Friday, April 20, 2012

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Kids Send 3D GoPro Cameras Into Space, Get Back Stunning Footage Top
Whip out the out the old anagylphs, folks, because you're going to want to watch this. Some kids at the Wonderland Elementary School sent up a weather balloon mounted with a carbon fiber frame carrying six GoPro HDHERO2 cameras. Four of the cameras were set in 3D configuration and, after editing, they were able to create the first stratospheric 3D video shoot using a balloon. You can watch it in YouTube with red/blue glasses.
 
Nielsen Finds U.S. Hispanics Tops In Mobile, Social Activity Top
Hispanics-nielsenA new report from Nielsen this morning delves into the mobile and social behavior of U.S. Hispanic consumers, finding they're highly engaged in their usage of smartphones, online video, social networking and other types of entertainment. According to the study, Hispanics outpace all over ethnic groups in mobile downloads of music and photos, and are more likely to watch video online and on the their mobile phones than others.
 
This Speaker Dock Is Made Entirely Of Bamboo, No Electricity Required Top
iBamboo_3I try my best to stay away from writing about speaker docks and phone cases. In my experience, they're all the same, save for a few minor tweaks here and there. But today I stumbled upon a pretty novel little iPhone speaker dock that just so happens to be 100 percent green and uses no electricity whatsoever. You're intrigued. I can feel it.
 
Video Social Network Runfaces Takes On Sean Parker's Airtime Top
runfaces (1)In 2009 a Russian teenager named Andrey Ternovskiy created random video chat website ChatRoulette, which at its peak in March 2010 attracted 1.8 million unique monthly visitors, but suffered from offensive content. The phenomenon inspired Shawn FanningandSean Parkerto create Airtime, which raised $8.3 million in funding and is rumored to go live soon. While Airtime engineers are still hacking, 33-year-old Alex Krizhevich and 24-year-old Anton Melnyk from Ukraine built and already launched a video-based social discovery platform called Runfaces in October 2011. Runfaces went viral, reaching 280,000 unique visitors in its first month, mainly in the US.
 
Brand-To-Fan Platform Crowdtap Expands To Facebook & Mobile, Sees Revenue Soar Top
crowdtap-mobile-facebookCrowdtap, a web-based network that allows brands to connect with their most engaged fans and customers through social media, has just expanded to two more platforms: Facebook and mobile. The mobile application comes in the form of an iPhone app which allows fans to participate in the brand's "challenges" (games and contests) in order to earn rewards. Meanwhile, the new Facebook tab sets up a special "VIP" section right on the brand's own Facebook page, to allow for interactions with its top fans.
 
Galaxy S III Reportedly Revealed In Vietnamese Hands-On Video Top
sgs31With only a few weeks left to go until Samsung's big London reveal, the leaks are just flying out of the woodwork now. If that recent Brazilian leak didn't quite fill you with much confidence, this one just may -- the team at Tinhte.vn recently posted an extensive hands-on with what claims to be the Samsung i9300, perhaps better known as the Galaxy S III.
 
AT&T's AVP Of Technical Research Explains The New Watson Speech API Top
Screen shot 2012-04-20 at 9.59.43 AMIt was only yesterday that AT&T announced its Watson Speech API, meant to let developers of any kind provide products with real-time translation baked right in. I got the chance to speak with Mazin Gilbert, AT&T's AVP of Technical Research, about what this could mean over the next few months and years, and it sounds like useful, seamless translation might finally be in the pipeline.
 
Seeing Is Believing: This Nokia Ad Was Filmed Entirely With The 808 PureView Supercamera Phone Top
As this new ad clearly demonstrates the 41MP Nokia 808 Pureview is an amazing piece of mobile photography technology. It was filmed with just the 808 Pureview and it looks great. Nokia has a winner in the 808 PureView. Too bad it's a Symbian device. 41MP in a handset? Yessir. As Devin previously explained, it should not be dismissed as a gimmick. This is a real advancement in sensor and processing technology. The only real downside are that it's built around Nokia's Symbian Belle OS and it's not coming to the States anytime soon.
 
