Thursday, October 27, 2011

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Live in Beijing and Thinking about Starting a Tech Company? Read. This. Post. Now. Top
248795_10150262988282952_8062627951_8966250_1910582_nThe Disrupt Beijing Hackathon starts in a little more than 24 hours, and we've been working hard over the last few days to make it even more of a no-brainer for local Beijing developers to attend. In addition to the chance to be the next GroupMe or win valuable prizes, we have decided to give all Hackathon attendees who complete a hack and present in the 24-hour period free tickets to the Disrupt conference Monday and Tuesday. That's a $1,000-plus value for some hungry coders with a good idea and the desire to make it happen. You don't have to have a team to participate. Just show up and we'll help match you with others.
 
Bill Gates On "The Miracle Of Availability" And Applying Computer Science To The World Top
gates1Bill Gates just gave a talk at the University of Washington's School of Computer Science and Engineering. As is typical of his talks, this one was broadly focused on new and helpful implementations of technology. It was followed by an open Q&A session. There was nothing radical or new proposed or revealed, but Gates was smart and compelling as usual, and the highlights of the talk are below. Video of the talk should be available soon from UW.
 
Codecademy Raises $2.5 Million To Teach You How To Code Top
codecademyshotThe term "hot startup" gets bandied about pretty frequently. But there are few companies it applies to more than Codecademy, a startup which, of all things, teaches you how to program. Today, the company is announcing that it's raised $2.5 million from an all-star roster to continue that mission. The $2.5 million funding round was led by Union Square Ventures, with participation from O'Reilly AlphaTech, Thrive Capital, SV Angel, Yuri Milner, Social + Capital Partnership (Chamath Palihapitiya), Founder Collective (Chris Dixon), CrunchFund, Collaborative Fund (Craig Shapiro),Joshua Schacter, Vivi Nevo, Dave Morin, Sam Altman, Ruchi Sanghvi & Aditya Agarwal, and Naval Ravikant. It also includes GroupMe founders Jared Hecht and Steve Martocci — which is notable because Codecademy cofounder Zach Sims was a GroupMe employee shortly before leaving to help start Codecademy.
 
Redbox Raises Price On Rentals To $1.20 Top
redbooooxThis will not end well. Redbox, in position to be the cheap, local, easy alternative to the confusing, troublesome Netflix, has decided to raise its rates to $1.20 per day. I guess they wanted a piece of Netflix's humble pie. Coinstar, the company that owns the Redbox brand and boxes, explained it this way: "The change is primarily due to the increase in operating expenses, including the recent increase in debit card interchange fees as a result of the Durbin Amendment." And naturally, that cost should be passed right back onto their loyal customers.
 
Bill Gates Speaking At University Of Washington – Watch The Stream Here (Update: It's Over) Top
bgc3Bill Gates is set to give a talk today for an event at the University of Washington's School of Computer Science and Engineering. It starts at 3:30, so in just about fifteen minutes. We've got the stream embedded here so you can watch it live. The topic will be advances in computing, including natural user interfaces and pervasive computing that could change the way the bottom 1/3rd of the world's population lives. For all the fanfare about the 99% here in the states, it's humbling to remember that to much of the world, we are the 1% with adequate fresh water, free and comprehensive public schooling, working sewage and other basic utilities, and so on.
 
Microsoft Patents Manipulation Of 3D Virtual Objects, Throwing Gestures Top
Screen shot 2011-10-27 at 4.54.54 PMAnother batch of Microsoft patent applications have trickled into public view, and these ones may be even cooler than the last bunch. They describe "flinging gestures," interaction with 3D virtual objects, and even throw it back a bit to describe a new email view format. Let's take a look, shall we?
 
Google+ Resurrects Playback Feature From Wave, Renames It "Ripples" Top
wavelogoLast August, Google asked us all to say good-bye to Google Wave. Some said Wave was ahead of its time, some said that the platform had enough features to sink the Titanic. However, Google today announced some significant updates to its social network, Google+, among them that Google Apps users can now sign up for G+ -- the integration is finally live. And one of the features launched today on Google+ seems a throwback to one now-defunct feature of Google Wave, called "Playback". Or at least one might claim this as its genesis, with the feature having its roots in-house, as opposed to some sort of reaction to Facebook's much bally-hooed timeline that launched this September.
 
Chinese Search Engine Baidu's Q3 Revenue Up 85 Percent To $655M; Profit Up 80 Percent To $295M Top
baiduChinese search engine Baidu posted strong earnings today, with total revenue in the third quarter of 2011 coming in at $654.7 million, an 85.1% increase from the same period in 2010. Baidu's net income was up 80% to $295 million. Diluted earnings for the third quarter of 2011 were $0.84; non-GAAP earnings were for the $0.86. Baidu beat Wall Street expectations; analysts expected a profit of $0.83. Robin Li, chairman and chief executive officer of Baidu said in a release, "Baidu recorded stellar results in the third quarter driven by rapid growth in customer spending and user traffic. In particular, spending by large customers significantly outperformed our expectations as we continued to build strong relationships with high quality companies. China's search industry is still in its early stages, and as the clear industry leader we see enormous room for continuing growth as users and online marketing customers become increasingly sophisticated."
 
HomeAway's Q3 Revenue Up 37 Percent To $61M, Posts A Loss In Net Income Top
homeaway-pictureNewly public home rental service HomeAway is reporting third quarter earnings today, posting a 37 percent increase in revenue to $61.1 millon from $44.6 million in the third quarter of 2010. The company said revenue increase was attributed to a strength in renewal rates and increased revenue per listing from the prior year. Unfortunately, the company posted a loss this quarter of $4.1 million, or ($0.05) per diluted share compared to a net loss of ($0.11) per diluted share in the third quarter of 2010. HomeAway says this was the impact of cumulative preferred stock dividends and discount accretion of $6.8 million, or ($0.09) per share. As of September 30, 2011, the Company no longer has any preferred stock outstanding.
 
