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Tencent Focuses On Free Calling With New Standalone WeChat VoIP Apps | Jon Russell | 2,014 | 11 | 11 | Chinese telecom operators have long resented , the country’s top messaging app, for the pressure that its hundreds of millions of users place on their data networks and the lost revenue they incur. There have even been . But now things just got a lot more serious after Tencent, the company behind the hit service, released a dedicated internet calling app for Chinese users ( ), alongside an international version ( ) for those in the rest of the world. WeChat, which known as Weixin in China, already lets users make free (VoIP) calls using WiFi or cellular data, but the apps take the feature — which is somewhat buried in the in-chat options draw — and builds it out into fully functional apps in their own right. As well as calling friends for free — minus the cost of any data consumed — they include voicemail functionality, an address book, and it claims to support HD-quality voice calls. Dianhua requires a WeChat account — there are more than 400 million monthly active users — and imports contact profile photos from the Tencent service. It supports group SMS WeChat too. Interestingly, Lighttalk doesn’t require a WeChat account. It offers to import contacts from your phone book or QQ, but strangely not from WeChat itself. That latter omission makes it largely useless for me, since I need to build my network of contacts using the app from scratch. Beyond replacing regular calling, the app could further cement WeChat/Tencent’s efforts with retailers and brands. Many Chinese companies set up official accounts on WeChat to engage with consumers, and seems plausible that the VoIP app could eventually allow users to phone them (and retail brands in particular) directly. For now , it is focused on connecting WeChat users, but it could also introduce Skype-like calling to allow users to phone regular mobile and landline numbers. Japanese rival . China’s operators haven’t sat back and watched WeChat soar without making moves of their own. China Telecom teamed up with tech firm NetEase to launch its service last year, while China Mobile has a Skype-like service called . Yet none of these initiatives have gained anything like the same traction as WeChat in China. The folks at the VoIP app out, and found the call quality to be at least on par with that offered by China’s three operators. Obviously it will depend on users and where they are located but, as they pointed out, the app should make the telecom industry in China particularly nervous. Of course, this could also be a wake up call that prompts operators into partnering with WeChat to offer bundled services to customers. That something that has started to happen with , and is commonplace in other parts of Asia. : The original version of this article was updated to include details of Lighttalk, . |
Cloud HR Startup Zenefits Opens Scottsdale Office, Plans To Hire 1,300 Employees Over Next 3 Years | Ryan Lawler | 2,014 | 11 | 11 | Fast-growing cloud HR startup has seen its customer base and revenues ramp up dramatically since launch, and it’s looking to aggressively expand its headcount to keep up with demand. To do that, the company is opening a gigantic, 100,000 square-foot office in Scottsdale, Ariz. and plans to hire 1,300 full-time employees there over the next three years. Zenefits allows businesses to manage multiple human resources services from a single cloud-based dashboard. The service, which is aimed at small and medium-sized businesses, is designed to simplify the process of onboarding new employees and getting them signed up for payroll and benefits, as well as removing them at termination. The service is offered to businesses for free, enabling them to import all their existing employee and benefits information into the Zenefits system. But the company makes its money by taking a commission as an insurance broker if clients end up changing their plans at any time after signing up. That business model has proven extremely attractive for businesses, who have adopted the platform in droves. And it’s been incredibly lucrative for Zenefits, which has grown dramatically over the past year. After expanding its service to all 50 states a year ago, Zenefits says its user base has grown by 1,600 percent in 2014. The company now has more than 2,000 businesses signed up for its cloud-based human resources dashboard, which can be used by more than 50,000 employees. To meet that demand, Zenefits has rapidly expanded its own workforce. It had 15 employees at the start of the year in San Francisco, and now has 390 here. And, even though it’s announcing its Scottsdale office today, the company has already hired 60 people in the area. But there’s a TON of hiring ahead. Zenefits expects to hire 1,300 full-time employees in the Scottsdale area over the next three years (which is like, 21 years for a usual tech company). It likens that to the largest expansion of a California-based company in the region since PayPal. Scottsdale is a good place for Zenefits to be because there are already a lot of financial services, insurance, and general customer service workers in that area. The company hopes to hire HR specialists, sales representatives, account managers and executives, and client support staff in that area. |
Snapchat Wants Its Users Who Still Use Third-Party Apps To Give Them Up Already | Jon Russell | 2,014 | 11 | 11 | Having already its users that connecting to a third-app gives “a developer, and possibly a criminal” access to their intimate selfies, Snapchat is taking new steps to safeguard their privacy in the wake of hundreds of thousands of ‘snaps’ leaking out last month. The company says it will notify users that are still using third-party applications that they are doing so, prompt them to change their password (for additional security) and advise them to refrain from using “unauthorized” services going forward. Snapchat tells TechCrunch it will contact users both via email and inside its official apps. : We’ve enjoyed some of the ways that developers have tried to make Snapchat better. Unfortunately, some developers build services that trick Snapchatters and compromise their accounts. We want to prevent that from happening in our community. Starting today, we will notify Snapchatters when we have detected that they may be using third-party apps and we’ll ask those Snapchatters to change their password and stop using unauthorized apps. This is hugely significant for third-party app-makers. A Snapchat spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that this will affect every third-party app, which is likely to mean that the unofficial ecosystem that sprung up around the app’s popularity will wither. Most users will trust Snapchat’s judgement on the ‘risks’ of using unofficial apps, particularly given the media coverage that last month’s leaks generated. Back in October, some 200,000 photos from Snapchat users were reportedly leaked online after two third-party applications that plug into the service were compromised. that its servers had been accessed, and pledged to address the growing number of third-party apps in the market. Snapsaved, one of the breached services, , but arguably the lack of an official Snapchat API — which other services could plug into to work with the app more securely — is something that puts users’ privacy at risk. Snapchat has said that is working on an official API, as it is keen to become a ‘platform’, but for now the focus is on clamping down on the use of third-party apps rather than building out security. Snapchat added that this update is not likely to affect most users. It also teased that there is “some incredible new stuff” coming soon. The original version of this article was updated after Snapchat confirmed that the notifications will impact those who use any third-party application. |
Singles’ Day Underscores The Importance Of Mobile And Lower-Tier Cities For China’s E-Commerce Companies | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 11 | 11 | Major Chinese e-commerce companies like , , and all achieved record-breaking sales yesterday during Singles’ Day. That’s not too big of a surprise, considering the increasing importance of the event for Chinese consumers and businesses alike (for those of you still scratching your heads over what the big deal is, Singles’ Day , before gradually turning into an online sales frenzy similar to Cyber Monday in the U.S.). What’s especially interesting about this year’s Singles’ Day, however, is that it showed mobile transactions are indeed growing rapidly, to the relief of e-commerce companies, and underscores the importance of smaller cities for the growth prospects of Alibaba and its peers. Singles’ Day may be marketed as an excuse for people to treat themselves, but sales figures also show that shoppers are beginning to use it to stock up on basic goods for cheap. In addition to buying fun items like designer clothes and consumer electronics, Alibaba and JD.com consumers also snapped up loads of laundry detergent, lighting products, and even milk. Imported milk big seller on during . As of 4PM total one-day milk sales up 900% over last year. — JD.com Spokesman (@JD_Spokesman) As Hans Tung, managing partner of GGV Capital (an early investor in Alibaba) , “Chinese users now plan their shopping around this promo day. They have come to expect great deals. And are willing to wait for it to buy. So this sales record will likely be broken every year.” Alibaba Group, China’s biggest e-commerce company by far, . To put that figure in context, sales for Cyber Monday, the United States’ own national day of online shopping profligacy, totaled a comparatively paltry $1.735 billion in 2013. Total gross merchandise volume (GMV) sold through Alibaba Group’s Chinese and international retail market places grew 60.3 percent over last year’s total of $58 billion. Significantly for Alibaba, GMV for transactions made over mobile devices represented 42.6 percent of sales, a good sign for the company because it has been seeking to expand its mobile business. This is important because . The mobile app for Taobao marketplace is currently China’s most popular e-commerce app, but Alibaba’s mobile strategy isn’t just about making it easier to for consumers to buy stuff no matter where they are (people are a key source of traffic for many Chinese e-commerce companies). It’s also an important step to building Alibaba’s larger mobile ecosystem as it competes with China’s two other top Internet companies: Tencent and Baidu. In June, Alibaba . The company also said during its earnings call last week that will eventually compete with Android. Alibaba expanded its sales this year to include international transactions, and says that consumers in over 217 countries and regions bought goods from its marketplaces, with most sales originating from Hong Kong, Russia, the U.S., Taiwan, and Australia. But the company did not disclose GMV for its international platforms, even though Ma said that Alibaba Group’s goal is to “prepare comprehensively for our globalization in the next three to five years. We hope that one day all small businesses and consumers around the world will be able to trade online.” The company’s near-term expansion plans, however, will probably focus on tackling second- and third-tier Chinese cities instead of overseas markets. “We feel the Chinese economy doesn’t lack external demand but internal demand is much needed and we are fortunate enough to be able to tap this demand,” said Ma. During its earnings release, Alibaba Group said that more buyers from small Chinese cities are starting to use Alibaba’s marketplaces every year. Though their purchases are smaller than ones placed by buyers from first-tier cities, like Shanghai and Beijing, Alibaba Group believes they will be an important growth driver. Items sold by Alibaba included: 1.2 million large home appliances, 3 million lighting products, 200,000 bottles of laundry detergent, and 50,000 new cars. For more analysis of Alibaba’s sales figures . Meanwhile, JD.com, Alibaba’s smaller but still formidable competitor, also set internal records on Singles’ Day (though, interestingly enough, it didn’t break out revenue figures). While the company extended its Singles’ Day event from November 1 to November 12, it reported that on November 11 alone its GMV more than doubled year-on-year, with more than 40 percent of transactions made on mobile (similar to Alibaba’s mobile transactions), or eight times more than last year’s event. In a press release, the company said that orders placed on Tencent’s WeChat messaging app and Mobile QQ microblogging platform helped drive mobile sales along with its own native app. Other JD.com stats: over 14 million orders were placed on November 11, an increase of 120 percent from last year, while GMV more than doubled. In total, JD.com sold 35.19 million products (excluding virtual items) on Singles’ Day. In order to deliver goods to smaller cities more quickly, JD.com has been building out its own logistics network. For example, it recently launched operations at 100,000 square meter warehouse in Shanghai that “leverages the most advanced, highly-automated sorting technology in the world, with the capacity to sort up to 16,000 packages per hour with an accuracy of 99.99 percent.” Amazon China hasn’t broken out its sales figures for Singles’ Day, but the company was eager to get in on the action with several new initiatives this year. [UPDATE: The company said that sales of imported merchandise grew 70 percent from the previous month, while its sales volume has grown by nearly 63 percent, though it still did not break out specific data for Singles’ Day.] The trial launch of its coincided with the event. Z.cn to shop 80,000 products sourced through Amazon’s U.S. website. In addition to offering the same prices as the U.S. site, so Chinese consumers don’t have to pay the premium often charged by third-party sellers for imported goods, the site also automatically estimates import tariffs during checkout. If its estimate is less than the actual amount, Amazon China credits the balance back to the user. On the other hand, it pays the extra if it undercalculates the rate. Amazon India also tried to capitalize on Singles’ Day by offering discounts, but only . Though Amazon China has operated for a decade, it still holds just 2.7 percent of China’s total B2C retail e-commerce sales in 2013, (compared to 50.1 percent chunk and JD.com’s 22.4 percent slice). But it remains eager to gain a foothold in China’s fast-growing e-commerce market and connecting Amazon China with its main site may help win over consumers in search of imported goods. Z.cn, however, will have to compete with Tmall, which already hosts shops operated by international brands like Apple, Gap, and Sony. E-commerce marketplaces weren’t the only businesses that benefitted from Singles’ Day. Xiaomi set a new record for itself by selling 1.16 million phones, generating $254 million in revenue. For more info about Xiaomi’s Singles’ Day bonanza, . LeTV, one of China’s top smart TV makers, disclosed that it achieved sales of more than $159 million RMB (about $26 million) on Alibaba’s Tmall, with 40 percent of those transactions made through Tmall’s mobile app. |
Google Music Download Sales Miraculously Growing Despite Their Death Everywhere Else | Josh Constine | 2,014 | 11 | 11 | We’re in a , so it’s no surprise ‘s on-demand streaming service subscriber numbers are growing. But somehow, Google’s download sales growing too, Google’s VP of Global Music Partnerships Zahavah Levine said today at the conference. She refused to reveal any concrete subscriber numbers when I asked, but said “Not only are our subscribers growing but our download numbers are growing despite the industry trend.” That trend saw digital track sales down 13% in the first half of 2014 compared to the first half of 2013. Google launched its clumsily named on-demand streaming services in May 2013 as a competitor to indepedent apps like Spotify and Rdio. It in July to humanize its comparably dry music app. Levine said today that it now hosts 30 million songs for streaming, while also running its music locker service for streaming your own collection to other devices and its Google Play Music Store. Together, Levine says “Google Play music generates hundreds of millions a dollar per year for the music industry.” But the division’s focus right now is on growing its subscriber count because she says streaming only becomes profitable “at scale”. Eventually, Google Music will look to premium features to draw in subscribers, said Levine, mentioning high-definition recordings as on potential draw. Google’s VP of Global Music Partnerships Zahavah Levine But why would Google operate a music store and streaming service simulataneously? “I do not believe that subscription services cannabilize sales.” She then relayed a very fascinating fact to prove it. “We launched our store a year and a half before our subscription service. if you look at our subscribers who all came after our store, more of our subscribers buy music after becoming a subscriber than stopped buying music after becoming a subscriber.” She concludes, “We’re not seeing cannabilization.” That’s a controversial perspective Taylor Swift might want to hear, as she created a huge after pulling her music from Spotify citing shrimpy royalties. today saying streaming royalties can be big for top artists, and the company has paid out $2 billion to date, and royalties will grow if artists get on board and paid subscribership grows. He also challenged that streaming cannibalizes sales, saying correlation doesn’t equal causation as sales are declining in markets where Spotify isn’t available. After Levine’s fireside chat with label exec Ted Cohen, I cornered her to ask more about download sales. She admitted she didn’t know if sales were up on a per user basis, but told me that for Android users without iTunes access, Google Play is essentially the only way to buy music. With over 1 billion active Android users, that means there are still plenty of people buying music. “67% of the revenue last year came from sales” Levine said, referring to sales as a percentage of record music revenue. “We are still in a world where more people are buying music than subscribing. We’re going to be in a world that supports both access and ownership for many years. There is room for both models.” |
Steve Ballmer Spends 3.8% Of His Total Tweets Dismissing Net Neutrality | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 11 | 11 | Chalk up one tech exec to the ‘less is more’ view of net neutrality oversight by the FCC. Steve Ballmer, most recently the long-time CEO of Microsoft, tweeted today that extending FCC oversight over Internet competition is not needed. Ballmer’s 25th tweet (out of 26!) says the following: https://twitter.com/stevebmicrosoft/status/532288375668346880 It isn’t clear if Ballmer is speaking to the president’s recently released net neutrality plan, the FCC’s general plan, or other submitted proposals and the like. Ballmer’s position is contrary to . The former executive is out of technology for now, focusing on other pursuits like his ownership of the Clippers basketball team. As another note, Ballmer’s , with fewer than 5,000 followers. He’s probably worth adding to your feed. |
Hampton Creek Plans To Counter-Sue Unilever Over Mayo Fight | Sarah Buhr | 2,014 | 11 | 11 | Plant-based food startup is readying a response and planning to counter-sue major food corporation Unilever over the meaning of ‘mayo.’ Unilever filed a lawsuit against Hampton Creek this weekend, involving its “Just Mayo” product. Unilever’s two main concerns are over market share for its Hellmann’s mayonnaise product and consumer confusion over what it means to call something ‘mayo.’ CEO Josh Tetrick argues this is really a fight over consumer rights. “I think we’re on the right side of the law and ultimately on the right side of offering a better food product that consumers want,” says Tetrick. Unilever’s claim is that Hampton Creek is pushing a product that is acting like it is mayonnaise but doesn’t meet the definition. The FDA includes a very nuanced description of as something that contains egg yolks and oil. Kraft Foods Miracle Whip, which contains no eggs and less than 65 percent oil, does not meet the definition, either. It’s technically labled a salad dressing, even though it’s used as a mayonnaise spread. The $60 billion giant food corporation contends that while Hampton Creek doesn’t say it is a mayonnaise, the “Just Mayo” label also shouldn’t be allowed. “Under federal regulations, common dictionary definitions and as consumers understand it, “mayonnaise” or “mayo” is a product that contains eggs. That ingredient does not exist in Just Mayo,” states the suit. The lawsuit’s main concern seems to be loss of revenue to Hampton Creek. It flatly states that, “Just Mayo already is stealing market share from Hellmann’s,” and that, “Unilever will continue to suffer irreparable harm in the marketplace.” This is if something is not done to stop Hampton Creek from labeling their product with the word “mayo,” according to Unilever. Hampton Creek has experienced an insane amount of growth over the last nine months. Costco, Walmart, Target, Dollar Tree and a slew of other retail locations have added the “Just Mayo” products to their shelves in thousands of locations across the U.S. Celebrity chef Andrew Zimmerman has since to gain public support against Hellmann’s claim. Actress Minnie Driver backed him and Hampton Creek up by tweeting out about it: Please check this out and sign if you think it's as unfair as I do — Minnie Driver (@driverminnie) Tetrick argues this is a frivolous lawsuit from a giant corporation afraid of losing power. “It’s the same with Lyft and Uber against the taxis. What we’re doing is changing the world for the better and providing healthier options,” he says. Unilever has responded by saying they do support innovation, but that the suit is over a misleading label that is confusing shoppers. “It is simply not accurate to label the Hampton Creek product as ‘Mayo’ or to reinforce the link with images of ingredients, in this case eggs, that are not even used. In contrast, our Hellmann’s brand is made from real eggs and delivers great taste. We simply wish to protect both consumers from being misled and also our brand,” said a Unilever spokesperson in an email response to TechCrunch. Tetrick fired back, saying, “Antiquated thinking won’t feed the world or strengthen the planet.” He plans to send Unilever a response to its claims in the very near future. |
RelayRides Challenges the Sharing Economy | OneLap | Rob Coneybeer | 2,014 | 11 | 11 | Sharing economy companies like are a lot harder to build than they appear. They’re similar to peer-to-peer product marketplaces, but transactions are based on temporary usage rather than an exchange of physical ownership – which adds significant complexity. Scheduling, insurance, dispute resolution and pricing are some of the elements that need to be considered. For example, what happens if a renter doesn’t bring a car back in time, and the car is supposed to be available for someone else? How do you handle disputes if a car is damaged during a rental? Reducing that complexity is difficult. In the early days of RelayRides, owners had to install expensive hardware to enable fully automated ride-sharing, with technology that operated a lot like ZipCar’s keycard system. Unfortunately, that added a lot of friction to the supply side of the equation, and made it difficult to bring new cars into the system. During our interview, Andre Haddad talks about how RelayRides solved that problem to unlock growth, gives a demo of how the product works today, and explains why he shares real-time performance statistics directly with his board members via an online dashboard. DISCLOSURE: Shasta Ventures is an investor in Relay Rides. |
Should Microsoft Build Hardware? | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 11 | 11 | So what’s this new Microsoft strategy you’ve been hearing about? According to CEO Satya Nadella, : Office 365, Windows and Azure. “That’s it,” the executive recently quipped. Given that narrow focus, how do the company’s massive and recent bets on hardware fit into the picture? Microsoft has in its Windows Phone project, even before you take into account its . And Surface has been a , though one that has been showing some stronger signs of life in the most recent quarter. We recently sparred over whether Microsoft’s hardware strategy makes a wit of sense. Should the company get out of the hardware game and go all in on services or does its hardware play make sense — especially since it’s put so much money into it? Microsoft has been making moves lately that suggest it wants to be a service company, but if that’s the case, it’s going to take total focus. For example, last week, Microsoft surprised some people to embed Dropbox storage inside of Office and allow Dropbox users to edit documents from Dropbox. Microsoft has services that do this, and the old Microsoft would have protected that internal business over any other business opportunities. But this isn’t the old Microsoft. It’s the new service-focused Microsoft and it intends to go where the users are, regardless of what impact that has on its own products. In another example, this spring around its CRM tool. Once again, Microsoft has a CRM service in Microsoft Dynamics, but it ignored its own products, because it wanted to put the platform over the product (or the many over the one as Spock might say). If you’re beginning to sense a pattern here, you’re absolutely correct. As my colleague Alex pointed out in a series of posts recently, Microsoft is trying to get leaner and more focused, : Windows, Office 365 and Azure — a core OS, a software service platform, and an infrastructure platform, respectively. That’s it. It’s actually a brilliant plan if they stick to it, but they seemingly can’t let go of some things that are getting in the way of succeeding. If those three pieces are truly the core of this new Microsoft, they need to get out of the hardware business because it doesn’t really fit any of those buckets, does it? When you look back at Microsoft’s hey day, it was successful (all antitrust business aside) because it concentrated on what it did well. It was a Windows/Office business with some nice enterprise pieces such as Windows Server, Exchange Server, Active Directory and so forth. What you didn’t see was Microsoft-branded PCs and servers. Microsoft created a core set of products and let everyone build stuff on top of that and it was tremendously successful. They fed the hardware and software ecosystem and didn’t try to compete in any direct way with their OEM channel. (And yes I know they made keyboards and mice, but that was a small part of the business.) Today, Microsoft is trying desperately to sell phones and tablets. It has no business doing that if it truly wants to stick to that core mission. Sure, the numbers have gone up nominally last quarter and every Microsoft fan let out a loud cheer and let everyone know it, but ultimately when you look at the numbers, Microsoft isn’t even on the radar of companies like IDC who track tablet sales and they barely register on the phone side. What’s the point of wasting time and resources producing these devices if they aren’t central to the services mission, and they aren’t central to that mission. You could argue of course that Microsoft needs these devices for its mobile strategy to work, but what it needs is to get more hardware companies interested in the platform and the services that run on it. And as for Xbox, yes it’s much more successful in its market, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the core mission. Sorry. I don’t see a place for it in the new Microsoft and if Microsoft were smart, they would spin it off or sell it. As R Ray Wang from Constellation Research told me last spring after the Microsoft-SFDC announcement, for Microsoft everything now comes down to the platform. “If you view Microsoft as a platform company, they will make decisions [from now on] in the interest of the platform,” Wang told me at the time. And if that’s true, Microsoft needs to get out of the hardware business, and soon. Ron is correct to state that Microsoft is a services company now, or at least a company that has charted a path in that direction. I don’t completely disagree with his analysis from my own perspective, but I do think that there is a bit of a dissonant nuance at play when you take into account Microsoft’s broader strategy, as best as I can understand it. Broadly, I think that hardware can be viewed in a support role to the company’s primary efforts, and that the company is pretty well pot committed, to a certain extent. Also, the company is finally seeing cracks of sunlight in formerly dim financial results. First up, the three core points of Microsoft appear to be set: Office 365, Azure and Windows. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently stated that he views Windows 10 as a service, so that makes the company’s three core efforts each land decidedly in the services column. Hardware fits into this in three ways: Without its Windows Phone business, there is no Windows Phone-as-a-platform. If it abandons Surface, it would leave behind a nearly profitable business that does a fine job showcasing Windows, and provides a template for its OEM partners to build better hardware; and if it did drop hardware altogether, it would greatly deprecate its gaming efforts. Why would it matter if there is no Windows Phone, given the hardware line’s limited sales, when compared to iOS and Android? It appears that Microsoft is betting that when Windows 10 comes to fruition, and Windows Phone becomes a full member of the Windows family, it wants to make a developer proposition that extends from the smallest screens to the largest — build once deploy everywhere I’d think works better when your “everywhere” is largest. A short aside to gaming here is useful: Gaming is the largest and most popular category of apps on Windows Phone. If Microsoft walked out of the hardware game, there would essentially be no Windows Phone handsets in the market, and thus there would be no Windows Phone unit volume, and thus sales and downloads of games would begin an inexorable decline. So, if Microsoft leaves hardware, attention from gaming developers that it wants very much for Windows 10 would be cut. That would be tough. Moving forward, regarding Surface, I agree that if the business had failed to produce a better-selling device in the Surface Pro 3, the project would have been a decent candidate for cancellation, simply because it had minor revenues — when compared to the larger Microsoft top-line segments — and therefore less importance. Also keep in mind that Surface, in terms of unit volume, is a slim slice of total PC volume, making it mission critical for the PC market in terms of short-term survivability. However, the Surface Pro 3 has done two things: Grown Surface revenue greatly while moving closer to GAAP profitability, and has provided a reference design for how to build touch-PCs that are useful in the Windows 8+ context. Given that, why cut it loose? The company expects sequential quarter unit volume growth it said in its earnings, so we could see even higher revenue in the current quarter. Why cut a nearly profitable business that could do more than $3 billion a year in top line? Regarding Xbox, the chance that Microsoft does away with it is nil to begin with, but it is worth noting why: It has massive buy-in among younger users that might not otherwise have lots of experience with Microsoft products, which could help the company gain mindshare among the people down the road that are likely to buy computers. And again, the gaming bit: If Microsoft dropped its Xbox business, it would greatly harm its relationship with gaming companies, firms that will be able to quickly and easily deploy their titles across the unified Windows 10 platform, where the company would love to see popular Xbox titles land to help support the unified Windows Store. Surface almost makes money, Phone will lose money for only another fiscal year or so, and Xbox is a hit for the company. And, given that each supports the key coming Windows 10 platform, and leans on the company’s Azure computing service — making them useful customers, if in-house — I don’t think that they are on the chopping block. If gobs of money are hemorrhaged, expect cuts. But for now, Microsoft has spent something in the neighborhood of $10 billion — using back of the envelope math — on buying Phone, Phone losses and Surface losses, not to mention Surface development costs pre-launch. You just don’t throw that away. Don’t aQuantive things that might work, bro. |
Confirmed: Yahoo Is Acquiring Video Ad Company BrightRoll For $640M | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 11 | 11 | Yahoo just that it’s acquiring video ad company for $640 million in cash. We , with a price of around $700 million, but both companies declined to comment. In , Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said that video is one of the company’s key growth areas (along with mobile, social and native advertising), and that the acquisition will make Yahoo’s video ad platform “the largest in the U.S.” She also said that BrightRoll is profitable, receives 2 billion ad requests each day, and expects to bring in $100 million in net revenue this year (so the deal should have a positive effect on Yahoo’s earnings). More broadly, Mayer wrote that online video advertising is becoming increasingly fragmented: BrightRoll provides an effective solution aggregating high-quality publishers together into a unified network and utilizing programmatic advertising to allow real-time buying on the largest set of online video advertising inventory available. BrightRoll’s approach not only benefits advertisers and publishers, but also improves experiences for consumers, through better quality, more relevant advertisements. BrightRoll was founded in 2006 by Tod Sacerdoti who is still its CEO. Neither the Yahoo press release nor the blog post say what Sacerdoti’s role will be post-acquisition — what Mayer wrote on that front was, “I’ve spent time with Tod Sacerdoti and his leadership team and I cannot wait to have him, his vision, and his team here at Yahoo.” The company has raised $40 million in funding from investors including Adams Street Partners, Scale Venture Partners, Comerica Bank, True Ventures, Trident Capital, KPG Ventures, Michael Tanne, Fabrice Grinda, Auren Hoffman and Jeff Clavier, according to CrunchBase. I spoke to Sacerdoti and Scott Burke, Yahoo’s senior vice president of ad technology, about the deal. Burke agreed that this represents a big bet on video. In fact, he said this is Yahoo’s second biggest acquisition, after the $1 billion Tumblr deal. He also said that this will combine Yahoo’s premium ad inventory and data with BrightRoll’s programmatic video ad marketplace. (And there’s a big opportunity on mobile, especially with Yahoo’s acquisition of Flurry.) Sacerdoti emphasized, however, that BrightRoll will continue working with non-Yahoo publishers – after all, that’s what its advertisers expect. To illustrate the power of BrightRoll’s technology, Burke just pointed to the tremendous number of ads that the platform is already serving. The 400-plus BrightRoll team will be joining Yahoo, as will the company’s management. Burke declined to specify what Sacerdoti’s title will be, except to say that he’s “coming in as BrightRoll CEO.” |
Amazon Is Expanding Its R&D In Cambridge, U.K., With A Focus On Prime Air Drones And Speech Tech | Natasha Lomas | 2,014 | 11 | 11 | Amazon is expanding its R&D operations in Cambridge, U.K., with a plan to staff out a large research lab — expanding on the foothold it acquired when it two years ago, TechCrunch has learned. Cambridge is feted for its world-class university which, in turn, acts as a hub for concentrating science and technology talent, naturally leading to many startups spinning out from it. Amazon is evidently hoping to grab itself a larger slice of this local talent. A source familiar with the company’s plans told TechCrunch it will focus on Prime Air, its , and on beefing up its speech tech R&D team. The e-commerce giant has been , including seeking hires in Cambridge. It has continued advertising for in the U.K. university town this fall, including a posted this month, a posted in October and a role posted in September. The latter asks for “experience applying machine learning approaches to complex problems,” among other skills. Amazon’s expanded Cambridge presence will also see it tool up its speech group significantly, tapping Cambridge’s pull and talent pool here too. Job roles Amazon is currently hiring for under an Evi Technologies Limited company listing include a , a and . One job ad notes: “Our testing involves verifying a rapidly changing and growing knowledge base answers our customers’ questions as quickly and accurately as possible across many different services.” Another role within the same Evi hiring group refers to working on “brand new projects using cutting edge technology.” Why speech tech? Earlier this month, Amazon unboxed : a connected speaker with an always-on, voice-activated assistant linked to other Amazon services, such as streaming music playback. So it’s not a huge leap to see Amazon pushing Echo into a fully fledged voice-activated shopping portal, with making a purchase made as frictionless as saying “order me Taylor Swift 1989” — assuming the voice-recognition technology in question is up to snuff. Hence Amazon ramping up its R&D in speech recognition. Other possible research areas that could play to Amazon’s retail interests, and that have existing researchers and startup players located in Cambridge, include computer vision technology and augmented reality — technologies that offer to spice up the online buying experience in other ways. Amazon is not the only tech giant that’s been connected to Cambridge recently. Earlier this week , with rumors suggesting the company might be looking to establish an office there, possibly with an R&D component. Google has also previously been rumored to be interested in setting up a base in the city, although TechCrunch’s source suggested Mountain View’s interest in Cambridge may have waned for now. Other tech giants already have long established R&D labs in the city, including and . We’ve asked Amazon for more details on its plans for its expanded Cambridge research lab and will update this post with any response. Currently the company lists U.K. development centers in London and Edinburgh, working on digital media R&D and new technologies for its global websites, respectively. |
The Psychology Of Online Customization | Liraz Margalit | 2,014 | 11 | 11 | E-commerce firms are discovering the value of online product customization and the additional revenue potential that can be generated from it. Over the last few years, product customization has burgeoned in the online space, as consumers look to buy a plethora of differing mass customized goods from suits to handbags and shoes, from bicycles to personal computers. A survey of more than 1,000 online shoppers conducted by Bain & Co. found that more than a quarter of shoppers, 25-30 percent, are interested in online customization options, even if only 10 percent have tried it until now. Moody’s estimates U.S. online clothing and shoe sales will top $45 billion by the end of 2014. If 25 percent of those online sales were customized, that would mean over $11 billion in sales per year from online customization. So strong has it become that, today, many popular brands rest their entire business strategy on their ability to customize. The , for example, offers customers the ability to customize their shoes. They can pick the color of the bottom and top of their new shoes, the pattern and shoe lace color, and even have an inspirational message sewn into the tongue of the shoes and the option to share their designs online. According to Brand Channel, NikeiD has seen its online business triple since 2004. Customization has become increasingly significant to brand-name companies because it’s now part of a broader trend that shifts from viewing customers as recipients of value to co-creators of value. Rather than being passive, the customer is now becoming a part of the “product development” process. The decision to buy a customized product is mediated by a number of unconscious factors that shape the customers’ final decision. Moreover, the interaction in creating the product can lead the customer to buy it — even if they weren’t initially planning to. The ability to influence the shape of an object automatically generates emotional attachment. The final design of a product reflects the customer’s individual taste; the self-selection of features, color, shape, etc. all work to provide a glimpse of the customer’s inner world. The opportunity to take part in a process and influence the end result promotes emotional attachment that leads to , the feeling that something is “mine” even without legal ownership. For example, kindergarten teachers feel proud as they see the children they have educated become successful adults. In the same way, online retail visitors may develop feelings of ownership toward the items in their cart just because the items stay in their cart whenever they re-enter the website. In addition, the ability to customize a product and to be involved in the design process promotes feelings of control that have been also been found to increase feelings of psychological ownership. For example, people, especially those on a diet, prefer to choose the ingredients of their salad as it endows them with a sense of calorie control. Also, the opportunity to touch an object creates sensual stimulation by activating the buyer’s touch receptors. As we are dealing with online purchasing, obviously the customer cannot feasibly touch the products; however the interaction with the product brings the imaginary path to life. The selection of the product’s features, colors and shape generates thoughts concerning “ to that object. According to (2003, 2006) object interactivity in the context of virtual objects produces far more vivid mental images compared to text or static pictures of an object. Those mental images help to create far higher customer engagement leading to an eventual purchase of the product. When instant cake mixes were introduced in the 1950s as part of a broader trend to simplify the life of the American housewife, they encountered resistance as they were too easy. Housewives were concerned that their cake-making efforts would now be undervalued. However, once the cake mixes were modified to require the addition of an egg in baking, adoption rose dramatically. When people imbue products with their own labor, their efforts increase the value of the product. Dan Ariely and colleagues tested this assumption in an experiment involving very simple origami and found that people tend to place higher value on the origami they created. Moreover, they thought everybody else would love it more. Ariely refers to this as the IKEA effect, named after Swedish furniture manufacturer IKEA whose furniture is sold in boxes — with sometimes a great deal of assembly required. The efforts and “labor” that are invested in the customization process promote feelings of psychological ownership as well. Not only do our possessions add value to our lives when we have a part in building them, but we also add value to our possessions. It was found that consumers value an object more once they have taken ownership of it. This phenomenon is known as the . Over the past decade, researchers have found support for the endowment effect in many experiments. In one of the best-known, researchers at Cornell University began by giving university students either a coffee mug or a chocolate bar, each with identical market values. First the experimenters confirmed that roughly half the students preferred each good. After the goodies were handed out, they let the students trade: those who had wanted mugs but got chocolate (or vice versa) could swap. With barely 10 percent of students opting to trade, the endowment effect seemed established (you would expect 50 percent to have swapped, given the random allocation of gifts). Even after a short time with items of little value, ownership had overwhelmed the students’ prior tastes. From the above examples, it is clear that people are willing to pay higher prices for self-designed products relative to non-customized ones. And in most instances, they would consider the added premium a reasonable cost to pay, as the customized product is perceived more valuable than the standard one. In the same way, a car owner will automatically value his own car higher than the exact same model that he does not own. For this reason people almost always price their cars above the list price. The options to customize a product appear to be more appealing to women than men. A study produced by Wharton titled revealed significant differences between the shopping behaviors of men and women. The study found that women are more focused on the experience, while men were focused more on the mission. Women tend to be more invested in the shopping experience, while men just want to buy a specific item and get out. For this reason, in many instances, the customization process may be more effective when directed towards female audiences. While it is true that the more effort a customer invests in the design of their product, the more they will be willing to pay for it, if the consumer is required to invest too much effort, the product will be viewed as inconvenient or annoying. Greater customer engagement, satisfaction and online revenue can be achieved by allowing online visitors to take an active role in the product-development process. However, be mindful to create tasks that generate higher product value while remaining within the scope of most visitors’ attention spans and cognitive abilities. |
TC Droidcast Episode 26: Moto Rules With Droid Turbo And Nexus 6 | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 11 | 11 | This week’s Droidcast features Darrell Etherington, Chris Velazco, Greg Kumparak and Kyle Russell, and we discuss the looming Nexus 6, as well as more Motorola with the Verizon-exclusive Droid Turbo. Also up for debate are the merits of Samsung’s own-review of the Gear S, which heralds a new low in content marketing, and the Chromecast’s ability to play games, and whether people will ever do that in any sizeable numbers. Generally speaking, we’ve got lots to discuss next week with more detail on the Nexus 6, as well as Android Lollipop and how it works on phones, but if you have a suggestion for something to cover on the show.
