Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Y! Alert: TechCrunch

Yahoo! Alerts
My Alerts

The latest from TechCrunch

Social Collaboration Platform For Students Wiggio Hits 1M Users, Launches Paid Version Top
logo_notext_sqWiggio, an online collaboration service designed for students, has been flying under the radar since raising $2.1 million in funding back in spring of 2010. The company has been slowly and steadily growing its user base, and now reaches over 2,000 universities and 120,000 students groups around the world, as well as several national organizations. Today, the company is also announcing a major milestone: it has just hit 1 million users. In conjunction with this growth news, the platform, which currently offers web conferencing, file sharing, chat, document creation, and more, is now also adding video messaging to its available services. A premium version of Wiggio's service is entering pilot testing, too.
 
Can President Obama Drive A Sphero Robotic Ball? Yes He Can! [Video] Top
Sphero1 (1)The Sphero is a clever little gadget. It's instantly addictive made possible by an incredibly intuitive control scheme. In short the little robotic ball is controlled by simply drawing on the connected smartphone's screen. Users generally get the hang of it within seconds. Obama did. "...Excuse me, give me some space to drive my ball," the POTUS said.
 
Clipboard CEO Gary Flake On Privacy And The Pinterest-Esque Redesign Top
Screen shot 2012-04-25 at 10.31.00 AMGary Flake is a cool guy. He's the CEO and founder of Clipboard, a web clipping service that lets you grab pieces of the Internet and save them in your own curated catalog of web-flavored goodies. It's quite intuitive, and as Robin Wauters said at launch time, it's highly addictive.
 
Linux Foundation To Host Open Source Cloud Conference "CloudOpen" Top
linux-foundationIt wasn't that long ago that I complained about cloud fragmentation issues. There were some interesting observations in the comments on that post. Now word comes that the Linux Foundation is hosting CloudOpen, a "new conference to advance openness in the cloud." Most of the major players are already committed to participating at CloudOpen: Canonical, Citrix, Dell, Eucalyptus, HP, IBM, Intel, OpenStack, Red Hat and SUSE. From the press release: "Designed for software developers and IT managers responsible for deploying and developing cloud solutions, CloudOpen will feature technical content that includes ... big data strategies and open cloud platforms and tools. This conference will also cover open source best practices and how they relate to topics such as company data and APIs."
 
A Galaxy Note In T-Mobile Trim Spotted In The Wild Top
GalaxyNote11It seems the Samsung Galaxy Note really is headed to T-Mobile. A pic showing a T-Mobile-branded Note was just posted on TmoNews somewhat confirm a report from earlier this week. The phone here had the standard assortment of T-Mobile apps including T-Mobile Name ID, T-Mobile Mall, T-Mobile TV and My T-Mobile. This thing is for real.
 
YC-Backed Car Buying Site CarWoo Teams Up With Comparison Shopping Service FindTheBest Top
findthebest-carsYC-backed new car-buying service CarWoo is partnering up with car comparison site FindTheBest, which operates something like a Kayak.com for hundreds of products and services from smartphones to snow blowers. The partnership means FindTheBest's Car Comparison tool will now point users over to CarWoo's service when shoppers are ready to look for a local dealer.
 
IBM Acquires Enterprise Search Software Company Vivisimo To Boost Big Data Analytics Top
VivisimoOn the heels of acquiring sales data analytics company Varicent last week, Big Blue is making another buy in the data space today— Vivisimo. Financial terms were not disclosed. Vivisimo, which has raised $6 million in funding, launched as a spin-off from Carnegie Mellon and applies clustering technology to enterprise search. Vivisimo provides enterprises with search software that helps organizations access and analyze big data across the enterprise. Vivisimo products are available for standalone search applications or as OEM versions embedded within partner applications and solutions. The software automates the discovery of data and helps employees navigate it with a single view across the enterprise.
 
PayNearMe Takes Cash Payments System Mobile Top
payPayNearMe, an alternative payments product that provides a compelling way for the 'unbanked' to use cash payments for online goods, is debuting its first mobile integration today. As you may know, the term "unbanked" refers to consumers who don't have traditional bank accounts or cannot qualify for credit cards. PayNearMe allows people who don't have or don't want to use credit or debit cards to purchase products, pay for bills and more with cash at thousands of 7-Eleven stores in the continental U.S. Here's how PayNearMe works. With participating partners, e-commerce or merchant sites, consumers can use the PayNearMe option to pay for purchases or debts owed. You simply place your order with PayNearMe and print out the given receipt. You then take that receipt into a 7-Eleven and they scan it and you pay in cash. Once you pay, your order with the retailer or merchant will be fulfilled.
 
