Tuesday, May 1, 2012

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Newvem Raises $4M From Greylock, Eric Schmidt To Help AWS Customers Spend Less Money Top
newEXCLUSIVE-Startup Newvem, which offers a SaaS based service for Amazon/AWS customers that aims to help businesses spend less money and gain more value from Amazon's cloud infrastructure, has raised $4 million in funding from Greylock Partners with participation from Index Ventures and Eric Schmidt's Innovation Endeavors, as well as angel investors, including David Strohm, George Kadifa, and Maurice Werdegar. As part of this financing round, Greylock's Erez Ofer is joining the Newvem board of directors. Basically, Newvem's KnowYourCloud Analytics is a free SaaS solution for Amazon AWS customers, that provides a 360-degree view of AWS cloud usage, revealing issues and anomalies in their cloud, and recommending actionable insights that help solve not just cost efficiency, but security, availability, and utilization issues.
 
Get Satisfaction Wants To Spread Community (Widgets) Everywhere With Engage Top
GetSat_Engage1Get Satisfaction was built around the importance of community to businesses. Now, with the launch of a new product called Get Satisfaction Engage, it wants to make those communities embeddable anywhere. Basically, Engage is a new architecture for Get Satisfaction widgets, turning them into customizable versions of a company's Get Satisfaction community. People can browse the new widgets without leaving whatever web page they're on. That means all the discussion among a company's customers, users, and fans will become more useful to people who aren't a part of that community — including in a several contexts outside beyond the customer support arena where Get Satisfaction first made its name.
 
Crocodoc Debuts HTML5 Document Embedding Technology; Partners With Dropbox, Yammer, SAP Top
crocodocY Combinator alum Crocodoc is debuting a new technology today that aims to bring an enterprise-grade HTML5 document embedding service for Microsoft Office and PDF files, to web-based products. Crocodoc launched in 20010 to kill off Acrobat. The startup's initial Flash-based technology allowed you to upload a PDF, and receive a version of the same document in your browser, which you can then share with coworkers and annotate with notes, highlighting, text, and a pen tool, with changes that show up to other users in real-time. Last year, Crocodoc launched this technology in HTML5 for mobile embedding.
 
Hardware Startups: Join Us In Hardware Alley At TechCrunch Disrupt NY Top
tcdisrupt_web-001-5TechCrunch Disrupt is all about shining the spotlight on exciting start-ups. But starting at this year's New York show, we're including hardware startup in the mix. After an initial call over the weekend, spots are filling up quickly, but there is still room for several more. Hardware Alley will run alongside Start-Up Alley on the last day of Disrupt, May 23rd. We're looking for promising hardware startups. Got a disruptive Kickstarter project? An innovative take on beer kegs? Perhaps a modern-day ornithopter. Whatever it is, we want to give you a chance to show it off to the best and brightest in the tech world.
 
Jitterbug.tv Launches First Subscription Music & Video Service For Kids Top
ipad5Parents looking for a curated selection of music and videos that's a little more kid-friendly than YouTube have another option now, thanks to the launch of Jitterbug.tv. The new iPad app is the first subscription-based music service for kids, and is targeting the 2-7 age range. Included in the app are videos and music from top kids artists like 23 Skidoo, The Jimmies, Laura Veirs, Milkshake Music, The Verve Pipe (yes, they're a kids' band now), Recess Monkey, and Gustafar Yellowgold. I know, I know. If you don't have kids, you're like who the heck...wait, Verve Pipe? What? But if you are a parent of a young one, you'll recognize at least a few of those names. (Sadly).
 
Independent Crafts Marketplace Etsy Buys Artisanal Goods Seller Trunkt? Moving Into Wholesale? Top
Big_The_Etsy_LogoEtsy has become the go-to site for people looking for home-made crafts and vintage items from independent artisans -- and for artisans wanting to sell them, and it now counts some 39 million monthly unique visitors, 13 million items and 800,000 storefronts within its virtual walls. Now it looks like Etsy wants to expand into serving a new class of buyers and sellers: the company has apparently bought Trunkt, which specializes in selling artisanal goods wholesale.
 