HTC Is Done With QWERTY Keyboard Phones Top
htc-touch-proTouchscreens killed the keypad star. HTC is reportedly done with physical keypads and will instead focus on better on-screen keypad technology. The word comes from HTC creative director Claude Zellweger speaking at a Seattle press event. "As a company the QWERTY keyboard we're moving away from in general." This likely doesn't mean HTC won't release another QWERTY phone in the near future but rather the company is shifting development focus away from physical keys.
 
Applications About To Close For Wayra London Incubator Top
screen-shot-2012-03-07-at-14-27-18Back in March giant telco Telefonica opened the latest addition to its growing global network of startup incubators dubbed "Wayra Academy". Wayra is the latest incubator/accelerator in London, joining Springboard, Seedcamp and Innovation Warehouse. Now this is fair warning that the deadline for Wayra applications is about to close. So you better hurry. You can apply here. If you're wondering what the deal is with this latest in a long line of new European incubators, then here's how it's set up:
 
VCs Invested $5.8B In 758 Deals In Q1 2012, Total Dollars And Deals Both Down From Last Quarter Top
usVenture capitalists invested $5.8 billion in 758 deals in the first quarter of 2012, according to a MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). The report shows that after a strong fourth quarter 2011, VC investment activity for the quarter fell 19 percent in terms of dollars and 15 percent in the number of deals compared to the fourth quarter of 2011 when $7.1 billion was invested in 889 deals. While the Life Sciences (biotechnology and medical device industries combined) and Clean Technology sectors saw decreases in both dollars and number of deals in the first quarter, there were double-digit percentage increases in dollars invested in the Consumer Products and Services, and Telecommunications industries. Additionally, investments into companies in the Later stage of development experienced an increase, rising 11 percent and accounting for 40 percent of total dollars invested during the first quarter of 2012.
 
Moms We'd Like To Fund Top
christine tsaiAre you an entrepreneur looking to build something truly awesome that will positively impact millions of people's lives? (and by the way, make a LOT of money?) If so, then I have a suggestion... Stop building yet another daily deal site or mindless social game or yellow filter so-lo-mo photo-sharing service. Instead, build something awesome for moms, dads, families, or kids. Believe it or not, there are a lot of them so make their lives easier and happier. Because, the best part is that they'll probably pay you for it.
 
Rewinery Now Shipping To San Francisco, Potentially My Liver Top
Screen Shot 2012-04-19 at 6.47.34 PMWe first heard about Rewinery through a stray tweet from Instagram co-founder (and fellow Brazilian) Mike Krieger. Because it was late at the office, and we were working on culling TechCrunch Disrupt finalists, we thought that having three bottles of wine delivered to TechCrunch headquarters sounded like just about the best thing in the world .... Except we (Okay, who the fuck am I kidding here with this "we" shit? I ...) didn't quite fully understand the magnitude of disruption in the "getting alcohol delivered to you quickly" space. Rewinery was sold out! Okay I guess that's a good sign for them and probably a good thing for me too because I made Disrupt decisions sober (we're still looking at applications, so apply here if you get inspired by this, BTW).
 
Latest Rumors Peg An LTE iPhone For An October Release, LiquidMetal To Be Used For The Casing Top
iphoneAfter a period of unnerving quietness, the Apple rumor mill is back up and running at full capacity producing two somewhat credible rumors over the last 24 hours. The next iPhone will not be announced until October if the latest rumors are believed. A separate rumor is just so wild that it might be true: The iPhone 5, or whatever it's to be called, will be made of LiquidMetal, which will allow for a unique unibody construction. But again, these are just unfounded rumors. Please proceed with caution.
 