The Facebook Phone Rumor Is Back Top
facebook-droidOnce upon a time Michael Arrington broke the news that Facebook was developing its own phone. That was in 2010. However in a followup interview with TechCrunch, Mark Zuckerberg killed the notion, saying they're pursuing a horizontal strategy that will put a social layer on top of existing platforms. "We're not trying to compete with Apple or the Droid or any other hardware manufacturer for that matter," he said. But now, two years later, that strategy may have changed. A new report hit today stating that Facebook and HTC are co-developing a customized Android smartphone. This phone, said to be developed exclusively for Facebook, would integrate all of the social network's functions into the mobile platform. Per unnamed industry sources, the device would launch at the earliest in the third quarter of 2012.
 
Cloud Storage Platform Box Debuts New Enhanced API; Partners With General Assembly And TechStars Top
bin_Blog2.png - BoxCloud storage platform Box has been aggressively targeting and engaging developers in building out an ecosystem around the company's collaboration and file storage platform. Last fall, Box launched a platform for developers building off of the Box platform, called the Box Innovation Network (/bin). And earlier this year, we learned about Box OneCloud, a mobile cloud and API for the enterprise that allows businesses to access, edit, and share content from their mobile devices. Today, Box is debuting a new, more powerful API for its platform, and is announcing new partnerships with New York City startup incubators General Assembly and TechStars. Box's offering for the enterprise has evolved from a simple file storage platform to a collaborative application where businesses can actually communicate about document updates, sync files remotely, and even add features from Salesforce, Google Apps, NetSuite, Yammer and others. The company says 80 percent of the Fortune 500 are using Box; and now has over 10 million users with more than 200 million files accessed via Box each month.
 
Apple's Next WWDC Dates Announced: June 11-15 Top
wwdc 2012 ticketThe day after another monster set of earnings from Apple, the company is continuing the momentum. Today, Apple has announced the dates for its next Worldwide Developers Conference: June 11-15, held in its now-traditional venue, the Moscone West in San Francisco. Expect the usual wave of speculation leading up to June, especially since Apple is already preparing us for news at the event: "We have a great WWDC planned this year and can't wait to share the latest news about iOS and OS X Mountain Lion with developers," Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing said in a statement.
 
Java Application Deployment Platform Jelastic Raises $2 Million from Russian Venture Funds Top
Jelastic logoJelastic, a U.S./Ukrainian/Russian provider of a cloud-based deployment platform for Java apps, has closed a $2 million Series A funding round from Russia and CIS-focused Almaz Capital Partners and Foresight Ventures, a global fund with a bias towards Russia and the US. Jelastic, which competes with Heroku and Google App Engine, offers developers of Java applications a hosted platform based around standard software stacks, which it says helps avoid lock-ins and code changes. The company launched its public beta in October 2011, and since then has picked up over 15,000 unique users.
 
Study: Apple's iOS And Mac Platforms Drive The Most Search Requests; Linux the Least, Says Chitika Top
looking glassGoogle is the undisputed search giant at the moment, with some 92 percent of all searches passing through its engines worldwide at the moment. But when it comes to what browsers seem to be driving the most search queries, Google's platforms, surprisingly, are not in the lead. According to research out today from the ad network Chitika, when analyzing web browsing traffic, Apple's iOS mobile platform drives the highest proportion of search queries: 54 percent of all iOS web traffic is devoted to search, the company says. Its Macintosh OS is the second-most search-friendly: some 48 percent of all web traffic on Macs is in the form of search queries. Both are well above the average percentage of search queries across all major platforms, which stands at 36 percent, says Chitika.
 
Enterprise Cloud Storage And Peer-To-Peer Backup Service Symform Raises $11M Top
symformCloud storage and backup service Symform has raised $11 million led by WestRiver Capital, with participation from existing investors OVP and Longworth Capital. The Symform Cloud Storage Network provides businesses with unlimited offsite cloud storage and backup services. Symform says its global network encrypts, shreds, and geo-distributes data, providing a more secure and and higher-performing cloud data storage and backup service. In fact, Symform is a global peer-to-peer network for data storage, where users contribute excess local storage to the network in exchange for free or flat fee cloud storage.
 
How Ridiculous Does This Headline Sound? Top
Screen Shot 2012-04-25 at 1.44.50 AMSo I am sitting here staring at this New York Times article and it is titled "Apple Chief's Offhand Comment Spawns Internet Quip," which is probably one of the most ridiculous news headlines I've ever seen, bar this. The word "Quip" here is probably the issue, because who says that? Really who says that?
 