Verbatim Outs A New Line Of Colorful, Speedy And Affordable USB 3.0 Flash Drives Top
V3_USB_Group_2-2USB 3.0 is still slowly rolling out but Verbatim has charged forward with a line of flash drives. The new line of Store 'n' Go V3 USB 3.0 flash drives utilize the latest USB spec for speedy transfers. Verbatim boasts that they're twice as fast as USB 2.0 drives. Like other USB 3.0 devices, these models are backwards compatible with USB 2.0 and 1.1 ports although the speeds will be slower. Plus, with the price starting at $19.99 for the 8GB model, they're relatively affordable as well.
 
ecoATM Raises $17M From Coinstar And Others For Electronics Recycling And Resale Kiosk System Top
ecoatmEcoATM, a company that creates kiosks that automate the buy-back of used mobile phones and other used portable electronics directly from consumers, has raised $17 million in funding from Claremont Creek Ventures, Coinstar, TAO Ventures, PI Holdings, Moore Venture Partners, AKS Capital and Koh Boon Hwee. As you may know, Coinstar operates the change conversion kiosks and owns DVD kiosk service Redbox. The company previously raised $14.4 million from Coinstar, Claremont Creek Ventures, and others Here's how EcoATM works. The seller places their phone into the kiosk (the company says it will not damage the phone nor read/copy any personal data from the device). The kiosk then visually identifies the phone as best it can from a database of around 4,000 devices and uses visual recognition technology to determine if the device has been damaged, and also offers up a device-compatible cable connection which allows it to analyze whether or not the device boots.
 
The BlackBerry 10 Camera App Can Turn Back Time Top
back-future-6A camera is highly important in any smartphone. Even since before the iPhone, the ability to snap a picture on your cell phone and essentially leave your camera at home not only changed the digital camera industry for good, but it has changed the way we look at smartphones and ultimately affects our purchasing decisions. At RIM's BlackBerry Jam conference this morning, the company hit us with a really interesting take on smartphone camera software. We still know very little about the hardware specs coming out of RIM later this year, but a demo of the BlackBerry camera app shows that the company is thinking about ways to wow current and potential BlackBerry users.
 
The Future Of RIM: "BlackBerry Isn't For Everyone" Top
rim-not4every1Today is BlackBerry Jam, RIM's developer conference or WWDC equivalent. It's RIM's moment to redefine, rejuvenate, and re-establish itself in the world. Whether or not the company can pull it off, however, is an entirely different matter. BlackBerry 10, RIM's brand new platform, has been delayed, run into naming issues, and seen the transfer of power go from the company's co-founders, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, to long-time employee Thorsten Heins. The conference will prove whether or not RIM is now adaptable — something for which the company has been publicly flogged for the past year. We took a trip up to Waterloo to speak with some of the employees ahead of the event, namely Vivek Bhardwaj, Head of Software Portfolio EMEA for RIM, and as I walked away I felt less sure of who RIM is and what the company is about than I ever have before.
 
Early Look: BlackBerry 10′s Smart New Take On Touchscreen Typing Top
bb10keyboardAs it stands, most of BlackBerry 10 is still shrouded in mystery. Not even the Dev Alpha devices that will be made available to developers offer a glimpse of RIM's new software -- they're running a modified version of the PlayBook OS instead. All that said, RIM hopes to whet our appetites with glimpses at some of the nifty little touches that BlackBerry 10 will sport when it sees a widespread launch later this year. TechCrunch went to Waterloo and met with Vivek Bhardwaj, RIM's Head of Software Portfolio, who took a few moments to give us one such sneak peek -- an early look at BlackBerry 10's keyboard, still a work in progress.
 
RIM Officially Opens BlackBerry 10 To Developers, Greets Them With Dev Alpha Devices Top
devalphaRIM has caught plenty of flack these past few months, thanks to (among other things) a multi-day global outage, disappointing PlayBook sales, and a dramatic management shake-up. Beyond all of this, the news that their next-generation BlackBerry 10 operating system wouldn't see the light of day until the latter parts of 2012 seemed like yet another nail in RIM's coffin. But the beleaguered company is trying to move past all of that at BlackBerry World. While we regular folk still have months to wait until the first BB10 products make it to store shelves, RIM has just officially opened up the BlackBerry 10 platform to developers at BlackBerry World, starting with the release of their BB10 beta development toolkits and the BlackBerry 10 Developer Alpha device.
 
JP Selects Acquires The Gilt For Eco-Friendly Fashion, LovingEco For $1M Top
lovingJP Selects, an online marketplace for selling sustainable and ethical brands has acquired LovingEco, a flash sales site for eco-friendly fashion and natural beauty products for $1 million. LovingEco, which was founded by Justine Lassoff and Melinda Moore, features daily sales on discounted eco-friendly, natural items. Similar to OneKingsLane and Gilt, LovingEco features 'tastemaker pics,' where celebrities and environmental experts curate their favorite products from the sales. The site also features a V-Wall for the community to share their donations and eco-friendly content.
 
Mobile Roadie Adds iPad And Mobile Web To App Development Platform Top
mrMobile Roadie, which allows anyone to develop and create sleek, rich media iPhone and Android apps, is launching a native iPad app creation platform and self-service mobile website product. Mobile Roadie offers a self-serve app development platform that integrates with YouTube, Brightcove, Flickr, Twitpic, Ustream, Topspin, Google News, RSS, Twitter, and Facebook. Users can build both iOS and Android apps and the company already has a presence in the UK, France, Spain, Australia, Italy, Germany, Brazil, Turkey and Japan.
 
