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22 May ' 06:51
posted 22 mins agoAmazon Debuts ‘Kindle Worlds,’ Where Your Gossip Girl Fan Fiction Can Earn You Cash
Sometimes a writer creates a universe so compelling that others feel the need to join and help flesh out that world with their own tribute fiction. And sometimes you make something crappy like Gossip Girl and loads of people want to write using those characters and that world anyway. Now Amazon is introducing a way to let writers profit from their fan fiction, via “Kindle Worlds.”
posted 47 mins agoEdgeCast Launches A New Content Delivery Network Just For E-Commerce Companies
Los Angeles-based content delivery startup EdgeCast launched a new product called EdgeCast Transact, provides a dedicated CDN built just for e-commerce companies, with all the features that e-commerce companies need. EdgeCast Transact is built on top of the company’s new Commerce Acceleration Network, which is built to be PCI-compliant and enable acceleration and optimization of e-commerce pages.
posted 59 mins agoGoogle Adds Conversational Search In Latest Chrome Build, We Go Voice On
Google has updated Chrome in build 27 to include conversational voice search, a feature it demoed on stage at Google I/O this year that allows you to search by voice, but also transcribes your queries in real time and lets you use natural language, asking Google straightforward questions and getting straightforward answers, both read back to you by dictation and in actual Google search results.
posted 1 hour agoWhat Is It About Porn? An Interview With The Founders Of TheWorstDrug, A NSFW GIF Site
Porn is the new Tumblr. It seems that everyone with a CS degree and a little free time is trying to cash in (or at least dabble) in the world of online sexuality, a happenstance that I’d chalk up to the ubiquity of boobies online and the potential for perceived riches. But what inspires a pair of designers and artists to create a site that essentially catalogs every NSFW GIF they can find?
posted 2 hours agoPractice Fusion Continues To Reach Beyond Digital Health Records, Adds Free Expense Tracking To New Booking Engine
Practice Fusion has made a name for itself over the past few years by tapping into enormous demand for digital health information — particularly health records. From its inception in 2005, the startup has been on a mission to disrupt the slow-moving, archaic world of Healthcare IT by providing a free, web-based electronic medical records (EMR) platform to doctors and their practices.
posted 2 hours agoHands-On With The Scanadu Scout, The Health Gadget That’s Crowdfunding Its Way To FDA Approval
The last time we met with the folks from Scanadu, we had a very limited look its much buzzed-about line of gadgets that aim to bring vital sign monitoring beyond the realm of the hospital and available to anyone with a smartphone. This week, the company’s CEO Walter De Brouwer stopped by TechCrunch TV with an update to allow us to demo an updated version of the SCOUT and show that Scanadu is…
posted 2 hours agoBlue Coat Buys Intel-Backed Solera Networks To Beef Up In Big Data, Encrypted Data Security
Web security provider Blue Coat Systems — itself acquired in a $1.3 billion deal by Thoma Bravo at the end of December 2011 — is making an acquisition today: it’s buying Solera Networks, a specialist in big data security, for an undisclosed sum (although we have reached out to the company to ask). The deal is expected to close in the next thirty days.
posted 3 hours agoUrturn Raises $13.4M Series A, Led By Balderton, For Its Social Expressions Platform That Lets Teens Create Memes & Movements
Urturn, the social expressions platform that soft-launched as stealthily as possible last year by intentionally hiding under a really boring name, is getting ready to turn the volume up to 11 to start seriously recruiting teens and trend-setters to its meme-stuffed, fashion-friendly, music-loving platform. Today it has announced a $13.4 million Series A funding round, led by Balderton Capital with…
posted 4 hours agoAirtasker Wants To Be oDesk Of Southeast Asia
Australian startup, Airtasker, is keen to expand out of its home country into Southeast Asia, which it says hasn’t been touched by large competitors yet. The year-old startup provides job matching for freelancers and employers, similar to what oDesk and Elance do. For its first steps outside of Australia, its first port of call will be Singapore, where it wants to hire two country managers.
posted 4 hours agoSumUp, One Of Europe’s Many Mobile Payments Startups, Launches In Russia — Now Operating In 11 Markets
SumUp, one of the myriad European Square-style mobile card reader startups, has expanded its coverage footprint by rolling into an 11th European market: Russia. SumUp is now operational in the U.K., Germany, Ireland, Austria, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, France, Portugal, Belgium and Russia, giving it a larger geographical footprint than other European rivals including iZettle and Payleven.
posted 5 hours agoAiming To Be The Mobile Banking App To Rule Them All, Numbrs Stashes $7.7M Of Fresh Funding
Chalk this up as one to watch closely in the world of consumer fintech. Numbrs, a mobile-first banking app founded out of Swiss company builder Centralway, has raised 7.5 million Swiss francs (~$7.7 million) from its parent, capital it will use to build on its pending German launch, with the UK and Swiss markets up next, followed by Singapore and Hong Kong.
posted 5 hours agoRando’s 5M Anti-Social Photo Shares Could Be The Canary In The Social Networking Coalmine
Rando only launched in March but the anti-social photo-sharing app that deliberately eschews the standard social network clutter of likes and comments and connections — simply letting users share random photos with random strangers and get random snaps in return — has blasted past 5M photo shares after a little over two months in the wild. It is now averaging around 200,000 shares per day.
posted 5 hours agoSleep Tracking Startup Zeo Says Goodnight
One of the early pioneers in the Quantified Self movement has quietly gone out of business. Zeo, a leading maker of hardware and software used by consumers to track sleep and improve their health, has not been operating since the end of last year. A trustee has nearly completed the sale of all company assets. Zeo has been very quiet about the news up until now. In fact, Zeo’s website is still up…
posted 6 hours agoZalora, Rocket Internet’s SE Asian Zappos Clone, Raises $100M More From Summit, Kinnevik And More
Zalora, a Zappos-style fashion e-commerce site in South East Asia backed by the Samwer brothers’ Rocket Internet incubator in Germany, is today announcing its latest investment — $100 million, led by Rocket Internet itself, along with regular Samwer investing partners Summit Partners, Investment AB Kinnevik, Verlinvest and Tengelmann Group. The is the largest investment in Zalora to date, and one…
posted 6 hours agoHe Should Have Just Spelled It JIF Then
Tumblr Literary Community Organizer” Rachel Fershleiser
, China’s biggest search engine.
San Francisco, CA
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22 May ' 00:05
posted yesterdayAll I’ve Heard From My Family Since The Acquisition News Began
Tumblr engineer Rachel Fershleiser has family who read TechCrunch. And Tumblr founder David Karp think it’s the “greatest thing.”
posted yesterdayEchelon 2013 Will Bring Together Asia-Pacific’s Top Startups In June
Now in its fourth year, tech conference Echelon will gather 52 of the Asia Pacific’s most promising startups from June 4 to 5 in Singapore. The event will also feature more than 50 speakers and judges, including 500 Startups’ Dave McClure and Sahil Lavingia, who raised $8.1 million for his startup Gumroad when he was just 20 years old, and was an early employee at Pinterest
posted yesterdayQihoo 360 Partners With Alibaba To Grab Market Share Away From Chinese Search Giant Baidu
China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba and search company Qihoo 360 have teamed up to launch 360.etao.com, an online shopping search engine that rivals similar products by Baidu, the search giant known as “China’s Google.”
posted yesterdayCultural Learnings Of Silicon Valley For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Ukraine
Like you and a lot of other people in the Valley, I read the blogs snarking on the Valley, because nothing is funnier than making fun of people just like us, technology elite who download hot apps, ringtones and backgrounds all day and all night – all on our separate phones reserved for daytime and nighttime.
posted yesterdaySnow Fail: The New York Times And Its Misunderstanding Of Copyright
The New York Times spent months and had an entire team working on the creation of Snow Fall, and it shows. But what if I told you that you could recreate the same interactive experience in just about an hour? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?