and check out past episodes . Download it directly here: |
Android User Takes Apple To Federal Court Over Undelivered Text Messages | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 11 | 11 | Apple will soon face a federal lawsuit brought on by a woman named Adrienne Moore, who, like many former iPhone users who have switched to Android, is upset that she did not receive text messages after switching platforms. She is seeking unspecified damages, and to make the lawsuit a class action. Since the release of iOS 5, Apple has with users not receiving text messages after switching from iMessage on an iPhone to an Android device. iMessage works by sending messages over the users data plan, theoretically saving that user money on text messages. If a message fails to go through on iMessage, it’s supposed to default back to text message. However, some users who have switched to Android from iPhone have noticed that their messages get locked up in iMessage and end up never being delivered, even though the sender sees a “Delivered” sign and thinks all is well. Moore is to go through this issue. In fact, Apple recently to help users switch from iOS to Android, and prevent this from happening to other users. The lawsuit was first filed back in May of 2014, and Apple has since moved to dismiss the case. Though Judge Lucy Koh (who happens to be ) dismissed some of the claims made by Moore, she still believes that Moore should have the right to argue that Apple disrupted her wireless service from Verizon and violated an unfair competition law in California, according to a . There’s no timeline on when this case is expected to go to court. If you want to see the original complaint, it’s right . (Extra links: , , and .) To check out Apple’s motion to dismiss, click . And finally, here is the full text of Judge Lucy Koh’s decision today. by
[via ] |
Formation 8 Adds Shirish Sathaye As Its Newest Partner | Ryan Lawler | 2,014 | 11 | 11 | Formation 8 has been busy lately, as the relatively new venture firm has been adding team members and (reportedly) is in the midst of . Today the company announced the hiring of its newest team member, former Matrix and Khosla Ventures partner . Formation 8 was founded just a few years ago by Joe Lonsdale, Jim Kim and Brian Koo, and . Already the firm has had some early success, thanks to its investments in Oculus Rift and RelateIQ. Oculus, of course, was , and RelateIQ . With that momentum behind it, the firm is seeking a new, $500 million fund to continue making investments in startups. The firm is largely stage-agnostic, putting money in at any time from seed to late-stage, and it’s looking for new, category-defining companies. Sathaye will be helping the firm to invest in opportunities primarily around enterprise networking and similar technologies. He’s been in the tech scene for nearly 30 years, starting as an engineer at DEC. He moved his way up the ranks of various tech firms until he became VP of engineering at Alteon WebSystems, which was acquired by Nortel back in the day. After that, Sathaye became a partner at Matrix Partners, where he served on the board of Aruba Networks for nearly a decade. In 2010, he joined Khosla Ventures and made investments there for the next three years. Last year, he left the firm to take a much-needed break, he told me by phone. “I had never taken any time off,” he said. “I was one of those weird Silicon Valley people who, even though we had financial success in other companies, never took a break.” He says he spent six months with family not talking to anyone about tech. Then, about six months later, started taking meetings and angel investing on his own. But Sathaye enjoyed working with a team better, and so was convinced to join Formation 8. At his new firm, Sathaye will be reunited with some people he had known from his days at Khosla — most notably Kim, Gideon Yu and . That familiarity is one of the reasons he says he joined. “I know these guys, they know me, and we know each other’s strengths and weaknesses,” he said. |
Flux’s 3D Printer Is Also A Scanner, Laser Engraver And More Thanks to A Modular Design | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 11 | 11 |
3D printers are at a bit of a crossroads – after a lot of initial promise, they seem to have hit a roadblock between early adopter zeal and general consumer interest. A new entrant called Flux should at least reinvigorate hobbyist excitement, thanks to a modular design that makes it a veritable all-in-one maker factor for budding builders. The launches today, making the gadget available for pre-order pledges starting at $499 for an early bird unit reservation, and $599 after that. Flux’s modular units allow it to become a 3D scanner, later engraver, ceramics or pastry printer using modules either included, available as a separate add-on option or in development for later release. The startup has also opened up a module SDK to let others build hardware add-ons to potentially create lots more different capabilities for the Flux system in the future. Aside from its modularity, Flux has other advantages over other systems, according to its creators, including simply setup right out of the box, higher repairability due to its modular design, Bluetooth-based mobile device control and operation, user-friendly modelling and configuration software, and a desktop-friendly design that both saves space and looks good. From a very basic standpoint, the Flux looks like something I’d be much more likely to own than any other currently available 3D printer on the market – price aside. The fact is that most of the time I’d probably much rather have a laser engraver than a 3D printer, and the potential of other similar modular units that could offer other kinds of 3D material manipulation, like a touch-sensor testing unit, for instance, or any number of potential add-ons, mean Flux could eventually act as a near-complete micro prototyping lab for home use. Taiwan-based Flux includes a young team of entrepreneurs, but already 30 fully functional prototypes based on a combination of open source technology and proprietary design have been created, and the team’s funding goal of $100,000 is designed to bring them through to the mass production phase. The first round of devices for backers should start to reach backers in July 2015, according to the teams’ projections. |
A Gift Guide For On-The-Go Bloggers, Students And City Dwellers | Matt Burns | 2,014 | 11 | 11 | The life of a blogger can be nauseating. You’re a rolling stone and wherever you lay your laptop is your home. Your laptop bag is essentially your corner office and must contain everything needed for a day’s work. What follows is a gift guide for your favorite blogger, but can easily apply to college students, city dwellers and anyone else living out of a messenger bag. A good blogger is always prepared and should have the Brunton Power Knife somewhere on their body. This clever gadget packs the most popular charging cables in a Swiss Army Knife package. Best of all, the cables do not pass data so a person can recharge knowing none of their data will be secretly transferred. Coffee. It’s important and there isn’t a better device to make the sweet brew than an Aeropress. This classic gadget is magical and lasts forever. Just throw in some ground beans, top it off with hot water, and slowly press the plunger over a mug or tumbler. It’s impossible to make a bad cup of coffee with an Aeropress. The and is available in most housewares stores. While coffee is essential to life, water is nice to have, too. Not many of today’s bags make it easy to carry a plastic water bottle, but the memobottle does away with the traditional round bottle. Instead, it’s shaped like a pad of paper so it can easily fit in most bags. The memobottle is available in different sizes. For a bottle the size of a sheet of letter-size paper, it’s $33. Smaller sizes cost less. Sadly, this gift will have to come with an IOU. The memobottle will not ship until early 2015. Sometimes you just need a good book. The Kindle has long been the stalwart leader of the ebook market and the $119 Paperwhite version is the best bet. Sure, you can save some and get the $79 Kindle, but then you lose the built-in light. And then there’s the fancy $199 Kindle Voyage, but at just $119, the Paperwhite offers enough e-ink goodness for the price. Just don’t forget the case, but skip the official Amazon case and opt for instead. It’s 75% less and is just as good. Wifi isn’t everywhere. Bring it with you. Karma is a great solution for occasional use. Unlike similar products from the wireless carriers, it doesn’t require a subscription or contract. It’s just $14 per gigabyte, which is plenty of room for email, Facebook and reading TechCrunch. Plus the data never expires. The Karma Go costs $150 and the company is currently throwing in $20 worth of data for free. The device will ship in December. Ignore the fashion faux pas. Sometimes a Bluetooth headset is a lifesaver and the Moto Hint Earbud is small enough no one will notice you’re wearing one. The tiny headset costs $149 and comes with a sleek case that doubles as a recharging station. It’s compatible with any Bluetooth-enabled device, but when paired with a Moto X, the headset can retrieve information from Google. Ask it the weather. Ask it stock quotes. Just don’t ask it to make you look normal when wearing it. For those that work in busy surroundings, noise canceling headphones are a must. Just slip them on for silent solitude. There isn’t a better bet than the new Parrot Zik 2.0 headphones, either. At $399, they’re a touch expensive, but they’re worth the cash compared to the alternatives. They feature Bluetooth connectivity, long battery life, and touch controls on the sides of the leather ear cups. The Parrot Zik 2.0 will be available in various colors for $399 starting this month. When your bag is your office, you want something nice. The $300 Whipping Post Vintage Messenger Bag is one of the finest leather bags currently available. Made of huge swaths of leather, the bag easily lives up to its name as a vintage messenger bag. The leather will age beautifully and is durable enough to survive even the most brutal subway rides. The bag lacks silly nonsense like pen slots, headphone holes or other needless add-ons found on many of today’s bags. Your grandfather didn’t have those things and he survived just fine. The Whipping Post Vintage Messenger Bag is just a damn fine bag. For homemakers to professionals, the Macbook Air is a fantastic choice. The svelte notebook has evolved over the years into a tiny workhorse. The 11-inch version starts at $899 and is perfect for students or constant notetakers. But for everyone else, the 13-inch models are better bets. The larger screen is well worth the extra $100. The latest MacBook Airs run OS X Yosemite which beautifully integrate with the owner’s iPhone. |
Dropbox Updates Web Interface For Easier Sharing | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 11 | 11 | Dropbox today it’s adding a new feature designed to make sharing easier on its service. On the Dropbox website, logged in users will now see a new sharing button that allows you to quickly add people who are allowed to view and sync your shared files and folders with their account, and a new “send link” option for adding people with read-only access. After clicking the new “Share” button, which now appears to the right of the file or folder in the list, the top option lets you invite people to collaborate on the files or folders with you – meaning they can view, add, edit or delete files in the folder. If you just want to let someone view a file in your Dropbox, the “send link” option will allow for that, even if the recipient doesn’t have a Dropbox account themselves. Viewers can preview the file and download a copy for themselves, but they can’t make any changes. Dropbox already had a sharing function built-in, of course – that little rainbow folder next to the search box at the top of the page has done the trick in the past. There’s also an option to share from the right-click menu. But the new share button for the web means now you only have to hover over a file or folder’s link to see the sharing option appear. It’s obvious what to do when you see, but the “appear on hover” functionality doesn’t clutter the Dropbox interface. This is a minor, but pretty decent improvement for Dropbox on the web which will make the service more appealing to first-time or non-technical users – a demographic that flocked to the cloud storage startup despite a number of competitors largely due to the simplicity of its minimalistic interface. |
Calling All Angels, Executives, VCs And Everyone Else To Write Guest Columns For TechCrunch | Jonathan Shieber | 2,014 | 11 | 11 | The heart of any website or blog is its community of readers, contributors and commenters. At TechCrunch, part of that has been the guest columns that we publish each week. We have provided space for contributors to enlighten the tech community with their industry insights. And now, things are changing. We’re building upon the and expanding the scope of our coverage beyond the startup chief executive, the venture investor or the occasional technology analyst or banker. While for what makes a good guest column haven’t changed, the way in which we’re approaching content has. As technology shapes every human endeavor, we encourage contributors spanning a broad range of industries, including academics, politicians, artists, philosophers, doctors, ethicists and everyone else to lend their voices to our community. The goal is to make TechCrunch a forum where anyone who has anything interesting to say about the ways technology is shaping our present and setting the course for our future can offer their thoughts and spur conversation. To that end, we’re experimenting with an editorial calendar — a guide for things we’ll be tackling thematically over the course of the year in our guest column inches. We’ll still be taking all of your best thoughts about startups, entrepreneurship, technology investment and any other well-written, technology-related musings. The difference is that, now, if you’re at a loss for inspiration, or feel strongly about a particular issue or topic, there’s a thematic flag in the ground that can guide you. For instance, we’ll devote parts of January’s coverage to the broad theme of consumer technology (thanks, CES!). Anything anyone is doing or thinking around consumers is fair game. It’s a fascinating area where there have been two tons of technological development, investment and activity, so there’s a lot of fertile material for all kinds of stories and op-ed pieces. February will be devoted to arts and media, again predicated on outside events like the Grammys and Oscars. In addition to commentary that covers television and film, we’ll be looking for content from artists, musicians or academics with thoughts on the subject. In March, as the presidential race starts to warm up ahead of the 2016 election, we’ll be turning our editorial eye to the political environment and the ways tech is shaping politics, as well as how regulation and legislation is shaping tech. This is just some of what we have planned for the beginning of 2015. In the coming months, we’ll publish the editorial calendar for the rest of the year to give you a sense of where we’re looking to take coverage. In the meantime, we believe in the idea, as well as the intelligence, wit, talent and insights that you’re capable of sharing. Reach me at . Let’s do this. |
The Social Psychology Of The Naked Selfie | Sean Young | 2,014 | 11 | 29 | If you’re building a tech product that has anything to do with photos then you’re probably feeling an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu lately, and it has to do with data security. It had become so routine that throughout the fall it was hard to imagine a Monday without hearing about another set of photos that been hacked during the weekend. And these aren’t just typical pictures . Apple/iCloud products were at risk for getting hacked, but they aren’t the only ones. So was , and probably all other major sites hosting photos. Scandals have been popping up again and again around hacked photos, especially nude ones. So, why do we keep seeing these scandals? There are two opposing camps trying to explain why we’re having nude photo leaks, but who’s right? One group says something like, “Enough, children. Want to stop nude photos from getting hacked? in selfies and the problem will go away by itself.” Those on the other side of the debate insist we must not blame the victim and instead should for iCloud and other digital storage accounts. Sound familiar? That’s because it is. We’ve had scandals about hacked photos going back every year for almost , and people keep writing these same reactions after each one. Annually rehashing this debate for a decade hasn’t gotten us too far. While we should expect companies to update security features, we can also expect hackers will continue improving their toolkits. And as for warning people to not take nude selfies, since when has issuing warnings been the key to changing behavior? Education and warnings won’t solve problems unless the problems were caused by lack of knowledge. Why, then, do people keep taking naked digital pictures of themselves and store them in places that could be hacked? They were probably aware of the other nude photo scandals that occurred so it’s not that they don’t know what’s going on. There’s actually a science behind why we keep seeing these repeated nude photo scandals — . The truth is, sexting — sending sexually suggestive photos or videos via cell phone — is increasingly common among people aged 25-34. According to a , 15 percent of adults ages 18-24 and 22 percent of adults ages 25-34 admit to having sent such a message. Knowing that, it’s less of a surprise that in the past year, thousands of young people have had their nude photos hacked, including famous ones like and Mila Kunis. Are we saying, then, that this is simply a case of peer pressure? Nope. Our research at the UCLA Center for Digital Behavior has revealed that our perceptions of what is normal in our social networks affects our behavior. In , college students viewed a selection of Facebook photos of their peers and were then asked to estimate the percentage of students who engaged in sex without condoms and sex with strangers, and whether they themselves behave this way. When students saw more sexually suggestive photos of their peers (e.g. kissing, flirting with the camera, wearing revealing clothing), they reasoned that more of their peers were having unprotected sex and sex with strangers. They also said that they themselves planned on having more sex without condoms and sex with strangers. What people their peers are doing (regardless of what they are actually doing) influences their behavior. If people their friends are taking naked selfies and putting these pics online (even if the truth is that their friends are sitting at home chatting with mom), then they will start uploading selfies in the buff. And this psychology isn’t unique to only youth. It affects all of human behavior. So what should you do if you’re working on a photo-related technology and want a solution other than more data security to keep your product out of the hacking spotlight? My advice, as a behavioral psychologist, is that adding another few lines to your legal page or slapping on a data security warning pop-up about the risks of photo hacking won’t work — just like it doesn’t work for smoking, alcohol use or most other behaviors. You’ve got to change the social environment to change the behavior. The short answer to change user behavior is to build a community around how people upload and share pictures. Create a social norm on what types of photos should be taken and shared using your technology. It might sound difficult, but there’s a science behind how to create a community for positive social change, and you can find that information right . Behavior-change campaigns work by understanding and changing the social environment. If a site wants to reduce the amount of sexts on its platform, they must similarly apply this science of social. |
A Digital Healthcare Argument For Net Neutrality | Matthew Douglass | 2,014 | 11 | 29 | The federal agency regulating communications is at a crossroads in establishing the rules of the road for how the Internet operates. Many commentators are rightfully concerned that the FCC could adopt rules that will give cable and phone companies the opportunity to discriminate against website providers and/or content, which would potentially put some sites in a paid fast lane and leave other sites in a slow lane. This possibility has prompted massive public backlash: A to the agency including the views of hundreds of top investors, leading technology companies, churches and civil society groups. Even , asking that the FCC implement the strongest possible rules to protect net neutrality. To ensure a future of American digital healthcare progress and startup innovation, an open and unbiased Internet is necessary. Patients, doctors, and hospitals rely on the Internet to manage health and business today more than ever before. Doctors are now securely sharing their patients’ clinical information with other doctors over the Internet. Patients are accessing their , publishing data collected on their smartphones and home medical devices to their doctors’ records, and holding secure electronic conversations with their doctors. In the very near future, more than 10 percent of all doctor visits in the U.S. will be performed via Internet video chat sessions. These telemedicine visits will replace unnecessary trips to the doctor for millions of people and will be especially beneficial to homebound and rural Americans who have difficulty physically traveling to a doctor’s office. Normally, this major progress in digital healthcare would be allowed to proceed and grow unencumbered on the Internet. However, this progress is being threatened by powerful monopolistic-minded ISPs. Early this year, an appellate court ruled that, unless the FCC issued an order deciding that ISPs are “common carriers,” those ISPs could create differentially priced tiers of service based on the type of traffic that they are transmitting from a website. If the FCC does not classify ISPs as “common carriers,” virtual doctor visits provided by telemedicine platforms could be made more expensive by ISPs that would be free to charge a premium fee to these platforms and by extension, their customers (both doctors and patients). This new concept of tiered pricing based on the type of content being delivered would disrupt the internet as we know it and would harm doctors, patients, and smaller startup Internet companies working diligently to upgrade our nation’s digital healthcare infrastructure. To ensure America’s healthcare technology infrastructure can continue to grow and flourish for the rich and poor alike, it is imperative that ISPs are not allowed to create tiers of speeds in this manner. A variety of medical professionals have submitted comments to the FCC, highlighting the damage that Chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposal to allow paid discrimination would have on telemedicine. The American Academy of Pediatrics “establishing a system of paid prioritization is contrary to the health and well-being of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults”. A rural hospital in Winamac, Indiana, and many others have urged the commission to prevent Internet fast lanes. The incredible engine of progress and democracy that is today’s Internet must be preserved for future innovations and for future generations to benefit just as we all have benefited from progress to this point. |
Bullying The Bullies | Josh Constine | 2,014 | 11 | 29 | Humans haven’t quite gotten the hang of human rights, let alone social media. Combined ignorance of the two leads people to spew hate from the safety of an Internet connection, writing their bigotry into the public record. Now these moments are being put display for public shaming by a seeking justice against racists. It’s a form of cybervigilantism. But is there a more effective, and compassionate way of stopping racism? Racist Twitter user gets suspended from work. Their has been shut down. On , sequences of screenshots show racist comments posted by people in response to the Michael Brown case, then other citizens reporting the commenters to their employers, and finally evidence . The site encourages people to track down where outspoken racists work and then post details of their hate speech to the employers’ social media accounts demanding punishment. In some instances, racists are “doxxed”, meaning they have their personal identity and contact information shared without consent to and reports to employers. The question is whether cybervigilantism is ethical or productive for a society trying to overcome bigotry. Twitter user Cameron Dakota (now shut down) posted this photo and other racist remarks…but was then fired as shown in the screenshot below. Now I certainly won’t defend the racists, nor forgive them for pushing hate and discrimination. Everyone in this country has the right to live without fear of the threats and slurs found in the screenshotted posts, or the racism illuminated by the Brown tragedy. What’s concerning, though, is the accelerating use of the Internet and social media for public shaming of non-public figures. I wholeheartedly agree that a strong message must be sent that intolerance will not be tolerated. Shame is a powerful teacher. And in this case, the hardcore racism and violent nature of the posts likely warrants serious consequences. It’s certainly understandable that businesses wouldn’t want to be associated with employees making these kinds of statements. Beyond being genuinely deplorable, they are discrimination lawsuit time bombs just waiting to blow. There are legal concerns around firing someone over what could be considered free speech, even if it’s awful and could lead to boycotts of the business. Cameron Dakota was then fired, according to a notice post on his employer Brown’s Car Stores’ , likely in hopes of discouraging further reports about him. But I’m still alarmed that we seem happy to exert vengeance and then laugh at the people skewered. That doesn’t show a lot of compassion, even if it is extremely tough to be empathetic toward racists. Ideally, we should be striving to educate these people. Yes, bringing wisdom to Internet jerks may be an impossible task and a waste of breath. But to go so far in the opposite direction poses problems. Perhaps shame was the only way to educate these people. Maybe Justine from , who posted the racist comments about how she wouldn’t get AIDS in Africa because she’s white, needed to be called out. And more who’ve become the laughing-stock of the social web for posting horrible things may have been immune to lesser intervention. Eventually, though, someone will be wrongfully accused or framed, but publicly destroyed anyway. And what if one of the perpetrators of hate speech commits suicide? Will that be what it takes for us to start looking for more constructive ways to fight injustice? [ : Apparently my concerns about the potential for cybervigilante public shaming to be used to frame someone were well founded. This week, a woman’s ex-boyfriend faked screenshots to frame her as saying racist things, and posted them to Racists Getting Fired, . Before anyone could figure out the deception, the woman’s workplace AMC Theaters had received huge numbers of complaints. Luckily, AMC found out the truth and are defending her, but this is a perfect example of the risks of cybervigilantism.] What if they made a mistake or were peer pressured into making terrible comments? There are no excuses for this kind of abhorrent behavior, but remember these people are still human. At the very least, we should be channeling our outrage productively. We should be , not just insulting and making fun of Justine for her insensitivity towards them. Rather than letting Michael Brown’s death divide us as a nation, we should use it as an opportunity come together. It’s not easy being patient with who’ve been steeped in hand-me-down racism from dumber generations. But if angry mob vengeance continues to grow as the Internet’s favorite pastime, we risk clawing at the symptoms of hatred instead of healing those it’s infected. |
Clime Stickers Are Up For Pre-Order, Will Tell You (And Baby) If It’s Cold Outside | John Biggs | 2,014 | 11 | 29 | I first covered when they were little more than 3D-printed nubbins. Now these nubbins have brains. Essentially they are tiny indoor/outdoor thermometers. You can put them anywhere and then check your mobile device for the temperature. You may have something similar in your home – they used to called them weather thermometers – but older systems are far less responsive and far less compact. The creators are and they’re looking to raise $50,000. Created by Bart Zimny and Andrzej Pawlikowski, these things are essentially rubber-clad transmitters. As I wrote before, you drop them anywhere you want to sense – a windowsill or empty room or spooky basement – and the sensors do the rest. The goal is to create a cheap home automation system with these sensors at the base. Eventually the pair plans to add more features including interactivity with climate control systems and notification systems that will inform you when it is, in fact, cold outside, Baby. They will ship in early 2015. |
Peering Into The Minds Of The 4.3 Billion Unconnected | Hassan Baig | 2,014 | 11 | 29 | In a on TechCrunch, I wrote about the mental challenges faced by the world’s offline population of 4.3 billion when trying to use the Internet for the first time. After all, they’ve never experienced the Internet before, lacking what UX experts call a ‘mental model’ of how basic Internet services work or why to even use them. In this post, I’ll shed more light on what sort of mental models are missing, so that the world’s foremost thinkers can come up with the best strategies to fix them. In the bid to research possible answers to this question, my team and I have been conducting usability tests with the unconnected/newly connected. We’re aided in these endeavors by a highly resourceful South Asian tech incubator, , and the usability team of a local mobile network operator, so readers can safely assume a very high level of standardization and quality control behind each of these tests. Below are a few insights gleaned from our findings. The test subject in the GIF above was tasked with Googling the simplest keyword he could think of. He chose “IPL” (acronym for cricket’s Indian Premier League). He took roughly 10 seconds to type those letters in — seven seconds longer than the length of time it took him to type the same thing on his feature phone’s keypad. In other words, typing on a smartphone’s virtual, on-screen keyboard was not a convenience for this test subject. Across multiple usability tests, we found that switching from the feature phone’s keypad to the on-screen keyboard of a smartphone usually proves quite challenging for almost all of the unconnected/newly connected, making them reluctant to switch when left to their own devices. This is a downer because experiencing the Internet over a smartphone is much more effective (and thus sticky) than doing the same over even the most advanced feature phone. On the other hand, whenever the connected move to smartphones, their mental model of QWERTY keyboards helps them to cope, resulting in a minimal learning curve. Unfortunately the experience is very different for an unconnected individual whose closest mental model to a keyboard is a built as per the ITU E 1.161 International Standard (a fundamentally different animal). The test subject in the GIF above was tasked with searching his favorite Bollywood actor; he chose “Shahrukh Khan.” But he approximated the correct spelling only after multiple failures and non-trivial assistance from the test conductor. Tellingly, his first few attempts were so off that Google’s ‘Showing results for’ feature didn’t help at all. Overall, we’ve found that anxiety stemming from not being able to find what (or who) they were looking for is a top-five concern among the unconnected when they first begin to use the Internet. Heavily misspelled search terms and names are the prime contributors to this problem. It’s also further exacerbated by the fact that some smartphone on-screen keyboards unwittingly disincentivize first-time users from ever tapping the spacebar key, because some of them the currently selected language — English by default — on the spacebar key. Now imagine an unconnected person who’s at best semi-literate in English, and may even be apprehensive of foreign languages. When trying to type, would they ever want to tap any key labeled “English”? As it turns out, they don’t (on average), resulting in the double whammy of bad spelling and missing spaces. Predictably, the problem outlined above is even more intense for the roughly 30 percent unconnected who are completely illiterate. Getting the Internet to be relevant and useful for them will be an even bigger problem. Literacy, it seems, is almost a necessary condition for people to use the Internet in its current form. That’s not good news for those who are offline. The test subject in the GIF above was tasked with moving between various pages of the app launcher. Easy right? In multiple trials, she always attempted a mix of tapping and swiping to move between the pages, never definitively settling on swiping (which is the correct action for the said task). Her mental model for gesture control on mobile devices remained suspect throughout the usability test. Overall, we’ve found that almost all of the unconnected muddle through when given a mobile device to use, struggling with understanding when to swipe, tap, double tap or pinch. A possible reason could be that feature phones, TV and radio — the three most widely used technologies among the unconnected — do not exactly nurture a mental model for gesture control in any meaningful way. We’ve also found that repetitive smartphone use does alleviate this problem somewhat, but very gradually. Overall, in no way is using a smartphone as intuitive for the unconnected as it felt for us — the connected — back in 2007 when we experienced our first such device (the iPhone 1). The test subject in the GIF above was stuck on trying to attend to a Viber call, not knowing what to do when the screen changed. We’ve seen such results for other similar Internet services, as well. So how hard would it be to develop the mental model for attending to a phone call on a smartphone? We’ve found that it’s harder than it sounds, but it does stick. The broader point here is somewhat different though: Nothing about using a smartphone is easy/intuitive for the unconnected, given feature phones, TVs and radios are their predominant experiences with technology. All this reinforces the findings of the previous usability test. The test subject here was tasked with trying a Google search of his choice. But he simply stared at Google’s homepage throughout the session, showing minimal curiosity. In fact, reluctance to engage and an almost derisive demeanor remained the theme of the session. The subject later stated that the whole exercise was uninteresting and a waste of his time. This wasn’t outlier behavior, being especially prevalent among test subjects with lesser or no literacy. These usability tests reveal that extensive mental barriers impede the unconnected from readily taking up digital technology and basic Internet services. The smartphone is the first real computing device for the majority of these unconnected. But every innovation begets its own series of challenges, smartphones being no exception. It seems the offline world finds the learning curve of these phones to be much more gradual than what we – the connected – experience when switching to our first such device (thanks to a much deeper experience with digital interfaces and the Internet). Likewise, their first touch with internet services is full of friction as well. Hence just making the Internet expansive and affordable is not going to readily onboard the offline onto it. Their mental gaps will need to be plugged too. Think of it as a classic step-function (below), one where the jump from an offline mental model to an online one is discretely, substantially higher. We need solutions that can turn this step into a slope (i.e. essentially an easier hurdle). If we can do that, we can meaningfully accelerate Internet proliferation among the unconnected. Otherwise fuggedaboutit. Those of us who’re connected conceive of signing up for an Internet service or using a smartphone as trivial activities. In fact, some very successful technologists –- even ones hailing from some of the most accomplished entrepreneurship circles in Silicon Valley –- have been puzzled when I tell them my startup is working on technology to digitally teach the unconnected why and how to use basic Internet services like search, social networking, messaging, app stores, etc. I can relate to this skepticism since I too was once on that side of the fence. It is tempting to presume that mobile devices and basic Internet services are plug-and-play; that they have perfectly optimized their user experiences and can successfully onboard anyone, any time, any day. But the reality is we live in a world where 4.3 billion people have never experienced the Internet. These are people who mostly can’t tell what the X at the top-right of the screen does, or what “sign up” means, or what a username and password are, or that cancel buttons are red or gray, or how a QWERTY keyboard works, or how to sign up for mobile data, or why should one even do it in the first place. All this represents a highly complex, multifaceted problem and the payoff of ultimately solving it will fundamentally change us as a species. |