Travel Data Startup Duetto Raises $2.1M From Trinity, Marc Benioff, Many More Top
duetto logoDuetto, a startup bringing a "big data" approach to the travel industry, has just raised $2.1 million in seed funding. The company hasn't launched yet, but co-founder and CEO Patrick Bosworth says the goal is to build applications around customer demand data from large travel companies. It's starting out by serving small- and medium-sized lodging businesses (who could, for example, use the data to help with pricing and distribution strategies), and Bosworth plans to go live for Duetto's first customers this summer. Eventually, he says he wants to help "companies in all travel verticals respond to changing market conditions and market demand."
 
Smoopa, The Price-Scanning App That Pays Shoppers To Find Bargains, Lands On iOS Top
Screen Shot 2012-04-19 at 1.17.07 PMSmoopa, a mobile commerce startup co-founded by a longtime ex-Googler, a defense scientist and a former Massachusetts state trooper (yes!), is landing on iOS today with a price-scanning app that pays shoppers to find bargains. The app capitalizes on a trend that has started to roil brick-and-mortar stores over the last year. Armed with smartphones, consumers are comparing prices in physical stores to ones online in a hunt for the best deals. While there are already apps like this out on the market (most notably from Amazon and eBay with the Red Laser app they acquired), Smoopa's spin on this is that they reward shoppers for sharing price information back from real-world stores. Every time a consumer scans an item and enters in price data from a physical store, there's a random chance they'll be rewarded with credits that can either be put towards gift cards, rebate checks or charitable donations.
 
Apple-Google Antitrust Case Is Going To Trial, And It's Steve Jobs' Fault Top
Google Apple Intel Antitrust"We must do whatever we can to stop cold calling each other's employees and other competitive recruiting efforts between the companies." This quote from Steve Jobs to Palm's CEO was central to a San Jose court ruling today for why a class-action antitrust lawsuit against Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe, Intuit, Pixar, and Lucasfilm won't be dismissed and will move on towards a June 2013 trial. Now lawyers representing five former employees of the tech companies will begin document discovery in hopes of surfacing more damning evidence. While we mean no disrespect to Steve Jobs, his actions could force Apple and these other companies to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars to Silicon Valley employees in a settlement or damages ruling. Check out the full court ruling and our analysis within.
 
Mayfield Fund's Tim Chang: The Future Is In Making Data Fun [TCTV] Top
timchangMayfield Fund managing partner Tim Chang is going long on the idea of the "quantified self," which is about using the latest in both hardware and software technology to keep detailed tabs of people's daily habits in the hopes of gradually improving their lives. Chang has written a three-part series of really interesting articles about the quantified self for TechCrunch in recent weeks, so we were pleased to have the chance to interview him on TechCrunch TV to hear him explain in a bit more detail about the space and where it's going. You can watch our full discussion in the video above, but here are a few interesting points he made...
 
New Funding In Tow, Playsino Places Its Bet On Social Casino Gaming Top
PlaysinoLogoTitan Gaming, the makers of a gaming platform that enables content sites and social networks to offer cash and prize-based game tournaments, is today announcing that it is embarking on a complete makeover that includes its rebranding as Playsino, along with a new focus, CEO, and some new funding. Under its new moniker, Playsino will look to leverage its traction in the tournaments and virtual rewards space and double down on another emerging vertical: social casino games.
 
Wander Wins $1.2M From Rob Go, SV Angel, Google Ventures, SoftTech And Others Top
Wander_Funding_041712_2The NYC-based Wander is today announcing a raise of $1.2 million from Rob Go's NextView Ventures, Jeff Clavier and Stephanie Pameri's SoftTech VC, SV Angel, Rich Miner's Google Ventures, Collaborative Fund, Red Swan and TechStars. Wander, which co-founder Jeremy Fisher describes as a "a way to the see the world through other people eyes" is still under wraps but Fisher reveals that the final product will be "adjacent" to both the curation and location space, a combination of Tumblr and Pinterest, Yelp, Tripadvisor and Foursquare.
 

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