Well, the New York Times wouldn’t.
posted yesterdayThe Saturday Evening Post Finally Comes To iOS, With Help From Yudu
The Saturday Evening Post has a prominent spot in the history of American magazines. It’s where artist Norman Rockwell made a name for himself, and it has published classic American authors like Edgar Allan Poe and F. Scott Fitzgerald. But if you had no idea that it was still around, you’re not alone — the magazine’s technology director Steve Harman said that many people “are surprised we’re…
posted yesterdayBasho Co-Founder Raises $3M To Launch Orchestrate.io, A Twilio For Databases
Basho Co-Founder Antony Falco has raised $3 million for Orchestrate.io, a database API similar to Twilio in its capability to ease the complexity of adding features to mobile and web applications. True Ventures led this initial round joined by Frontline Ventures and Resonant Venture Partners. Falco, who left Basho a few months ago, said Orchestrate.io solves the problems that developers face when…
Kakul Srivastava and Simon Batistoniposted yesterdayThe Former Flickr Employee Guide To Tumblr Yahoo Survival
Editor’s note: Kakul Srivastava is CEO and co-founder of Tomfoolery, Inc. She was General Manager for Flickr from 2004 – 2009 and helped the product grow from 37,000 users to over 60 million. Simon Batistoni is VP of Platform and co-founder of Tomfoolery, Inc. He joined Flickr in 2006 as the engineering lead for internationalization.
posted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayN-able TechnologiesSolarWinds for $120M.Quixant — Went public with stock symbol QXT.L.N-able TechnologiesSolarWinds for $120M.lancers — Received $2.9M in Seed funding from Globis Capital PartnersGMO Venture PartnersShinichi TakamiyaShoppingWish — Received Angel funding from Sandeep JohriZee Learn — Received $20M in Unattributed funding5.21.20135.21.20135.21.20135.21.2013Quixant — Went public with stock symbol QXT.L.5.21.2013ACADIA Pharmaceuticals — Went public with stock symbol NASDAQ:ACAD.5.21.2013 -
21 May ' 17:19
posted 34 mins agoOK Go’s Damian Kulash Explains Why His Band Built Its Own Mobile Game
OK Go (the band behind hit music videos like “This Too Shall Pass” and “Here It Goes Again”) launched its very own game for iOS and Android earlier this month.
Titled Say The Same Thing, you play the game with one of your friends or with a randomly chosen player. (If you sign up now, you can also participate in a temporary promotion where people are randomly selected to play with a band member)…
Producteev’s Social Task Manager Now Free And Enterprise-Ready As It Preps For Full Jive Integration Later This Year
In November, Jive Software acquired Bay Area cloud-based, collaborative task manager, Producteev, to boost its social business platform. Going forward, as Alex wrote at the time, Salesforce.com and Jive will increasingly butt heads as they compete for mindshare in the enterprise. With Producteev’s multi-platform task-management system, which allows users to create tasks from emails and collaborate…
New Xbox Fails To Excite Investors As Microsoft, AMD Stocks Stays Flat While Sony Shoots Up 9%
Wall Street apparently wanted something more revolutionary out of the Xbox One that launched today, as Microsoft’s stock is down 0.66 percent. In turn, investors on news of a potential spin off, pushed Sony shares up 9 percent, coincidentally just after Microsoft announced its answer to the Sony Playstation.
PopExpert Online Video Education Marketplace Raises $2M In Seed Funding From Learn Capital And Others
As edtech startups continue to challenge the current state of higher education, and various niche startups focus on educating people through digital means, yet another company is getting a boost when it comes to helping people learn.
PopExpert, a learning marketplace that lets students connect with experts in one-on-one video chats, has just raised a $2 million seed round led by Learn Capital…
TC Cribs: Inside Fab’s NYC Headquarters, Where High Fashion And Hot Design Become Fun
Welcome to a brand new episode of Cribs, the TechCrunch TV series that goes straight into the heart of the action at the tech industry’s hottest companies to show what it’s really like for the people who work there.
For this edition we headed out on the road to the New York City headquarters of Fab, the super-popular e-commerce site that has quickly grown over the past couple years to be one…
Ditto Turns To Indiegogo For Help Battling Patent Lawsuits (Including One From 1-800-Contacts)
Ditto, a startup that helps users virtually try on different pairs of eyeglasses, has launched an Indiegogo campaign to help fight a big threat — the company says it’s being sued by 1-800-CONTACTS and another company called Lennon Imaging Technology.
Ditto’s technology allows users to create webcam recordings of their faces, which they then use to see how different designer glasses will look…
Laptop Week Review: The 13-Inch MacBook Pro With Retina Display
If I could only have one MacBook (which is usually the case for your average laptop-buyer), this is the one I’d pick, without hesitation. Fewer issues than its 15-inch cousin, which pioneered the Retina line, combined with a much lighter design with a smaller desktop footprint for a display that can still give you crazy amounts of screen real estate all adds up to a sure-fire winner.
Xbox One Makes The Console Gaming Experience Less Lonely
Gaming has evolved from single-player to head-to-head to massively multiplayer, but also retreated from public arcades to isolated homes. Today’s launch of the Xbox One makes the whole console experience social, not just the gaming itself. You’ll still be battling other humans, but how you communicate with other gamers and choose what to play is about to change.
Sen. Rand Paul Is Mostly Right In Defending Apple’s Obligation To Minimize Taxes
“It’s absurd for Congress to vilify businesses like Apple for wanting to minimize their tax code just like every other American rightly does,” tweeted uber-Libertarian Senator Rand Paul, lashing out at his Senate colleagues for ‘dragging’ Apple CEO Tim Cook in to defend his company’s tax policies.
On the eve of Cook’s much-hyped testimony, a Senate investigation released a scathing report…
Microsoft Confirms That The Xbox One Will Come With An Incredibly Sensitive New Kinect
The Xbox One was just unveiled at Microsoft’s Redmond campus and, true to multiple reports that circulated before the official reveal, the new console will indeed come with a Kinect.
And what a Kinect it is! The rumors of a vastly improved Kinect sensor array were right on the money — this next-generation model is capable of tracking motions as minute as wrist rotations, and Microsoft’s Marc…
The New Xbox One Live Features Add Advanced Social Gaming Features That Could Lead To True MMORPG Experiences
While we don’t have all of the details on the new Xbox Live features announced at today’s Xbox One launch, it’s clear that Microsoft is going all-in when it comes to social and multiplayer gaming. First, they are upping the number of dedicated servers for online play from 15,000 to 300,000 and nearly all of your content and game data will be store in the cloud.
posted 7 hours agoXbox One Instant Switching Turns The Console Into A Voice-Powered Set Top Box With Live TV Integration
Now leading the pack in gaming consoles, Microsoft’s future growth lies outside the gaming sphere. We’ll surely see tons of games at E3 in a few weeks, but at the big reveal of the Xbox One, the company chose to focus on non-gaming features, such as media streaming and Skype conversations.