The Mexican Valley Of Startup Death | Jorge Rios | 2,014 | 11 | 29 | The startup universe revolves around Silicon Valley, but there is life on the other planets, too. Long has the entrepreneur community been used to the term “startup valley of death” and come to fear it. As most accelerators claim, once you make it out of the ditch, you’re on your way to fame and glory. But not in Mexico. Historically, Mexico has taken good advantage of its Northern neighbor: American university degrees are priceless, more than 10 million Mexicans live (legally or illegally) next door, and everything but all of Mexico’s international trade goes through, to or from the U.S. Nevertheless, Mexicans have much to learn regarding the current startup bubble; funds (both private and public) are scared of taking risks, most accelerators don’t really “marry” the businesses they take under their wings, and true angel investors can be counted with two hands’ worth of fingers. Here is a snippet from a real conversation my mom had a few months ago: Instead of being seen as a potential economic motor, entrepreneurs in Mexico are seen as irresponsible daredevils who took a wrong path somewhere, ending up unemployed and working at an imaginary company. The problem is, this isn’t something only mothers believe. “VC” commonly stands for “venture capital,” but it could just as well stand for “vicious circle.” Along with there being only a handful of really effective seed accelerators in Mexico (and the legally non-existent convertible note), venture capital funds lack real startup investor culture. This trumps real startup growth due to the leap from starting a company to actually having the means to lift it off the ground. Investor funds don’t believe in ideas; they believe solely in numbers that startups have today and (even though most fund committees are supposedly composed of at least one expert per field) refuse to analyze latent potential. This makes for a vicious circle: Startups need money to make their numbers grow, but nobody will invest unless they see numbers first. This leaves struggling young companies to try to make ends meet on their own, risking loss of momentum for both the enterprise and its founders. Venture capitalists need not be afraid of investing in accelerated startups for obvious reasons: Seed accelerators fully and thoroughly investigate team members, operations plans and market opportunities before drafting their alumni. One of the perks of being in a society that is afraid of risking capital on unproven companies is that, for that same reason, early-stage accelerators take their time before deciding on which teams will make up their next generation (a perfect example being , with its effective multiple-filter acceptance process). Granted, having gone through an acceleration process doesn’t guarantee a company’s readiness, but it does at least give the accelerator complete knowledge of the startup as a whole, which is reflected in how much attention they pay to which company once it has “graduated.” Venture capitalists and angel investors need to update their hesitant philosophy for the greater good of Mexico’s (and their own) economic development. |
Gillmor Gang: Basement Tape | Steve Gillmor | 2,014 | 11 | 29 | The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Dan Farber, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Friday, November 28, 2014. @stevegillmor, @scobleizer, @dbfarber, @kteare Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor I stopped writing a few years ago, mostly because I felt the form was too much a parlor trick. Social felt more directed, less pious, touched with a gentle irony when played well. Threaded through Twitter, the social graph added context to the polemic of the post, a thin layer of group dynamics that went beyond the sizzle of products and personalities to the underlying zeitgeist of the time. Boy was that narrative a drama. Life and death, no kidding. The arc of Steve Jobs’ life driving the epochal shift of the iPhone. The insistent pulse of the drive to do as much as was possible, while expanding the possible to change the world. What an arrogant youthful concept, to change the world. Was it even remotely within reach? I think so. The door perhaps opening by psychedelics remained open with the stillness of meditation. Meanwhile, the media framed the discussion in terms of personal drama, when the real point was about a generation empowered and overwhelmed by technology. We are pulled along by our capacity for new, for constant answers to what’s happening, about to happen, inevitable to happen. It’s exhausting, but even in the defeat of 360,000 unread items is the satisfaction from doing the best we can. We think of it as filters, but the truth is something more human. Before I stopped writing, the parlor trick didn’t feel false. It felt more like found material, the rush of stumbling upon a riff or a pattern that, upon inspection seemed not to have been copied from an identifiable place. Annie Hall is littered with these objects, the Marshall McLuhan scene, the What I would give for a large rubber mallet, the giddy quasi-horror of the Christopher Walken car ride. Somehow Woody Allen transcended the nagging sound of sarcastic comedy, perhaps the touch of Lennon/McCartney that Marshall Brickman provided. It was also fun, sideswiping the copy desk and the Word autothesaurus with a Dylanesque rhythm. The language was fresh back then, like a Steely Dan record in its perfection, knowing it couldn’t last but giving not a damn. You could pick the players out of the crowd, watching the subtext of the social cloud take shape in the back and forth. Unspoken and embarrassing words like “neat” and “cool” nonetheless lived somewhere in the underbrush. Also we had the anger, the clear implication that some correctly took personally, that they were being talked down to. But if you think about it, sharing started here. Funny is not about the speaker being smarter, but rather the transfer of energy in the laugh. Often you don’t know why it’s funny, but damn well that it is funny. That’s one of the hardest things to do on stage, get to the funny without insulting the partner in crime, your audience. It’s like software as a service, constantly renewing itself as you go. However, the anger does wear you down. Thank God for co-conspirators, and Twitter for occasionally refreshing us. And with that, some questions: Why do we worry about disruption, about the next big winner and the losers it creates? What if it just keeps going until the Sun burns out? Is it really valid that Apple will eventually fade? All the evidence I see is that they have really smart people and we have an insatiable desire for improvement. The actor and the audience: a perpetual motion machine where things get better all the time ‘cause they can’t get much worse. The really good news is that this stuff is endlessly renewable, at least until the Sun burns out. Listen to Dylan and the Band incubate the Basement Tapes. ten minutes ago doing what my daughter calls a dumb rap song much much better. She gets out her SnapChat and films me in the car listening to this glorious live session, “Do you like Lorde? Yes. I love Lorde.” Don’t believe me; see for yourself. Who is she sending the SnapChat to, I wonder? And how long will this SnapChat exist? Dylan swears the Basement Tapes were never going to be released too. Ri-Ri-Right. |
Penguin Hatches A Cloud Reader For Pelican Books | Natasha Lomas | 2,014 | 11 | 29 | It likely hasn’t passed you by that traditional book publishers aren’t having the best of times these days. Indeed, when it comes to reading you could say it is the best of times and the worst of times. (TC’s Jon Evans — also a , so in a prime position to comment on the matter — made just that Dickensian point, in fact, in a TC post .) Best for the consumption of the written word, given the proliferation of information online — much of it entirely free to read. Worst for traditional book publishers, with their paper-based, price-tag-carrying medium so disrupted. Book publishers also have the voracious leviathan to contend with. Sure, Amazon may be a huge seller of paper books but shipping dead tree costs Amazon dollar. Dollar Bezos would rather not spend if he can render the book medium back to its informational essence and fire pixels directly into customers’ eyeballs. Hence the Kindle e-reader, a word delivery device which generally continues to track down in price (especially if you buy an ad-supported version). And hence Amazon opening the doors on a ‘Netflix for books’ — aka its program — this summer. Pay your sub at the door, Dear Reader, and books are turned into a collective sea of words for you to go free-swimming in. Amazon also into its arms via a Kindle Direct Publishing program. Some writers (and publishers) would characterize that as a Siren song, given Amazon’s parallel drive to pulp individual books into a subscription service commodity. The long and short of it is that traditional publishers are assailed on all sides. Not least because these hoary old institutions, long accustomed to sitting in the comfortable groves of their own routine page turning, are the easiest targets for disruption. But with Amazon cranking up the pressure, and startups also taking a fresh look at how books could and should be consumed in a mobile-obsessed era — e.g. and , to name two that spring to mind — there is more impetus than ever for traditional publishers to up their game. Even if it just means experimenting with fresh types of digital delivery. This impetus is a good thing. No one who loves reading and books should wish for a monoculture in delivery mechanism, especially not one fully branded by Amazon’s margins-focused upper-cut of a thrusting swoosh. Bezos has shown in this fight already. And it’s not pretty. So talking of experiments, this month U.K. publisher Penguin Books — actually now part of a gigantic publishing entity, after merging with Bertelsmann-owned Random House in April to spawn — has launched a little digital dabbling of its own, using its resurrected Pelican educational imprint as the medium for the experiment. What exactly is it doing? It’s making Pelican e-books available to read online in the browser, on any device you fancy. So much like , but trailing in its wake by three years. And only offered a handful of titles. Still, baby steps. Additional features offered by Pelican’s browser-based educational e-book interface include animated diagrams and maps, footnotes that can be summoned quickly by tapping/mousing over them, and a sharing and highlighting study aid-feature. All thoughtful extras, especially for an educational imprint. The backstory to the Pelican imprint is that it was discontinued in the 1980s, after years of falling sales, but relaunched this May after 30 or so years away. Which means there’s only a handful of Pelican titles at this point. But also means Pelican’s ‘startup’ status within Penguin Random House allows for more risks to be taken with it. And specifically digital risks, which is exactly what traditional publishers need to be doing. Still, the initiative appears far more ‘experimental side-project’ than bold new strategy at this point. It was actually dreamt up prior to the Bertelsmann merger — but has evidently not had its wings clipped since the two companies decided to join forces. The idea apparently came from an internal designer at Penguin, called Matthew Young, rather than out of an executive strategy meeting on combating digital disruption. So it does rather underline that traditional publishers still need to shake a tail feather when it comes to oiling their digital strategies. “The idea to make these books available to read online didn’t come from a strategic, editorial or marketing position, but was instead born straight out of the Art Department,” Young tells TechCrunch. “I’m a cover designer by profession, and I’m actually a big collector of printed books, but nowadays I do most of my reading on a screen, usually on my phone, on the way to work, whenever I can. “I love reading ebooks, but as an obsessive, pedantic designer type, I couldn’t help thinking that the actual experience of reading a book on a screen, although good enough, could be so much better. So that’s exactly what I set out to build — the best possible reading experience for these books. “I knew some basic HTML and CSS, and I’d just learnt how to build responsive websites, so I cobbled together a prototype responsive site showing how the reading experience — the typography, the layout, the white space, hierarchy, etc. — could reflow and adapt to suit different screen sizes. I pitched the idea to my colleagues at Penguin, and they were really supportive and encouraged me to develop it further.” Currently the Pelican browser e-books experiment involves just five titles. But more will be added next year, according to Young. include an explainer on economics, one on human evolution, another on the brain, plus a history title on the Russian revolution and a book about Greek and Roman political ideas. “In theory ebooks have the potential to be as rich and beautiful and interactive as any website, but at the moment they’re constrained by the limitations of the epub spec (although it’s improving all the time) and the limitations of individual ereader devices and applications (also improving all the time),” Young adds. Readers visiting on any device can sample one of the books by reading a chapter for free online. Or they can pay £4.99 to be able to read the entire book in the browser. So it’s kicking off with a freemium model. Bought books remain accessible via a library section, when the user is signed in. And while the content is device agnostic formatting is not going to be fair on every mobile device. Young says the team “tested all the major devices, browsers and operating systems”, working with a creative design agency called Fiasco Design, who built the back-end and also helped with testing. “Our aim is to offer the best possible way to read these books no matter what size or resolution your screen is. To get the most out of the site you’ll definitely benefit from using a modern browser,” he adds. I tested the browser reading experience on multiple devices including an ancient netbook (pictured top right) and it worked okay, albeit with a few formatting niggles. It was happiest on Mac, and fine if a little flighty at points on iPhone. For a laugh I tested it on a BlackBerry PlayBook and found I was unable to log-in. (But won’t hold that against it.) My main complaint was frequent log-outs. A Penguin U.K. spokeswomen said this is down to the server not being able to cope with demand, crashing and then logging out all accounts. She said Penguin is “aware of this and looking to upgrade soon”. Does Penguin have plans to expand this browser e-books interface to more books in its catalogue, outside the Pelican imprint? Scale is arguably what’s needed to combat Amazon’s reach. Although you could also argue that a death by a thousand cuts strategy might also be fruitful in drawing eyeballs elsewhere. If enough publishers start putting e-books online and making interesting, creative content reachable and easily accessible on any device, circumventing format lock-ins and making whatever Amazon is offering a bit less compelling. (Albeit price point remains a barrier — and one that Amazon continues to push at.) Either way, the Pelican project remains focused on its rehatched baby digital imprint for now, owing to a target youth audience. So while this small project may be interesting and welcome it’s not going to keep Bezos awake at night. It probably won’t even prick his filter bubble. “We think the ‘reading in the browser’ model is something that fits particularly well with the new Pelican brand, as we’re aiming to reach a young, digitally-focused audience,” says the Penguin spokeswoman. “It’s still early days, so I can’t give you a clear answer about future plans around [expanding it to] Penguin Books.” The Pelican Books site was launched earlier this month, on November 5, and Penguin isn’t releasing any sales figures. But since launch it says the average reading time on the site has been 18 minutes — which Young dubs “a really long time in internetland”. Logged in users average almost double that, he adds: “So it’s encouraging to see that people really are reading these books and engaging with them.” Is this the future for all books? Of course not, says this traditional publisher of print. But it’s likely going to be part of the mix. “There will absolutely always be a place for printed books. The important thing is that these books are easy, enjoyable and comfortable to read, however you’re reading them — in print or on a screen. Each format makes the most of its inherent qualities — the paperbacks get lovely paper, Pantone inks and debossed covers — all things you can’t do online — and the online books offer full-colour images / maps, animation, dynamic footnotes, etc. — all things you can’t do in print,” says Young. “It’s an experiment because Penguin have never tried anything like this before, and we don’t know how readers will respond to it. I think it’s a great way to read, and hopefully other people will too.” |
Mo’ Data Mo’ Problems | Jon Evans | 2,014 | 11 | 29 | The most exciting promise of Big Data–and if you hate that term, you’re not alone, but I think we’re stuck with it now–is this: the data collection happening on an increasingly gargantuan scale, run through modern data-processing and pattern-recognition algorithms, will unearth powerful new insights into our world and, especially, human behavior. Unfortunately this is also its most worrying problem. Right now, Big Data and privacy seem to be mortal foes. Personal data can reduce your car insurance– . It can provide valuable public health data–by sensitive . It can help the police track bad guys–by creating a – with technology that is practically crying out to be abused. It can construct a meaningful narrative out of, say, to the Internet–even if you didn’t intend that to happen. These aren’t purely theoretical concerns. The :
Having eroded privacy for decades, shady, poorly regulated data miners, brokers and resellers have now taken creepy classification to a whole new level. They have created lists of victims of sexual assault, and lists of people with sexually transmitted diseases. Lists of people who have Alzheimer’s, dementia and AIDS. Lists of the impotent and the depressed. There are lists of “impulse buyers.” Lists of suckers: gullible consumers who have shown that they are susceptible to “vulnerability-based marketing.”
Now imagine such lists augmented by people who have shown that they are vulnerable — eg with Facebook posts that algorithms interpret, in the context of all the posters’ other information, as evidence of secrets that users don’t want to reveal. There are two basic problems here. One is that there are no standards for anonymizing and securing data. Organizations that collect and publish data anonymize and secure it only if and how they feel like it, on an ad hoc basis, and — consider the from earlier this year. But there’s a deeper, far more fundamental, issue: do people have the right to know when data about them is being collected? And when it is, should they, rather than the collectors, that data? I give you MIT professor Alex Pentland and his proposed “ “:
Collectively, we now have data that could help green the environment, create transparent government, deal with pandemics, and, of course, lead to better workers and better service for customers. But obviously someone or some company can abuse that […] The New Deal would give people the ability to see what’s being collected and opt out or opt in. Imagine you had a dashboard that showed what your house knows about you and what it shares, and you could turn it off or on […] Transparency is key. The data being recorded about you will form a fairly complete picture of your life […] I don’t think companies realize that the costs of a “grab all the data” strategy are very high.
Realistically, though, this New Deal implies yet another chapter in the long, sad tale of the battle between innovation and regulation. I’m not opposed to the latter, but I am frequently frustrated by how slowly it evolves compared to the former. There’s little doubt that the exponential growth in our data-collection abilities can lead to –but there’s also little doubt that the population in general is already deeply concerned about technology’s inexorable (and almost accidental) war on privacy, and we’re only a disaster or few away from loud calls for stricter regulation. It would behoove the tech industry to get ahead of this problem, to begin with, by defining and implementing technical standards for data anonymization. (I wouldn’t be surprised if this actually became a new sub-sub-industry.) Better yet, larger companies could agree on a voluntary equivalent of the New Deal on Data, in hopes of forestalling any cries for regulation. Better sooner than later. I don’t think the tech industry quite appreciates how creeped out the general public is by data privacy and the lack thereof. If we take it casually, we’re playing with fire. |
Mainstreaming The Smart Grid | Takafumi Arai | 2,014 | 11 | 29 | The October anniversary of Hurricane Sandy — which knocked out power in over 8,100,000 homes in 17 and was the second-costliest hurricane in U.S. history — has served as an opportunity to reflect on how we view our power grid. The practice is important. Stephen Lacey provided some of the of what caused the storm and how utilities are adapting the grid. Many utilities across the country took note and have been actively researching and implementing solutions to prepare for the next big storm. But out of that R&D, which factors deserve the most attention and resources? In my view, if utilities aren’t looking at how to implement smart meters, solar power generations systems and storage batteries, their system will be outdated in the next year. So what are some of the top utilities and companies doing in the U.S. to advance their grids with these solutions? Smart meters do more than just automatically turn up or down your heat, which is a simplistic explanation that is used pretty often. For example, (FPL) has spent over two decades working on a distribution system that extends from the smart meter to a performance and diagnostic center. Its system collects and leverages detailed information on outages – from momentary disruptions to trees falling on power lines – to understand and anticipate what is wrong in a current situation and respond automatically to imminent or current outages. Smart meters are helping to manage water, too. Last year, the (SFPUC) announced a $50 million project to install 177,000 new meters to automatically transmit hourly data back to the utility. Similar to the FPL example, the system can collect data on usage without anyone – the consumer or utility – having to manually check. Let’s say a water pipe breaks in your house while you’re on vacation. Because the utility sees that this produces unusual activity, it can turn off your water until you come back to deal with it. You can find similar stories happening in utilities all over the country, and that’s because they understand the impact of smart meters not just in day-to-day energy usage, but also for aiding in disasters like Sandy. Let’s say every building and home in every state that was affected by Sandy had been equipped with a smart meter. Instead of taking weeks to manually search for outages in the electric or water lines (which is costly and can present a significant safety hazard), a smart meter could pinpoint the location of the fault so the utility could fix it quickly. You’ve likely seen homes equipped with solar-powered roofs or panels. As the White House in May 2014, every four minutes a new solar panel is being installed. These homes are becoming increasingly common, especially in areas with utilities that are offering incentives for installation, such as in Michigan. (Michigan’s regulatory actions and financial incentives support this – specifically a 30 percent federal tax credit for any size project.) These photovoltaic (PV) systems collect energy from the sun, and because they are connected directly to the grid, they can power the energy we use on a daily basis – from cooking to showering to simply heating the house. The concept of consumers being able to power their own energy use – as long as it’s tied back to the grid – is a compelling one. But as these systems continue to be distributed for mainstream usage, U.S. utilities are also looking to Germany for guidance. Germany is a good case study, both for its successes and its oversights. Although it has come a long way since it started, German utilities vastly underestimated the popularity of rooftop solar when the initiative was new, so they didn’t prepare for the expensive upgrades the grid needed to support it. For example, the electricity produced must be converted from DC (direct current) to 120/240 volt AC (alternating current) for consumers to use in the home. It doesn’t just do it itself – utilities need the right software and hardware in their infrastructure. Another component of solar-power systems is storage batteries, which aren’t currently used much because they are still very expensive. However, these are guaranteed to take off in the very near future, and will be a critical component to a stable power grid. Typically, when a utility loses power, solar generation systems are automatically shut down. But with effective storage batteries, the system could remain operational for days or weeks at a time. In fact, earlier this year Navigant Research released a on how effective batteries could have a significant impact on our grid. When it comes to storage batteries, there are several factors a developer needs to consider. First, how safe is it? Keep in mind that a small nine-volt battery in a junk drawer next to some steel wool can burn down your house. The batteries we’re talking about are on a whole new level. For example, lithium-based batteries, which are as an option for energy solutions, can lead to gas leaks and ultimately fire if subjected to a host of thermal (it gets too cold) or electric (external or internal short circuits) abuse . Second, how quickly can it recharge and how long can it keep that charge? What if you live in an area like London, which is notorious for its overcast days? Or can it maintain during the winter months when we have longer stretches of dark than light? Lastly, how efficient is it? Is it using more energy to store than it is to keep your solar-powered system running? At Toshiba, we believe these are the critical questions that should be asked when developing battery solutions. We can’t control hurricane season, and most of us will likely experience another hurricane similar to Sandy in the U.S. But with the technology and solutions available to us today, what we prevent is the same level of destruction. The onus is not just on utilities and companies, but on all consumers who can ask their local utility what is being done to advance their systems. |
The Lesson Of Monument Valley | Tadhg Kelly | 2,014 | 11 | 16 | I’m fascinated by the reviews left by players in the wake of the decision by the game’s developer (ustwo) to price a recent content update at not-free. Ustwo had released the original game at $4 featuring 10 levels. The game was a labor of love and earned many just awards. It also went to sell in excess of 1.4 million copies – a feat that exemplifies how can work very well. This latest pack brings 8 new levels to the game and costs a pretty trivial $2. And yet in its wake came . But why? On the face of it it seems petulant to review a game so harshly over such a small amount of money. You can’t buy much for two dollars after all. I suppose you could take yourself off to Dollar Tree and buy two stuffed toys for a buck each and pray they aren’t flammable. You could pop into a Starbucks and buy a Grande Fresh Brewed Coffee, or to McDonalds and acquire a , and have a few cents to spare. But not both. Or you could throw two bucks into a hit game to buy the fruits of many moons of hard work and obtain hours of further enjoyment. When you say it like that this sounds like a fair deal, no? A trip to go see Interstellar would cost you 5x-10x as much (and wouldn’t be half as much fun) while a fancy dinner out would cost you 30x-100x as much as . More if you wanted to really go nuts. It seems simple, obvious even, that at these kinds of prices games offer fantastic value and that anyone getting such a good deal would be nothing other than overjoyed. But some folks just do not see it that way. Price in mobile (or indeed any) platform is one of those issues that’s easy to misjudge. I often hear developers paint it as an example of entitlement or overly-expectant customers. As a developer it’s comforting to think that some players are a bit selfish, always on the take and that the task of getting better ARPU is necessarily adversarial. From indies through to casino folks, that mentality leads to thinking about how much can be got from how little. And it tends to lead to confirmation bias because someone somewhere will always behave like a dick. But when consumers react in groups, such as in ’s case, there’s more to it than that. It’s about perception. As developers we make the mistake of thinking that players are automata in systems that sometimes convert them into money. Or we make the mistake of thinking that players are noble aesthetes who want to engage with us on the very highest levels. We over-infer the impact of some decisions and under-infer others. We make the case in our own minds, for example, that putting free-to-play in our games is actually about choice (and then makes fun ). We make the case for price points or charging strategies on what we feel should be true (rather than actually is true). The thing is it’s not the actual amount that matters. It’s whether you understand what you are selling, or rather what your players think they’re buying. As a game developer or publisher you might see your work as a product, something bought and sold. Therefore it seems fair that you charge in a semi-commoditized fashion. I gave you 10 levels for X, I want to sell you 8 levels for X/2. Good deal! But players often see their purchase more in the light of a commuter ticket or a pass to a buffet. They judge less on volume of content and more on quality of experience. And having paid for the ticket to go visit your world they feel it’s fair that they can continue to go there. And so they feel aggrieved in situations where extra conditions are then stapled onto that ticket. I first witnessed this kind of furore in the selling of horse armor as a special item in the Xbox 360 version of (2006). In case the scenario was that the game’s developers sold this extra item as downloadable content for a price over and above the basic game, and fans were up in arms as they are with Monument Valley today. It seemed to violate this sense of having bought an All-You-Can-Eat pass and caused a stink. sold a lot of horse armor. I imagine ustwo will do the same with levels despite the gripes. Indeed many of their fans followed on from a social media campaign to correct the 1-star reviews with reviews of their own, bringing everything back to an even keel pretty quickly. But does that mean there was no problem at all? No. The aura of these kinds of events can play through a franchise for many years. horse armor episode, for example, is regularly featured in “ ” lists. It left a dissatisfied air. As mobile gaming in particular looks to expand its remit and become for games as well as just a player and revenue destination, sensitivity to how players think becomes more important. If you do intend to make mobile games and try to capture their “cool” market, be aware of what you’re really selling. |
Lazada, Rocket Internet’s Amazon Clone In Southeast Asia, Raises $250M Led By Temasek | Jon Russell | 2,014 | 11 | 29 | We don’t often see companies announce funding rounds on the weekend, but that’s not stopping , the Rocket Internet-backed e-commerce firm in Southeast Asia, from today that it has pulled in €200 million (around $250 million) in fresh capital. The round is lead by Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, which manages a $100-billion-plus portfolio and this year invested in another Amazon rival: Snapdeal in India. The deal includes participation from a number of existing Lazada investors, including Kinnevik, Verlinvest and Rocket Internet, and it values the company at €1 billion ($1.25 billion). Lazada operates in six countries in Southeast Asia — Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam — largely in tandem with , another well-backed e-commerce service started by Rocket Internet. This new funding round takes Lazada to more than $700 million in money from investors. Its most back in December 2013, which included an interesting strategic investment from UK retail giant Tesco. Together, Zalora and Lazada have probably raised around $1 billion in funding, although the valu e of some rounds were left undisclosed. Maximilian Bittner, CEO of Lazada Group, explained that money will be spent investing in logistics, infrastructure, payments solution and IT systems. Bittner pointed out that Lazada needs to continue to spend because e-commerce is still “in its early days” in Southeast Asia: This investment provides us with the strategic flexibility to further anchor our leadership position and enhance the shopping experience for our customers. We are extremely delighted to welcome Temasek as a new investor and long-term local partner and we are also very grateful for the continued confidence of our existing investors. To us, it is a clear recognition of our leading regional footprint, and an affirmation of the growth strategy and potential of our business. Lazada has not revealed a lot of new figures today, but it did claim that its sellers marketplace — an Alibaba/Rakuten-style platform for third-party retailers — is growing strongly, and it helped GMV (the total amount of transactions from retailers) across Lazada to double since June 2014. Lazada says its marketplace now accounts for 70 percent of its revenue. Raw figures about its business did reach the public domain this summer, however, as part of Rocket Internet’s IPO in Germany. , Lazada brought in $91.4 million in the first six months of 2014, generating 1.8 million orders from 1.4 million active users. Those modest returns perhaps explain why it has been placing more emphasis on its marketplace. This funding for Lazada follows , a Rocket Internet e-commerce company in Africa, earlier this week. Rocket Internet companies tend to collect fresh investment in waves, so don’t be surprised if other e-commerce businesses backed by the German group also announce new funding rounds soon. Rocket Internet is in the process into one single entity — called Global Fashion Group (GFG) — but Lazada, which was initially focused on electronics but has expanded to other verticals, is not part of that group. |
null | Ian Thiel | 2,014 | 11 | 11 | null |
A Gift Guide For The Core Gamer Who Wants It All | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 11 | 16 | Do you like games? Do you also like playing them, regardless of surroundings, access to power, Wi-Fi or a clean water supply? We’ve got you covered, with a list of must-haves for those who’d rather play in virtual worlds than exist outside them. Strap in and prepare your hands with ample stretching, because what follows will arm you for hours of game time, both on-the-go, and at home, in all the resolutions and on all the things. If you’re looking for a solid gaming desktop, Falcon makes some of the best ones around. The Tiki offers a very powerful and customizable compact tower that makes the perfect Steam box, and it’s also a rarity in the gaming PC market in that it boasts understated looks and won’t necessarily ruin the decor in your living room. The Falcon Tiki is great when you’re at home, but when you’re on the road, you need a gaming laptop. The Asus ROG GL551J provides a great mix of portability, affordability and graphics power thanks to the Nvidia GeForce GTX 860M graphics card it’s packing, with 2GB of dedicated memory. Speaking of Nvidia, if you have an Nvidia graphics card in either your notebook or your desktop, it only makes sense to pick up the Shield Tablet. Nvidia’s newest Android-powered gaming device offers home and remote streaming with its recent cards, and it’s one of the best Android tablets available, too. Want to game at resolutions beyond HD? Many modern PCs and graphics cards can handle UHD (or 4K) resolution, but they need a display that can also support that kind of output. The Monoprice 28-inch 4K monitor offers great resolution, at a price that won’t break the bank. Modern gaming is about flexibility – being able to play wherever you want. Sony knows this, and they’ve made PS4 Remote Play available on a number of devices, including the new PlayStation TV. This is basically the guts of a PlayStation Vita, without the display, designed to be plugged into a television. It’s a great option for a multi-TV household, without requiring you to buy multiple PS4s. If you haven’t played Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare in HD at 120 inches, you haven’t truly gamed. This is a great projector in terms of balancing cost vs. brightness, contrast and picture quality, and it offers 3D for games that support it. This may seem out of place, but Google’s Nexus Player is a perfect device for enjoying the great crop of controller-friendly platforms being created for mobile devices, including Leo’s Fortune, Badlands, The Cave and more. Retro favourites like Double Dragon and Sonic The Hedgehog only sweeten the pot. If you’re after the best smartphone for mobile gaming, the 6 Plus with its A8X processor and huge, high-density display is the best available option, due in no small part to the extensive library of great gaming apps available for iOS. |
Apple Adds UnionPay, China’s Largest Bankcard Network, To App Store Payment Options | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 11 | 16 | App Store customers in China can now link their debit or credit cards to their Apple IDs for purchases, announced today. This is significant for Apple and Chinese consumers because China UnionPay, a bankcard network approved by China’s State Council and the People’s Bank of China, enjoys a virtual monopoly. It has issued more than 4.5 billion cards in China, and is available in all cities, as well as in overseas market. China (which ) is Apple’s most important growth market; in its recent fourth-quarter earnings report, the company reported that the market generated $29.8 billion, or 16 percent, in net sales in 2014. China UnionPay is the only interbank network in mainland China to link all ATMs. Government regulations mean that all ATMs and Chinese merchants have to use UnionPay to process payments in renminbi, as well as foreign credit card companies like Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, which pay UnionPay a fee for each transaction. Previously, . In a statement, Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, said “the ability to buy apps and make purchases using UnionPay cards has been one of the most requested features from our customers in China. China is already our second largest market for app downloads, and now we’re providing users with an incredibly convenient way to purchase their favorite apps with just one tap.” The link-up between Apple and UnionPay is also interesting because it comes after news that Alipay, which was founded by the Alibaba Group, and Apple Pay . An Alipay-Apple hookup , which was slow to strike an agreement with Apple. But even though Alipay is China’s largest online payments system and is , the physical retail market is still overwhelmingly dominated by UnionPay. Furthermore, Alipay is still not available for Apple services, including the App Store. While it hasn’t been made official, a partnership between the two tech giants seems likely: during a recent visit to China, Cook gushed about Alipay, saying “we love to partner with people that are wicked smart, that have flexible teams, that are product based and we like to push them. I think Jack [Ma, Alibaba Group’s founder] has a company just like that.” Another good sign for Alipay is the decision, , by the State Council to open its payment system to foreign companies, which could also allow Alipay to expand its physical payment points because it means it no longer has to follow UnionPay’s rules. |
