Monday, April 23, 2012

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Want FounderDating In Your City? Now You Can "Unlock" It Top
FDunlock_closeupFounderDating, which helps entrepreneurs with co-founders through online networking and offline events, announced a big geographic expansion earlier this year. But what if you don't live in a traditionally startup-heavy city like San Francisco, New York, or Boston? Do you have to slave away on your awesome idea all by yourself? Not necessarily. To figure out where to go next, FounderDating is launching an initiative called Unlock Entrepreneurship In Your City. Founder Jessica Alter says she and her team have been inundated with requests for new locations, with people claiming that Portland, Tel Aviv, and Detroit (for example) are all hotbeds of entrepreneurship. In essence, Alter is now responding, "That's awesome. Just show us."
 
Microsoft Takes On Dropbox With SkyDrive For Windows, Mac and iOS Top
Microsoft SkyDriveSkyDrive, Microsoft's online storage service, is one of the core elements of the company's cloud strategy. Today, Microsoft is taking the wraps off a number of new SkyDrive services, including a Dropbox-like desktop integration for Windows and Mac (OS X Lion only). With this, SkyDrive will function like any other folder on your machine and any file you save to it will be automatically uploaded to the cloud and synced to your other computers. For current Dropbox users, this is obviously nothing new and it's taken Microsoft quite a while to finally offer this feature. With this update, though, Microsoft is also reducing the amount of free storage it is offering new users from 25GB to just 7GB.
 
Facebook Buys AOL Patents From Microsoft For $550 Million In Cash Top
Facebook's Yahoo-Patented MessagesAlthough Facebook didn't buy AOL's patent portfolio the other week -- it was sold to Microsoft for $1 billion -- it's going to get a good portion of those patents anyway: Microsoft and Facebook today announced that Microsoft would be selling Facebook 650 of the 925 patents that it bought from AOL to Facebook for $550 million in cash. It will also get a license for the remaining 275 patents that Microsoft bought from the AOL portfolio, which Microsoft will continue to own. Microsoft also has a license for the 300 patents that AOL still owns. At this point, Facebook will not have a license for those patents still owned by AOL. The deal gives Facebook a much stronger position in the world of patents, where it had been weak up to now and has been facing lawsuits, most notably from Yahoo, over infringement.
 
Parking Spot Finder Parking Panda Raises Seed Round, Expands To D.C. Top
parking-panda-logoParking Panda, the startup that wants to make it easier for drivers to rent spaces or rent out their unused driveways, is expanding its regional coverage with today's public launch. The company has just arrived in Washington, D.C. - its second market outside of Baltimore, which served as the home for Parking Panda's beta testing. The team has also closed a $250,000 round of seeding funding and has secured partnerships with several parking garage companies, allowing it to serve up thousands of garage-provided spaces in both Baltimore and D.C., in addition to those rented out by individual parking spot owners.
 
Car Wars – BlablaCar And Carpooling Both Release New iPhone Apps Top
3167640108_d360f15391BlablaCar, a European carpooling marketplace that connects any driver who has empty seats with paying passengers, has now launched its iPhone app in the UK. The app connects drivers who have spare seats with paying passengers. At the same time its competitor Carpooling.com will release its new app for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch this week.
 
NYC TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon – Workshops & Judges announced Top
Disrupt NYC HackathonWe're a month away, and are very excited to reveal our workshops & judges for the upcoming NYC TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon, taking place on May 19th & 20th. This will be the second Hackathon TechCrunch has organized at Pier 94 in NYC. Last years event had over 300 developers and 100 teams present, and this years event promises to be even bigger and better. But enough about the past, let's chat about the future.
 
WPP Teams Up With Infosys To Launch Its First All-In-One Cloud-Based Marketing Platform Top
CloudsThe heat is on to migrate more digital marketing activities into the cloud, and while we have seen a lot of movements from smaller, fleet-0f-foot startups in this area, the big players don't want to be left out in the cold, either. Enter WPP, which today announced a partnership with the Bangalore-based outsourcing and IT specialist Infosys for a new cloud-based digital marketing platform. Called "BrandEdge," the two say the platform is the first of its kind in the industry, in that it brings together, into the cloud, a range of digital marketing activities such as creation and management of digital media across multiple locations and tools to manage campaing execution -- all running on a single platform.
 