But what makes streaming and entertainment a true upgrade on the Xbox One, which already has access to…
posted 7 hours agoAfter Months Of Speculation, Microsoft Officially Reveals Skype For The Xbox One
Microsoft’s Don Mattrick pulled back the curtain on the Xbox One at a live event at the company’s Redmond campus, and it wasn’t long at all before the talk turned to software. One application in particular has been the subject of speculation for months, and SVP Yusuf Mehdi confirmed that Skype (which, if you recall, Microsoft acquired for $8.5 billion nearly two years ago) is…
posted 7 hours agoHere’s Your New Xbox One: Microsoft’s All-In-One Home Entertainment System
Microsoft has revealed its new Xbox, the successor to the Xbox 360. It’s a next-generation console, with plenty of power under the hood, but it’s also clearly about consolidating your digital entertainment and operate as much more of a lifestyle device.
posted 7 hours agoWatch Microsoft’s Xbox Reveal Event Live Right Here, See The Future Of Console Gaming
Microsoft is about to unveil the next Xbox home gaming console, and they’re broadcasting the entire event live for all to watch. There will be thrills! Spills! Chills! Maybe some actual hardware, unlike at Sony’s PlayStation 4 reveal. Check it out above, or if you’re in an environment where you can’t listen in, or just prefer glorious words written by Greg Kumparak to these newfangled moving…
posted 7 hours agoposted 8 hours agoClueful, the mobile privacy app Apple booted from its App Store for being too revealing — or possibly because of its own behavior – is staging a comeback. This time around, Clueful’s maker Bitdefender is targeting Android users instead, with plans to reveal what the apps on your phone are doing, and how your privacy may be compromised in the process.
posted 8 hours agoApple’s CEO Tim Cook came out firing during his Congressional grilling, declaring, “we pay all of the taxes we owe, every single dollar.” A blistering Senate investigation
posted 8 hours agoposted 8 hours agoposted 8 hours agoposted 9 hours agoposted 9 hours agoposted 10 hours agoposted 10 hours agoposted 11 hours agoposted 11 hours agoposted 11 hours agoSwipely Raises $12M To Plug Marketing Tools Into Retail Payment Systems
“Payment marketing” startup Swipely is announcing that it has raised $12 million in Series B funding.
Although founder and CEO Angus Davis (who founded TellMe, which was acquired by Microsoft) said that he’s focused on “looking forward to the future,” it’s worth noting that this is the first round that Swipely has raised since the company moved on from allowing users to share credit card…
Postmaster — Received $600k in Seed funding from Cloud Power Fund, Capital Factory, and Zelkova VenturesPostmaster — Received $600k in Seed funding from Cloud Power Fund, Capital Factory, and Zelkova Ventures- Laptop Week Review: The 13-Inch MacBook Pro With Retina Display
- Microsoft Confirms That The Xbox One Will Come With An Incredibly Sensitive New Kinect
- Xbox One Instant Switching Turns The Console Into A Voice-Powered Set Top Box With Live TV Integration
- Meta, The World’s First Entry-Level AR Glasses, Hires The Father Of Wearable Computing As Chief Scientist
- Olloclip Quick-Flip Case and Pro-Photo Adapter add protection, tripod mount
- Conquest Vendors temporarily disabled
- GameStop stock takes hit following Xbox One used game story
- Vudu adds ability to download movies for offline viewing to iOS apps
- Xbox One pre-orders, info lists live via Game, Amazon, Microsoft Store
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21 May ' 09:54
posted 3 mins agoHotspot Shield Crosses 10M Installations On Android And iOS, Showing Strong Appetite For Mobile VPN
Virtual private networking is a great way to accomplish a number of things, including making sure that your secrets stay your own, protecting against malware attacks, and getting around the geoblocking of audio and video content from networks, labels and basically anyone who wants to restrict your sweet, sweet access. It’s understandable, then, that as computing increasingly goes mobile, VPN would…
posted 13 mins agoLiveBlog:LiveFromTheRevealMicrosoft’sNext-GenerationXbox
It’s Xbox day! Almost exactly 8 years after the announcement of the Xbox 360, Microsoft is back with another one.
We’re live on the ground at Microsoft’s Xbox campus in Redmond, where the company is about to show its next-generation console for the very first time. We’ll be bringing you the news as it breaks with our up-to-the-second liveblog. Join us, won’t you?
posted 28 mins agoAfter Getting Booted From Apple’s App Store, Mobile Privacy App Clueful Returns On Android
Clueful, the mobile privacy app Apple booted from its App Store for being too revealing- or possibly because of its own behavior - is staging a comeback. This time around, Clueful’s maker Bitdefender is targeting Android users instead, with plans to reveal what the apps on your phone are doing, and how your privacy may be comprised in the process. Bitdefender, a company which makes a…
posted 41 mins agoTim Cook: “We Pay All Of The Taxes We Owe, Every Single Dollar”
We are updating this blog during the live congressional testimony of Apple CEO Tim Cook. More details will be added soon.
Apple’s CEO Tim Cook came out firing during his Congressional grilling, declaring, “we pay all of the taxes we owe, every single dollar”. A blistering senate investigation accused Apple of shady tax dodging, helping it avoid $13.8 billion in taxes.
posted 46 mins agoTwitter’s Innovator’s Patent Agreement Goes Into Action For ‘Pull To Refresh,’ Jelly And Lift Will Adopt The Framework
Last year, Twitter announced something it called the Innovator’s Patent Agreement (IPA), which would keep patents in the hands of the designers and engineers that came up with the technology behind them. What this agreement serves as is a promise to only act on a patent for “defensive purposes.” Anything outside of that scope would need to be signed off on the creator of the patent itself.
posted 50 mins agoMeta, The World’s First Entry-Level AR Glasses, Hires The Father Of Wearable Computing As Chief Scientist
Meta1 is a pair of virtual reality goggles that perform some very unique and useful tricks. While they are still in beta stage, the glasses are coupled with a Kinect-like camera to sense objects in real space and allow users to interact with virtual worlds with the swipe of their hand.
posted 52 mins agoPersonal Profile Page Startup About.me Is Ready To Take Your Money With New Premium Service, Plans For Wefollow Integration
About.me, the online identity platform that spun out from Aol* at the beginning of the year before acquiring the one-time Digg spinout Wefollow, is now lifting the curtains on its plans to generate revenue, with today’s debut of About.me Premium. Via this new, paid tier to the service, the company is adding some of the more advanced features users have requested, including domain mapping…
posted 2 hours agoMeet Agent, A Smartwatch With A Second Processor For Minimizing Power Consumption And Wireless Charging
Smart watches are all the rage, and judging by the turnout and level of enthusiasm at the recently year one meetup for Pebble Kickstarter backers in San Francisco which I attended last week, there’s at least a passionate niche audience for the things. So it isn’t surprising to see them continue to pop up on Kickstarter. A new one called Agent has a few unique tricks, however, which its creators…
posted 2 hours agoHoping To Ride The Crowdfunding Wave, Celery Lets Sellers Accept Pre-Orders, Charge When Products Ready To Ship
Airbrite, a Y Combinator-backed e-commerce startup, is debuting its first product today called Celery (its name a play on the world “sell”). Celery is designed to be a “pre-commerce” store builder – or, in other words, it allows anyone to start selling ahead of having a product to ship. That means sellers can start taking credit cards now, then charge when their…
posted 2 hours agoBrow.si Is An Add-On And Platform That Wants To Put The Engagement Fight Back Into The Mobile Web
Brow.si, a new product from MySiteApp, is launching in open beta today as an add-on for mobile websites that promises to bring a number of features to rival the engagement of native apps. These include social sharing, a read it later button, subscriptions, and push notifications (sort of). Developers can also create additional extensions for the Brow.si platform to add further desktop web/app-like…
posted 3 hours agoTeamSnap Online Sports Management Platform Acquires Weplay For An Undisclosed Amount
posted 3 hours agoWith $15M From Omidyar And 35M+ Users, Change.org Wants To Prove Socially-Minded Startups Can Attract Big Numbers
Change.org got its start in 2007 as a social network for non-profits. For years, growth was slow for the fledgling social action platform, but, over the last year, that changed dramatically. Change.org has grown from six million users in early 2012 to more than 35 million users today, and, as a result, has become one of the largest and fastest growing of its kind.