Panasonic Partners With Photon To Build Smarter Signs In Stores | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 11 | 16 | , a company that’s been focused on building mobile experiences for large brands, is teaming up with Panasonic to bring what they say will be a more personalized experience to the digital signs you see in stores. The goal is to combine Photon’s software with Panasonic displays, so that those displays will know more about the customer. That information can be used to deliver targeted offers, as well as check in, make purchases,and more. For example, the company says that at a brick-and-mortar retailer, a customer might look at the digital signage, view personalized offers, bring up directions to where a product is in the store, and scan bar codes with the mobile app to make purchases. Or in a fast food restaurant, the customer could either order from a kiosk or on their phone, then pick their food and offer feedback through the kiosk. The technology could also be used for hotel check-in, Photon says, and to help medical patients confirm appointments, find their doctors, and collect their prescriptions. Behind the scenes, co-founder and CTO Mukund Balasubramanian said that Photon will work with businesses to “templatized the lifecycle of what a typical customer goes through.” Photon also says says it already has 60 million “daily digital touchpoints” — which should be helpful as Photon works to create what Balasubramanian described as “a holistic view” of the customer that combines their past purchases, as well as activity on the web, mobile, and in stores. When it comes to making that vision of personalized messages throughout the store a reality, Balasubramanian acknowledged that there’s plenty of competition. As he put it, “Apple and Google are trying to vie for the future of this omni-channel vision. But it can only be realized with a harmonious marriage of hardware and software” — and naturally, he said Photon and Panasonic have that marriage. Richard Hsu, Panasonic’s vice president of global solutions and engineering, echoed Balasubramanian, telling me that this is “a partnership with the best hardware and the best software.” How close is this to actually becoming a reality? Balasubramanian told me that from a technology standpoint, everything is in place: “I’m comfortable saying we’re ready and open for business.” Photon and Panasonic are currently working with a few early partners (they didn’t say which ones) to test this out in stores. That’s a long way from the wide range of uses that the Photon team described to me, but hey, even for a vision this big, you’ve gotta start somewhere. |
Netflix Kills Off Its Public API, Takes A Few Applications Down With It | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 11 | 16 | Are you a developer? Do you have a brilliant idea for the next Netflix-powered app? Too bad! Netflix’s public API is now dead. If you’ve previously built something that tapped Netflix for its data, it’s probably dead now too. The move isn’t surprising – just disappointing. , barring any newcomers from gaining access. As of this weekend, however, even those who’ve had access to the API for years have been given the boot. Only a very, short list of apps will live on as partners, presumably being given access to a private API. InstantWatcher, CanIStreamIt?, Flixster, Fanhattan, Yidio, and a few other lucky ones carry one. But apps like , which we wrote up last year as “A way to find movies worth watching on Netflix”, are shutting the doors today. Write’s ABetterQueue’s developer Dave Jachimiak: Sadly, it’s the end of the road for A Better Queue. It relied on Netflix’s public API, and Netflix retired the API on November 14th, 2014 . Thanks to everyone who sent feature requests over the past couple of years. I had more plans for A Better Queue, but once I realized that the Netflix API retirement was imminent, it became clear that putting more effort into the project wasn’t worth the time. It’s a bummer, but perhaps for the best.. at least until Netflix is willing to put the time into making an API that isn’t terrible. Their API would often change without much notice, its documentation was weak at best, and they offered up two entirely separate APIs, neither of which really ever had a full feature set. Want to help people find a sci-fi movie from 1985? Easy. Want to provide a button that’ll consistently open the Netflix app and start playing that movie? Good luck with that. Meanwhile, . Pity there’s no API for developers to experiment with to try and fix that. |
Disney, A Mobile Company | Matthew Panzarino | 2,014 | 11 | 16 | In the central corridor of the animation building at Disney Studios there is a gold-leafed cupola hovering directly over a marble inlay of Steamboat Willie, the movie considered to be the debut of Mickey Mouse. If you stand under the dome and speak, you’ll hear your voice reverberate. To everyone else standing outside the circle, your voice sounds merely human, but to the person standing in Willie’s shoes it sounds like an auditorium. This miniature echo chamber, to me, represents the danger that a self-sustaining multi-faceted company like Disney faces when making strategic choices. When the company can do just about anything it wants — take any path — how does it decide which to pursue? And, more importantly, how does it not fall prey to its own echo chamber — how enabled do they feel to say ‘no’ to things? ——— Late last week Disney had a press event that — for the first time ever — gathered all of the disparate parts of its empire together to talk about what they’re doing in mobile. Television, movies, mobile games, console games, cruises, parks and its new Maker Studios acquisition all pitched new products and discussed how they were doing overall. I kept my ears open for a narrative, but it proved a bit harder to suss out than I expected. For an organization that thrives on storytelling, and is remaking itself into a Procter & Gamble of perennial franchises, the threads that ran through all of the presentations weren’t emphasized as well as they could be. But there were a few standout observations. Here they are in no particular order. Throughout the presentations, from sports to The Avengers, the word “focus” kept coming up. Disney is, slowly, learning to say “no.” One example of this is the trimming down of ESPN’s app offerings and its consolidation under one look and feel. All of the apps will now work the same, and most of them will bear ESPN’s branding. SportsCenter, while remaining a Disney brand, will no longer have its own app, for instance. When I spoke to ESPN SVP of Digital Products Ryan Spoon after the presentation he noted that they had been slowly trimming down their app offerings over the past couple of years. Partially, he told me, this was due to the benefits that came from a shared stack between the various apps and verticals. But there was also the matter of localization. The SportsCenter app was very popular in some overseas regions, but not so much in the U.S. ESPN as a brand is a global badge, which provides an easy calling card. I’ve become a bit obsessed lately with this idea of pieces of content that are atomic units unto themselves. The concept of an ‘article’ or a ‘website’ being the base unit of measurement for content strikes me as largely over. There was this trend for a few years — especially with large companies — towards attempting to create ‘internal networks’ for users to share content between one another. Now, the opposite is true. Bits of content (one item in a listicle, a video with a bit of writer commentary attached, a block quote, a paragraph of context) are being broken out in packages that can be shared in already existing silos — driving traffic and attention backwards, but also existing as monetizable entities of their own.* That arrangement comes with a few major caveats — not the least of which is that creators are ceding a lot of influence and control to networks like Facebook and Twitter. Control that it may not be possible to regain, and that is used first and foremost to benefit Facebook and Twitter, not anyone else. But, for now, it’s leading to major gains in audience and Disney is waking up to that. Cards of ESPN content, a team or a particular game or highlight reel are not only present on the new site, but they’re also shareable to Twitter and Facebook. They contain a bunch of content that can exist outside of Disney’s silo, but are still counted and (Disney was careful to mention) can also bring advertiser content like pre-rolls or sponsor logos along with them. They’re crisply defined packets of content that can still be sold. The same goes for the ESPN and ABC streaming apps, which have a new ‘FastShare’ feature that automatically clips out highlights and ‘shareable’ moments for people to send out with Disney messaging attached. These clips are atomized via a combination of automation and human curation, and Disney said they’re doing well, though it said it was ‘too early’ to share numbers as the features launched only recently. If you’re a parent, or a Disneyphile of any sort, then you know that the quality of Disney’s mobile apps has not always been great. Frankly, there has been a lot of utter dross shipped on the App Store under Disney’s aegis over the years. Cheap ports and crappy rebrands that were disrespectful of the company’s brand. Over the past few years, Disney has trimmed back on that stuff and is now focusing on a three-tier system. 1. Co-development with an outside studio. 2. Licensing. 3. Vertical, in-house development of their first-party titles. The in-house team focuses on just a few titles a year, attempting to keep quality up. Co-development focuses on applying Disney branding to well-known games or archetypes. Examples of this include Temple Run: OZ, which is actually pretty fun and was developed by the original creators in conjunction with Disney producers. Where’s My Mickey, another good example, combines Where’s My Water with the (fantastic) animation style of the new Disney shorts — themselves created by some of the team behind Spongebob Squarepants and Dexter’s Laboratory. If you poll your way through Disney’s offerings on the App Store today there is still some ‘fluff’ that could probably get cut, but it’s a far cry better than it used to be. The catalog is more focused and of generally better quality than it once was. And a lot of that comes from Disney realizing that — for much of their demo — the second screen is actually the first screen. Disney shared a bevy of aggressive mobile statistics throughout its presentation, but a few stood out as telling. And this is all before the Disney Infinity 2.0 app, which will add iPhones for the first time (and multiplayer). Disney could have its own Minecraft on its hands here, another virtual world which is proving incredibly popular on iPad. I played with the app a bit at the event, and it’s really well done. It looks great, has a super high framerate and plays the exact same Toy Box levels with no restrictions on features or controls from the console versions. Sean Patton, a producer and developer of the app, told me that Apple’s new Metal frameworks contributed greatly to this. They’re able to do things that they never would have even tried on older mobile devices. Notably, Infinity is not on Android and Patton said that they had ‘nothing to say’ on that at the moment. Largely, this is because Disney aims for the broadest possible compatibility for its apps and the fractious nature of Android’s graphics chip landscape makes it impossible for Disney to count on Infinity 2.0 being playable on more than a handful of high-end devices. Meanwhile, the Infinity 2.0 app will work on devices down to the iPhone 5, and Metal builds will be available on the 5s and up. Disney’s offerings are appealing to mobile users in an enormous way. This is likely due to a host of things. Fantasy Sports are incredibly popular on mobile. People want to tweet about shows just as much as they want to watch them. Disney’s younger demographic has near constant access to phones and tablets, which is where they watch shows and play games non-stop. The stat about people playing Disney Infinity on iPad more than all other platforms combined is pretty staggering — and is an enormously key statistic for the future at Disney. In his kickoff speech, Disney Chairman and CEO Bob Iger told a story about the first time Steve Jobs showed him the video iPod. Iger had asked Steve to chat about putting ABC content in the iTunes Store. Jobs met with him, slyly pulling Apple’s mobile video progenitor device out of a plain paper lunch bag. Jobs would go on to introduce the video iPod in late 2005 — along with Disney programming for sale in the iTunes store. “In the last four or five years — I think about it as the digital-mobile era — we’ve seen breathtaking changes to just about every corner of our business,” says Iger. “When you think about a technology or a change that sweeps over a business that affects every single aspect of it…It would be easy to look at something like [mobile] as being highly disruptive, particularly to a media company that by and large is in traditional media businesses.” Iger said that the decision they made in 2005 to commit to mobile helped them to ‘ride that wave’ instead of being ‘swept over’ by it. If you’re a recent student of the Apple/Disney relationship then you may not remember that it was in the crapper in 2005, due to the approaching end of the Pixar/Disney tie-up and bad blood therein. The arrangement to sell Disney content (via ABC) was seen as a step towards burying the Pixar hatchet, which we all know happened. But, more importantly, it was the first step in a chain that has continued to link Disney to mobile. If there’s one thing that the past few years has made evident for Disney it’s that making sure your products are ‘on mobile’ and fully embracing it are different things entirely. The lesson: when you believe that you’ve done enough, it’s worth honestly evaluating to make sure you’re prepared for a world where mobile is everything, and everything else is just the echo. * |
Pitch Your Startup On TechCrunch Radio On Sirius XM | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 11 | 16 | After a highly successful 6-week pilot, and a brief hiatus, is returning and settling in for a much longer stay. We’ll be returning very soon for our usual hour-long show on Sirius XM 102 Indie, and like usual, we’ll be holding our rapid-fire startup pitch-off. If you’re new to the program, TechCrunch Radio is a new radio show hosted by TechCrunch East Coast Editor John Biggs and myself. We discuss the week’s news, bring on interesting folks to interview about the future of various technological industries, and then head into a pitch-off, where five companies have exactly sixty seconds to impress us, a VC guest judge, and our dear listeners. The show airs every Tuesday at 6pm ET/3pm PT, with a replay on the West Coast at 6pm PT. We need your help. In order to have a pitch-off, we need entrepreneurs with products to pitch. That’s where you come in. It’s a great way to spread awareness for your company, get feedback from VCs and members of the tech media, and of course, practice your radio voice. So apply! But read the rules first.
1. You must have a product that is available to general users. No sign-up pages or pre-orders with a TBD ship date. There must be a link we can give to listeners/readers where they can access your product, service, what have you.
2. You must be an early stage company. If you have raised a Series A or later, you are disqualified. Bootstrapped or seed stage startups are welcome.
3. You must be able to pitch your product with your words only.
4. You must be able to operate a telephone.
It’s going to be a hoot! You can also . |
Why Did Google Decide To Split Inbox From Gmail? | Marat Ryndin | 2,014 | 11 | 16 | A couple of years ago, right around the time Google’s Gmail team decided to start working on a standalone email app — the recently announced Inbox — a major redesign of Gmail was launched. As is the case with all Google products it was first released internally as “dogfood” to let Googlers themselves digest all the new features, or as was the case with this particular redesign, the removal of most of the advanced features. The Gmail team did not have to wait for the reaction for long. And it wasn’t very “googly.” It caused an uproar teeming with disgust for just about every decision the Gmail product/design team made. Phrases like, “You guys just completely destroyed Gmail!” and “What are these crazy designers doing over there?!” were everywhere. From being spoken at many of Google’s cafes to every internal online forum. Google engineers, in typical OCD engineer fashion, wrote long internal Google+ and forum posts detailing every single use case that was no longer supported, no matter how obscure. Hell hath no fury like a product team removing a feature an engineer had been using on a daily basis. Add to that the decision to turn words into icons and add white space between rows and Google engineers were ready to storm the Gmail product/design team office with torches, swords and in full knight armor (you’d be surprised how many Google engineers own that stuff). In response, the head of the Gmail design team made a presentation entitled “You Are Not the User.” If you were not lucky enough to witness the carnage in person you could view its archived version on the internal Google+. The presentation detailed the reasons behind every decision the design/product team made showing gobs of usability data supporting the decisions to remove advanced features that the overwhelming majority of Gmail users were never using. These features, it was argued, were unnecessarily complicating the user interface when most people just wanted a simple email client. All of the decisions revolved around the central fact that a typical Gmail user was receiving only about five emails per day, most of which were of promotional nature, and as such, required no response. This was in contrast to a typical Googler who received an average of about 450 emails per day, many of which were important to at least read, with a good chunk of them requiring a reply. Despite supplying a large amount of concrete data supporting the Gmail design/product team’s decisions the presentation did not quell the criticism, but rather stoked the fire even more. Even its title was called “purposefully inflammatory” and further upset Googlers who, like many techies, were using every possible advanced feature to deal with the daily onslaught of email. Finally, a compromise was reached. Gmail would stay streamlined and optimized for its gigantic user base (hundreds of millions of monthly active users) while still keeping some of the more advanced features (now well hidden) for those who really needed them. In parallel, the Gmail team would begin working on a standalone product specifically designed from the ground up for advanced users who have to handle a firehose of incoming emails every day. And that’s how Inbox was born. |
Meet Your New Boss, Mr. Algorithm | Danny Crichton | 2,014 | 11 | 16 | new boss. It’s flexible, willing to change work schedules so you can work when you want, and not when you don’t. It’s reasonable, providing you honest feedback without the politics of your last human boss. And Algo will find new projects for you to complete, so you always have something interesting to work on while receiving a paycheck. The best part is, “Algo” is pretty much here. We all know the story about algorithms and work the past few years. Service jobs across the country are increasingly being managed with the help of mathematical models of customer demand, revolutionizing everything from taxi driving to food delivery, home cleaning, and laundromats. I have argued that the increased autonomy and flexibility of these jobs means that as the primary driver of workers’ rights in the 21st century. But now, startups are starting to move up the corporate ladder, using algorithms to improve and disrupt professions that up until recently have seemed almost completely insulated from the efficiencies of computation. Two Boston-based startups, and , are using sophisticated algorithms to compete with some of the most-well known firms in consulting and quantitative finance, respectively. As they begin to disrupt these two industries, both hope to expand and democratize their professions to anyone with the talent and desire to work. If they are successful in their ambitions, we may start to see a world where elite and inaccessible credentials are replaced by performance-based reviews, creating a much more meritocratic workforce than we have today. It will also provide workers with far more flexibility in their daily lives, something that is heavily demanded by today’s workforce. And while flexibility does often come at the cost of job security, this new wave of startups promises to provide great livelihoods to a wider number of people. There is a running joke about consultants: they charge you a lot of money to tell you what you already know. While top management consulting firms may emphasize their unique skillsets and talents to prospective clients, the reality is that the vast majority of consulting work falls into a handful of routine project types like competitive analysis, new market entry, and product pricing that most MBAs are trained in business school to perform. HourlyNerd is hoping to open up the consulting profession by connecting potential clients through a marketplace to their large number of independent consultants. They have already seen significant traction, with several five-figure projects completed and several larger ones in the works. The company was founded in January 2013 by Rob Biederman and Pat Petitti, two MBA students from Harvard Business School who thought that the current model of consulting just didn’t make sense in a world of flexible workplaces and democratized marketplaces. Based on their own experiences in management consulting and investment banking, the founders designed a product for companies looking to hire top consulting talent at more wholesale rates than full-service firms provide. The company caught the eye of investors, in capital from the likes of Highland and Greylock earlier this year. Traditionally, a group of consultants, led by an engagement manager and backed up by a coterie of associates and analysts, decamp to a client’s corporate headquarters for 3–6 months to conduct interviews, collect data, and perform analysis to come up with a solution to a defined business problem. These consulting deals are often worth millions of dollars, preventing all but the richest companies from getting access to top talent. At the same time, the consulting team gets worn out from the grueling weekly travel schedule. HourlyNerd sees itself as both more responsive and more valuable to companies. The startup guides perspective clients through building a project proposal and selecting talent, using algorithms and previous performance data to find the right match. Unlike consulting firms, which may take weeks or even months to get a team in place, HourlyNerd may be able to connect a company to a consultant in just days, accelerating the business cycle for managers. On the other side of the marketplace, the company recruits MBAs from top schools, with the hopes of expanding the talent pool as it learns more about the qualities that make for the best consultants. When they first start, new consultants are put on relatively simple projects to gauge their abilities. As they prove themselves to clients, they transition to projects that are more complex. For consultants, the top benefit of the platform is the flexibility. They can travel the world while earning money a few weeks at a time, or they can work full-time, but only on projects of their choosing. That level of control is unique in the industry, and a key selling point to entrepreneurial business students who . Quantopian has a simple vision for the future of algorithmic finance: at home, in shorts and a t-shirt. The startup is developing an algorithmic trading platform that will allow quants from anywhere to craft their own investment strategies and potentially strike it rich. , the startup was still building out its trading platform and algorithm design tools, and ignoring how it was going to make money. Now, with its platform fully formed and flush with , the company is preparing for an even more audacious goal: the first democratized hedge fund in the country. The company, led by CEO John Fawcett, is hoping to eventually open its platform to all investors so that anyone with the right performance track record will be able to manage a part of a central pool of capital – and profit from the returns. That’s a massive change, since today’s hedge fund managers can’t just be excellent quants, but must sell their ideas to prospective limited partners, a rarefied world that is mostly inaccessible to all but bankers on Wall Street. Quantopian will constantly monitor the strategies of all the algorithmic traders on its platform, identifying those with the best returns with minimal risk. It will then build and adjust its portfolio to carefully select a balanced set of these strategies. Instead of the one-hit wonder that plagues the hedge fund industry today, the startup believes that it can create sustainable growth as it moves from one effective algorithm to another. The challenges to its model though are legion. As Fawcett explained to me recently, building such an algorithm is extraordinarily difficult, since there are real challenges in balancing how algorithmic traders use their own accounts with how they might trade with others’ capital. There are also complications arising from the diversity of algorithms that might be used on the platform to the risk models available to Quantopian to judge them. These issues are vexing, but not intractable. It may seem weird that your human boss could be replaced by a computer, but that unfamiliarity is likely to be soothed by the freedom of the work that you will be able to do in the future. For the first time, independent professionals may have better access to interesting projects than even the best firms in their industry. They will have a global network of opportunities to select from, which not only makes work more interesting, but also brings new challenges that will allow these professionals to develop their careers more rapidly. Perhaps even more importantly, professionals will be able to cross marketplaces, breaking the categorization that is endemic in these fields. A doctor who wants to do business consulting on the side will be able to do so, improving their practice. Rather than putting workers in boxes, this new wave of startups has the ability to usher in a unique period of creativity for talented people. And we are likely to see more of these startups. Zavain Dar, who recently joined Lux Capital as an investor, believes that algorithms are hitting their stride due to a confluence of three factors. First, we finally have the data infrastructure to be able to process lots of data, using technologies like Hadoop. Second, we now have the ability to digitize massive data into unstructured datasets, often stored in the cloud. Finally, we have the ability to analyze this unstructured data in intelligent ways that were impossible just a few years ago. That’s in part why we are seeing this move up the corporate ladder by startups. Up until now, most talent marketplaces have been based around demand forecast models, in which workers are matched with clients as needed, whether that means getting a vehicle to a certain part of a city or a meal to a home. While certainly not a trivial task, these algorithms are also common enough to be readily implementable. But what about managing a hedge fund portfolio or identifying the best consultant for a project? Suddenly, there is much more nuance involved, and the algorithms will have to become equally sophisticated. Dar emphasizes the product feedback loop. “From a venture perspective, it is surprisingly easy to be an entrepreneur and look at a cool dataset and a cool algorithm and have the infrastructure to use it, so that you can go and build a startup. I don’t think that is going to be a long-term company.” Instead, he emphasizes that entrepreneurs should build products that can use data to make the algorithm better over time. “Everyone knows how Google’s algorithm works, but no one has the same data that Google has to train that algorithm and make it work really well. They have probably the most proprietary and valuable dataset, which is the clickstream data.” That is perhaps the best point of these sorts of elite talent startups. As more people and projects join them, the quality of their algorithms will increase, creating a positive cycle of improvement. Of course, there are real concerns as we move away from traditional models of employment to more flexible ones. Job security is conditioned on performance, but what happens if a client is unhappy and tries to end your career by destroying your credibility? Startups will have to balance the desire of clients wanting past performance data with the need to recognize how talent develops over time, so that an early mistake in a career isn’t deadly to a worker’s future prospects. Coupled with performance is simply the issue of salary security. If you don’t work, you don’t get paid. That means that parents who would like to take time off to be with their newborn, or a worker who gets sick and needs to take leave will be able to do so, but at a direct financial cost. There are likely ways to mitigate such impacts, but these are real challenges to solve. Beyond individuals, automation and efficiency have already eliminated entire professions and downsized others. Companies no longer account for their profits using rows of humans crunching numbers, and telephone operators are no longer a typical occurrence when we dial long-distance. Up until now, automation has been far less common in white-collar and elite professions like medicine, law, banking, and consulting. That is changing, and fast. Ten years ago, the market for lawyers in the United States was healthy, taking in thousands of new legal graduates a year with salaries far more than double the median income in the United States. , with many graduates reporting that the best jobs they can find are paying $12–15 per hour. Dozens of legal startups like RocketLawyer and LegalZoom offer services that used to cost thousands of dollars for just a fraction of that price. So far, the fate of lawyers hasn’t yet befallen management consultants or bankers. But what happens when work becomes cheaper in these professions as well? Ironically, the great income inequality that we have witnessed over the past 30 years may end up becoming even more acute. Ultimately, our best bet may be a market that is a combination of the old and the new, perhaps driven by algorithms in the middle helping us match work to workers. Such a hybrid market will allow us to choose between extreme flexibility and no security, or security with limited flexibility. For the first time, we will have a say in the matter, and all we have to do is ask Algo. |
What’s Next For Firefox? | Frederic Lardinois | 2,014 | 11 | 28 | When historians look at the history of the Web ten or twenty years from now, chances are they will point to Firefox as one of the most important products of the . But right now, it’s hard not to look at Firefox and worry a little bit about its future. At the height of its success, , Firefox owned more than a quarter of the browser market in the U.S. and almost a third in Europe. Today, those numbers are much lower in most regions (though Germans still love Firefox ). The exact numbers always depend on who you ask, but the trend is the same everywhere — and it’s not looking good for Mozilla’s browser. Google’s Chrome launched at a time when Firefox development felt stagnant. I remember firing up Chrome for the first time back in 2008 and being astonished by how fast it was. I had been a long-time Firefox user at that time and Chrome — even in those early betas — blew it away. Much has changed since then and when it comes to speed, Firefox is now comparable again to Chrome (and it even it on some benchmarks). Firefox had left an opening for Chrome and Google marched right through it. Things on the desktop aren’t looking great for Firefox, but Mozilla is also at best an also-ran on mobile. Apple didn’t allow third-party browser engines on its platform during the early days and even as Android gained in popularity, it still took Mozilla a while to launch a useful version of Firefox on that platform. Then, over the last few years, Mozilla tried to make up ground by launching its own platform. That was an audacious effort and I can only laud it for its effort to bring low-cost phones to developing countries — but so far, that effort has barely paid off except for in a couple of very small markets (and now that there are plenty of cheap Android phones around, I doubt it stands much of a chance in those markets either). In many ways, it feels like the Firefox team is mostly fighting a battle of perceptions. Ask anybody why they don’t use Firefox and they’ll say: “It’s too slow.” That’s not actually the case anymore. Like Microsoft with IE, Mozilla now has to convince people that its browser is quite good again. Unlike Microsoft, it doesn’t have a marketing budget to do that (and it’s not like Microsoft’s IE campaigns have really made a difference either). Mozilla has now to power its search in the U.S. starting next month. And while Yahoo may not be the down-and-out company it seemed to be just a few years ago, it’s not exactly a powerhouse when it comes to search. This deal may gain Yahoo a few extra searchers, but it probably isn’t going to help Mozilla gain market share (because nobody is looking for a browser with built-in Yahoo search). Maybe Mozilla is okay with all of this. It’s a non-profit organization that aims to make the web a better place and the web is a better place today thanks to the work Mozilla does. But what power does the organization have if its main product continues to lose importance? It’s easy to convince others to follow your lead when you own a large slice of a market, but when that number goes down to ten percent, it’s all too easy for others to ignore you. |
Series B Fundraising For Your Enterprise Startup | Glenn Solomon | 2,014 | 11 | 16 | After a seed round of $1-2 million helps build a working prototype and a $5-10M Series A enables a successful beta and launch, what comes next? Lots of entrepreneurs have reached out to me recently to discuss what it takes to raise a successful Series B, and luckily, for many enterprise companies, a similar pattern emerges. For entrepreneurs, the good news is that there’s plenty of Series B capital out there. In fact, was 35 percent higher in Q2 than Q1 2014, reaching its highest level since Q1 2001. The in the first half of 2014 was $14.7 million, 20 percent higher than 2013. On the flip side, as Series B rounds have gotten larger, the pressure is higher than it’s ever been to show real proof points. So, if you’re ready to dive into a $15-25 million series B, here are four key items would-be investors will expect to see. If you’re considering your series B, you’ve already gone through the process of conceiving a product, building a prototype and creating several MVPs. You’ve run a successful beta program that allowed you to gather relevant feedback from customers, and you’ve baked these learnings into your launch and subsequent product iterations. But now it’s time to prove that you’ve got a viable, scalable product – not just an idea. Series B investors will look for evidence that you’ve established tight product/market fit by talking to your customers and prospects. The more customers who can speak to the value of your product in its current form, the better. And in this case, less isn’t more. Even if your target market is large enterprises, more proof points — even if from smaller customers — will generally serve you better than fewer examples from larger ones. Series B capital exists to help businesses scale rapidly. The more your business model is worked out, the easier it is for a VC to see how the fresh capital will lead to growth. As an enterprise-focused company, key questions to evaluate include: As you get ready to raise a Series B, don’t expect to have rich data on all of the above questions, but do push yourself to track these metrics as much as possible. You’ll earn points from VCs for monitoring your business this way, even if results are early and still somewhat inconclusive. With so much capital available these days to fund good ideas, it’s rare to see a company at the Series B stage that doesn’t have at least a few direct competitors. Having competitors is okay; it can actually help validate your market. But it also means that prospective VCs are likely to know a good deal about your competition and will expect you to, as well. Understand your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, be prepared to discuss how and why you’re beating them today, and have a plan for market leadership over time. Similarly, be prepared to discuss bottoms-up and top-down analysis of the market opportunity you’re pursuing. Ultimately, even with competitors getting some share, you need to make a compelling case that your sandbox is sizable enough for you to build a big company. Especially if you’re a first-time CEO, VCs will pay close attention to the type of executive team you’re building. One common first-time CEO mistake is trying to do everything herself, and she’ll end up hiring other key execs too late or not at all. Again, a Series B is about scaling rapidly. A critical step to do that is building a strong exec team. VCs will want to see that you can recruit experienced folks to join your company. No one is expecting at the Series B stage that you’ll have a full senior team in place to build a $100 million-plus revenue business, but having a few additional talented execs who can speak to their excitement for the opportunity will go a long way. To a lesser degree, the same is true for partners in your ecosystem. Signing up some key companies that can distribute, implement, or enhance your product can help round out the story for VCs. |