BetterWorks Adds Groups And Permissions To Its Office Perks Platform Top
ForTC1_HiResBetterWorks, a startup that helps companies give their employees perks and rewards, is launching new features that should make it a better fit for big enterprises. The startup offers customers a dashboard for managing things like office catering, discounts at local businesses, and a rewards program called Bonus Bucks. For the most part, it has focused on small- and medium-sized businesses (between five and 500 employees) — after all, those are the companies that normally don't have the resources to offer these programs on their own. However, Director of Product Varun Krishna says that larger organizations, with 1,000 or more employees, are starting to show interest too.
 
Droid Incredible 4G LTE Appears On Verizon Promo Site With $299 Price Tag Top
incredible4gIt's been spotted in leaked press renders and blurry photos before, but Verizon has just recently (and perhaps inadvertently) made the new Droid Incredible nice and official. The Droid Incredible 4G LTE just popped up on Verizon's Droid Does promotional site, and while you can't have one just yet, it's comforting to know that it'll see the light of say sooner rather than later. In addition to a mildly unnerving robo-lady talking up the device's LTE radio and HTC's Sense UI, the site also confirms most of the specs that have been previously reported.
 
InMobi: Android & iOS Eat Away At RIM's Share In North America; Globally, Nokia Devices Dominate Top
mobile-devicesIndependent mobile ad network InMobi released its Q1 2012 Ad Data report for North America this morning, covering the mobile ad landscape for the first part of the year. Not surprisingly, the report found the top two mobile operating systems were, again, iOS and Android, each with a sizeable chunk of market share and growing. RIM, meanwhile, was still clinging to spot #3, but has dropped 4.6% since Q1 2011, the report found, going from a 11.9% share to 7.3%. this past quarter.
 
Windows Phone Exec Gavin Kim Has Left Microsoft For Security-Focused NQ Mobile Top
gavinkimGavin Kim certainly knows how to keep things interesting. After spending years at Samsung and winding up as the company's VP of Content and Services, Kim jumped ship to take point on Microsoft's Windows Phone marketing efforts only to resign his post after five months. So what greener pastures has tempted Kim this time? As it turns out, he has found himself a new home at NQ Mobile (formerly known as NetQin), a provider of mobile security services and applications where he will fill the newly created Chief Product Officer post.
 
Data-Focused Locu Raises $4M Series A From General Catalyst, Lowercase, Lightbank & SV Angel Top
Locu logo (high res)Locu, the data-focused startup launched out of Sir Tim Berners-Lee's lab at MIT to provide structure to the world's information, has just announced a $4 million Series A round led by General Catalyst Partners. Also participating in the round were Chris Sacca's Lowercase Capital, Lightbank and SV Angel, as well as Locu's existing angel investors, Naval Ravikant, Babak Nivi, Quotidian Ventures, and Matt Ocko of Data Collective. The new round follows Locu's raise of over $600,000 in seed funding back in September 2011.
 
Nokia's New Series 40 Browser 2.0 Features Cloud-Based Compression For 90% Less Mobile Data Usage Top
Russia-041612-e1335183248390Nokia just rolled out a new browser for Series 40, Asha devices. Browser 2.0 as it's called features numerous improvements and enhancements, but its cloud-based compression is arguably the most important. Nokia claims that it condenses data by up to 90% making pages load three times faster while reducing the data cost to the user. The updated browser also features a download manager, improved search and it also enables multitasking while browsing allowing users to quickly switch to text messages and the like.
 
AmazonSupply Debuts As A E-Commerce Vertical For Industrial Materials, Mechanical Parts And Hardware Top
AmazonSupply.Amazon is debuting a new vertical today, called AmazonSupply, which is a new site for mechanical parts and other hardware for business and industrial sectors. Amazon says the site sells over 500,000 items, including bench-top centrifuges commonly found in laboratories, radiation detectors designed for environmental testing, and carbide end mills used to machine titanium. AmazonSupply aims to fulfill the parts and supply needs of the business, industrial, scientific and commercial. Customers can shop for items by product, material and brand across 14 categories, including Lab & Scientific, Test, Measure & Inspect, Occupational Health & Safety, Janitorial & Sanitation, Office, Fleet & Vehicle Maintenance, Power & Hand Tools, Fasteners, Power Transmission and more.
 
