: I want to create things that are good for the web. I want to leave the internet in a better place than I found it. With this new model in Expa and with a great team behind us, I hope to bring a lot of these ideas to life. We’re always looking for great engineers, designers and product minds to come join us. I’d love to work with you on our new projects both here in New York as well as in San Francisco, so please get in touch at join@expa.com. Selvadurai, a co-founder at foursquare after spending time at Nokia, SunMicrosystems, etc., was pushed out of the location-based company in 2012 in what was reported as a painful breakup. Since, he’s been (as he said) tinkering and reading, as well as at a Thrive Capital-backed health insurance startup called Oscar, led by Josh Kushner. He still holds an advisory role at Oscar, but is now focused on building out some of his own ideas and working with other smart people in NYC to build a better internet, on mobile and otherwise. “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about and playing with the notion of personal health data and personal wellness, and I think there’s something there, but I’m not sure what yet,” said Selvadurai. Selvadurai has also done some angel investing, including participation in a $1.10M seed round for TimeHop. Image Credit: /Flickr CC |
California Will Start Granting Licenses For Driverless Cars In September | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 5 | 22 | need a license to drive a car. But does a robot? For now, yes. Come September, the California Department of Motor Vehicles will begin granting licenses to select driverless cars and their human co-pilots, which will make it a bit less legally iffy as to whether or not they’re actually allowed to be on a public road. The good news: The license will only cost $150 a pop, and that covers 10 vehicles and up to 20 test drivers. The bad (but probably actually good) news: You probably can’t get one, so don’t go trying to make your own Googlecar just yet. The terms of the license are (as you might hope, in these early days) pretty strict. You can read the DMV’s full text of the license terms . Applications for the license open up in July, with the first licenses set for approval come September. |
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