posted 3 hours agoBurstly Debuts Its Testing-To-Revenue Restructure, Opens SkyRocket Monetization To All
Burstly’s grand vision coming out of its TestFlight acquisition is getting full reveal today with the announcement of the company’s new corporate structure, which rebrands Burstly’s monetization tools as SkyRocket, and opens them up to all mobile developers and publishers with a new self-serve option, whereas previously they’d been accessible only to the biggest fish in the app ecosystem pond.
posted 3 hours agoSprint Ups Its Offer For Outstanding Clearwire Shares To Around $2.5B
More developments in the Sprint acquisition food chain saga. As expected, Sprint is upping its offer for outstanding Clearwire shares to $3.40 per share, working out to an offer of about $2.5 billion. This comes after originally making an offer of $2.2 billion, based on $2.97 per share.
posted 4 hours ago3 Mindbending Ways Apple Dodged $13.8B In Taxes
Kudos to Apple’s finance lawyers, who are the Cirque Du Soleil of legal contortionism. On the eve of live testimony from CEO Tim Cook, CFO Peter Oppenheimer and Phillip Bullock, head of Apple’s tax operations, a scathing congressional investigation of Apple’s tax dodging strategy reveals how the computer giant avoided $13.8 billion in taxes through a clever labyrinth of offshore tax havens, shell…
posted 4 hours agoNew U.K. Edtech Entity To Spend Up To $77M Acquiring European E-Learning Firms Over Next 18 Months To Build Regional Giant
Expect a swathe of consolidation in the European e-learning sector in the coming months. Edxus Group, a new London-based corporate operating edtech company, is planning to plough in €50-60 million ($64-$77m) over the next 18 months to develop and acquire European e-learning businesses and build out a single regional player with the scale to compete against U.S. edtech giants, it said today.
posted 5 hours agoBrightpearl Raises $8 Million Series B For Its Cloud Software To Help Retailers Manage Sales Across Multiple Channels
In what is effectively a follow-on round, Brightpearl, the cloud software provider for multichannel retailers, has raised $8 million in Series B funding from previous backers Eden Ventures and Notion Capital. Both Eden and Notion seed-backed the UK company, before adding a further $5 million Series A in May 2011. This brings the total raised by Brightpearl to $14.5 million.
posted 5 hours agoUnity Game Engine Goes Free For iOS, Android And BlackBerry 10 Developers
The barrier to entry for the Unity game rendering engine for developers on iOS and Android has gotten lower, as use of Unity tech is now free on both mobile platforms. Unity CEO David Helgason announced the changed terms today during the Unite Nordic trade conference, according to Pocket Gamer’s Keith Andrew. The dropping of licensing fees for the engine’s basic tier means that features which once…
posted 5 hours agoWith A Media-Rich Platform To Stand Out From The Messaging Pack, MessageMe Hits 5M Users In 2.5 Months [Interview]
Last week we reported that MessageMe, one of the latest messaging apps to hit the smartphone market, had picked up a $10 million Series A round of funding, and today, the company is officially confirming the news, along with some more details on how it’s been doing in the 2.5 months since it launched. It now has 5 million users across both iOS and Android — a five-fold increase on the 1 million…
posted 6 hours agoConsultingMD Lands $10M From Venrock To Bring Speedy Referrals And Second Opinions Online
When it comes to diagnoses and the possibility of undergoing serious medical procedures, we want second opinions (and trustworthy referrals) whenever we can get them. With 30 to 40 million Americans slated to receive insurance for the first time next year thanks to Obamacare — and with millions expected to experience higher costs and reduced coverage as a result — the system is in for a shock.
posted 6 hours agoCan We Say Crowdfunding Bubble? U.K. Charity Launches Directory To Help Navigate Nation’s 30+ Local Platforms
How many crowdfunding platforms is evidence of a crowdfunding bubble? Well, when an organisation feels the need to launch a directory to list and detail all of the options in a single market it’s perhaps a sign that exuberance for crowdsourced financing is running a little high. Nesta, a U.K. innovation charity, has launched just such a directory, detailing 31 local crowdfunding platforms.
posted 6 hours agoScience-Backed Ecommerce Recommendation Startup Uncovet Raises $1.3M
Uncovet, a startup that wants to be the recommendation engine for indie designer clothing and accessories, has raised $1.3 million from Javelin Venture Partners, Siemer Ventures, and L.A. angel investor Paige Craig.
posted 7 hours agoNewspaper Companies Invest Another $9M In Local Deal Startup Wanderful Media
Wanderful Media has raised another $9 million from the long list of media companies that were already backing the startup and its local deal service Find&Save
The announcement comes after the relaunch of Find&Save last month. The service allows readers to browse deals aggregated from newspaper circulars, retailers, and other data sources. That was the first big redesign since Wanderful…
posted 8 hours agoposted 9 hours ago
MavenSay, a social recommendation app, just got a surge of unplanned downloads coming from Indonesia, and its founders are moving quickly to include Southeast Asia in its expansion plans as a result. The company’s Toronto-based co-founder, Jesse Dallal, said the two-month old app got 100,000 downloads over the past fortnight. It has a total of 130,000 downloads so far, and the sudden surge…
5.21.20135.21.20135.21.2013Hampton Creek Foods — Received $1M in Seed fundingAdaptive Planning — Received $45M in Series D funding from Bessemer Venture PartnersONSET Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, RBC Venture Partners, Cardinal Venture Capital, and Monitor Ventures5.21.20135.21.2013Uncovet — Received $1.3M in Seed funding from Javelin Venture Partners, Siemer Ventures, and Paige Craig5.21.2013Loco2 — Received £300k in Seed funding from Envestors Limited5.21.20135.21.20135.21.20135.21.2013 -
21 May ' 02:36
posted 44 mins agoOpera’s WebKit-Based Android Browser Exits Beta To Battle Apps For Users’ Attention
Browser maker Opera’s first WebKit browser has exited beta. The full launch for the browser previously code-named Ice adds a few additional minor updates to the meaty feature-set demoed at the Mobile World Congress tradeshow back in February. The Android browser represents a huge shift for Opera as it moves away from its own Presto framework to the de facto standard WebKit engine, plus Chromium.