Is Norway Leaving Its Tech Startups Out In The Cold? Top
visit-norway-fjord_1575871cI am regularly reminded of the amazing innovation coming out of the Nordic region. Countries like Sweden, Finland and even tiny Denmark regularly punch above their weight, producing global companies like Spotify, Rovio, Tradeshift and Everbread. But there remains one country which seems bizarrely content not to engage nearly as much with the global tech scene, and that's Norway. There's a huge irony here. The web browser Opera started out in 1994 as a research project within Telenor, Norway's main telco. If they'd played it right we would be continuing to talk about Opera, rather than Chrome, Safari or Explorer these days. And there remains a few bright sparks on the horizon like the innovative Bipper, founded by Silje Vallestad. But take a look at the stats and they are disappointing.
 
Dropbox Sharing Gets Ridiculously Easy With Links Top
dropboxIn the words of Dropbox CEO Drew Houston, sharing documents and other files online is "bafflingly, still really difficult." I mean, clearly it's doable through email and, yes, services such as Dropbox, but it's still kind of a pain. With a new feature launching today, Houston and his team are trying to make things as absolutely simple as possible. And it looks like they've succeeded. Houston and Product Manager Ivan Kirigin demonstrated the feature to TechCrunch Editor Eric Eldon and me last week. It was one of those demos that went flew by — in a good way. Now, if you want to share a file in Dropbox, you just click on the file, then click on "Get Link", and Dropbox will automatically generate a custom URL. You can share that URL via email or however else you like, and whoever clicks on it will be able to view the file in their browser. Simple, and also the first easy way for Dropbox users to share files with people who don't have Dropbox accounts.
 
Google Ventures-Backed Copious Debuts A More Personalized, Social Marketplace For Fashion Top
copiouslLast year, we wrote about Copious, an eBay-like marketplace that leveraged your social graph on Facebook. The site aimed to use your social graph from Facebook to make the marketplace experience that you'd find on Amazon or eBay more social, allowing buyers and sellers to see if friends in common, previous purchases, social reviews and more. Today, the company is launching a new version of its marketplace, focused exclusively on fashion and with a number of new personalization features. Copious now asks shoppers who join the site to connect through Facebook or Twitter and to follow five trends that fit their style, everything from color-blocking and vintage wear. You'll also be suggested people to follow on the site that match your chosen trends. By following trends and people, shoppers will get a more socially curated experience every time they visit.
 
Wake Up, Sheeple: Samsung Hypes Next Galaxy S Smartphone Top
samsung iphoneThe best way to get someone to spread your dumb video is to include something controversial. That's day one material in Viral YouTube Marketing 101. And so, Samsung, clearly a graduate of said class tapped that knowledge and took a shot at iPhone users, somewhat calling them sheep for using the same phone as everyone else. Funny? Only in the sense that this lame jab is the high point of an otherwise humdrum video spot. Seriously, this might be the worst teaser in the history of teasers.
 
Obama Wants Sanctions On Those Using Technology In Human Rights Abuses Top
cui-sealMuch has been said about the role social media has come to play in the global landscape over the last few years. Whether one sees it as the tool of revolutions or not, Facebook, Twitter, and other media played an integral role in organizing the socio-political upheavals in Egypt, Libya, and across the Middle East and North Africa, allowing those oppressed and marginalized by despotic regimes to communicate and organize, and to expose human rights violations. Of course, social and other forms of digital media have just as much potential for ill as they do for use among democracy advocates -- something that has not gone unnoticed in the White House. According to a report from the Washington Post, President Obama today plans to issue an executive order that gives U.S. officials the ability to impose sanctions on foreign bodies that use these "new technologies" to carry out human rights violations.
 
Clicks Be Gone: AdTech Disrupter Moat Raises $12M Series B From Mayfield, Others Top
hanging miceAd-tech may not be the most obvious face of digital advertising, but in a world in which the role of big data is getting ever more essential to how things work, it is taking up an increasingly important role. One sign of that comes from the funding that ad-tech players are getting in this space: today, ad-tech startup Moat announced that it has picked up a $12 million investment led by the Mayfield Fund and including existing investors. The Series B investment takes the total amount invested in the company to $16.5 million with past investors including Ron Conway's SV Angel, Founders Fund, Vast Ventures, Lerer Ventures, Founder Collective, and First Round Capital; as well as the WGI Group, an investment vehicle from Moat's founders, Right Media ex-CEO Mike Walrath and brothers Jonah and Noah Goodhart.
 

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