Pindrop Security Raises $1M From Andreessen Horowitz To Detect And Block Phone Fraud Top
Pindrop SecurityPindrop Security, a startup that aims to prevent and protect against phone-based fraud, has raised $1 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz, GRA Venture Fund, New World Ventures, Sigma Partners, and Webb Investment Network led by former eBay COO Maynard Webb. Angel investors Paul Bricault, Kevin Donahue, and Ben Ling also participated in the round. Pindrop says that phone fraud is a serious security problem for both enterprises and individuals. For example, credit card users activate their card using their phone and on the banks end, Caller-ID or Automatic Number Identification (ANI) is used to determine if it is the right customer. However, Pindrop says this information is limited and can be easily manipulated, leaving such services completely broken.
 
Loopc.am Stops Being A Gimmick And Starts Getting Funding Top
loopcam screengrab 2 libraryLoopc.am has lately become a little bit of a craze amongst some iPhone users I know. Frankly, at first it seemed like something of a gimmick. Recording and sharing short gif-based videoclips called loops seemed like a temporary blip. I mean, why not just do a video and upload it somewhere? But word on the street is that users have taken to the app in droves and that is leading to significant traction in, perhaps, the same way that people took to sharing filter-altered images on Instagram. Loopc.am is also continuing an interesting startup tradition out of Berlin right now, joining EyeEm on the 'photography' front, and the 'Berlin Swedish Mafia' of Soundcloud and Readmill. But Loopc.am Founder Tor Rauden Källstigen feels animated loops are a brand new category of shareable content, and so do his investors, Passion Capital, who today doing an undisclosed seed financing round. Alongside them are angel investors including Zoe Adamovicz (Xyologic, Concise Software), Alexander Ljung (Soundcloud), Heilemann Ventures (Dailydeal), Christophe Maire (Txtr), Felix Petersen (Amen), Peter Read and Eric Wahlforss (Soundcloud). The new funds will be used for growing the team and accelerating product development, including expanding the Loopc.am app client to support other platforms.
 
Nip That Social Media Crisis In The Bud With uberVU Signals Top
uberVU Signals 1uberVU already offers a dashboard for monitoring social media conversations about your company, but CEO  Mark Pascarella and founder/Chief Product Officer Vladimir Oane says it's time to help brands find the crucial signals in the social media noise. So they're launching a new feature today called, predictably, uberVU Signals. Nowadays, whenever I meet with a social media monitoring company, they want to talk about the need to move the technology beyond the flood of data. Pascarella says that for uberVU, that means taking "a really sophisticated set of algorithms at the intersection of big data and artificial intelligence" and using those algorithms to find the social media updates that could become important to you, based on things like influence, sentiment, volume, and demographics.
 
PlaySay: Social Language Learning App Launches With $820k And A HarperCollins Deal In Its Pocket Top
1The education market -- as Apple and others have noticed -- represents a huge mobile opportunity, and today sees the launch of an app that plays on that potential, with added gamification and social twists. PlaySay, a "social language learning" startup, today debuts a free, new Spanish/English iPhone app -- along with a licensing deal with HarperCollins and an additional $250,000 in funding, taking total backing in the company up to $820,000. We first heard about PlaySay last year, when it launched at the TC Disrupt conference as a Facebook app that let users learn languages through Facebook's own content translated into your foreign language of choice: "Your Facebook friends are your new classmates. Check ins, status updates and pictures are your course materials," founder Ryan Meinzer said at the time. The new iPhone app plays on a similar idea, except that it uses PlaySay's own platform as the basis of the language learning.
 
"AdSense For Local Commerce" Signpost Raises $3.75M From Spark Capital Top
signpost logoLocal advertising startup, and recent Google Offers partner, Signpost is announcing its Series A funding round this morning to the tune of $3.75 million, led by Spark Capital. Other angels also participated in the round, but the company isn't disclosing names. This new round is in addition to previous funding of $1.25 million, which included an investment from Google Ventures. The company is also announcing a new hire today: Christopher DePatria, who most recently led AOL's Patch sales force.
 
Facebook Now Lets Users Identify Themselves As Organ Donors Top
Screen Shot 2012-05-01 at 11.57.16Facebook has been credited with helping to power the 'Arab Spring' movement of democracy, and in further 'we plan to save the world' news, it is now unveiling a new feature: tell the world you're an organ donor. Starting today, you can add that you're an organ donor to your timeline, and share your story about when, where or why you decided to become a donor, says Facebook.
 

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