Scopely Boosts New Zealand Studio Rocket Jump’s Mini Golf Matchup To Over 10M Downloads In A Month
Game developer Rocket Jump had already proved its mettle with the hit Major Mayhem. But the company’s location in Wellington, New Zealand meant its team often felt isolated from the resources they needed to build an even bigger hit. Enter Scopely, the Los Angeles-based mobile gaming platform founded by social gaming entrepreneur Walter Driver and AdSense co-creator Eytan Elbaz. The two companies’…
posted yesterdayMavenSay Enjoying Sudden Popularity In Social Media-Hungry Indonesia
MavenSay, a social recommendation app, just got a surge of unplanned downloads coming from Indonesia, and its founders are moving quickly to include Southeast Asia in its expansion plans, as a result. The company’s Toronto-based co-founder, Jesse Dallal, said the two-month old app got 100,000 downloads over the past fortnight. It has a total of 130,000 downloads so far, and the sudden surge…
posted yesterdayReal-Time Parking Startup ParkMe Launches An Android App
Real-time parking startup ParkMe wants to help find you parking — in real-time. The company, which originally started out on the Web, has been making a big push behind mobile apps, which is really smart, because most times when you’re looking for parking, you’re not on a PC, but you have a smartphone nearby. And it just launched on Android.
posted yesterdayAiming To Dominate Mobile Ad Attribution, HasOffers Raises $9.4M Round Led By Accel
HasOffers, a startup that helps mobile app developers see which ad efforts are actually paying off, is announcing that it has raised a $9.4 million round of funding led by Accel Partners
The company was founded in 2009 — the product that it initially built, and the one that’s still highlighted on the HasOffers website, is a system that helps ad networks and agencies manage their…
posted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdaySan Francisco, CA
iVengo — Received $250k in Seed funding from Moscow Seed FundRockwell Medical — Went public with stock symbol NASDAQ:RMTI.Warner ChilcottActavis for $8.5B.iVengo — Received $250k in Seed funding from Moscow Seed FundEntefy — Received $1M in Seed fundingCommunication Intelligence Corp. — Received $1.15M in Seed funding5.20.2013UpCounsel — Received $1.4M in Seed funding5.20.2013Graematter — Received $835k in Seed funding from BioGenerator5.20.20135.20.20135.20.20135.20.20135.20.20135.20.2013Rockwell Medical — Went public with stock symbol NASDAQ:RMTI.5.20.2013NanoString Technologies — Went public with stock symbol NASDAQ:NSTG.5.20.2013- Major League Soccer, Microsoft team up on Windows 8 app, in-game experiences
- BlazBlue Alter Memory transplants the game into anime
- Dish Anywhere on Android gets On Demand content streaming, tablet app
- Civilization 5's 'Brave New World' expansion adds Indonesia, Morocco
- Sennheiser's HDVD 800 digital headphone amp now available in the US for $2,000
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20 May ' 19:51
Google Checkout Nixed In Favor of Google Wallet
Google Checkout is being sunsetted as the company focuses on shaping Google Wallet into a viable PayPal rival. Google Commerce announced today that Google Checkouts will be retired on November 20.
Founders Fund Backs Its First Food Tech Startup, Hampton Creek Foods, With A $1M Investment
Founders Fund, the firm founded by Peter Thiel and other PayPal executives, famously declared that it wants to back companies with big, ambitious visions (not just dinky web startups). And that description certainly fits Hampton Creek Foods, a startup that wants to move the world from animal-based foods by creating alternatives that are genuinely tastier, healthier, and cheaper.
Founder and CEO…
BeatDeck’s Free Analytics Show Musicians Who Their Fans Are
Does my music do better on Facebook or Twitter? Where should my next tour be? Is my new song too repetitive? Musicians can get free answers to these questions and more from BeatDeck, a Y Combinator analytics company launching today. BeatDeck plans to license this data to labels and music stores to help them sign and recommend tomorrow’s superstars. Yep, BeatDeck is an enterprise music startup.
With Site Ai, Automated Insights Provides A Cliffs Notes Version Of Your Web Analytics
Automated Insights, a startup that translates raw data into plain English, is launching a new product that could make analytics data a lot more accessible.
The new product, called Site Ai, pulls data from existing systems (it started with Google Analytics and Clicky, and the company is currently taking votes on which service to integrate next), then it summarizes that data in normal sentences.
Yahoo Drops Flickr Pro To Compete With Facebook, Still Offers Two Paid Tiers For Ad Haters And Power Users
The bookend to Yahoo’s Big News Day — a major refresh of its photo sharing site Flickr — will see the company drop is Flickr Pro pricing tiers as part of a bid to compete better with Facebook/Instagram and the rest of the crowded market in the online photo space. But it is not getting rid of paid tiers altogether: it’s keeping an ad-free tier, called Ad Free, as well as a tier for power users…
Yahoo’s Unwatchable Live Stream Proves Its Next Acquisition Should Be A Proper Video Platform
It’s easy to forget that Yahoo has had a long on-again-off-again love affair with online video. Remember Broadcast.com, which kicked off the Mark Cuban Era? But you might not remember that, because other online video platforms long ago left Yahoo in the proverbial dust. Today, as Yahoo streamed its Flickr product and Tumblr acquisition announcements, we were given a demonstration of why Yahoo has…
Flickr Announces One Free Terabyte Of Storage Space Per User, Officially Beating Everyone
Yahoo’s Flickr photo-sharing service is now offering one full terabyte for users, enough storage space to hold whole swathes of the world’s photos. The service is offering this benefit in addition to its full resolution photo storage service. While the average user will probably not touch the outer limits of this storage space in a lifetime, this alone is probably enough to draw…
FlickrGetsAHugeRevampWithHi-ResImage-FilledUI,NewAndroidApp,And1TBOfFreeStorage
The new Flickr is live
Smack-dab in the middle of Yahoo-Tumblr acquisition day, Yahoo is holding a major press event here in NYC. But announcements coming out of this event aren’t related to Tumblr as much as Flickr, the photo-sharing database and social network acquired by Yahoo in March of 2005 for $35 million.
Today, Flickr gets a huge revamp including a totally new look and feel…
Dell Kills Project To Build Out Public Cloud, Sends Layoff Notices
Dell has decided not to build out its public cloud and will instead rely on partners such as Joyent to provide infrastructure services. A source close to the matter said layoff notices at the company went out on Friday. The group had more than 300 people in it. It is not known who was laid off or offered other jobs in the company. A spokesperson said Dell would not comment about personnel issues.
Yahoo Sets Up Shop In Times Square For Its 500 New York Employees (But Not The Tumblr Team)
Today has been quite a roller coaster ride for Yahoo — the company put days of reports and rumors to rest this morning when it confirmed that it would acquire the social blogging platform Tumblr for $1.1 billion, and now CEO Marissa Mayer has confirmed that Yahoo’s New York employees will now be moving.
They’ll all soon be working right around the corner from Times Square in the same building…
Inside Microsoft’s ‘Geek 2 Chic’ Fashion Show, Where Tech Types Strike A Pose For Charity [TCTV]
The tech-dominated San Francisco Bay Area isn’t exactly known as a hub for high fashion — Facebook’s new James Perse staff hoodies are about as fancy as things get around here — and fashion shows aren’t typically in our purview here at TechCrunch TV. So when we were invited to attend the Geek 2 Chic fashion show, an event hosted by Microsoft benefiting the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship…
Send In Your Questions For Ask A VC With Mayfield Fund’s Navin Chaddha
This week on TechCrunch TV’s Ask A VC show, we have Mayfield Fund Managing Director Navin Chaddha in the studio. As you may remember, you can submit questions for our guests either in the comments or here and we’ll ask them during the show.
posted 7 hours agoleft his position to go full-time on his DIY drone company, having raised $5 million.