With A New Educational Platform, TED Gives Teachers The Keys To A Flipped Classroom Top
Td_large_verge_medium_landscapeYou may know TED, not as the guy from marketing, but as the nonprofit organization devoted to "Ideas Worth Spreading" -- or as the set of global conferences, Talks, and videos that touch on the many heady, relevant issues surrounding Technology, Entertainment, and Design. As an increasingly powerful medium through which the world's experts share their hard-won knowledge, TED is also an educator. In March, the organization launched the first phase of its "TED-Ed" initiative, in practice a series of a dozen short animated YouTube videos "created for high school students and lifelong learners," in the big picture an invitation to teachers to collaborate with TED to create more effective video lessons that can be used in classrooms. Tonight, TED is announcing the second phase of its education initiative -- a website that lives on TED.com, which is designed to enable teachers to create unique lesson plans around its video content.
 
Fan Wars: Former Google Biz Dev Head David Dowd Becomes VP Of Social Marketer FanBridge Top
FanBridge David DowdRight now there's a cutthroat battle between social marketing platforms to represent the world's biggest brands. In hopes of seducing dollars from offline and clients from competitors, social marketing platform FanBridge has just hired away Buddy Media's GM of lifestyle brands David Dowd. Previously the head of branded content biz dev for Google, his experience courting fashion, retail, luxury and other companies there and at Buddy Media will give him the edge as FanBridge's new VP of brands. Selling big brands on the future is tough. There's plenty of social skeptics still clinging to TV. Many companies aren't shifting their whole marketing budgets to digital, but that's the direction the money is flowing. Be it Buddy Media, FanBridge, or their many competitors, those who can lock down trend-setting clients and get positioned for the coming wave will surf their way to multi-million dollar contracts.
 
OpenUDID Gets Back-Up From 17 Mobile Ad Companies In The Hunt For UDID Alternatives Top
openudid-supportOpenUDID, a new, open-source identification scheme created by marketing company Appsfire, says it has rounded up support from 17 mobile advertising companies (including itself) as developers look for alternatives to the UDID. Mobile app developers are scrambling for solutions as Apple phases out an older unique ID system called UDIDs that was criticized for compromising consumer privacy. A straightforward ID system is key for developers who want to understand who their users are and how to target them with advertising, so developers are looking for alternatives that Apple will tolerate. There are several contenders and many different methods, but it's still not clear which one the industry will settle on.
 
Birchbox Co-Founder Katia Beauchamp: We're Poised To Grow Way Beyond Beauty [TCTV] Top
katiabeauchampBirchbox, the New York City-based startup that provides a monthly delivery service of beauty and personal care product samples, seemed like a lark to some when it when it first came on the scene back in September 2010. Since then, of course, Birchbox has been validated a few times over. Female-oriented websites have skyrocketed -- Pinterest, anyone? -- and the subscription commerce space has taken off as well. Today, Birchbox itself now has more than 100,000 paying subscribers, a staff of 60 full-time employees, and has raised nearly $12 million in venture capital funding. So when we heard that Birchbox co-founder Katia Beauchamp (pronounced "Beechum") was in San Francisco this past week, we invited her to swing by TechCrunch TV to give us an in-person update on how things are going at her company. You can watch our full interview in the video embedded above, but here are some of the topics we touched on:
 
Incubator Lemnos Labs Is Looking For Its Next Class Of Hardware Startups Top
lemnos labsIt seems like everyone's worried about an incubator bubble, but seriously — Lemnos Labs is doing something different. It's not just incubating for the latest social network or iPhone app. Instead, it's looking for startups that build hardware. At first, hardware and incubators sounds like an odd match, since the incubator boom is driven, at least in part, by the way that the Web has driven down the costs of starting a company. Hardware, on the other hand, sounds expensive and not conducive to the rapid iteration that that's now part of startup doctrine. However, co-founder Jeremy Conrad says that thanks to developments like rapid prototyping, it's becoming faster and cheaper to build a hardware startup too.
 

CREATE MORE ALERTS:

Auctions - Find out when new auctions are posted

Horoscopes - Receive your daily horoscope

Music - Get the newest Album Releases, Playlists and more

News - Only the news you want, delivered!

Stocks - Stay connected to the market with price quotes and more

Weather - Get today's weather conditions




You received this email because you subscribed to Yahoo! Alerts. Use this link to unsubscribe from this alert. To change your communications preferences for other Yahoo! business lines, please visit your Marketing Preferences. To learn more about Yahoo!'s use of personal information, including the use of web beacons in HTML-based email, please read our Privacy Policy. Yahoo! is located at 701 First Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94089.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)