Gild Hits Half A Million Members, Now Lets Developers 'Face-Off' To See Who's Got The Most Skillz Top
116438v4-max-250x250Gild, a TechCrunch Disrupt startup and a game-ified jobs platform for developers, raised $2.4 million in seed funding from Globespan Partners back in August. Since launching at Disrupt a year ago, Gild has grown quickly, and today announced that it has attracted 500,000 members across 174 countries.
 
HP Reconsiders Spinning-Off PC Division, Personal Systems Group Will Remain Part Of The Company Top
200px-HP_D_B_RGB_72_MX+spaceHP caused a minor uproar when it announced just prior to Leo Apotheker's departure that it was considering splitting off its PC division. Well, after two months of internal debating, the Personal Systems Group will remain part of the company and Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard can rest in peace. The news comes from a just-issued press release where HP's new chief MG Whitman indicated that it's best for customers, partners, shareholders and employees to keep the PSG within HP. She goes on to say that "HP is committed to PSG, and together we are stronger."
 
Locked Out Of Facebook? Your Friends Will Soon Be Able To Help You Get Back In Top
facebook-securityFacebook says it will soon allow you to get help from your friends when you get locked out of your Facebook account. According to a post on Facebook's official Security page, you'll be able to designate three to five friends as "Trusted Friends" who will be sent special codes in the event that you're locked out of your Facebook account and unable to access your email. It will also be introducing something called "App Passwords" to bring increased security to Facebook-enabled applications.
 
Metaio Adds Gravity To Their Augmented Reality Platform Top
cupcakeGerman augmented reality firm Metaio showcased some updates to their core technologies today at this year's ISMAR conference in Basel, Switzerland. The company is documenting this update with out-takes from some highly technical white papers and also, thankfully, with a few video demonstrations (for the algorithm-ly challenged out there - like me). The basic gist of this update to their core augmented reality capability is that the company have been able to create AR technology advancements on 3 fronts:
  • Gravity awareness
  • Ability to recognize 3D objects
  • Occlusion of virtual objects
 
RIM Offers Up A Device-Driven Look At Tomorrow Top
futurebb2We've already gotten a glimpse of what Microsoft hopes the future will look like, but how about a different take? PocketNow was able to dig up a pair of videos created by RIM that offers yet another glimpse at our device-driven tomorrow.
 
Nokia CEO Sees "Broader Opportunity" With Windows 8, Hints At Tablets Top
nokIn a brief interview with This Is My Next, Nokia CEO (and mole for Microsoft, clearly) Stephen Elop hinted strongly at the potential for a Nokia-built Windows 8 tablet. While his statement was, strictly speaking, more of a dodge, it's clear that this is something they're at least thinking about.
 
Sprint CEO: iPhone Data Efficiency Is The Key To Continued Unlimited Data Top
sprintiphoneNo one is more excited about the iPhone's availability at Sprint than CEO Dan Hesse. And it's no surprise either, seeing that the carrier is investing at least $15.5 billion over the next four years just to offer the device to customers. That said, Hesse has been tooting the iPhone horn as much as possible, taking special note of its efficient use of data. He even went so far as to say that the iPhone's data handling may quite possibly keep Sprint's unlimited data plans alive longer than expected.
 
Google Apps Users Can Now Hangout (And More) On Google+ Top
shareLast June, Google first launched a beta of its long-anticipated social network, Google+. And it raised plenty of eyebrows: despite Google's history of flubbing 'social', Google+ actually shows a lot of promise. Google says the service has grown to 40 million users (I'm more interested in engagement numbers, but that's another story) and it's doing everything it can to get it in front of more users. But there's been one very large group of people that's been left out in the cold: Google Apps users. Google Apps is the suite of products that Google sells to businesses and schools, and allows for custom domains, administrator controls, boosted security, and other key features (for a price). Some apps users understandably took offense to the lack of support, as they're actually paying Google money.
 
1000Memories Is About To Fill Facebook With Gen X's Embarrassing Photos Top
Shoebox_icon_white_cycI'm drinking a lot of coffee today because I was up well past my bedtime last night playing around with the test build of the newly launched ShoeBox iPhone application from 1000memories, now live in iTunes. This simple app provides a much-needed function: a way to scan old photographs using your smartphone and post them online. Oh, sure. I know you don't necessarily need an app to scan a photo - you can just take a picture of the print and post it to Facebook. But the ShoeBox app provides a handy set of tools to complement and improve upon that process, including buttons to quickly crop, flatten and rotate photos, plus fields for filling in captions, dates and tags.
 
Social Loyalty Startup Topguest Launching White Label Service With Facebook Integration Top
topguest-logoTopguest, the hot loyalty program which rewards users for engaging with brands on social networks, now has 5 million Facebook users in its database, the company has just revealed. These customers are collecting airline, hotel and other travel rewards points for their social networking activity, like Foursquare and Facebook check-ins, for example. Today, the company is announcing a new product that will make Topguest not just a social loyalty program, but a full-fledged social loyalty SaaS company. This fall it will debut a white-label service that will allow brands to customize their communication with each of their customers, based on their social networking activity. Topguest's first partner with this effort will be Hilton HHonors.
 
Motorola's New LTE-Packing DROID4 Caught On Film Top
droid4-1Motorola fans may still be riding high on the announcement of the Droid RAZR, but Droid-Life has just gotten their hands on images of yet another Motorola handset in the works: the DROID4. The DROID4 apes some of the RAZR's industrial design (like the funky corners and non-removable battery), but it sadly isn't quite as svelte thanks to the spacious slide-out five row keyboard.
 

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