Later this week at the AngelPad demo day, another drone-centric company will make its debut: DroneDeploy.
posted 8 hours agoposted 8 hours agoposted 9 hours agoposted 10 hours agoposted 10 hours agoposted 10 hours agoposted 10 hours agoposted 10 hours agoposted 11 hours agoposted 11 hours agoposted 11 hours agoposted 11 hours agoposted 12 hours agoProject Decor — Received $5M in Series B funding from LaunchCapital5.13.2013Tableau Software — Went public with stock symbol NYSE:DATA.5.13.2013ClipboardSalesforce for $12M.5.9.2013Project Decor — Received $5M in Series B funding from LaunchCapitalZola Books — Received $2.7M in Seed fundingNextMusic.TV — Received $70k in Seed funding5.20.20135.20.20135.6.2013- Nintendo launches 'Crowdfarter' for Game & Wario
- Steam weekly: Rochard, Strike Suit Zero, Sleeping Dogs, Unreal deals
- Sky Sports for iPad adds more live camera options ahead of Champions League final
- Free VIEW Magazine is filled with intriguing photography
- Sniper Elite V2 scopes out Wii U tomorrow
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20 May ' 12:47
posted 8 mins agoAngelPad-Backed DroneDeploy Wants To Help You Manage Your Legion Of Drones
The valley has a bit of a thing for drones lately — have you noticed? Airware, which builds brains for commercial unmanned aircrafts, just raised $10.7M. Longtime Wired Magazine editor Chris Anderson left his position to go fulltime on his DIY drone company, having raised $5M.
Later this week at the AngelPad demo day, another drone-centric company will make its debut: DroneDeploy. Unlike the…
posted 31 mins agoSquare Cash Will Let You Send Money To Your Friends By Email
Square’s not just for businesses apparently, as an invite-only page for a product called “Square Cash” has popped up. Not many details are known about it, but we’ve reached out to the company for comment.
posted 47 mins agoLaptop Week Review: The Dell XPS 13 Developers Edition With Ubuntu
Dude, you got a Linux-powered Dell! In all the years I’ve reviewed laptops I’ve never been as pleasantly surprised by an Ultrabook as I was with the Dell XPS 13 Developers Edition. This ultrathin, ultralight SSD laptop originally came in Windows flavor but, much to my surprise, I far prefer the Ubuntu edition of this device. It is solidly built, acceptably priced given the solid state drive, and…
posted 48 mins agoWelcome To Laptop Week
Laptops are the new desktops. While you can buy a solid tower PC for about $500, this price represents how little manufacturers care about the desktop world. Barring a few huge gaming rigs, laptops are where it’s at.
We have been arguably remiss in avoiding formal laptop reviews and so we’re trying to remedy that with a series we’re calling Laptop Week. This week we will focus on some of the…
Last Call For Pitch Applications To The Austin Meetup + Pitch-Off. Also, Get Tickets Here!
10 days, people! TechCrunch invades Austin in just ten days from now, with our legendary Meetup + Pitch-off series.
The magic started in New York this year, with a hugely successful pitch-off, an amazing turn-out and lots of fun memories. So we’re heading out on the open road with the event, which includes a networking meetup as well as a 60-second pitch-off competition with awesome prizes.
AT&T Will Begin Enabling Pre-Loaded Video Chat Apps, Like Hangouts, For Those On Any Data Plan Later This Year
As AT&T comes under the gun for blocking Google’s new video chat app Hangouts on its cellular network, the company is today hoping to put a better spin on the news by offering a new statement detailing its changing position on support for pre-loaded video chat apps. During the second half of 2013, AT&T says it will begin to enable pre-loaded video chat applications over cellular for all…
Google+ Gets A Refresh For Android To Mirror Its 41 Update Extravaganza From I/O, Adds New Location Section
Today, Google updated its Google+ app for Android to get up to speed with all of the changes announced during last week’s I/O Developers conference. In all, there were 41 new updates, including a new stream, photos experience and Hangouts
The Android version has all of that, and one new feature — a new location section.
Keen On… Peter Hirshberg: Why Smart Entrepreneurs Should Care About Smart Cities
Last week, representatives of many of the world’s leading cities – including London, Boston, Mexico City, Barcelona and Christchurch – came to San Francisco to learn from Silicon Valley entrepreneurs about how to make their cities smarter. One of the people behind this LLGA Cities Summit was the Silicon Valley entrepreneur Peter Hirshberg, formerly the chairman of Technorati and now one of the…
posted 2 hours agoTumblr Updates iOS App With New Path-Like Interface
Tumblr is still shipping. Despite all the noise surrounding the Yahoo-Tumblr acquisition, the company has just pushed out an update to its iOS application introducing a new user interface that now includes the almost Path-like post chooser, previously introduced in the Android version. This interface design is becoming more common today, but it’s most reminiscent of things like Mac’s…
Study: Free Computers Don’t Close The Rich-Poor Education Gap
According to a new study, we really don’t have to worry too much about the nearly 1 in 4 children without access to FarmVille at home.
“Our results indicate that computer ownership alone is unlikely to have much of an impact on short-term schooling outcomes for low-income children,” report Robert W. Fairlie and Jonathan Robinson in a new study of a large-scale randomized computer give-away…
Amazon Studios Picks Up “Alpha House” Comedy Series Starring John Goodman, Gives “Zombieland” The Axe
In the wake of releasing eight comedy series pilots into the wild last month, Amazon is starting to make decisions concerning which pilots will be purchased for development and which will get the axe.
According to Reuters, the company has chosen to build out Alpha House, a show featuring John Goodman about four Senators in DC who live in a house together, as well as Betas. Betas tells the…
posted 3 hours agoTumblr’s Adult Fare Accounts For 11.4% Of Site’s Top 200K Domains, Adult Sites Are Leading Category Of Referrals
How much of Tumblr is porn, and what is Yahoo going to do about it? On the latter, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer spoke to its plans for addressing content that is not “brand safe” earlier this morning on a call about its $1.1 billion acquisition of the site, saying that Yahoo will need to have “good tools for retargeting,” and will “monetize in a way that is…
posted 3 hours agoZappos Rolls Out iOS App Update As It Ponders The Future Of The Mobile Shopping Experience
Las Vegas-based apparel retailer Zappos rolled out an update to its iOS app today that saw the company fold some neat new features into the mix. Strictly speaking though , it’s no drastic overhaul — the Zappos mobile team instead focused largely on improving the fit and finish of their iOS-centric mobile experience.
There are a few new graphical flourishes here and there (users can now change…
Dijit Brings Its Personalized Social TV App To PCs With The Launch Of NextGuide Web
If the last few years have all been about building compelling mobile-first or mobile-only experiences, the latest trend seems to be bringing those experiences back to the web. (Just look at Instagram!) Anyway, with that in mind, social TV startup Dijit became the latest to follow this lead, with the launch of NextGuide Web
posted 4 hours agoE-Commerce Startup Monogram Launches A Publishing Platform For Shoppable Fashion Magazines
Last fall, fashion commerce startup Monogram launched an iPad app that was aiming to be kind of like a mobile, shoppable magazine for those hip to fashion. It had all the makings of a great mobile commerce app: It looked good, it was easy to use, and it allowed viewers to buy all the latest fashions really easily.
posted 4 hours agoSiri Competitor Maluuba Brings Sports Results And TV Schedules To Its Android And Windows Phone Apps
Maluuba, the Waterloo, Canada-based Siri competitor and TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2012 Battlefield finalist, today announced that it has added two new features to its voice-powered personal assistant app for Android and Windows Phone: sports and TV schedules. With this, Maluuba users in the U.S. and Canada can now ask it for near real-time sports results and query the service for TV listings in their…
posted 4 hours agoMinbox Is YouSendIt On Speed
Mac app Minbox launches to the public today, attempting to differentiate itself from competitors through speed and ease of use. The app allows Mac users to send files directly from their desktops — either through attaching the files or through a very simple drag-and-drop feature through the Minbox icon in the top-right corner.