IBM: Black Friday Online Sales Up 8.5% Over Last Year, 20% Of Sales Came From iOS | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 11 | 28 | Online retailers had a decent Black Friday, with sales up over 8% from a year ago, and nearly 47% of online traffic coming from mobile devices throughout the day. Mobile played a big role this year in terms of both traffic and sales, and yesterday was especially notable for being . Today, those figures dropped a bit, however. By 6 PM EST on Black Friday here in the U.S., mobile traffic had accounted for 46.7% of all online traffic – an increase of 24.2% year-over-year, but a drop from the 52.11% it claimed on the Thanksgiving holiday, according to IBM’s Benchmark data. The holiday shopping season certainly started earlier this year, with a number of retailers online and off running discounted sales beginning on Thanksgiving Day. Amazon, for example, started running deals on its site mid-day, and that choice seemed to work out well for the retailer. As ChannelAdvisor noted in a separate report, its roughly 2,700 online retailers saw 20.1% year-over-year growth on Thanksgiving, but Amazon, search and other third-party marketplaces (meaning those not eBay or Amazon) saw the most growth over last year, as eBay lagged. Amazon was up 25.9% year-over-year, outpacing e-commerce as a whole, but eBay grew just 3.0% over Thanksgiving Day 2013. Mobile this year also played a part in . According to web performance monitoring company Catchpoint Systems, Best Buy had three outages since Thanksgiving. The first outage was 5:00 AM to 6: 30 AM ET and the second was 8:00-9:30 AM ET, both on Thursday. On Black Friday, the site crashed again at 10 AM ET. Online sales were up 8.5% over the same period on Black Friday 2013, it found. Though mobile didn’t claim over half of online traffic as it did on Thursday, its percentage of the online sales is steadily increasing. This Black Friday, mobile sales accounted for 26.1% of all online sales, an increase of 24.7% year-over-year. That being said, not all mobile visitors are the same when it comes to conversions. Consumers visiting from smartphones tend to browse, while tablet shoppers actually buy. On Black Friday, smartphones drove 33.6% of total online traffic, or more than double that of tablets (12.8%). But tablets accounted for 14.3% of online sales, versus smartphones’ 11.7%. Also continuing yesterday’s trends, iOS shoppers remained more valuable to retailers with an average order size of $127.34 – higher than Android, at $101.82. iOS also sent more traffic than Android with 31.8% of all online traffic versus 14.5% on Android. And finally, Apple iOS sales accounted for 20.2% of total online sales, nearly four times that of Android, which drove only 5.6% of all online sales. : IBM’s early data appears to be an outlier this year. show a 20% increase year-over-year for Black Friday. IBM says its insights are drawn via the company’s $3.5 billion investments in commerce and customer engagement solutions, plus its expertise gained from work with 8,000 global brands and 35,000 client commerce engagements. |
A World Without Net Neutrality Already Exists | Jeff Lawson | 2,014 | 11 | 28 | People have wondered how an Internet without net neutrality would work. Net neutrality is more than just a debate, it’s not a hypothetical, and it’s real and alive today with SMS. It is currently hypothetical that on an Internet without net neutrality, companies would need to “pay to play” and live by arbitrary, ISP-devised rules for accessing consumers who want and pay for their services. This is the so-called “fast lane.” While ISPs argue this is about network utilization and bandwidth costs, businesses worry that it’s far beyond that. At stake is access to consumers, and ISPs monetizing their subscriber bases instead of providing the open pipe consumers pay for. While some companies think it’s just a problem for Netflix or other high-bandwidth applications like streaming video, it’s not. The very real potential is that if you don’t have the right relationships, abide by arbitrary rules or pay appropriately, your company doesn’t get slow access – it gets no access. We know because this is how SMS in the U.S. works today. To understand neutrality, you have to understand an esoteric concept called “common carriage.” Since 1934 and the advent of common carriage in the U.S., telephone service providers have been prohibited from deciding who you can call or what you’re allowed to say while you’re talking. We take this freedom for granted in our voice communications. But for SMS, where messages aren’t afforded common carriage, carriers are responsible for policing the content of the communications. Since 2010, innovators have used the power of communications by leveraging open access to SMS to deliver new products and services to consumers. In that time, companies such as Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Nordstrom and The Home Depot have delivered customer experiences via the ubiquitous mobile medium of SMS. But unfortunately — due to the lack of network neutrality rules — we’ve seen carriers block messages from customers for arbitrary and unpredictable reasons – for example, because they contain web links, because they reference alcohol, and because — and I’m not making this up — they reference content from Urban Dictionary. Do we really want an Internet where carriers police the content that we see? Should we really choose between a Fox News Internet and an MSNBC Internet? Imagine if voice calls operated this way and your carrier could decide if you could receive a call from your bank, your grandma or your doctor based on whether they’re on some carrier-approved list. Seriously, imagine that. Zero people, probably even the carriers themselves, would support that plan. Yet it is exactly what happens with SMS, and it’s assumed that’s just how it is. This situation exists because SMS is not afforded common carriage protection like voice is. Without net neutrality, service providers take on the obligation to police those who use the networks, how they use it, and what messages the network carries. This responsibility causes challenges, unusual incentives and, ultimately, instability for an ecosystem of innovation. This is what we’ve observed in the medium that currently lacks a mandate of neutrality — SMS. Some innovations are very successful, others less so. But regardless of outcome, the key enabler is the ability to experiment with what innovation consumers want, and to do so on a predictably level playing field. The basic assumption is that innovators can, in fact, reliably and without interference reach the consumers they serve. It’s that spirit of innovation that’s spawned so much economic value in this country. To the carriers’ credit, they’ve worked with the SMS ecosystem of innovation over the past several years to develop more sensible policies as the basis of a predictable foundation. However, it takes a substantial commitment to get it right. The thing is, the Internet already works right. But even if access is granted to communicate with consumers on a carrier network, there’s still the “fast lane” issue. Carriers have recently proposed adding new fees for certain innovators to access customers via SMS while not charging those same fees to other operators. If this holds, companies like Google Voice, Skype and Twilio, as well as companies that use those services, would pay a carrier tax, while the incumbents enjoy preferential access to the network despite the fact that end subscribers pay for their service either way. Those fees can make or break a business that relies on communications with their customers. And because carriers operate a monopoly on accessing their subscriber base, they could charge whatever they want. Sound familiar? This is the proposed system for web and mobile applications without net neutrality. Phone calls have enjoyed common carriage since the Telecommunications Act of 1934, and it’s been a pretty good deal for consumers, businesses and access providers alike. However, the FCC has been reluctant to update its regulatory framework to account for all forms of communication — including technologies like SMS messaging and Internet traffic. But now is the time to change, as President Obama noted earlier this week by calling for Title II treatment — common carriage — for Internet communications. Without net neutrality, the Internet as we know it will become arbitrary, unstable and hostile to innovation. We’ve seen what happens, and trust us, you do not want that Internet. Most importantly, consumer choice takes a major blow. Support an open Internet and net neutrality protected by common carriage as provided under Title II protection. This is an issue that impacts businesses and consumers alike. Make your voice heard and support a free and neutral Internet by . |
Too Many Droids | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 11 | 28 | This morning’s trailer and Adult Swim’s are, obviously, the most important videos of the millennium (falcon.) What happens if the two were to hang out one night, share a bit of wine, and maybe make a lil’ video-baby? This happens. Introducing , a wonderful remix cut together by our own video producer in response to a . |
A Gift Guide For The Starter Smart Home | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 11 | 28 | The proliferation of smart home products means there’s never been a better time to get on board, even if you’re not that tech crazy or familiar with the market. Here’s the list of things to get you rolling with your own basic setup, plus a few nice-to-haves in case you want to go the extra mile. Connect lightbulbs now have their own pretty huge section at Home Depot, but I’m still a fan of the Philips Hue above all else. The new Lux bulbs don’t change their hue, ironically, but they provide a warm white glow with all the geofencing, remote control and manual brightness options of the rest of the series at half the price per bulb. Speaking of Hue, they can be controlled by the Logitech Harmony Ultimate Home system, which includes a physical remote with touchscreen, as well as a hub that can connect to apps on your iOS and Android devices. Because you’re talking to the hub, and then to the lights, there’s sometimes some input lag, but it’s still very convenient to use the same remote to control your home entertainment system, lighting, and Nest thermostat. Speaking of Nest, their learning thermostat is still the best in the biz, with compatibility with a range of devices, including the aforementioned Logitech Harmony remote, connected appliances and the Dropcam security solution, which Google acquired in addition to Nest this year. Speaking of Dropcam, they make the best connected video camera solution available, with cloud storage of recordings, remote control, geofences, scheduling and more. They look good, too, so you won’t have to turn your house into something out of a surveillance state fever dream to make use of them. Back to Philips, the company makes a new lightswitch for its Hue products that has a couple of neat features – including power via kinetic energy storage, meaning it requires no batteries and you give it all the power it needs to operate just by using it. It also comes with a mounting plate that it can easily be removed from, so that you can carry it with you and have control wherever you are in your house, without even needing your smartphone. This new Wi-Fi doorbell is shipping soon, and it’s a good pick because the team has already had one kick and the can and came away with some valuable lessons. They’ve doubled down on engineering, design and user experience, and the new version looks primed to rule the space. Smartphone-controlled locks are common enough these days, but the August Smart Lock is probably the best of the bunch. It has received strong reviews, and its installation means that you can keep your existing deadbolt, plus it works even without power using both your old boring mechanical key, and with a twisting outer ring from insider your place. |
Preparing For An Acquisition | Amit Paka | 2,014 | 11 | 28 | Silicon Valley is ground zero in the fight for technology talent and market share, and acquisitions are a great way to fuel that growth. Small acquisitions can help fill a business need quickly and are easier to close than big deals. Flockish, my previous startup, was purchased by StubHub (owned by eBay) in an asset structure. I joined the company as part of this deal. , my current startup, had similar interest from Facebook, although this one did not pan out. You may find your startup considering an acquisition proposal, and in this post, focusing on seed-stage startups, I address four things that matter most. Corporate development teams at both eBay and Facebook offered us three alternatives, each with its own merits. In acqui-hire scenarios, team matters the most. Companies want the best parts of the team if not the entire high-performing unit. Have conversations with your team about who is open to joining full-time and how the equity would pay out. It’s wise to have a cap table in place to avoid ownership challenges. For good reason, companies shy away from any legal risk in a deal: Litigation takes time and money. Startups love to make a dollar go farther with unpaid help and contractors. You must have all these entities sign software assignment documents so that the startup owns the IP for their work. eBay ensured Flockish trademarks were filed and IP contracts were in place, which helped facilitate the process. It’s always best to expedite time to market with open source components. However, keep an eye on the license terms. Apache and MIT licenses are the best – don’t forget to cite those works in your product. It’s critical to be aware of certain GNU GPL license restrictions that could make your product derivative work; companies have little incentive to purchase such a product. Take care of these details and your startup will be better prepared for any acquisition prospects that come your way. |
Gillmor Gang LIVE 11.28.14 | Steve Gillmor | 2,014 | 11 | 28 | – Robert Scoble, Keith Teare, Dan Farber, and Steve Gillmor. |
Mophie Powerstation Plus Review: Integrated Cable Is Both Blessing And Curse | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 11 | 28 | Mophie has a , and it aims for compact, all-in-one design that should reduce bulk and complication when you’re searching for supplementary power. The new design builds a cable right into the power pack, which holds a battery powerful enough to charge your iPhone up to eight extra times, depending on the capacity you choose. Our review unit has enough to give the iPhone 6 around another 21 hours of use, but the integrated cable design might not be for everyone. Mophie’s Powerstations were already industry leaders – the company didn’t really need to alter its design to change its reputation. But the new look is decidedly more fashion-forward. The small, sandwich design with metal surfaces top and bottom could easily be mistaken for a business card folio or ultra-modern cigarette case. At first glance, you probably aren’t quite sure what it does, but you also probably want one in your life. [gallery ids="1088756,1088757,1088758,1088759,1088760"] The reserve indicator is still here with this design, providing you a simple look at how much juice is left in the power bank before it’s depleted with a simple button press. The biggest difference here is that one side of the Mophie now flips open, to reveal an integrated cable (micro USB or Lightning-to-USB, depending on your purchase choice) that will allow you to connect without any external cords. The tuck-away cable is both the greatest strength and greatest weakness of the new Powerstation Plus: It makes the backup battery nearly unmatched in terms of portability, and ensures you won’t be stuck in a situation where you remembered the backup bank but not the cable needed to charge your phone – but it also means that you basically have to pick a camp and stick to it with all your devices, especially if you’re an iPhone user, as the cables are not interchangeable. The Mophie works like a Mophie, which is to say it works well. You’ll pay more for these backup batteries than you will for a lot of the ones on Amazon or elsewhere, but there’s a reason for that. While many reserve power banks I’ve used have issues with iOS devices in particular, and batteries that seem to have very quick lifespans and that lose a decent percentage of their maximum capacity after just a few uses, Mophie’s last and last, and work consistently. This new Powerstation, after just a week of testing, seems to be a worthy inheritor of that reputation. I haven’t had any issues with it being detected by my iPhone or iPad, and it holds its charge, and seems to provide the same amount of additional power every time. It’s in line with Mophie’s claims, meaning you’ll get about twice the active use time out of your device with the backup battery vs. without. Again, my main issue with function lies with that cable – I’ve got a lot of devices that could potentially be charged, and limiting myself to only those with a lightning port doesn’t really make sense, vs. the device charging freedom of the previous Powerstation design. There’s still the larger capacity Poewrstation Plus, the Powerstation Pro and the Powerstation XL if you want cable agnosticism, however. This is a great option for anyone who has one or two devices, when those devices use the same connector for charging, which is probably most users. The integrated design, with pass through charging and sync functions, mean these are improved in almost every way from previous Powerstation products, and a la carte battery sizing choices will also suit a wider range of needs, and if you opt for the 4x or 8x Battery models, you’ll get a neutral USB port, too. |
PayPal’s Bitcoin Integration And The Future Of Digital Currency Adoption | Ken Miller | 2,014 | 11 | 28 | Recently, PayPal several partnerships aimed towards enabling certain PayPal merchants to be able to accept bitcoin as a form of payment from their customers. This was a significant announcement on multiple fronts as many had wondered if and what PayPal’s foray into the cryptocurrency space would be. As further validation of the power of this news, the over $30 within the first few hours of the announcement, generating close to an incremental half a billion in bitcoin market cap in those few hours. That increase was short-lived, as the price came back down the following day, but the spike showed the power that this kind of tectonic announcement could have on the bitcoin world. Though there are still details remaining to surface around how the bitcoin integration into PayPal will ultimately work, on the surface the benefits appear obvious. For merchants, the attraction would be the opportunity to add an additional payment option that works with their existing checkout infrastructure (read: more happy customers and no incremental work for the merchant). For consumers, the value is that increasingly consumers are holding bitcoin and looking for places to spend it; and more choice in payment methods is always a good thing. Additionally, bitcoin via PayPal could present low-cost opportunities to send funds globally. Ironically, bitcoin embodies much of the core mission that PayPal originally set out to achieve. Back in 2000, the mission statement of the company was ‘Democratizing Global Payments.’ Seeded in that was a desire (made explicit within the company at the time) that we wanted to allow anyone, anywhere in the world, to send frictionless funds on the cheap (relatively). We wanted the shopkeeper in Bolivia to have access to the same payment capabilities (and pricing) as a giant retailer in London, simply by using new, better technology. It didn’t exactly work out that way, as PayPal was merely built on top of existing, decades-old payment infrastructure — and it’s not cheap to use — but there was an appetite for that libertarian-esque approach at the time and it galvanized us all. I was one of the original employees at PayPal, and the bitcoin announcement felt full circle in a way from those roots. That said, there’s a problem with this announcement and bitcoin use at large. There are multiple hurdles to clear for bitcoin to become widely used and adopted by the masses, and carrying the flag for these hurdles right now is security. My mom, though technically wise for her age and could rival any teenager with her iPhone addiction, will never pay with bitcoin if she isn’t convinced it’s as safe as any other form of payment she’s used to. And though PayPal is only slowly venturing into the shallow end with some floaties on, herein lies the challenge…even objection for PayPal (and others) as they embark into digital currencies. At least 9.9 percent of all bitcoins introduced into the ecosystem have been lost or stolen (these are just the instances that have been reported). That’s nearly one out of every 10 bitcoins. Related to the theft topic is the lack of traditional consumer protections within bitcoin transactions: fraudulent transactions; failure by the merchant to deliver as promised; the product is broken or damaged when it arrives or is the wrong color. All of this is enough to make the average consumer hesitant — and the average consumer (e.g. my mom) is the next wave of adoptees needed to grow the ecosystem in a step-function sort of way. The good news is there are security solutions possible, they’re just not being widely utilized yet. The best example of this is multi-signature key management. With multi-signature wallets, the customer and their wallet provider each have a key that is required to perform a transaction (much like the old rocket launch analogy where two different key holders are required to launch the rocket into the sky). Utilization of this technology with other mechanisms such as MFA and fraud monitoring would actually create a secure environment that exceeds the approach of institutions for traditional financial transactions. Cryptocurrency security is difficult; not everyone can be an expert in this area. But making bitcoin or other digital currency transactions and accounts secure is mandatory to future success and large-scale adoption, and shame on us as a technology society if we don’t get that right and secure the future. But the beauty of the situation is the bitcoin protocol has inherent to it multi-signature capabilities that, if executed correctly, can create a highly secure environment. Even more exciting is that success in making bitcoin transactions and accounts secure means a strong chance of success in the ultimate prize with digital currency: making individuals sovereign again over their money. |
The E-Label Act Will Remove Those Silly FCC Symbols From The Back Of Future Gadgets | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 11 | 28 | You know all that crap that’s listed on the back of your smartphone and tablet? It looks something like this: A jumble of letters and words, an FCC symbol, and instructions to not throw your electronic equipment into the trash. It’s ugly, and generally a waste of space. But luckily for us, it’s time to say goodbye to that mess. In what feels a bit like a holiday gift, the government has passed the , a bill introduced by Senators Deb Fisher and Jay Rockefeller. The bill is meant to save time and resources building products, transferring the information from the back of the gadget to the software itself. Plus, as our gadgets get smaller (smartwatches!), there will inevitably be less and less space to fit those labels, ID numbers, etc. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! [via ] |
About That Enterprise File-Sharing Study | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 11 | 28 | Earlier this week, on a report concerning the current popularity of various enterprise cloud file sync and share products, a group of services usually shortened to the acronym ‘EFSS.’ Dropbox was far and away the leader, finding a home within nearly 45 percent of responding enterprise IT pros’ businesses. Microsoft’s OneDrive had over 25 percent penetration, Google Drive had nearly 25 percent and Box had just under 15 percent. Smaller players — Amazon, Hightail, SAP Docs, Egnyte, and so forth — each had less than 10 percent apiece. Given the current market narrative, you must have heard that Box commands high market share among enterprise clients, and that with its competitor. The same narrative also generally maintains that Google and Microsoft are themselves straining to pick up market share, having trailed their smaller rivals into the market. So what the hell is going on? Well, if you retreat to our previous accounting of the top four players in the market, you’ll note that their market share adds to more than 100 percent. And when you stack the other listed players, we end up far higher than a numerical peak called . The following paragraph from TechCrunch’s initial coverage is elucidatory: What’s more, just 18 percent of those surveyed currently pay for an enterprise sync and share product. It’s hard to know what this all means exactly, except that as the report indicated, we are still (surprisingly) in the very early days for this market and there is a lot of room for all the players to grow. Bingo: The study queried, again quoting our coverage, “1000 IT pros in October and asked them about the sync and share tools in use in their companies.” In use, rolled out in a paid way. You can’t have only 18 percent of respondents paying for EFSS, more than 100 percent usage inside of companies, and have all those seats paid for. My friend Peter Kazanjy made this point to me on Twitter recently: not really. All those Dropbox seats are not enterprise licensed. — Peter Kazanjy (@Kazanjy) So what we can divine from the data is actually less than you would expect. Dropbox is popular. And of course Google and Microsoft have large unpaid market share since they have huge consumer buy-in, and so forth. But there is a chart that I want to point out: Only 4 percent of respondents plan to roll out paid EFSS services to their companies inside the next six months. That’s a mere 22.22 percent of the current paying base. Or, put more simply, growth in the enterprise file storage space might be slower than we might have anticipated. The numbers don’t improve much when you look ahead at least six months more: Only 2 percent of those surveyed indicated that they had plans to roll out EFSS at least 6 months for now. That’s a slimmer 11.11 percent of the current corporate install base, using the same data set as a comparison point. And a massive 61 percent are in the ‘no’ category. Selling into the 4 percent that want to move in the next half year likely won’t be too hard. The 2 percent that want to follow also might not be difficult to bring on board. But 61 percent are obstinate by their own admission. I think this could add more headwinds to the . And that could harm long-term margins, and impair growth, two things that might ding valuations of private companies in the space. We’ll have to see. You can’t divine precisely how much greenfield has been sucked from the EFSS meadows, but I would wager that the percentage isn’t low. |
Find Your Zen With Desert Golfing | Kyle Russell | 2,014 | 11 | 28 | If you’re looking for something to do while sitting around with family as you all process the remainder of the Thanksgiving meal still working its way through your digestive tract, I’ve got something for you that will take very little effort but still provides hours of entertainment. It’s , a simple game for iOS and Android (it’s also available on Amazon’s app store). I first heard about it via the , who’s been going on for months about the merits of the minimalist golf simulator. All you do is hit a tiny golf ball from a starting point on the left side of the screen to a hole somewhere between the middle and the far right by aiming your stroke with a swipe similar to that used to launch fowl in Angry Birds. Between you and your goal are dunes and drops in the sand, and if you overshoot, the ball goes back to the starting position. There’s a running tally of your strokes, but because there’s a seemingly endless number of holes, there’s no need to focus on getting that number down besides you pressuring yourself to do so. That’s the compulsion you’ll have for the first few dozen holes you play, but once you get into the higher numbers you realize that it’s better to just get into the flow of it and find creative solutions (like bouncing off of angled sand banks). The game is $2 on all platforms, and you never have to look at an ad as you play (or pay for additional levels, and there are hundreds built-in). It’s a fun game to play with a friend if you’re stuck at home, on a plane, or on a long road trip, as each turn only takes about 30 seconds and there’s no downside to playing with someone of a lower skill level. |
Here, Star Wars, I Fixed Your ‘Force Awakens’ Lightsaber Crossguard For You | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 11 | 28 | The first Star Wars: The Force Awakens features all kinds of things that make my diehard Star Wars soul quiver and dance, but the crossguard on the dark side lightsaber spotted in the teaser, while initially cool, increasingly isn’t one of them. It looks ultimately very impractical, and I couldn’t help but to offer some engineering tips for the weapon’s designer. Let me explain: While the design looks like it was inspired by the kind of guard you’d see on a claymore, for instance, which prevents an opponent’s blade from sliding down yours and, say, cutting off your fingers, it seems unlikely to serve that function. The emitters extend from the hilt, as you can see, which presumably means they’re vulnerable to the opponent’s blade, which, per Star Wars lore, can cut through pretty much anything (except for Mandalorian iron, Force-imbued weapons and some other noteworthy materials). The whole point, however, of not using metal for the sword itself is that lightsabers can cut through most without issue. So, to make an effective guard for a sword hilt, which does seem like something worth the time of lightsaber artisans, I propose a couple of design tweaks. The first moves the emitters, placing individual vertical ones across the bottom of the guard. This means there’s a continuous field of energy blade, ensuring that any sliding opponent blade won’t just cut straight through the horizontal emitters at the T-joint in the original version. The second version assumes that a series of small, power-limited vertical emitters aren’t technically practical, or don’t provide a continuous field, and instead extends a metal guard around either end, which point emitters across the field of the central blade. Once again, you get an unbroken energy beam with a cross-section that is presumably stronger for the overlap, if anything. Of course, it’s possible that a) the blade is made through some kind of secret Sith ritual that means the emitters at the hilt are fine, or b) the guard isn’t a guard at all, but merely additional, dagger-like blades designed to help wound in close combat. It’s also possible that I have too much time on my hands. |
Digiarty Is Giving Away 1,000 WinX DVD to iPhone Ripper Software Licenses | Anna Escher | 2,014 | 11 | 28 | Our friends at Digiarty are giving TechCrunch readers access to their WinX DVD to iPhone Ripper. This software offers an alternative to purchasing movies from iTunes, and makes it so you don’t have to worry about format compatibility between devices. The ripper compresses and converts DVD to iPhone and iPad MP4 H.264 video for playback on an iPhone 6/6 Plus/5S/5C as well as iPad/Air (2)/Mini (2/3), iTunes and Apple TV/3. Every day for the next 6 days, Digiarty is giving away 1,000 copies of their WinX DVD to iPhone Ripper. All you have to do is Simple as that. Consider it an early holiday gift from Digiarty, to you. |
Best Buy’s Website Crashes Hard On Black Friday | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 11 | 28 | WHOOPS. Seems Best Buy was ill-prepared for today’s post-Turkey shopping madness — at least online. BestBuy.com has been down for nearly an hour now (since roughly 6:15 AM Pacific), on a sales day that the company likely hoped would be one of its best. It’s unclear whether the outage is due to a technical screw-up or traffic overwhelming its servers. For what it’s worth, the “Oh god, our website is broke” page itself loads pretty quickly — but that page is probably a whole lot easier to serve up than a zillion simultaneous searches and shopping-cart additions. Perhaps they should call the Geek Squad? Two hours in, still down. https://twitter.com/mdudas/status/538357387393265664 Two-and-a-half hours in, it’s slooowly starting to come back online. Some things seem to be a bit broken still, but it’s moving toward working again. Aaand it’s down again! |
Let’s Make Bitcoin The Biggest Humanitarian Tool The World Has Ever Seen | Lorelei Kelly | 2,014 | 11 | 28 | News junkies of the world may be forgiven for becoming the latest tech skeptics: 2014 has been a year of global mayhem. Instead of creating a connected civic safety net, it seems like tech platforms simply amplified messages and images from ungovernable parts of the world. Boko Haram kidnapped girls in Nigeria, and we fought back with mostly futile hashtags. ISIS broadcast its brutality with regular video updates. Russian leader Vladimir Putin perfected networked information warfare in Crimea. Online drug lords distributed their contraband, tarnishing the image of bitcoin — the first global peer-to-peer financial system. In the midst of these discouraging activities, however, a number of social-platform successes have occurred that garnered less attention, such as the “Umbrella Revolution” in Hong Kong or Kenya’s Election Hub. Similarly, dissidents in Iran have been using cryptographic platforms to communicate with each other for years. As the information revolution continues to redistribute power from centralized hierarchies to individuals and communities, the impact of this redistribution is often unpredictable, with local public institutions often either non-existent or otherwise unable to adapt, compete or function effectively enough to prevent violence. The Iraqi government and Mexico’s inept law enforcement come to mind. Yet, there is a reason to take heart. Despite fear and life-threatening circumstances, individuals continue to create civil society in the midst of destruction. Doctors in Aleppo, Syria, have moved their hospitals underground to escape targeting and continue to serve patients. Syrian women negotiate humanitarian access to ceasefires. An island of relative peace, the Kurdistan region of Iraq has accepted hundreds of thousands of refugees. For those of us who want to see new technologies used to expand free association and improve the human condition, it’s time to step back and assess: How do we make the next decade one of technological development that builds more resilient communities from the bottom up? How might we route around bureaucratic dysfunction? Finally, how can we best support individuals who navigate disruption successfully and then help them rebuild? What many may not realize is that Bitcoin can help. In many ways it already is. The bitcoin ecosystem has already discovered ways to become a crucial part of the global humanitarian community that assists these efforts and fills the civic gap that occurs in the midst of ubiquitous threats like violent conflict, weather-related disasters and exported extremism and disease. This may be bitcoin’s most important role to date. The current gap in global governance is an opportunity for blockchain technologies. While large institutions work to overcome their outdated practices, Bitcoin can build bridges between peers in a decentralized, iterative and accountable fashion. It can crowdsource action and match expertise to bring individuals together to create a more timely and effective response to crises. These efforts are still in their infancy and there is much more work to do. There is enormous potential in the power of the blockchain technology to improve lives around the world if the response to these situations is addressed — and financed — collaboratively. Humanitarian organizations that utilize the bitcoin network can make the Silk Road narrative a side show by demonstrating that humanitarianism is mission critical for successful long-term global finance. First, we bitcoin fans have to walk our talk. We need to model a vision of global civics, one that shows how the best results can be achieved when rights and responsibilities are decentralized, not the result of an onerous top-down power structure. Bitcoin is an agile, safe and real-time financing tool for rapid response. These qualities make it ideal for assisting refugees whose lives are shattered and dislocated by war. Organizations like are a great example of how this idea is being implemented. TentEd is a rapid impact project for refugee children in the Kurdistan region. Founded by three Iraq war veterans who volunteer their time, this project equips schools based on immediate and local needs assessments. It had a successful first run last summer and is set to return in December. The Kurdistan region is home to hundreds of thousands of war-displaced Syrians and Iraqi religious minorities seeking refuge from the so-called “Islamic State.” Since 2012, nearly half of Syria’s population has been displaced. There are countless examples of people building resilience and you can help any of them achieve real world results with bitcoin donations. TentEd leverages relatively little money with huge social capital. Like a software development design sprint, the project is led with focused teamwork and builds continual feedback and relationships into the implementation. In June, t by equipping them with transportation, books, uniforms, shoes, and other classroom essentials that will create a safe, stable learning environment. Humanitarian organizations can make larger impacts utilizing the bitcoin model. TentEd shares many bitcoin characteristics: It is nonhierarchical, immediate, collaborative, peer-driven, transactionally transparent and accountable. Moreover, its success is based on trust and a record of commitment. In this way, the project models valuable information management rules for today’s world, where it is getting increasingly difficult to sort the signal from the noise. |
Watch The Star Wars: The Force Awakens Trailer Right Here | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 11 | 28 | [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMOVFvcNfvE&w=854&h=510] If you aren’t heading to the movies today, you still won’t miss out on the Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer – it’s over at iTunes to watch. The highly-anticipated sequel to the sci-fi trilogy from the late 70s and early 80s (and maybe also a decade or so ago, if you happen to count those) comes out December 15, 2015, so know that when you’re watching this trailer you still have to wait over a year before the Force actually awakens. Is this fair? It is not fair. But take heat, since it seems like only yesterday we found out about this project to begin with: You’ll be back in the loving embrace of the fictional Star Wars universe before you know it. Brb getting in line now. |
Line Purges Its Games Platform Again, Removing 15 Titles From Its Messaging Service | Jon Russell | 2,014 | 11 | 28 | Today may be holiday time in the U.S., but it also seems to be a time for cleaning in Japan. , the messaging app company with 500 million registered users, just announced the closure of 15 of its third-party games, that’s nearly half of the titles on its games platform and its second purge in six months. In an announcement made suspiciously late on Friday evening Japanese time (to bury the news?), the games — which include the likes of Punch Hero, Homerun Battle Burst, Sonic Dash S and Zookeeper — were closed to “focus its resources on titles that are enjoying greater growth in order to further propel the service as a global gaming platform.” You won’t find games on WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, but they are a major part of the Line experience. Users download separate apps for iOS and Android which then link up to their Line app to provide a game ID and the ability to share scores, battle friends and more. The service also offers non-gaming companion apps, which include apps for sticker creation, translations, photos and more. With those 15 games removed from app stores, Line now offers 43 apps for iOS and 55 for Google Play — around half of those are games, including Disney Tsum Tsum (below), . Line introduced its games platform in November 2012, and it had clocked 470 million cumulative downloads. Games barely affect Line users who don’t play them, but they can be hugely lucrative. In-app purchases — such as power-ups or boosters — from apps on the games platform collectively account for over half of Line’s revenue, which doubled annually to reach . Line, which this year at a reported valuation of $10 billion, (20 titles) in June, so this second purge just months later suggests that many of its titles were not sufficiently engaging or quickly became too dated. The need for new material could mean titles from Gumi, the Japanese games studio , and 4:33 Creative Lab, a Korean company that . Either way, compelling content is important for keeping existing users engaged, reaching new users and maintaining Line’s revenue growth. That latter point is particularly crucial, as Line is likely to reassess its plan to go public in 2015. Line was among the first to offer games, but these days U.S.-based duo Tango and Kik include similar services, too, as well as Kakao Talk in Korea and WeChat in China. before ultimately deciding to focus its platform and vast reach on app install ads instead. |
Nintendo Patents Game Boy Emulation For Use In Mobile Devices, In-Flight Entertainment | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 11 | 28 | A new patent published by the details an invention by Nintendo that would allow it to emulate its mobile game consoles, including the Game Boy line of devices specifically, in other settings, including on seat-back displays in airplanes and trains, and on mobile devices including cell phones. The patent is an updated take on an older piece of IP, so it’s not an entirely new idea, but it’s still very interesting to consider that Nintendo could have renewed interest in the idea of running its own back catalogue on many different kinds of screens. The patent talks specifically about emulation, which is the technique by which a hardware platform is mimicked by a software application on a different type of hardware, in order to run versions of the games for said platform without requiring either the console itself, or physical cartridges. Generally, it’s been used by fan communities to play their favourite games of old on PCs, Macs and mobile devices, but in this patent Nintendo details using it for its own legitimate, licensed distribution of software. Already, Nintendo emulates some of its past console titles on newer systems, providing access to SNES, NES and Game Boy classics on the Wii, Wii U and 3DS. This patent would see it expand those offerings to a range of devices, including potentially smartphones. Many have called for the company to consider making its signature titles available on smartphone devices as a way to shore up struggling hardware sales, but thus far the company has seemed reluctant to the idea. Lately, it has been offering spin-off games from the Pokémon series on iPhone and iPad, but it has yet to provide full ports, as Square-Enix has with the Final Fantasy series, for instance. Emulators on iOS generally get shut down as soon as the Apple review team is made aware of their function, so a legitimate offering from Nintendo on the platform would likely be met with huge consumer interest. Again, though, Nintendo has laid down patents around this general concept in the past, so its interest in protecting IP on the matter doesn’t necessarily indicate any desire to explore product offerings in the area. |
Sony E-ink Watch Aims To Make Low–Power Screens The Next Big Thing In Fashion Fabric | Darrell Etherington | 2,014 | 11 | 28 | [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLBCVhZ4J7E&w=1023&h=575] Almost every tech hardware maker is basically racing smart watches out the door, but Sony is looking at how it can re-invent the basic timekeeping device itself with a new special project that was only just now revealed to be associated with the Japanese electronics giant, despite popping up on a months ago. The so-called FES Watch, which uses e-paper for both the face and a wraparound band, initially kept the Sony name out of the mix to see how well it would fare in the public forum without the power of branding. FES Watch was instead billed as the product of a company called Fashion Entertainments, but that group is actually a team of Sony employees looking at how e-paper can be used to manufacture fashion goods. The WSJ reports that it wants to make e-paper thought of as a fabric in the fashion realm, good for making things like watches, bow ties, hat accessories or any other number of worn items. The Fashion Entertainments unit is led by Hiroki Totoki, the new head of Sony’s smartphone efforts, and is part of a program of internal entrepreneurship conceived by Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai. The FES Watch project has already raised well over $17,000 on the crowdfunding site, meaning it passed tis goal and should go to production. The decision to hide Sony’s involvement meant Fashion Entertainments could get a better sense for how the idea would fare, without any influencing effects from being associated with Sony’s brand name. Often, startups say they go to crowdfunding sites not necessarily to raise money, but to test market viability and gather feedback before a product launch, or to help them raise traditional VC cash, so while Sony’s move is not unprecedented, it may be the largest company to have employed this kind of tactic. Turning e-paper into a fabric has a number of potential benefits – including the ability to change pattern and design of things you’re wearing in an instant, including coloured options using newer color e-ink technology. The material’s extremely low power draw means it should be able to last a long time without charging, and items made using it could easily be made to change their appearance based on movement and basic behavior, using simple motion sensors. Smart functions (i.e., notifications and communication with smartphones) might also be possible, but the spirit of the project is to keep things simple so that e-paper gets perceived as fabric or building block, and less as tech. Pre-order customers will get their devices after next May, but there’s no word yet on general availability for the FES Watch. It’s definitely causing a stir, though, so hopefully Sony makes this more broadly available. |
Alibaba’s Payment Services Affiliate Alipay Opens An Office In Australia | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 11 | 17 | Earlier today, Ant Financial, the Alibaba Group affiliate that operates Alipay, China’s largest online payment platform, . Just a few hours later, Alipay to help promote Australian products to Chinese consumers. Alipay already has presence in other countries including South Korea, Singapore, London, Luxembourg, U.S. and Hong Kong, but its Sydney office is notable because of China and Australia’s economic importance to each other. According to the Australian Department of Foreign affairs, China is Australia’s largest two-way trading partner. In 2013, trade between the two countries amounted to $150 billion AUD (about $130.8 billion). Furthermore, $95 billion AUD (about $82.7 billion) in Australian products were exported to China last year. Alibaba’s official blog says Alipay’s Australian office will help local businesses access Alipay’s cross-border payment services. For example, this includes a page on Alibaba Group’s , the largest consumer-to-consumer marketplace in China, dedicated to promoting Australian food products. Merchandise will be sourced by Zoyu Digital, a Melbourne-based company, and distributed by Chinese logistics provider Sinotrans. China and Australia recently which will remove tariffs from Australian dairy and beef industries imported into China. Alipay also recently helped Australia’s national post service set up a store on , its online business-to-consumer marketplace, to sell wine, organic maternity wear, and skincare products. The Australia Post and Alipay have also worked together to make Alipay Purchase Cards available in 4,400 retail outlets. Australian consumers can use them to add money to Alipay accounts and pay for goods on Tmall and Taobao. One of the reasons Alipay is to strengthen the security of its online finance products as it expands into overseas markets. Alipay wants to grow its business beyond its online payments platform with a new vertical called , which allows Chinese shoppers to buy things directly from overseas sites using Alipay Wallet’s mobile app. Fourteen million Chinese consumers currently make up nearly 78 percent of the total amount of people who make overseas purchases, and spent $16.7 billion in 2013, almost half the value of all cross border online sales, according to Nielsen. Alipay is eager to make sure most of them use their products for transactions. Of course, it goes the other way—Alipay also stands to benefit substantially if international shoppers and SMBs use Alipay to process payments to Chinese vendors. |
Path Talk Places Launches In The UK, Ireland, Australia And New Zealand | Jon Russell | 2,014 | 11 | 17 | Path, the messaging/social networking company, made a major move towards commerce when it . One important component of that app, ‘Places’, lets businesses and customers connect and communicate via text — and that service has now expanded outside of the U.S., hitting the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand today, . It’s been a difficult past 12 months or so for Path — which has struggled in some markets, made , and lost — but the idea behind Places is a solid one. If you have a question about a product or service, you should be able to text someone and get an answer quickly, rather than having to travel to a store, or make a call and get routed through various teams or automated switchboards. That’s Path Talk Places, although until now it has only been open to those in the U.S.. Path has a team of operators (and some business themselves) who are on hand to answer users’ questions and queries related to businesses, retailers, shops, museums and another locations that they find via the Places tab inside the app. Once you send a question, a representative begins chatting to help find you the answer. Connecting companies with customers is something that we’ve seen in Asian messaging apps like WeChat and Line, which offer ‘official accounts’ that brands can rent to reach users who opt-in to follow them, but Path Talk’s representative- and location-based approach is a practical spin on that. Of course, the success of Path Talk hinges on being able to generate quick and efficient results and attracting end users in the first place — and that’s no given since Path has struggled to gain serious traction in many international markets, Indonesia aside. But the idea is one that has plenty of merit, in theory at least. http://vimeo.com/107761921 The original version of this story was updated to correct the way that Path Talk works with its own representatives, rather than representatives from specific companies. |
Cabs Cause Gridlock At SFO To Protest Uber, Lyft And Sidecar | Ryan Lawler | 2,014 | 11 | 17 | It’s a great day for . At San Francisco International Airport this evening, a large group of Bay Area taxi drivers has decided to make picking passengers up nearly impossible in an effort to protest the airport’s recent decision to allow ride-sharing companies to operate on its premises. But , the protest has not only limited the use of alternative ride-hailing apps at SFO, but it has caused gridlock for anyone trying to get in or out of the airport’s terminals. Since the California Public Utilities Commission created a legal framework for ride-sharing companies in the state, there has been a precipitous drop in cab rides, due in part to lower prices from new upstart competitors. The situation has gotten so bad that the head of the local taxi industry warned it . One safe haven for cabbies was SFO, which for the past few years has held strong against the inevitable march of progress. After receiving cease and desist notices for operating at SFO without permits, however, Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar all recently that would enable them to legally pick up and drop off passengers at the airport. In doing so, SFO became one of the first airports in the country to embrace ride-sharing services at its terminals. But that decision isn’t sitting well with local taxi drivers, who have already seen those services steal away customers in San Francisco and the surrounding areas. Tonight those cabbies made their discontent known by clogging multiple lanes of the airport drive. They also warning that by issuing permits to Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar, SFO has effectively signed a death warrant for the local cab industry. Flyers contained the usual FUD that the cab industry has taken to spewing about ride-sharing companies — that their drivers are unlicensed, that their cars are uninspected, that they are unsafe and unreliable. At this point it seems unlikely that the action will cause SFO to reverse its decision to issue permits to ride-sharing companies. But who doesn’t like a good protest? |
With $5M In Funding, Tinder-Like Paktor Wants To Get Southeast Asia Using Dating Apps | Jon Russell | 2,014 | 11 | 17 | When it comes to mobile dating apps, Tinder defines the market. The startup, which from users, pretty much owns its space in North America, but things are different in other parts of the world. , a Singapore-based company, believes it has the answer for Southeast Asia, and it has just announced a $3 million-plus funding round to build out its vision for mobile dating. The Tinder and Paktor apps may be similar from a side-by-side comparison, but Paktor CEO and co-founder Joseph Phua told me that his real battle is to convince (the many socially conservative and traditional) Asians of the benefits of dating apps and service. In that respect, Tinder is more of a help than a hinderance. “Other apps like Tinder can help to break the connotation that dating is a purely offline experience,” he said. “The publicity and visibility [from other apps] can help us move on from early adopters and reach those who aren’t using any dating apps at all.” Tinder hasn’t done any sustained marketing in Asia, and if it were to Phua believes it would likely target China, Korea and Japan, three markets that have robust mobile app ecosystems. Southeast Asia may have 600 million people, but the fragmented nature of the region makes it tougher and less appealing for international companies, he believes. Plus, Phua said that it’s expats and others who follow international news and culture who are more likely to gravitate towards Tinder, rather than true ‘locals’ — that’s a fair point. Paktor’s dating app for and has 1.5 million registered users, 60 percent of whom are aged 18-24, with over 40 million matches made to date. The company said its network is particularly strong in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Taiwan — it has a physical presence in each of those four countries. While it did not reveal active user numbers, Paktor said it sees 10 million swipes from users each day. Phua, who started the company with friends Ng Jing Shen (CTO) and Charlene Koh (CMO) in July 2013 after being dumped (he’s now happily taken, thanks to a Paktor match, of course), revealed that the funding will go towards a more sustained marketing push in other parts of Southeast Asia. “We are not limited to Southeast Asia, but it is our focus for now,” he said, when asked whether China, Japan, Korea or other countries in Asia are in the grand plans. The undisclosed round was led by Vertex Venture — a subsidiary of Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, which has invested in Uber-rival Grabtaxi. Phua did not reveal specifics, including the valuation, but he did say that it takes Paktor to $5 million in funding to date. The round itself is in excess of $3 million, since Paktor previously closed and an earlier $1.3 million seed round. For now, Paktor isn’t “switching on the monetization tap,” as Phua phrased it, but it approaches its business in a different way to Tinder, which is actually . Phua said subscription-led services could be introduced in the future, but Paktor is making a platform play with a second offline service that offers more specialist one-on-one matching and “social dating services.” That service (which is not an app) debuted in Singapore this summer, where it is called Gai Gai (‘going out’ in local slang), and the funding will go towards launching differentiated versions in Paktor’s four largest markets over the next year. There is also now which the company believes is important for increasing engagement, particularly in markets where mobile connectivity can be problematic. (Read almost anywhere in Southeast Asia.) The money raised will also be channeled into making the desktop site more feature-rich and useful for users, but mobile remains the key medium. “Everything has gone mobile in Asia, it impacts every part of your life,” Phua told me. “And there’s no reason that dating shouldn’t be the same.” |
Uber Won’t Investigate Journalists, Company Says After Exec Suggests It Investigate Journalists | Ryan Lawler | 2,014 | 11 | 17 | On-demand transportation company today said that it hasn’t and won’t investigate journalists in an effort to dig up dirt that could be used against them. That’s great I guess, except that the company’s stand against vicious, unethical, and dubious smear tactics comes just a few days after one of its top execs was heard suggesting it take part in that behavior. Earlier today that Uber EVP of Business Emil Michael, who came to Uber from social media analytics company Klout (ha!) and has a side gig , made his thoughts on investigating journalists known at a private dinner in New York City late last week. The event, which was hosted by Uber consultant and former adviser to the British Prime Minister Ian Osborne, was apparently attended by the likes of actor Ed Norton and publisher Arianna Huffington, as well as a Buzzfeed editor who heard Michael suggest the company launch opposition research against its critics in the media. (Oops.) According to Buzzfeed, Michael said Uber should spend “a million dollars” on a smear campaign that would hire opposition researchers and journalists to dig up dirt on journalists, researchers who would look into the personal lives of those critical to the company. In particular, Michael wished to target Pando founder Sarah Lacy after her publication’s repeated attacks against Uber. On Monday Michael’s tone changed. He was apparently just really frustrated and all that stuff he said about digging up personal details about those in the media didn’t actually reflect his views on the matter. In response to the Buzzfeed piece, Michael issued the following statement: “The remarks attributed to me at a private dinner – borne out of frustration during an informal debate over what I feel is sensationalistic media coverage of the company I am proud to work for – do not reflect my actual views and have no relation to the company’s views or approach. They were wrong no matter the circumstance and I regret them.” And just to be safe, so that there is no confusion about it, Uber spokeswoman Nairi Hourdajian reiterated that the company hasn’t yet and doesn’t plan to look into the personal lives of people like me. Her statement: “We have not, do not and will not investigate journalists. Those remarks have no basis in the reality of our approach.” What would be the best way to repair our Machiavellian public image? I know, let's threaten to investigate the private lives of our critics! — James Temple (@jtemple) Anyway, the problem is not that some executive who thought he was at an “off-the-record” dinner said something so regrettably stupid. The problem is that after Uber has tried to sabotage its and , after it hired a guy who , after it , there are seemingly no depths to which this company would not stoop in its megalomaniac efforts to win the market. The problem is that most people don’t doubt for a second that Uber would do “oppo research” if it thought it could get ahead, and if it thought it wouldn’t get caught — if, as Michael reportedly said at the dinner, “Nobody would know it was us.” The problem is that, even when Uber says something as seemingly straightforward as “we… will not investigate journalists,” we don’t believe them. We can’t. |
null | Ingrid Lunden | 2,014 | 11 | 28 | null |
Google Play Services 6.5 Adds New Features To Maps, Drive, Wallet, And Fit APIs | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 11 | 17 | The will include several interesting new features in Google Maps, Google Drive, Google Wallet, and the Google Fit. The rollout will be made in the next few days. In Google Maps, the API now includes a default toolbar that makes it quicker to get directions and navigation by automatically giving turn-by-turn directions to a destination, as well as a “lite mode” map option that allow developers to put thumbnail images of maps in their apps. Users who want to see a larger version can tap on the thumbnail, which launches the Google Maps app. Google Drive now lets developers add public and application private custom file properties to a Drive file, which the company says will make search queries more efficient. It also claims that Drive’s new API makes syncing Drive files easier and more battery friendly, with the ability to control when files are uploaded based on network type and the amount of battery charge still left in phone. In addition, users can also now cancel pending uploads. Meanwhile, Google Wallet’s API know lets developers add a “Donate with Google” button in addition to the “Buy With Google” button. Google Fit’s API update means that it is now easier for developers to support pauses in their apps or workouts with multiple activities by adding activities in “sessions,” or specific intervals of time. |
Alibaba’s Ant Financial Takes Minority Stake In Security Software Maker V-Key To Beef Up Alipay | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 11 | 17 | , a security software maker for mobile apps, has raised $12 million from affiliate Ant Financial Services and IPV Capital, a venture capital firm based in China. The Series B round means that Ant Financial now has a minority stake in V-Key, which is based in Redwood City, California. V-Key’s V-OS technology is supposed to provide a user-friendly way to protect data including identity verification and e-commerce transactions. The company, which also has offices in Singapore, says that V-OS is already deployed on “millions” of devices throughout the world.” A close relationship with V-Key will come in handy for Ant Financial because it operates several mobile and online financial services, including (China’s largest third-party online payment platform, which handles 80 million transactions a day, including 45 million through mobile devices); Alipay Wallet, online investment fund Yu’e Bao; Zhao Cai Ba, a loans marketplace for small businesses; Ant Credit; and MYbank, which is currently under formation. Ant Financial hopes to expand several of these businesses into international markets, as well as within China. In the past, Alipay has is still relatively young, many users worry about the safety of trusting bank accounts, credit cards, and other financial info to apps and online wallets. In April, Alipay announced that it had set up a 40 million RMB ($6.5 million) fund to build partnerships with banks, e-commerce companies, and security software makers to strengthen security for its products. As noted on Alibaba Group’s official blog, Alipay , which allows Chinese consumers to purchase goods directly from international e-commerce sites using the Alipay Wallet mobile shopping app. Cross-border shopping in China is a rapidly growing market and it makes sense why Alibaba Group would want to tap into it. 14 million Chinese consumers currently make up nearly 78 percent of the total amount of people who make overseas purchases, and spent $16.7 billion in 2013, almost half the value of all cross border online sales, . In a statement, Jason Zhu, head of Alipay’s investment team said: “V-Key’s all-in-one virtual security element technology is in line with Alipay’s commitment to creating a safer, more convenient global transaction environment. With global mobile payment transactions on the rise, mobile identity and data protection on numerous types of mobile devices and operating systems globally remains paramount, in addition to their ease-of-use and convenience.” In addition to its link-up with Ant Financial and Alibaba Group, capital from the Series B will also allow V-Key to expand globally and develop their technology. |
Source: Facebook Is Testing ‘Facebook At Work’, Separately Hosted Version To Roll Out In A Few Months | Ron Miller | 2,014 | 11 | 17 | This afternoon an industry source confirmed for me that Facebook is indeed piloting ‘Facebook at Work’ a product aimed at enterprise collaboration and the source told me such a product will be rolled out in a few months. Back in June, TechCrunch’s Ingrid Lunden reported that ‘, and (registration required) and speculation began in earnest. Here’s what we know that’s new: A source familiar with the company told me that Facebook was using their own tool internally to collaborate. “We use Facebook groups internally,” they said. “It’s an incredibly powerful system to spread knowledge.” They said Facebook became tool to catalogue knowledge and get help within a given project, while Messenger provided a way to communicate easily among group members. In fact, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz left Facebook several years ago to create , an enterprise social tool. Since then, Facebook has also gotten more serious about using its tools to collaborate internally, especially its Groups product. Most employees are part of dozens of work-related, employee-only Groups for all their projects as well as company-wide stuff. The new enterprise collaboration tool will look a lot like your personal Facebook page with a News Feed, Messenger and Groups, but it would be completely separate from your personal Facebook, so there would be no danger whatsoever that the two would ever bleed into one another. That means, no work content would ever appear in your personal feed and no personal content would ever appear in your work feed, a level of privacy that would be absolutely essential for all parties to trust it. Companies have long recognized the value of enterprise collaboration tools, but in spite of obvious benefits such as increasing communication, sharing and testing ideas more easily, acting as a de facto knowledge base and flattening hierarchies, enterprise collaboration tools have failed to catch on a big way inside organizations. Facebook has remained quiet when it comes to business collaboration tools, which is kind of ironic when you consider that for the longest time companies tried to sell enterprise collaboration tools as ‘Facebook for the Enterprise.’ Facebook could be betting that what has been holding it back adoption all these years is that other tools have forced users to learn a new way of working in spite of that moniker. The difference maker here could be that everyone uses Facebook and everyone is familiar with it –and if you transferred that familiar Facebook look and feel to work, employees would be comfortable using it and it would catch on in a big way. It’s not a bad theory. The big question that hangs out there though is will enterprise IT departments trust Facebook as an enterprise collaboration tool with all of the important company information be shared across it –and that’s still not clear. The source said while there were no ads in the piloted version and the company isn’t charging for it at this time, the source couldn’t predict what the final product will look like, nor could they confirm if the final product would available for a free download or sold directly to IT. All of those types of details were still being ironed out. Enterprise social tools have existed for years. When I asked why now, the source told me it was simply because Facebook now had the infrastructure in place to support such a system |
Students Build Objects With Metal Using A MIG Welder And An Off-The-Shelf 3D Printer | John Biggs | 2,014 | 11 | 17 | [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Dy-2F81DWA] Today in the Department of Overkill Department we present who have built a metal printer using a basic Prusa 3D printer – essentially a hobbyist printer – and a MIG welder. The system extrudes and melts a length of wire which is then laid down just like it is in plastic printers. The resulting objects, while far from pretty, prove that 3D printing in metal is finally reaching the realm of possibility for hobbyists and students. Obviously this isn’t a perfect solution if only due to the fact that it shoots huge sparks in an enclosed space, but darn if it doesn’t look cool. The system uses a very basic with some drastic modifications. In addition to the welder, they added a protective wall around the build area. The machine can extrude at 330 mm/min which isn’t very fast but you probably don’t want a MIG welder zipping around like a Makerbot. In short, this proves anyone can make a metal printer with a little effort. The project, based on a similar project from the , could be a step on the way towards mass adoption of fiery MIG welder-bearing robots that shoot molten metal and sparks in many directions. A girl, as they say, can dream. |
Snapcash Could Bring Real Identity And Ad Targeting Data To Snapchat | Josh Constine | 2,014 | 11 | 17 | Snapchat doesn’t ask for your real name, but its on the debit card you use for its new . That could prove very lucrative for the ephemeral messaging service. Snapchat has just to allow it to collect additional identity information about users of Snapcash. We’ve also discovered code showing the feature can run an identity verification on a user’s real name, birthdate, and social security number through Snapcash partner Square. Snapchat’s new privacy policy also details how the company deletes messages, provides ways to remove some data you provide it, and that it may out users for being under 18 years old if friends try to interact with them through features only for people 18 and up. [ : This article has been updated with info about Snapchat’s new privacy policy and code regarding identity verification checks] To use the feature for sending friends money that , users connect their debit card to their Snapchat accounts through a partnership with Square Cash. The real names, addresses, and account information associated with those debit cards can be collected by Snapchat, according to its new privacy policy that states, “ the and That info could potentially be cross-referenced with external databases of personal information to give Snapchat a much better idea of who users are and what ads they might want to see. Snapchat’s new privacy policy seems to allow this, noting “We may share information about you with service providers who perform services on our behalf. With respect to jointly offered Services or functionality or services offered separately by other companies through our Services, we may share information about you with business partners to provide the Services and functionality you request and to communicate with you about those Services.” Snapchat refused to comment on this story, and has made no hint that it’s planning this or has even considered it. But as its , it’s likely to leverage any data it can to make sure people aren’t seeing irrelevant ads or other promotions. All this is contingent on how Square Cash’s partnership with Snapchat works. However, do permit “third-party advertising and analytics”, with legalese that likely grants it the freedom to cooperate with Snapchat for ad targeting. Buried in the Snapchat Android app’s code is an identity verification check that queries a Snapcash user’s full name, birthdate, and social security number. The code connects to Square Cash’s servers, and fires if someone tries to send a total of more than $250 per week. Users agrees to that, according to . Depsite some misleading code, the apps do use a webview so only Square Cash touches the answers to the verification questions. dug up the code, and he’s previously discovered important hidden code and images from and . This code supports my conclusion that Snapchat could potentially use Snapcash to better understand people’s identities and market to them. , but the problem is that it doesn’t know much about its users beyond their made up username, IP location, volunteered age, phone number, and who they watch on Snapchat Stories. It does get some name info from contact books. But without the targeting prowess of apps like Facebook and Twitter, it may be forced to stick with ads for things with broad appeal, like films. Its first video promo was for horror movie Ouija. Just today, Snapchat hinted at how it could turn ephemeral ads into lasting relationships between businesses and users. After showing a short version of the Snapcash promo video, the Snapchat Team account direct messaged some users who watched it including , “Like the video? Here’s the extended version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBwjxBmMszQ”. But if Snapchat can layer on services like Square Cash that know more about their users, it could build up a better ad targeting system, all without forcing people to abandon their usernames or cough up personal info directly. This kind of targeting info could make the difference between seeing a pointless ad for a restaurant chain with no locations near you, and an ad for a TV show that’s right up your ally. If Snapchat eventually got serious about ad measurement, it could even tell that you bought movie tickets using the same card connected to your account for a flick you saw a Snap ad for, allowing it to prove that ad worked. Some might be weary of transacting payments with Snapchat following its . Others might be pissed Snapchat is starting to show ads or monetize all. But if it’s going to keep its messaging and payments services free, it needs to make money, and targeting data will make that a lot less annoying for everyone. |