As you can probably tell from the demo video above, Minbox hopes to…
posted 5 hours agoEmaze Raises $800K For The Presentation Sweet Spot Between PowerPoint And Prezi
Microsoft PowerPoint facilitates presentation design with zero constraints. And startups like Prezi provide well-designed templates and other features to help you communicate what matters. Now an Israeli startup called Emaze is trying a different take by offering a much simpler templating system for presentations that are intended to make you be concise.
posted 5 hours agoYahoo: Expect Ads On Tumblr To Ramp Up Significantly In 2014
After announcing its deal to acquire Tumblr for $1.1 billion, mostly in cash, Yahoo today started to lay out some of the details for how it intends to make use of the property while trying to stick to its promise “not to screw it up.” Expect more advertising by next year as well as more Tumblr content on Yahoo properties, but more of a cautious step as to how Yahoo will deal with some of Tumblr’s…
posted 5 hours agoNeverware Raises $1M To Keep Schools’ Computers Quick Like Lightning
There is no sadder moment than the one where you realize it’s time to upgrade your computer. The load times are too slow, the battery no longer holds a charge, and it’s just too damn heavy. Now, imagine a school with dozens of outdated computers, and think just how bad that moment of realization can really be.
Neverware, a company based out of NY, is aiming to change all that with a turnkey…
posted 5 hours agoJolla’s Software Chief Says Co-Creation Is What Makes The MeeGo Startup’s Phone Hardware So Special
Jolla has finally taken the wraps off the smartphone hardware that will be paired with its “unlike” Sailfish UI. Being a startup is challenging enough in any business sector but Jolla is seeking to compete in the fiercely competitive smartphone space against Samsung and Apple. So it’s hard not to dismiss their efforts as too late. But it’s a lot harder to accuse them of doing too little.
posted 6 hours agoSeamless And GrubHub Confirm Merger, GrubHub Co-Founder Maloney To Be Combined Company’s CEO
Today is turning out to be quite a memorable Monday — hot on the heels of Yahoo’s Tumblr acquisition announcement, online food ordering services GrubHub and Seamless have that the two companies will merge into one as we previously reported
posted 6 hours agoSprint Acquires KC-Based Handmark For Its Mobile App Development And Advertising Shop, OneLouder
Sprint has decided to get deeper into the social and mobile space, announcing today that it has acquired Handmark and its subsidiary OneLouder. The acquisition is meant to beef up its Pinsight Media+ advertising group, specifically. Through Handmark, OneLouder has built social apps like Twitter clients Tweetcaster and Slices, and Friendcaster, a Facebook client. The acquisition price hasn’t…
posted 6 hours agoTumblr’s Loss Is WordPress’ Gain As Thousands Of Users Jump Ship Before Yahoo Takes Over
In what can only be called an exodus, WordPress’ co-founder Matt Mullenweg posted on his blog Sunday night that over 72,000 new blog posts were imported within a single hour. This is a massive spike considering that WordPress usually just sees 400 to 600 imported posts on most Sundays. It’s a tiny percentage of Tumblr’s 50.9B posts but it’s an important consideration that Tumblr – and now Yahoo…
posted 6 hours agoSensopia Raises $1.2 Million Series A For “Magical” Floor Plan Capturing Application, MagicPlan
Sensopia, a company which actually uncovered a practical application for augmented reality, has raised a $1.2 million Series A round for its floor plan capturing application called “MagicPlan.” The app allows users to hold up their phone and then scan the dimensions of the room around them in order to create an instant floor plan that can be exported to various formats, including DXF…
posted 7 hours agoofficially confirmed that it is buying blogging platform Tumblr for $1.1 billion mostly in cash, after reports on an impending deal first surfaced last week. It says it will keep it as an independent company, with founder David Karp at the helm as CEO. “The product, service and brand will continue to be defined and developed separately with the same Tumblr irreverence, wit, and…
posted 8 hours agoposted 8 hours agoA new report commissioned from research giant GfK claims that the growth of the high density cluster of technology companies in East London (dubbed Tech City by the UK government) is being “stunted” by a talent shortage and lack of access to capital. The ‘Tech Futures Report’ – commissioned by publishing company
posted 8 hours agoposted 9 hours agoSan Francisco, CA
Meta-View — Received Angel funding from Y Combinator5..20135..2013Meta-View — Received Angel funding from Y Combinator5..2013Zyme Solutions — Received $5M in funding5.20.2013Effector Therapeutics — Received $45M in Series A funding from SR One, Novartis Venture Fund, Astellas Venture Management, Abingworth, Osage University Partners, U.S. Venture Partners, and Mission Bay Capital5.20.20135..20135.20.20135.20.2013- FIFA 14 goes next-gen in tomorrow's Xbox reveal event
- Relocate your team in Madden 25's franchise owners mode
- Live video interview with Ghostcrawler and Brian Holinka
- Coming soon to XBLM: Gunslinger, CastleStorm, D3Publisher deals
- Yahoo's post-Tumblr purchase press event is live tonight, get your liveblog here!
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20 May ' 05:50
posted 28 mins agoIt’s Official: Yahoo Is Buying Tumblr For $1.1B, Vows To Keep It Independent
Yahoo has now officially confirmed that it is buying Tumblr for $1.1 billion, confirming speculation that started last week. It says it will keep it as an independent company, with founder David Karp at the helm as CEO. “The product, service and brand will continue to be defined and developed separately with the same Tumblr irreverence, wit, and commitment to empower creators,” it writes.
posted 52 mins agoMobile Payment Startup Payvia Buys Mogreet To Add Messaging-Based Marketing To Its Payment Platform
Some more consolidation afoot in the worlds of mobile marketing and mobile payments: Payvia, one of the many startups working in the area of carrier-based mobile billing, is buying Mogreet, a mobile marketing company that delivers campaigns via text, video and picture messaging services. Terms of the deal were not disclosed — although we have contacted the company to ask. Payvia says that the…
posted 57 mins agoYet Another TechCity Report Confuses Tech Companies With Web Agencies And Consultants
A new report commissioned by research giant GfK claims that the growth of the high density cluster of technology companies in East London (dubbed Tech City by the UK government) is being “stunted” by a talent shortage and lack of access to capital. The ‘Tech Futures Report’ – commissioned by publishing company TechCityInsider and sponsored by accountant Grant Thornton, recruitment firm Vitamin…
posted 1 hour agoAlteryx Raises $12M For Data Analytics Platform That Shapes Data Into Apps
Alteryx has raised $12 million for its business intelligence service designed for data analysts to build tools out of their own internal data and that from third parties.
The investment comes from SAP VenturesToba Capital, a new firm founded by former Quest Founder and CEO Vinny Smith.
posted 2 hours agoMobile Ad Startup Adelphic Hires WPP’s Michael Collins As CEO
Adelphic is announcing that Michael Collins (pictured), previously global CEO at WPP-owned mobile marketing agency Joule, has joined the mobile ad startup as its new chief executive. The current CEO Changfeng Wang will remain on-board as CTO.