The Drop Connected Kitchen Scale Is Not As Easy As Apple Pie, Yet | Sarah Buhr | 2,014 | 11 | 17 | The next frontier of hardware is in your kitchen. hopes to be a part of that connected experience with a kitchen scale and an that uses Bluetooth technology to take you step-by-step through hundreds of curated recipes. It’s an Irish invention that has been on pre-sale all summer long. It’s now in the U.S., the U.K., Canada and Europe for $99.95. That seems a bit pricey when compared to a regular, non-connected scales. You can find a bunch of them listed on Amazon ranging from a low on the high-end. The idea behind Drop is that you don’t have to measure anything. You just “drop” ingredients into a mixing bowl and the scale senses how much you’ve added by weight. The app shows you when to stop adding. It then should automatically move you on to the next step, without you ever needing to click your iPad with your gooey fingers. This is pretty appealing for a few reasons. We use a series of cups and spoons to measure ingredients for our recipes in the States. This would theoretically save a lot of dishes and messy cleanup. Scales are also deemed more precise by many and are the preferred measuring device by professionals. So I decided to give the Drop a whirl this weekend, starting with an apple pie. It’s something I’ve made before and it’s hard to screw up pie. First off, be aware that the app will let you copy, but not send the ingredients list to your iPhone. There’s an iPhone app coming soon for that. For now you will need to lug your iPad to the store with you. That’s not really something I wanted to do so I took a picture with my phone instead. As I mentioned, I’ve made apple pie before, so rather than go through the trouble of peeling, coring, and then slicing 8 Granny Smith’s, I decided to take a short cut with canned goods. This way, I reasoned, I would save a bunch of time and wouldn’t need to add the required sugar, either. Eight apples = two cans. I had been told that the app would be able to substitute ingredients. Sadly, I found out, upon returning to the kitchen, that this feature was “coming soon.” Still, I had the cans and I thought “what could be the difference?” Turns out cans do not equal apples. Something else you’ll need to know before starting is that the app measures most, but not all ingredients. It was good about telling me I’d reached peak cinnamon spice, but didn’t let me know when I’d added enough salt. I ended up salting and salting, hoping the visuals would eventually come up and let me know I’d added enough. It never did. It did tell me to add a 1/4 tsp. salt, but I had assumed that the app would calculate the weight like it had with the cinnamon and flour I’d added before. My hands were messy from previously squeezing lemon juice and I now had to touch the screen to let the app know I was done salting. Also, I’d now added too much (which, surprisingly ended up making the pie pretty tasty). The baking timer proved to be a bit confusing as well, at least for apple pie. Pie innards are softer and require a higher initial oven temperature. This particular recipe called for 15 minutes at 425 degrees fahrenheit and then asked for a reduced temperature at 350 degrees fahrenheit. However, it seemed to skip ahead, unprompted, and told me to lower the temperature before the 15 minutes were up. This step, plus the choice to use canned slices instead of fresh apples meant a doughy middle crust and a gooey (but still delicious) mess of a pie. The basic idea behind Drop sounds great. The visual progression is helpful.It also adds in basic instructions such as how to slice and chop better. I’d definitely like to see a future kitchen full of connected devices like the Drop that measure and time everything in a more precise way. However, it needs to improve a few things before I’d fully integrate it into my own cooking routine. Right now, the visual measurements seem a bit gimmicky and don’t always work. Why would Drop measure the cinnamon but not the salt? This could be a great tool for those who want a little more than just what a basic recipe book offers. It could possibly even foster a life-long love of cooking. And, to be fair, part of the pie screw up was based on my own corner-cutting. Perhaps I should give it another try with a cake or cookie recipe, sans substitutions and see how it goes. Now knowing what the app can and can’t do and how it operates, I may be able to make a better dish. Though I’m personally not convinced it’s worth the $99.95 to do that. Drop currently works with the iPad Air, iPad mini, and any iPad 3rd generation and up. The app will be available to download for free in the . Android and iPhone are both coming soon. |
inMarket Says Its Beacon Platform Reaches 18% Of US Mobile Shoppers | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 11 | 17 | Looks like I might have to revise my perception of in-store beacons as technology that won’t matter until a year or two or three from now (at best). I don’t have industry-wide numbers, but on its own, startup says it’s already reaching a significant percentage of US consumers — 31.5 million of them each month. If you’re skeptical, well, inMarket is comScore-verified for the first time, so they’ve have been checked by a third party. (inMarket is the first beacon platform to be verified in this way.) That means inMarket is already reaching 18 percent of mobile shoppers in the United States. And keep in mind that this kind of rollout, with beacon devices installed in stores, takes time. inMarket’s beacons and similar devices (including Apple’s iBeacons) allow businesses to send targeted promotional messages to consumers when they’re actually shopping. earlier this year and also . In a press release, CEO Todd Dipaola pointed to inMarket’s integration into existing shopping apps as a big reason for its growth: “Our beacon program works because we reach shoppers in stores via the shopping apps they already use and love. We’ve found that shoppers only want relevant apps when they’re trying to shop.” |
White House Says It “Strongly Supports” The Senate’s NSA Reform Bill | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 11 | 17 | The White House this afternoon saying that it “strongly supports” the Senate’s USA FREEDOM Act, which could see a vote this week. The bill would curtail some practices of the United States’ surveillance apparatus. Congress, in this lame duck session, only has so many hours and days to conduct its final business. Before the session, it . Senator Patrick Leahy refused to buckle, and managed, surprising many, to get the damn thing moving. A 60 vote threshold for cloture is expected to be tested tomorrow. It isn’t clear if there are enough yes votes. The White House coming out in favor of the bill puts it on the same side as its constant critic Senator Ted Cruz, who recently made a stir by calling net neutrality “ .” On that issue, the President and the good Senator are diametric opposites. The White House was before it was for it. Put another way, it was against it until it was politically safe to be in favor of it. The Senate’s USA FREEDOM Act is stronger than the , but doesn’t go far enough. A number of large technology companies , but noted that it wasn’t the full chihuahua. Others in Congress . But it’s probably all that we can get at the moment, and since I’m not too sure that the next Congress will be even more hawkish against the defense hawks, it might be all that we can get, period. If the White House’s words will sway votes remains to be seen. |
Hands-On With Super Smash Bros. For Wii U | Kyle Russell | 2,014 | 11 | 17 | Later this week, Nintendo launches , the fifth game in the wildly popular fighting game franchise that brings together all the company’s biggest characters. We’ve had a chance to play through some of the game this weekend and wanted to share some quick thoughts before our full review. From the first time you boot up Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, you can jump right into regular 4-player battles with dozens of characters and the option to play against friends, CPU opponents, or strangers online. If that isn’t intense enough for you, this latest release is the first in the series to allow for 8 players to battle it out at once. This mode is perfect for those with big TVs to play on (and 7 GameCube/Wii U Pro/Wii-mote controllers lying around), as the action can get a little hectic on smaller screens when people are fighting in different parts of the arena and everything is zoomed out. Instead of putting players through a set series of fights and challenge levels (or through a barebones story mode like in Super Smash Bros. Brawl), the new Classic mode lets you pick groups of opponents to fight. As usual, this leads to a big battle with series mainstay Master Hand. Nintendo has pulled in more characters from its various franchises than ever before. As usual, you can expect Mario and friends as well as mainstays from The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Donkey Kong, and Pokemon. But there’s also a few more niche characters, with contenders from old NES fighting games, the Xenoblade series, Animal Crossing, and even Wii Fit. If those aren’t enough, Nintendo added even more fighters from other companies’s games than were available from Brawl — all of which seem to be very well balanced. The new Smash Tour mode is like a mix between Mario Party’s game board and the series’s traditional fighting gameplay. Each turn, players move a random number of spaces (but can decide which directions to move), collecting items as they go that affect their stats in combat. When players bump into each other on the board, everyone fights — though the game lets more casual players have the CPU fight on their behalf so they can just focus on their board strategy. Hardcore players experienced with a wider range of characters will enjoy the new Events and Challenges, which put you in shoes of particular characters to take down tough objectives. These range from having you fight the game’s fastest characters as Sonic to surviving with 200% damage for a few minutes as Star Fox. There’s a lot more content in Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U that we’ve yet to try out. For our thoughts on that (and a more in-depth look at how the games performs and controls) be sure to check back for our review later this week. |
Goat Simulator Satirizes World Of Warcraft With An MMO Expansion | Kyle Russell | 2,014 | 11 | 17 | Back in September we took a look at , a that let you run rampant as an invincible goat in a small rural town. It’s a great game that’s easy to get into if you’re the kind of gamer who likes to be thrust into a world without being told what to do, discovering fun opportunities as you go. Unfortunately, the game world itself was quite small — after a few hours, you could see the entire map and knock out every objective. On Thursday, Goat Simulator’s developers are releasing a new expansion that will give fans of the game a whole new world to explore (and completely destroy) as one of the game’s absurdly powerful goats. Instead of giving players more of the same modern setting, the new expansion riffs on tropes from massively-multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft. The buildings and enemies are inspired by the fantasy genre, and along with the several goat skins from the initial release, you’ll be able to play as several typical role-playing classes, including Warrior, Rogue, Magician, and Hunter, with the additional “weird option” of, and I am not kidding, a Microwave with humanoid legs. This update won’t actually let you play with thousands of other players at once (the game is doing well, but not well), but you will have the chance to mess around in the new fantasy environment with friends on the same PC when the on November 20. |
EyeEm’s Algorithms Are Learning What Makes A Photo Great | Kyle Russell | 2,014 | 11 | 17 | When most people think of stock photography, they picture poorly-framed pictures with generic-looking subjects doing everyday activities with an unnatural amount of enthusiasm. With its , photosharing startup has blurred the line between professional photography and the casual shooting we all do that most smartphones have decent cameras and myriad ways to share them. In order for those photos to actually appeal to those looking to spend money for stock imagery, EyeEm had to bring in talented artists. That’s why it does internationally touring art shows demonstrating the best work on the service and — to position itself as the best mobile platform for getting professional exposure. Now that its archives are populated with so many images, the startup is building up its back end to better surface the best of the bunch, with help from talent acquired with the . In a meeting last week, CTO Ramzi Rizk showed me how the company is building up it machine-learning algorithms to better identify what’s in a photo without requiring users tag their uploads with every single object shown. If you use the search function, you can see the early results of these efforts. A search for “flowers on black background” surfaces a bunch of photos of exactly that, with less than half (based on my testing of a bunch of similar searches) actually including relevant tags in order to bring them up. These algorithms work using the same machine-learning techniques that Google used to s, so by themselves they’re impressive but not necessarily all that new. Now that the company has the layer of machine learning up and running (and learning new concepts every day), EyeEm is “training” its algorithms to identify which photos actually look good. By looking at things like which objects are in focus and blurred, what’s located at each third of a photo, and other identifiers of “beauty,” the ranking algorithms determine an EyeRank of aesthetic quality for each photo and applies an aggregated score to each photographer. The scoring system isn’t perfect. It still partially relies on user engagement, which leads to some weird outcomes — for instance, I don’t know whether it was machine learning or user input that caused searches for “woman” to bring up giant photos of a woman in a pose kind of like Nicki Minaj on the cover of Anaconda near the top of results. But in the long run, these efforts are just another angle for EyeEm to accomplish several of its goals. Theoretically, it further ensures that photographers see the service as a good place to get discovered, as they can assume that if they shoot good work, the backend will do a lot of the heavy lifting needed to get attention. Even farther out though, it helps EyeEm shift from being a service that pushes photos out to sites like the Huffington Post and Getty Images to actually being well-trafficked “stock photography” marketplace in its own right. The — which is still in beta — won’t just show you which photos match the key phrases you use to search. From the millions of photos in EyeEm’s archives, it’ll show you the ones actually worth buying. |
For Windows 10, A Feedback Test | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 11 | 17 | Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system is a , and one that is being built partially in plain sight. The software company, leaving behind its former ways, is working to integrate its community into the development process, even when it results in new features and changes that were sourced from people outside the firm. Such it was last week when Microsoft released a new build of Windows 10, which it claimed will be the final iteration for this calendar year. It’s almost December, and since the new code contained quite a bit of new, it was a reasonable timeframe. However, past new features and icons and the like, the latest Windows 10 build included a massive change to how the operating system interacted with OneDrive, Microsoft’s cloud storage product. In Windows 8.1, Microsoft greatly increased the integration between Windows and OneDrive. OneDrive also contained a system called smart files, that allowed a user to have icons for files on their computer, even when the file was actually in OneDrive’s cloud. When selected, the file would quickly download, giving the user the impression of having all their files on board, even when their hard drive could not hold all their digital loot. It’s gone. Users now have what the company called selective sync. Here’s the official verbiage: Starting with this build, OneDrive will use selective sync. This means you choose what you want synced to your PC and it will be. What you see is there and you don’t need to worry about downloading it. You can choose to have all of your OneDrive files synced to your PC, or just the ones you select. Reaction was immediate, and negative. The , posted to the Windows 10 user feedback forum quickly picked up thousands of votes [Formatting, etc: Original]: add an advanced option to restore showing ALL OneDrive files in Explorer, synced or not I rely on being able to see all the files on my OneDrive through Explorer, whether they are synced locally or not; if this integration is lost there is no advantage to using OneDrive over any other cloud. Please add the option for power users to continue to see all files and use an icon overlay to show which are local & which cloud The feedback was visceral enough that Microsoft responded to the comment, essentially saying that this was just the way things are going to be [Bolding: TechCrunch]: Wanted to jump in here and address some of the questions and feedback we are getting about the changes we rolled out yesterday. As we look at the next version of OneDrive, we are working very hard to make sure it provides the best experience possible for our customers, and a big part of that is getting the sync model right. – for example, being able to see all your files in the cloud even if they are not all sync’ed to your PC. (for example, with files not being available when offline), and that some applications didn’t work well with placeholders and that sync reliability was not where we needed it to be. So, we stepped back to take a fresh look at OneDrive in Windows. . In Windows 10, that means we’ll use selective sync instead of placeholders. But we’re adding additional capabilities, so the experience you get in Windows 10 build 9879 is just the beginning. For instance, you’ll be able to search all of your files on OneDrive – even those that aren’t sync’ed to your PC – and access those files directly from the search results. And we’ll solve for the scenario of having a large photo collection in the cloud but limited disk space on your PC. Longer term, we’ll continue to improve the experience of OneDrive in Windows File Explorer, including bringing back key features of placeholders. So keep the feedback coming. We’re working every day to improve OneDrive, and customer feedback is a hugely important part of that.” That sounds like the company isn’t changing its mind. Microsoft has made tough choices for structural reasons before, like when the company had to let Windows Phone 7.5 essentially so that Windows Phone itself could be moved over to share code with the rest of Windows. I think that here we are seeing the front-end changes that comes on the shoulders of quite a lot of back-end work. That won’t quiet the irked, but for now Microsoft has a choice: Change its plans, or deal with annoyed technology-loving folks who want things back the way that they were. I suspect that there were more comments from people who were confused by smart files than comments from people mad that they are gone, but, certainly, Microsoft is dealing with the first sustained, negative press cycle of the life of Windows 10. That’s can’t feel great. We hear the passion. We care a lot. No one will sleep well tonight. We'll keep working hard. This is a tough call — Gabriel Aul (@GabeAul) Windows 10 has to date in its life, despite being only partially available, in the feature sense. It will be curious to see what other changes are on the way. Microsoft wants to be more responsive, and open. The OneDrive flap is an interesting moment, combining the company’s new iterative development cycle, and its coalescing Windows strategy. I have a hunch that the latter bit will take precedence. If the testing userbase will be sympathetic to that idea remains to be seen. Early indications are negative. |
SourceLair Lets You Code Right In Your Browser | John Biggs | 2,014 | 11 | 17 | Editing code isn’t that hard. A terminal, a little Vim, a little PHP, some beer, and maybe a few Google searches and you’re off and running. But what if you want to work on a project without compromising your personal server or don’t really have an environment for coding? is one answer. The freemium service lets you build projects right in your browser. It supports Python, Ruby, HTML5, JavaScript, PHP, and C++ and offers a Linux shell right in the browser. You can run things immediately (here is my ) and it supports Git and Mercurial. The founders all went to the University of Athens and they’ve worked on a number of larger projects including dev positions at Warp.ly, ARM, and Niobium Labs. They’ve closed a $250,000 round with the National Bank of Greece and they have 1,000 users right now. “SourceLair does not attempt to port existing solutions for creating software into the browser. SourceLair augments the existing development experience by integrating services like GitHub, JIRA, Heroku etc. into the main tool we use for coding, the IDE,” said Paris Kasidiaris, co-founder. “SourceLair started as an assignment inside the university. We loved writing code but we hated the fact that we had to install a huge bunch of software on our desktops, laptops etc. to get it working, so we thought that it would be awesome if we didn’t have to do all of these anymore and all we had to do is log into a website and get started in seconds.” Does it work? Sure. I was able to get an IDE up and running in a minute or two and it ran without a hitch. You can create one project for free and $8 per month gets you 10 private projects. You have access to a full file system and you can store script in folders. Is it better than running your own Digital Ocean or AWS instance? Probably not, but for quick, one-off projects, it might make a lot of sense. In my own experience it takes about an hour of apt-gets and downloads to set up a working IDE for a new platform. Anything that can help programming novices like me get to a command prompt and a public demo page is A++ in my book. |
Intel’s MICA Smart Bracelet Will Be In Stores Before Christmas For $495 | Jordan Crook | 2,014 | 11 | 17 | , which was developed in collaboration with Opening Ceremony, the CFDA and sold exclusively at Barneys. The company also announced that it will go on sale in time for Christmas, and will retail for $495. That price includes at AT&T Sim card, complete with data and SMS messages, for two years. However, the company couldn’t clarify what kind of plan that provides in terms of data and cellular. We got our very first chance to go hands-on with the new device, which is meant to be the first wearable that was designed with fashion as a top priority. It certainly delivers when it comes to style, made with snake skin and semi-precious stones and pearls, but it also seems to function pretty well as a communications device. It comes with its own 3G radio, a GPS chip, and integration with TomTom and Yelp, all viewable from the curved 1.6-inch OLED display found on the inside of the bracelet. [gallery ids="1084284,1084283,1084282,1084281,1084280,1084277,1084275,1084274"] Since the bracelet comes with its own Sim card and number, users will be able to ‘filter’ anything that comes through the MICA by only offering that specific phone number to VIP friends and family. That way they’ll always get through in a way that isn’t distracting for the recipient. The MICA is configurable through the computer, letting users create canned response messages they can send in reply to texts. Dozens of canned message are already pre-loaded in the device, such as “I’ll call you back” or “I’ll be there in ten minutes.” The MICA promises 48 hours of battery life depending on usage, but we’ll have to do more intensive testing to prove whether or not that’s the case. The MICA will be available in the next few weeks at a price point of $495 from Barneys. Learn more . |
Built In Brooklyn: HowAboutWe Is An Online Dating Service With An Offline Focus | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 11 | 17 | There’s a good chance you’ve already heard about , the latest startup featured in our TechCrunch TV series — not just if you use the service yourself, but also because it was a few months ago. To be clear, this episode won’t tell you what the company has been up to post-acquisition, because we actually recorded it back in April. (Yeah, we’ve been shooting this series for a while.) But aside from a recording a new intro to avoid confusion, we decided to run the episode as-is, because it captures where HowAboutWe was right before acquisition — and how it got started in the first place. In the episode, co-founders Aaron Schildkrout and Brian Schechter told me about how they used to work as teachers, saw the growing impact that the Internet was having on their students, and started to think about creating an Internet startup on their own. As for why they focused on dating specifically, Schildkrout said, “We wanted online dating to not be so much about being online. We wanted to be about getting offline, about having real experiences, meeting new people in the real world, not just sort of endlessly poking and winking online.” Now, I doubt there are many online dating services that would say they want people to connect in the real world, but that kind of connection baked into the HowAboutWe concept — singles can connect over date ideas posted on the service, while couples can find activities that they can do together. And the pair said they went out into the real world to promote the service initially, handing out fliers at the Brooklyn bar and conducting man-on-the-street-style interviews. Schechter also had one of the snappiest answers to explain why they started the company in Brooklyn, and how the neighborhood has changed. He told us: Dumbo, Williamsburg, neighborhood after neighborhood throughout Brooklyn is being revitalized and reinvented in some ways through the growing tech industry here. We came to Dumbo, we’ve seen the neighborhood grow tremendously since 2010 — masses of people coming off the subway every morning, when it used to be just a small number. |
SpaceX Will Announce Micro-Satellites For Low Cost Internet Within Three Months | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 11 | 10 | , Elon Musk’s startup, is committed to bringing space travel to the masses. Now Musk has also confirmed on Twitter that SpaceX is working on a fleet of “advanced micro-satellites operating in large formations,” which will be officially announced in two to three months. The micro-satellites will be used to enable unfettered and “very low cost” Internet access. SpaceX is still in the early stages of developing advanced micro-satellites operating in large formations. Announcement in 2 to 3 months. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) unfettered certainly and at very low cost — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) Musk’s tweets were in response to , which said that SpaceX is looking at ways to develop small and inexpensive satellites that can enable Internet access around the world. The report said that Musk is working with former Google Inc. executive Greg Wyler, who founded WorldVu Satellites, on the project. The article also stated that SpaceX is considering launching about 700 satellites, each weighing less than 250 pounds, or half the size of the smallest communications satellites currently used. The fleet would also be 10 times bigger than the largest current fleet, managed by Iridium Communications. As a caveat, Musk stated that the WSJ story made several errors, though he didn’t say what they were. No, WSJ was wrong on several important points. The article shouldn’t have been written on rumor and hearsay. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) |
Xiaomi Made $250M Selling 1.16M Phones On China’s Singles’ Day | Jon Russell | 2,014 | 11 | 10 | Singles’ Day, the largest online shopping day in China/on the planet was yesterday, and — as many predicted — a spate of companies set new sales records for the shopathon. Alibaba, the retail giant most synonymous with the 11/11 bonanza, matched its revenue from last year with 10 hours still remaining, and Xiaomi — the smartphone-maker getting a lot of attention right now — also set a new best. Hugo Barra, Xiaomi’s VP of International, tweeted that the company generated $254 million in revenue from selling 1.16 million phones. Xiaomi Singles Day final record: 1.16 million Mi phones sold, ¥1.56B (US$ 254M) in sales in 24 hours — Hugo Barra (@hbarra) Earlier in the day, that the company reached ¥100 million (US$16 million) in sales after just five minutes. Xiaomi matched its performance from last year’s 11/11 event — revenue of ¥550 million (US$90 million) — within four hours of this year’s shopping day starting. Behind the sales numbers, Xiaomi said it had sold some 720,000 units by midday. Of that figure, around 250,000 were its flagship $300 Mi4 device, with 460,000 units of its $150 Redmi device snapped up. In addition, it says it sold 25,000 of its Mi TVs. Xiaomi’s revenue figures are, of course, far lower than those of Alibaba, but they are nonetheless impressive for a company that sold only 19 million smartphones during the whole of 2013. Singles’ Day came at an ideal time for Xiaomi. It has garnered increased media attention after in the smartphone industry (based on quarterly shipments), and these impressive sales figures will doubtless help its in fresh funding to continue . A series of new market launches this year mean Xiaomi now sells to customers in seven different countries in Asia — including India — and there are plans to reach more parts of Southeast Asia and to enter Central and Latin America. The corks were popping over at Xiaomi HQ yesterday… here’s co-founder Bin Lin breaking out the champagne. The original version of this article has been updated to include new figures from Xiaomi. |
Korean Mobile Media Company Yello Mobile Raises $100M From Formation 8 At A $1B Valuation | Catherine Shu | 2,014 | 11 | 10 | Korea-based startup has raised $100 million from Formation 8 at a $1 billion valuation. You probably haven’t heard about Yello Mobile if you live outside of Asia, but the startup has set its sights on becoming one of the region’s largest mobile media companies through a series of acquisitions. Its latest funding puts the total Yello Mobile has raised since it was founded in August 2012 at $176 million. Its current valuation means Yello Mobile as other Korean tech , including Line (though mainly based in Japan, the messaging app is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Korean Internet giant Naver), Daumkakao, Nexon, Com2Us, and Coupang. The company operates in several different verticals: mobile shopping and advertising, mobile travel, O2O (online to offline) business, as well as mobile content and media. The capital will be used to acquire more mobile app startups, as well as on marketing. Yello Mobile CEO Sanghyuk Lee told TechCrunch “we will continuously acquire companies related to mobile shopping and mobile advertising, mobile travel, online to offline business, and mobile content as we have been doing since our establishment.” Yello’s portfolio , including and . Though most of its acquisitions are Korean, Yello Mobile, looks for potential buys throughout Asia, except for China, which the company has yet to enter. After acquiring a startup, Yello Mobile requires that founders and share holders remain as employees for three to five years, unless they sell their stock back to Yello. Lee told that it plans to hold an initial public offering next year. |
Microsoft’s New Lumia 535 Costs $140 And Is Its First Non-Nokia Smartphone | Jon Russell | 2,014 | 11 | 10 | the imminent arrival of the first non-Nokia Lumia last week, and now it has the Lumia 535, a budget device priced at €110 (that’s just under US$140) with improvements across the board. The phone looks much like previous Lumia incarnations with an obvious branding difference. Gone are the Nokia logos, replaced instead by Microsoft’s name on the front — above the screen — and written horizontally on the colorful back of the device. That basic difference apart, the Lumia 535 looks like, well, a Lumia, albeit with some important changes under the hood. Microsoft has given the phone five-megapixel cameras on the front and back, and equipped it with a 1.2 GHz quad-core processor and 1GB RAM. There’s 8 GB of on-device memory, which can be expanded by up to 128 GB via an external memory card. That RAM is an increase on previous mid-range Lumia devices, while the most recent budget-minded Lumias — the 630 and 635, — strangely lacked a front-facing camera altogether. In a clear sign that the Lumia 535 is principally targeted at Asian markets, the phone is available as a dual-SIM variant. Software-wise, it will run the latest Windows 8.1 operating system, including the most recent Lumia Denim update. The company is also bundling a range of its services — including Skype and OneNote — which is part of its strategy to get (and lock) customers into its services ecosystem, the idea being that they will buy another Lumia phone when it is time to upgrade their device. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05TGNfXkjUI Microsoft said the phone will go on sale in China, Hong Kong and Bangladesh this month, with “other countries to follow.” That’s a pretty aggressive price point given the decent specs of the device. Under Nokia’s parentage, the budget devices in the Lumia family performed best — , which accounted for one quarter of the line’s sales. Microsoft seems to see the potential in playing to that strength and offering something bright, shiny and capable at a price point that won’t break the bank. Microsoft opted to remain in the cellphone game — launching the $25 Nokia 130 in August — but the new Lumia 535 is our first look at the kind of devices that it thinks will attract first-time smartphone buyers and those on a budget. This new Lumia focus is Redmond’s answer to Nokia’s X range of Android phones and the budget Asha range, both of which were slated for emerging markets but following the . |
Alibaba Smashes Its Record On China’s Singles’ Day With $9.3B In Sales | Jon Russell | 2,014 | 11 | 10 | that its total sales on Singles’ Day — China’s largest online shopping festival — reached a record $9.3 billion. In case you missed the media hype and have no idea why November 11 (11/11) is significant, it’s China biggest e-commerce sales day. Think of it as an amalgamation of all of North America’s biggest online retail days into one… on steroids. Home decor was a popular product category and Alibaba revealed that it sold over 1.2 million “large” home appliances, and over three million light products. But 11/11 also covers regular products — Alibaba sold more than 200,000 bottles of detergent — and the one-offs too, the company sold 50,000 cars from across its retail businesses. The shopping day touched other parts of the group’s business beyond its marketplace websites. Alipay, its Paypal-like affiliate, saw the volume of payments processed increase by 60 percent to reach $5.8 billion across the entire day. “Alibaba hopes to make a contribution to the Chinese economy. We feel the Chinese economy doesn’t lack external demand but internal demand is much needed and we are fortunate enough to be able to tap this demand,” Alibaba Founder and Executive Chairman Jack Ma said in a statement. [23:59:59] Final 11.11 Shopping Festival GMV figures exceed RMB 57.1 billion (USD $9.3 billion); 42.6% from mobile — Alizila.com (@Alizila) Last year, across its two biggest shopping services — its Taobao Marketplace and T-Mall site for brands — and the company easily matched that this year, reaching that number with more than ten hours left in the day. The big numbers started early, and it clocked its first $1 billion this year in less than 20 minutes — by 12.17am to be precise. The company went on to notch its second billion in GMV one hour and 12 seconds in the sales. For comparison, Cyber Monday in the U.S. in sales last year. It’s interesting to note that 42.6 percent of sales came from customers using mobile devices, for the first $2 billion in sales that figure was even higher at 46 percent. Those are hugely encouraging stats for Alibaba, which has been forced to adapt its business model and strategies in recent times to cater to the huge growth in mobile internet usage in China. Alibaba noted in that its group-wide revenue from mobile devices grew a whopping 1,020 percent year-on-year to account for $606 million in the most recent quarter of business. That’s up from $54 million one year previous. Over September, the company claimed 217 million monthly active users of its mobile apps — another impressive feat. It was always like that Singles’ Day 2014 would break all records once again. Last year, Alibaba notched an 80 percent growth in sales compared to the shopping day in 2012, but this year it widened its efforts behind Mainland China, with sales expanding worldwide. Experts believe that 11/11 has become an integral part of Chinese shopping culture, so we should expect record to tumble each year. “Chinese users now plan their shopping around this promo day. They have come to expect great deals. And are willing to wait for it to buy. So this sales record will likely be broken every year, ” Hans Tung, managing partner of — an early investor in Alibaba — told TechCrunch. Finally, more wow figures to give you a sense of perspective: Alibaba estimates that 27,000 merchants and 42,000 brands were involved in the 11/11 sales this year. That covers Tmall, Taobao, and also its AliExpress and Tmall Global services for customers outside of China. The original version of this post was updated to reflect Alibaba’s final sales figures and add comment from GGV Capital. |
AOL Drops ALEC, The State Lobbying Group ‘Lying’ About Climate Change | Jonathan Shieber | 2,014 | 11 | 10 | Sometimes, some days, I get to be proud of the company that pays my checks. Today is one of those days, as joins the ranks of the sane and dropped its support for the , an industry lobbying group that has been the subject of much scorn these days. (Although that good-will is leavened by a .) Last week, from , John Oliver. The organization has already been made persona non grata at tech firms ranging from to . In September, Eric Schmidt, Google’s Chairman, took to the radio waves to say that ALEC was ‘literally lying’ about climate change and that his company’s funding for the group was a mistake. Since then, Facebook, Yelp, Yahoo, News Corp. (no friend to liberal causes), Overstock.com and SAP have all agreed to drop the organization. The move by AOL is being hailed as a victory for the online organizing group, , which managed to sign up 21,000 petitioners to get AOL to drop the lobbying group. In true AOL fashion, the company was on ALEC’s communications and technology task force and tax and fiscal policy task force. Over that period, while AOL advocated for Open Internet protections, the group it was financing was battling the same initiatives. ALEC was founded in the 1970s to link corporate executives and lobbyists with local lawmakers, bypassing the federal government to influence policy more directly at the state level. |
AppDirect Acquires Data Visualization Company Leftronic | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 11 | 10 | Business app marketplace today that it has acquired , . Leftronic allows businesses to . AppDirect co-CEO Daniel Saks told me that by integrating Leftronic’s visualizations, AppDirect can give its customers a dashboard for monitoring the status of their apps. At the same time, Saks said that Leftronic will continue to operate as an independent subsidiary, comparing this to . “Our primary focus is extend our data visualization platform to cloud services that matter to our customers and to AppDirect’s customers,” added Leftronic CEO Rajiv Ghanta. “But I want to emphasize as an independent subsidiary we’re definitely open to and looking for opportunities outside of the AppDirect ecosystem as well.” Leftronic had raised $500,000 in funding and was incubated at Y Combinator. AppDirect, on the other hand, recently . As part of the acquisition announcement, to new customers (you know, for showing off those visualiations), and if you include the code “TCLeftronic,” you’ll get a free tablet as well. |