Wang and his co-founder Jennifer Lum both worked at Apple-acquired mobile ad network Quattro, and they announced last year that they had launched a new…
posted 2 hours agoHeadcast, A Mobile Broadcast Platform For Celebrities’ & Brands’ Avatars To Talk To Fans, Launches On iOS, Backed By Stephen Fry
There’s no shortage of channels for brands and celebrities to stay in touch with their customers, followers and fans in these socially connected times. Today’s addition to the mix is the launch of broadcasting and animation platform Headcast, which lets brands and celebrities record and push out short voice messages to their audience — accompanied by an animated, virtual avatar.
Bloom.fm Is A Mobile-First Music Streaming Service That’s Playing To A Different Tune
It’s nice to see a startup trying something different and garnering some promising traction along the way. The UK’s Bloom.fm is a mobile-first music streaming service — it currently exists as an iOS app only — that launched four months ago out of the ashes of the deadpooled music social network mflow.
posted 3 hours agoFinnish MeeGo Startup Jolla Reveals First Phone: 4.5″ Display, Customisable Shells, $513 Price-Tag, Shipping At Year’s End
Jolla, the Finnish MeeGo startup composed of ex-Nokians building their own mobile hardware and Sailfish OS, has finally taken the wraps off its first handset, revealing what the hardware will look like on its website. The design is a clean-looking, elegant slab, with the most stand-out feature being the coloured shell on the back that wraps around half the sides of the phone to create a…
posted 4 hours agoYouLike Is A Dating Site That Thinks The Key To Finding Love Is Hate
YouLike describes itself as an interest-based social network and dating site that takes into account a user’s dislikes, as much as what they do like, when helping to find like-minded people to friend or date.
today that will help make the site more attractive to potential advertisers. The first is pins embedded with additional information about products, recipes and movies. The second is a Pin It button that is now available on nine mobile apps.
posted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayposted yesterdayMay 18th, 2013LinguaSys — Received $1M in Seed funding from Mark Cuban5.8.20135.8.2013Yahoo! for $1.1B.5.20.2013LinguaSys — Received $1M in Seed funding from Mark Cuban5.8.2013Nexx Studio — Received $250k in Seed fundingCivicon — Received $12M in Series A funding from TransCenturyTienda Nube — Received $1M in Seed fundingReebonz — Received $40M in Series A funding from MediaCorp Singapore- The Last of Us dev diary covers survivalcraft
- Video Flashback: Steve Jobs explains why Macs don't sport "Intel Inside" stickers
- Breakfast Topic: Should alts remain secondary to a more developed main?
- Smash Bros, 3D Mario, Mario Kart in pre-E3 Nintendo Direct
- Metro: Last Light shines in this week's UK charts
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19 May ' 23:21
posted 4 mins agoSingapore’s MediaCorp Invests $40M In Luxury Online Retailer Reebonz
MediaCorp, one of Singapore’s two largest media companies, has poured $40 million into Reebonz in a deal that values the designer brand flash-sales site at about $200 million. This is the first time that MediaCorp has invested in an online retailer, according to a story on Channel News Asia (a site that is also owned by MediaCorp).
posted 51 mins agoPinterest Launches Pins With More Info And A New Button For Mobile Apps
Pinterest announced two new features today that will help make the Web site more attractive to potential advertisers. The first is pins embedded with additional information about products, recipes and movies. The second is a Pin It button that is now available on nine mobile apps.
The New “Handmade”
Amid grumblings of a “general fatigue” when it comes to software-based startups, a potentially transformative technology called 3D printing is poised to reach critical mass and mainstream awareness. Today’s news headlines about the technology tend to focus on the extreme possibilities in being able to print objects on demand – from the terrors of things like a homemade…
BrandYourself Upgrades Its Online Reputation Tools With A Full-Service Concierge Feature
BrandYourself is expanding its efforts to take on the big names in the online reputation market (particularly Reputation.com) with the launch of a new version of its service.
The company started out as a fairly simple self-service tool for trying to improve your presence online, for example by creating a website and other content to push down undesirable results when someone Googles your name.
posted 5 hours agoWhat Sets The Google Cloud Platform Apart From The Rest
There is a misperception about the new Google Cloud Platform that the company put into general availability last week at Google I/O. It’s not a brand new platform. It’s what Google has used for years. It is Google’s foundation. It is what makes Google, Google. And now it’s open for the first time to developers and businesses.
Google Platform is new in the sense that anyone can now use it. But…
posted 7 hours agoposted 7 hours agoposted 9 hours agoposted 12 hours agoposted 12 hours agoposted 13 hours agoposted 14 hours agoposted 15 hours agoposted 16 hours agoposted 16 hours agoposted 16 hours agoinformedika — Received $25k in Seed funding5.14.2013postify — Received €155k in Seed fundingBeibamboo — Received €4k in Seed funding5.19.2013Gliph — Received $18k in Seed funding5.19.20135.19.2013 -
19 May ' 17:35
posted 31 mins agoGoogle Glass Year In Review
It’s been a little over a year since Google started teasing something it called “Project Glass.” The futuristic, wearable computer that would change the way that you interact with the world was nothing more than a series of rumors for months before it was “formally introduced” in April 2012. Not known for hardware and not having a current bonafide physical device that…
posted 57 mins agoZiff Davis Is Buying NetShelter/InPowered’s Display Ad Business
Digital media company and ad sales platform Ziff Davis is expanding its network of properties even further with the purchase of NetShelter’s display advertising business, a well-placed source has informed us. The source couldn’t share exact terms of the deal, but did reveal that InPowered, the product which NetShelter focused on and eventually essentially rebranded to last November, will be split…
posted 1 hour agoHey, Hardware Hackers! There’s A WiFi-Enabled Arduino Now
Lets say you’ve come up with a brilliant idea for some shiny new piece of hardware. You brush up your coding chops, scratch out a design, and set out to build a prototype.
First, you’ll need a programmable chip to act as the brain. Because of the relatively gentle learning curve and friendly community, you go with the Arduino. The problem: your hardware idea requires WiFi.
Until now, that’s…
Google Believes Web Components Are The Future Of Web Development
While it was missing the skydiving antics of last year’s event, Google’s I/O keynote last week wasn’t short on product launches. In between the splashy updates to Google Maps, Search, Android and everything else Google announced, the company also briefly talked about Web Components for a few minutes. While Google’s Sundar Pichai noted that it’s still early days for…
An Interview With Dr. Joshua Pearce Of Printers For Peace
Joshua Pearce, PhD, is a researcher at Michigan Tech who rearches open source and low-impact solutions to engineering problems. He is also the founder of the Printers For Peace contest, an effort to bring together clever 3D-printed ideas that have loftier aims. You can win one of two 3D printers if you submit the winning project.
Acrobotics Wants To Kickstart Smarter Cities With Its Smart Citizen Environment Sensors
There’s plenty of buzz about the concept of making our cities “smarter” — that is, loading them up with sensors and data-driven services to improve efficiency and quality of life. Hell, even Google has taken to loading up its event venues with scores of sensors
Most of the discussion out there deals with how local governments are working toward this lofty, nebulous goal, but a team called…
Leaked Memo Shows Barnes & Noble Bringing Web Browser And Email To Simple Touch eReaders In June
An upcoming update will bring a web browser, email and update store app to Barnes & Noble’s super affordable Nook Simple Touch line of eReaders, which will begin rolling out June 1 according to a source close to the matter who wishes to remain anonymous. The 1.5.0 update was created in response to the positive critical and customer response to the recent Nook tablet update that brought Google…
posted 6 hours agoposted 6 hours agoposted 8 hours agoposted 8 hours agoposted 10 hours agoposted 10 hours agoposted 10 hours agoposted 10 hours ago
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