DSTLD Is Everlane For Jeans | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,014 | 11 | 10 | As it becomes ever easier to build a commerce brand from scratch online, we’re beginning to see upstart companies eat the luxury high-end mark-up right up. Notable examples include Warby Parker, Everlane and Jason Goldberg’s furniture store Hem. With retail prices reaching upwards of $200, it’s hard not to imagine someone eventually wanting to do this to premium denim, so here comes . Basically is selling its jeans at wholesale, offering what premium brands like Rag & Bone, 7 For All Mankind and Citizens of Humanity do, it says, for less than half the price. Unlike , another denim startup, it doesn’t crowdfund its designs, so the user experience of its site is similar to that of a high-end jeans brand. “Rag & Bone make a wonderful denim product, but the price point is inaccessible to most people,” says DSTLD co-founder Mark Lynn. “Their popular high-waisted skinny is $253 vs DSTLD’s high-waisted skinny at $65.” DSTLD considers itself in the same league with premium denim brands, because it uses the same suppliers, such as Cone Mills in North Carolina, Kurabo Mills in Japan and Candiani Mill in Italy. It also uses the same wash houses as brands like 7 For All Mankind, Hudson, J Brand and Diesel. Using the Internet to go direct to consumer is what, aside from its proprietary cuts and free shipping, sets it apart. And widens its margins. In doing research for this post, I’ve tried the , and liked it, and I will buy it with my own money for what that is worth. I figure paying $189 less for jeans is enough to take the risk on something new. I used to work at a very fancy jeans place (Earnest Sewn), so I’d consider myself not a sucker with regards to denim quality. The DSTLD jeans have more stretch than my Rag and Bone skinnies, with 77 percent versus 98 percent cotton, so let’s see how they do in the wash. And only time will tell on the zippers, which don’t work particularly well on my Rag and Bone pair, either. Lynn met his co-CEO Corey Epstein in high school in Colorado, and they worked with one another in their first attempts at entrepreneurship when they were both 18: A mobile entertainment company and a lifestyle magazine, respectively. They randomly ended up reuniting on a flight to L.A., and, after finding out they had similar views on the future of e-commerce, Lynn ended up joining Corey to work on 20Jeans, DSTLD’s original incarnation. In existence for over two years, the company is seeing traction. Says Lynn, “They said no one would buy jeans online but we have sold 60,000 pairs since we launched.” The company has also seen investor traction, picking up a $4.4 million total Series A funding from Plus Capital, Zillion, TenOneTen, Amplify LA, CrunchFund*, Baroda Ventures, CAA Ventures, WaveMaker, and angels Dennis Phelps, Paige Craig, and Tom McInerney. DSTLD will use the cash to introduce “a full contemporary collection distilled (heh) down to the luxury essentials in black, white and gray.” Which likely means: Bags. “We are all about less is more,” says Lynn. I can totally see a future where the Guccis and Chanels of the world are undercut by quality-focused companies that have built online trust first — marketing to my generation. That’s the battle, converting brand-conscious shoppers to “quality conscious” shoppers who want the same thing but without the overhead. Battlefield: Jeans. *Disclosure: CrunchFund was started by TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington |
New Relic Files To Go Public | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 11 | 10 | New Relic, a company that provides app-monitoring on a SaaS-basis, . The company intends to use the ticker symbol “NEWR” in the flotation, and its offering is underwritten by Moran Stanley, J.P. Morgan, and four other groups. The company’s financials appear to be strong, . In the first 6 months of 2014, the company had revenue of $47.974 million, up from a first-half 2013 tally of $26.146 million. That’s 83 percent growth over the last year. New Relic’s fiscal year ends on March 31. Perhaps more importantly, as the company’s revenue has grown, its net loss has barely budged. The company lost $19.395 million in the first half of 2014, up only mildly from the year-ago total of $18.569 million. Compared to other, quickly growing technology companies that have shown widening losses in keeping with their revenue growth, New Relic has demonstrated that it has a path to profitability. As , the company has a number of competitors, including AppDynamics, and AlertFox. Presumably, the company will update its S-1 before its IPO with its calendar third quarter data. The company has $92.37 million in cash and equivalents, putting its current runway on what appears to be solid footing. The IPO listing indicates that the company intends to raise up to $100 million in its offering, though I would not be surprised to see that number to revised upwards later. New Relic has , making the currently-listed $100 million for its IPO somewhat light, in a ratio sense. The company’s last round, which came earlier this year, . All told, it seems that New Relic is in better shape than other companies looking to pull the trigger, and so, provided that we don’t see additional market chop, the offering should make it live. |
Built In Brooklyn: Gotham Greens Turns Rooftops Into Urban Farms | Anthony Ha | 2,014 | 11 | 10 | For our latest episode of , we went to — which might seem a little strange, but that’s where you’ll find urban agriculture startup . Specifically, the company runs a greenhouse growing pesticide-free produce on the store’s roof, and that produce is sold in the Whole Foods itself. (To be clear, Gotham Greens has three rooftop farms/greenhouses in New York City, and it has plans to expand elsewhere. Its produce .) But why grow on rooftops at all? Co-founder and CEO Viraj Puri pitched this kind of agriculture as part of a broader trend of new, sustainable farming methods. “In cities we don’t have a lot of arable land. We don’t have a lot of fertile soil. But one vastly udnerutilized resource we do have is unused rooftop space,” he said. “The idea was to take this otherwise unused space, turn it into productive space where we could grow year-round, high-quality product for local customers.” Puri, along with his co-founder Eric Haley and the company’s chief agricultural officer Jennifer Nelkin Frymark, walked us through the company’s story, outlined the company’s farming methods, and showed us the greenhouse itself, and that’s all in the video above. |
Chinese Programmer Sticks Windows 95 On An iPhone 6 Plus | John Biggs | 2,014 | 11 | 10 | Today in “putting stuff onto things on which they don’t belong,” we present a user, , and his exciting admission that he installed Windows 95 on a brand new iPhone. He used a tool called , an open source DOSBox-like app to install the OS. He found that most of it worked fine but he was unable to upgrade to Windows XP. And we can assume he was also able to play . There’s is very little new about this whole process – people have been putting emulators on things since the original VAX machines – but it’s cool to see resurrected software run so readily on new hardware. While I can’t imagine a real world use case for this (maybe you really need to run a copy of Mavis Beacon?) it’s a great theoretical exercise. Who knows, maybe someone can run . Here is the poorly translated FAQ: 2.Q: Why are you doing this? Why not use Remote Desktop. A: First, to show that this kind of thing tall Remote Desktop is currently no support on win98 systems, not to use during system installation and tool methods have sent me here. 3.Q: Why is the process I installed the explorer process wrong? A: Because idos simulator only simulates the 16’s dos environment, although win98 16/32 hybrid system but Explorer and exe process large part needed is a 32-bit environment, so when they need 32 program calls some system environment variables and support libraries when an error occurs, LZ modify some of the resource is designed to allow him to run in idos environmental good, However, this modification will change the part of the machine, which has led some device errors when using LZ modify the good image. After LZ according to everyone’s feedback slowly improve! There are full instructions on . If not, I leave the installation as an exercise for the reader. |
Hortonworks First Hadoop Vendor To File S-1 | Ron Miller | 2,014 | 11 | 10 | , the big data processing platform built on top of the open source Apache Hadoop filed its S-1 paperwork today as its first step toward an initial public offering. In doing so it beat competitors Cloudera and MapR to the punch. Hortonworks offers a big data processing platform that includes the ability to process various types of data including SQL and NoSQL sources then search across data, or use various analytics tools to visualize the data. Hortonworks has a reputation for being a pure Hadoop offering without any proprietary extensions. They released their most recent version of the , which included more 100 new features, according to reports. Hortonworks has also recently signed agreements with Rackspace to offer a private cloud version of HDP and with Microsoft to offer HDP on Azure as a Platform as a Service offering. Hortonworks has collected $248M in venture funding to-date, with its most recent funding round coming in July for $50M. The company was launched in 2011 as a spin-off the Yahoo! Hadoop development team, offering an alternative to market leader at the time Cloudera. While both companies along with MapR have continued to push Hadoop and build on the open source product, it is Hortonworks that plans to IPO first. Its investors include Benchmark , Yahoo!, Tenaya Capital, Index Ventures, BlackRock, Dragoneer Investment Group and Passport Capital. Its most recent investment was from Hewlett-Packard. As more companies try to understand and process big data, companies who can provide solutions to help make that data understandable and do it quickly are going to have value in the market. According to a study conducted by Allied Market research, from $2B in 2013 to more than $50B by 2020 with a CAGR of 58.2 percent over that time. What’s somewhat surprising here though is that it’s Hortonworks that is filing and not Cloudera because as of last March, . Hortonworks on the other hand as of last spring had a $1B valuation, but regardless of valuations, it’s Hortonworks that goes to market first. WHAT S-1 TELLS US Hortonworks has quickly grown its revenue, but has also seen widening losses. For the first 9 months of 2013, the company’s revenue totaled $33.38 million, up 109.5 percent from its year-ago, 9 month tally of $15.93 million. Its Support Subscription revenue grew at a slower pace, up a slightly more modest 94.97 percent, to $19.19 in the most recent 9 months. Professional services revenue grew more quickly. On the other side, the company’s losses have also greatly expanded. The company had a net loss of $86.73 million in the first 9 months of this year, up from, $48.40 million in the year-ago, 9 month period. That represents a 79.19 percent gain. That means that Hortonwork’s revenues are growing a faster percentage clip than its losses. A large piece of the company’s Support Subscription revenue comes from Microsoft. As the company’s S-1 notes: “The largest contributor to the increases in quarterly revenue for the three months ended December 31, 2013, March 31, 2014, June 30, 2014 and September 30, 2014 was revenue from Microsoft, comprising $2.6 million, $2.5 million, $2.5 million and $2.5 million of support subscription revenue, respectively.” When you compare the dollar increases in its revenue and loss, some distance appears: Revenues grew by $17.45 million year-over-year. Its losses widened by a far greater $37.33 million. That implies that its losses are suffering from far-greater law of large numbers-induced drag than its revenues. Put another way, while the delta in percentage growth between its revenue, and its net loss appears positive, it might not be as sunny as it might otherwise seem. Handicapping the loss figures, we can yank out stock based compensation expenses. Doing so zips about $4.4 million in losses from its first 9 months 2014 net loss, or about 4.6 percent. The company’s Sales and Marketing costs, and its Research and Development expenses both roughly doubled year-over-year. Billings for the first three quarters of 2014 rose 117.8 percent from the comparative period. That could imply stronger future revenue growth, but not too much more. The company ended the third calendar quarter of 2014 with $111.61 million in cash. The company notes in its filing that it has enough cash for “at least” the next 12 months. The company burned $54.97 million in cash on operations in the first three quarters of this year, not including another $76.51 million that it used in “investing activities.” Hortonworks is another quickly growing company with troubling losses, and only so much cash left. Will the market welcome it? |
United States Postal Service Hacked | Greg Kumparak | 2,014 | 11 | 10 | It seems like 2014 has been one endless series of massive hacks. Home Depot. Target. Neiman Marcus. Michaels. JPMorgan Chase. It’s been one hack after the other, each dumping anything from customer credit card numbers to mailing addresses into the wild. The latest one is a big one: the United States Postal Service. So what do you need to do? Unless you’re a USPS employee, probably not a whole lot. For once, you probably need to call your bank and get yet another new credit card. If you a USPS employee, though, you’ll want to take the usual precautions, and then some: keep an eye on your credit report, and perhaps take advantage of a credit monitoring service (the USPS is offering a year of it for employees, but not customers). It’s not clear why the hackers wanted data on a bunch of USPS employees — but in case it’s identity fraud, you might as well have those bases covered. Meanwhile, be on the lookout for any reports on if/how this data gets put to use maliciously. |
Google Takes Over Operations Of Moffett Airfield From NASA, Will Invest $200M Into The Site | Ryan Lawler | 2,014 | 11 | 10 | After years of using Moffett Field as the home and launch pad for the private jets of Google’s founders, the company has agreed to a deal in which it will lease the airfield from NASA for the next 60 years. As part of the lease, Google will take over operations of the airfield while the U.S. government retains ownership of the land. In a , NASA announced that Planetary Ventures LLC, a shell organization operated by Google for real estate deals, will contribute $1.16 billion over the course of the lease, while reducing the government agency’s maintenance and operation costs by $6.3 million annually. The best part of the press release is this quote from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden: “As NASA expands its presence in space, we are making strides to reduce our footprint here on Earth,” he says. NASA and the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) will continue to own the 1,000 acres of land in Mountain View, Calif., which includes Hangars One, Two, and Three, an airfield flight operations building, two runways, and a private golf course. But for all intents and purposes, they will be handing over operations to Google through Planetary Ventures. The deal was finalized after Google earlier in the spring. Under its initial proposal, Google agreed to “rehabilitate and maintain the historic integrity of Hangar One and the Shenandoah Plaza Historic District.” It will be doing that and more. According to the press release, Planetary Ventures will invest more than $200 million into the property over and above the cost of the lease. In addition to refurbishing Hangar One, the company will also be rehabbing Hangars Two and Three, operating the airfield “in accordance with the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for public and private use,” and creating an educational facility open to the public to teach them about the site and local tech advancements in Silicon Valley. The firm will also assume operations of the site “following the finalization of a joint plan with NASA, the federal Environmental Protection Agency and California Regional Water Quality Control Board.” According to the press release, after renovating Moffett Airfield Google will use the site as the home for its own advanced research facilities. Once renovations are complete, Hangar One will again be home to high-tech innovation as Planetary Ventures begins using the historic facility for research, development, assembly and testing in the areas of space exploration, aviation, rover/robotics and other emerging technologies. Hangars Two and Three will be used for similar purposes. Perhaps that means it’ll be the new home of Google X? |
The President’s Net Neutrality Proposal Draws Opprobrium, Praise And Threats Of Legal Action | Alex Wilhelm | 2,014 | 11 | 10 | Earlier today, President Obama that called for reclassification of broadband under Title II of the Telecommunications Act. The , saying, in effect, that it wasn’t quite as simple as the president seemed to intimate, and that it needed more time to work on the matter. All the while, comments from extra-governmental parties rolled in. The comments come in two varieties: The president is a confused leader who the FCC should listen to; and the president is brave and excellent for proposing what he did. There isn’t much middle ground in the commentary. Let’s start with the ISPs, which were quick to draw the statement gun this morning (emphasis mine). : “Verizon supports the open Internet, and we continue to believe that the light-touch regulatory approach in place for the past two decades has been central to the Internet’s success. that would in and of itself threaten great harm to an open Internet, competition and innovation. . Moreover, this approach would be gratuitous. As all major broadband providers and their trade groups have conceded, the FCC already has sufficient authority under Section 706 to adopt rules that address any practices that threaten harm to consumers or competition, including authority to prohibit ‘paid prioritization.’ For effective, enforceable, legally sustainable net neutrality rules, the Commission should look to Section 706.” : “ . It is a complete reversal of a bipartisan policy that has been in place since the Clinton Administration—namely, to treat Internet access as an information service subject to light-touch regulation. This classification of Internet service has been upheld by the Supreme Court and has enjoyed strong Congressional support for nearly a generation. Now, with one statement, the White House is telling the FCC to ignore this precedent and to instead impose on the entire Internet—from end to end— onerous government regulation designed in the 1930s for a Bell phone monopoly that no longer exists, not for a 21st century technology. This will have a negative impact not only on investment and innovation, but also on our economy overall. “For a generation, the Internet has been an American success story. Light-touch regulation has encouraged levels of investment unprecedented by any industry and spawned incredible innovation. Today’s action puts all of that at risk – and puts it at risk not to remedy any specific harm that has occurred. Instead, this action is designed to deal with a hypothetical problem posed by certain political groups whose objective all along has been to bring about government control of the Internet. The White House is proposing to put the Internet and our economy at risk as a result of such political pressures. “We feel the actions called for by the White House are inconsistent with decades of legal precedent as well as Congressional intent. Moreover, if the government were going to make such a momentous decision as regulating the entire Internet like a public utility, that decision is more properly made by the Congress and not by unelected regulators without any public record to support the change in regulation. .” Comcast: “Comcast fully embraces the open Internet principles that the President and the Chairman of the FCC have espoused — transparency, no blocking, non-discrimination rules, and no “fast lanes”, which is the way we operate our network today. We continue to believe, however, that section 706 provides more than ample authority to impose those rules, as the DC Circuit made clear.” , being the first to roll out America’s fastest broadband speeds across the country. As the White House itself acknowledged in its broadband report in 2013, this only happened because we were not subject to the intrusive regulatory regime designed for a different era. To attempt to impose a full-blown Title II regime now, when the classification of cable broadband has always been as an information service, would reverse nearly a decade of precedent, including findings by the Supreme Court that this classification was proper. , as today’s immediate stock market reaction demonstrates. And such a radical reversal of consistent contrary precedent should be taken up by the Congress. The internet has not just appeared by accident or gift — it has been built by companies like ours investing and building networks and infrastructure. The policy the White House is encouraging would jeopardize this engine for job creation and investment as well as the innovation cycle that the Internet has generated.” That’s nice and uniform: a combination of hell no, no and we’ll sue you if you do this. Here’s a headline from TechFreedom, a self-described “non-profit, non-partisan technology policy think tank”: “Obama Cynically Exploits Confusion over Title II, Misses Opportunity to Lead on Legislative Deal” Well, then. A trio of Republican lawmakers are gosh-darned gobsmacked by the situation. From the mouths of Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden and Vice Chairman Bob Latta: “We are extremely troubled and disappointed by the president’s urging the FCC to regulate the Internet as a utility under Title II of the Communications Act. Today’s announcement is just the latest in a long line of decisions that reveal this administration simply doesn’t know how to grow the economy.” But I thought the government didn’t create jobs. On the other side of the ideological spectrum, we have the people that are cheering the president, and not threatening to sue the government. First up, : . He deserves an enormous amount of credit for unequivocally calling on the FCC to adopt rules that will finally allow the agency to protect the free and open internet. Preventing ‘fast lanes’ and discrimination against some content producers on the internet is one of the most important free speech issues of the digital age. Large broadband providers should not be allowed to slow or block content from their competitors or because the content may be controversial.” And here is : “The Internet Association applauds President Obama’s proposal for the adoption of meaningful net neutrality rules that apply to both mobile and fixed broadband. As we have previously said, the FCC must adopt strong, legally sustainable rules that prevent paid prioritization and protect an open Internet for users. Using Title II authority, along with the right set of enforceable rules, the President’s plan would establish the strong net neutrality protections Internet users require. We welcome the President’s leadership, and encourage the FCC to stand with the Internet’s vast community of users and move quickly to adopt strong net neutrality protections that ensure a free and open Internet.” And, finally, Netflix: Pres. agrees: consumers should pick winners and losers on the Internet, not broadband gatekeepers. — Netflix US (@netflix) That’s the lay of the land, and it isn’t a surprising landscape. What matters now is whether the president’s comments will have any material impact on the thinking of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and any of the other FCC commissioners. If not, all we’ve managed to do today is spin our wheels. |
Instagram Launches A People Discovery Tab To Fill Your Feed With Fresh Creators | Josh Constine | 2,014 | 11 | 10 | Your friends may not be the best photographers, so that highlights great Instagrammers and three of their recent pics. Instagram also now lets you edit old captions in case you had a typo or want to be more poetic. While photos from people you know are inherently the most interesting, YouTube, Vine, Snapchat, and other content platforms have developed vibrant communities of semi-professional creators that sustain loyal fan bases. By highting these creators and helping them build a following, Instagram could piggyback on people’s desire to come back again and again to see the latest shot from their favorite star photographer. Instagram tells me that the People tab “is personalized.” Accounts are selected to appear based on “a variety of factors, including who you follow, who you’re connected to, and what you like on Instagram. Also, some editorial suggestions.” Everyone won’t be seeing the same accounts, so specific users won’t suddenly rocket to stardom like in the early days of Twitter’s Suggested User List. Instead, Instagram is using algorithms to spread the suggestions around rather than playing favorites. One issue with People discovery on Instagram is that since you only have one feed, snap-happy creators could drown out friends who only share occasionally. Still, there’s soo much Instagram could do with its Explore tab. If feels like the product is moving at frozen molasses speed. Two years ago I proposed a , but that’s still nowhere to be found. When you tap the Explore icon at the bottom of the screen, now a magnifying glass, you’ll get the same tab of popular photos you’re used to, but you can tap over to see the People tab instead. The caption editing interface is available from the three-dot More button beneath your photos. For years, Facebook didn’t allow editing of posts because it feared people would bait-and-switch each other, putting up one set of text, then changing it to mean something different that could offend or embarass the people who Liked the old version. Eventually it realized this didn’t actually happen that often, and the community would properly shame anyone who did it, so in . Now Instagram has been deemed mature enough to handle caption editing. What’s different is that you can edit in stealth because unlike Facebook, you can’t tap the “Edited” tag on Instagram to reveal the history of edits someone’s made. If Instagram can pull off strong recommendations with the People tab, it could mint Instagram celebrities that keep users loyal to their app through a cult of personality. This not only makes the app stickier to existing Instagrammers, but could create instances of mass culture — photos or videos people publicly discuss — that content strictly from friends can’t. That could be the key to the next echelon of Instagram’s ascendance. |
null | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 11 | 17 | null |
Hacker Emails Testing Service BrowserStack’s Customers, Says Company Lied About Security | Sarah Perez | 2,014 | 11 | 10 | Is there anything worse than being hacked? How about a hacker that manages to acquire your customers’ contact information, emails them that the service is shutting down, and that the company has been lying to everyone about its security? That’s what happened to , the makers of a popular browser-testing service that allows customers to test websites on real desktop and mobile browsers in a VM environment. The Mumbai-based company counts among its over 25,000 customers big names like Microsoft, jQuery, Xerox, Citrix, Github, eBay, Barclays, Adobe, Visa, Lockheed Martin, Bose, MIT, Johnson & Johnson, and Wikipedia, according to its website. Over the weekend, some unknown number of BrowserStack customers received an odd email from the company. It read: Dear BrowserStack User, We are unfortunately displeased to announce that BrowserStack will be shutting down. After much consideration on our part, we have realized we were negligent in the services we claimed to offer. In our terms of service, we state the following: […] after the restoration process is complete, the virtual machines are guaranteed to be tamper-proof. […] The machines themselves are in a secure network, and behind strong firewalls to present the safest environment possible. […] At any given time, you have sole access to a virtual machine. Your testing session cannot be seen or accessed by other users, including BrowserStack administrators. Once you release a virtual machine, it is taken off the grid, and restored to its initial settings. All your data is destroyed in this process. Unfortunately, we have blatantly lied. Not only do all of our administrators have access, but so does the general public. We have no firewalls in place, and our password policies are atrocious. All virtual machines launched are open to the public, accessible to anyone with the alpha password \”nakula\” on port 5901, a password which is stored in plaintext on every VM. As well, our infrastructure uses the same root passwords on all machines, which is also stored in plaintext on every VM launched (\”c0stac0ff33\”). Given the propensity for cyber criminals to target infrastructure services such as ours, it is almost certain all of your data has been compromised. These passwords take no less than 15 minutes to find for anyone who is looking. We hope we have not caused you too much trouble, and to our enterprise customers who signed deals contracts based on a fabrication, we are equally sorry. Sincerely,
The BrowserStack Team Obviously, the tone of the email and its content raised a red flag. Even when companies are negligent about their security, they don’t tend to be quite this transparent when admitting it to their customers. The email, not surprisingly, was not legit. At least, it wasn’t from the company itself. As for its claims? We’re still waiting to hear back if BrowserStack execs want to respond to these in more detail. https://twitter.com/Chevex/status/531703412304257025 Having a hard time believing this guys, to be honest. I think a formal response to the contents of the email is warranted ASAP — Luke Rollans 🇦🇺🏳️🌈 (@lukerollans) . says only an email list leaked. Email very specific on more than that. True or BS? — ceejayoz (@ceejayoz) agreed; That may have been randomly generated passwords per host, might be BS, or might be 100% on target. — Lupus LojiBoy (@lojikil) The hack itself doesn’t seem too involved. A company rep told TechCrunch that the attack was detected “immediately after the hacker gained access” and the damage was “contained to just a list of email addresses.” BrowserStack is advising customers to change their passwords as a precaution, however. “We are still in the process of sanitisation, and making doubly sure this situation never re-occurs. We are on top of it, and will post updates as they happen. We will be sharing an entire post-mortem report in the next few days,” a company rep told us. BrowserStack has also been keeping updated with news of the breach and the measures it’s taking to resolve the problem. Initially, . Subsequent tweets have stated the service was coming back online, with the “Automate” and “Screenshot” services first to return and the “Live” service to follow soon. On Twitter, the company is also promising to email all users with the entire analysis after the services are restored. “Currently efforts are focused on getting the service back on track, and protecting user interests,” one tweet read, contributing to concerns that the hacker’s claims have a grain of truth to them. Indeed, the hacker’s statements have worried some BrowserStack users, who wonder now if there are security holes in the testing service — especially because the claims come across as those a disgruntled ex-employee might know about. Additionally, on a thread on the developer-focused portal , a number of commenters mention they’ve experienced oddities when using BrowserStack, noting they’ve started sessions where it appears they were able to see another user’s session in progress, including their internal URL, typing, and the other user’s mouse moving around on the screen. Making matters worse, despite requests from users on Twitter, the company has mainly communicated about the status of its services, not whether or not the claims in the hacker’s email were true or false. When TechCrunch asked the company point-blank if it would respond to these claims, a rep responded: “I can assure you that the claims in the hacker’s email are false. The email was not sent by BrowserStack or anyone working with us.” That said, our responses came in through a support email address, and not from the company execs directly. We wouldn’t characterize this response as an “official” company statement at this time. We reached out to BrowserStack founders via both email and LinkedIn for further clarification, and are still waiting to hear back. We’ll update if and when that occurs. Co-founder Ritesh Arora has responded to our inquiry. “We will respond to all questions and will communicate in detail to all our users,” he says. “Our current priority is to get BrowserStack stand up and running. In short, We did get hacked. BrowserStack is technically huge and we’re checking each component strictly, adding extra precautions to prevent any further hack. We’re opening services one by one.” We’ve asked Arora if he will provide a point-by-point analysis. Arora: “All BrowserStack services are up and running. We continue scale up for spike in traffic. We’re keeping a strong check as well.” Here is the full email sent to customers: As you may already know, BrowserStack experienced an attack on during which an individual was able to gain unauthorized access to some of our users’ registered email addresses. He then tried to send to all our registered users, but he was only able to reach less than 1% (our estimate is 5,000 users). The email contained inaccurate information, even claiming that BrowserStack would be shutting down. BrowserStack application servers run using Amazon Web Services. The configuration is vast, consisting of thousands of servers. One of these was an old prototype machine, which was the target of the breach. The machine had been running since before 2012, and was not in active use. It was penetrated using the shellshock vulnerability, and since it was no longer in active use, it did not have the appropriate patch installed. The old prototype machine had our AWS API access key and secret key. Once the hacker gained access to the keys, he created an IAM user, and generated a key-pair. He was then able to run an instance inside our AWS account using these credentials, and mount one of our backup disks. This backup was of one of our component services, used for production environment, and contained a config file with our database password. He also whitelisted his IP on our database security group, which is the AWS firewall. He began to copy one of our tables, which contained partial user information, including email IDs, hashed passwords, and last tested URL. His copy operation locked the database table, which raised alerts on our monitoring system. On receiving the alerts, we checked the logs, saw an unrecognized IP, and blocked it right away. In that time, the hacker had been able to retrieve only a portion of the data. Finally, using this data and the SES credentials, he was able to send an email to some of our users. Our database logs confirmed that user data was partially copied, but no user test history was compromised. Therefore all user data remains wholly intact. Most crucially, , as we only store the last 4 digits of the credit card number, and all payment processing takes place through our payment processing partner. All user passwords are salted, and encrypted with the powerful bcrypt algorithm, which creates an irreversible hash which cannot be cracked. However, as an added precaution, we suggest that users change their BrowserStack account passwords. We were able to verify the actions of the hacker using AWS Cloud Trail, which confirmed that no other services were compromised, no other machines were booted, and our AMIs and other data stores were not copied. In addition, our production web server logs indicate that we were experiencing shellshock attempts, but they failed because the production web server has the necessary patches to foil all such attempts. We would now like to address the points raised in the email. The hacker quoted three paragraphs from our Security documentation, as follows: With respect to the plaintext passwords on the VMs, this is certainly not the case, as we moved to key-based authentication years ago. Moreover root login is disabled in our SSH configuration. Both the passwords mentioned, ‘nakula’ and ‘c0stac0ff33’, were indeed in use a couple of years ago during our prototyping phase, and thus were present in the old prototype machine that was hacked. ‘nakula’ was previously our VNC password, and was hashed. However, unlike the hash used for the user passwords, this hash is much weaker. This was due to a limitation in VNC protocol, and we had overcome this liability by regenerating a new password for every session, and thus ‘nakula’ has not been in use for years. ‘c0stac0ff33’ was one of our system user passwords on the prototype machine, before we moved to key-based authentication. It is true that we still run our VNC server on port 5901, but we do not believe that it is a security vulnerability because a current password is still required for access. As mentioned before, the passwords are changed every test session. All our servers, running or not, whether in active use or not, should have been patched with the latest security upgrades and updates including the shellshock one. Moreover, servers not in active use should have been stopped and the server shouldn’t have had the AWS keys. Additionally, our communication could have been better. Instead of intermittent updates, we preferred to present a complete, honest picture of the attack to our users once our analysis was done. Once again we apologise for the inconvenience. BrowserStack is deeply committed to providing the best and most secure testing infrastructure for our users. We will be forging ahead with exciting new releases in the next few weeks and look forward to continue serving you. We have a trace and the IP of the hacker. We will be in touch with authorities soon to register an official complaint. Thank you for the support and understanding we have received over the last few days. Sincerely,
Ritesh and Nakul
Founders, BrowserStack |
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