Wednesday, July 25, 2012

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Students Show Off Their Solutions To World Problems At Google Science Fair Top
baby geniusesWhat were you doing when you were 14? I'm willing to be it's a little different that what the students at the Google Science Fair are working on. Google brought 15 of the smartest 13 - 18 year old students from all over the world together, each working on a unique solution to a very big problem. One story in particular comes out of Africa, where two 14 year old boys are providing hydroponic farming methods to extremely poor cities.
 
Causes and "Not For Sale" Crowdfund REBBL Beverage Startup That Fights Slavery Top
REBBL drink30 million slaves in the world need help, but startups are more sustainable than charities. So rather than raise donations, Causes.com is crowdfunding anti-slavery group Not For Sale's new beverage startup REBBL. The company will employ freed slaves in the Amazon, and reinvest proceeds into projects that combat human trafficking. Two weeks in, REBBL is half way to its goal of raising $150,000 in a month, and today the first bottles of Organic REBBL Hibiscus Mint Tea are coming off the production line. If it can raise another $75,000 in the next 13 days, REBBL will prove that crowdfunding can launch not-for-profit startups, and remake the concept of charity for the digital age.
 
Court Grants Injunction Against Caterina Fake's Use Of The Name 'Pinwheel' Top
pinweel pinwheelIt looks like Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake may have to find a new name for her new product Pinwheel. A New York court has granted a preliminary injunction against Fake's startup 2bkco, which was requested by a startup called Pinweel. (When you look at the name, I think you can see where the conflict comes in.) The injunction was posted on Scribd by lawyer and blogger Venkat Balasubramani, and I've embedded it below. Fake sent me an email confirming its accuracy, though she declined to say what the company's response will be, because "we can't comment on pending legal matters." The Pinweel team sent a similarly terse statement, saying, "We can confirm that the federal court has issued a preliminary injunction that requires that Caterina Fake's company immediately cease their use of the Pinwheel name."
 
Facebook Designers Ask "What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid" Top
lab_1What would you do if you weren't afraid? That's the question Facebook designers Ben Barry and Rasmus Andersson are asking on a poster-creation site that went live today. They are encouraging people to go on the site, create a digital poster and "tell the world."
 
Path's Dave Morin And Benchmark Capital's Matt Cohler Will Join Us At Disrupt SF! Top
TechCrunch Mike CohlerWell, the agenda for TechCrunch Disrupt SF is shaping up nicely, really nicely. And today we've got another two Valley thought leaders we'd like to announce: Path's Dave Morin and Benchmark Capital's Matt Cohler will be taking the stage in September to impart their perspectives on the state of the tech now. Morin and Cohler will join our all-star speaker list which now includes: TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Disrupt veteran Ron Conway, CEO of salesforce.com Marc Benioff, Ben Horowitz, founder of Khosla Ventures Vinod Khosla, Joel Klein, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, and The Honest Company's Jessica Alba and Brian Lee.
 
Cool: Google Glasses-Inspired Eyewear Translates Foreign Language Into Real-Life Subtitles Top
translationHere's an innovative, simple, and exciting application to Google Glasses: foreign language augmented reality that translates text like real-life subtitles. Technology MacGyver Will Powell assembled a working concept of the product from a list of consumer electronics, and demonstrated it in a video of himself in conversation with his sister. Check out the video below. We've also pasted his description of the convoluted process the product takes to translate, below the video.
 
Zynga's Explains "Challenging" Q2: Facebook Platform Changes, Late Launches, Draw Something Drops Top
Obraz 233Why did Zynga generate revenue of $332 million versus the analyst-projected $344 million, earning 3 cents per share instead of 5 (and sending the stock off 40% in after-hour trading)? Three big factors, the company said today on the earnings call, in the following order: Facebook platform changes, game launches late in the quarter, and Draw Something's weakening mobile traffic. Facebook began emphasizing new games in its news feed, notifications, bookmarks and other communication channels at the expense of existing games, chief operating officer John Schappert said. This sent existing games down 15% across the platform (not just Zynga games) and live-action genre games down 34%. Because so many users engaged less often, they bought fewer virtual goods, driving down gross bookings by 9% for the quarter.
 
Welcome Glass Explorers: Google Will Host Special Events & Hangouts For Those With Project Glass Pre-Orders Top
glass-model-logo-googleGoogle's Project Glass made quite a splash at I/O last month. Besides stunning the audience with a skydiving demo of Glass, Google also allowed those developers who attended the company's annual developer conference to exclusively pre-order the $1,500 Google Glass Explorer Edition. These first alpha versions of Glass are only scheduled to ship early next year, but according to an email the Project Glass team just sent to everybody who pre-ordered the devices, the company plans to involve this early tester community before the devices ship as well. Google, the email says, will post exclusive content for those with pre-orders on Google+ and also invite them to special events and Google+ Hangouts with the Glass Team.
 
Zynga's Mark Pincus: Real-Money Gambling Coming (Outside The US) In First Half Of 2013 Top
zynga pokerReal-money gaming (i.e., online gambling) could provide a big boost to Zynga's faltering bottom line, and the company has talked about making a move into that market in the past. Today CEO Mark Pincus offered a timetable, of sorts — subject to licensing approvals, he said we should see Zynga's first products in this field in the first half of 2013. "What we've said, and what we have to announce today, is that we have our first products in development and that we intend to release them in markets that are regulated and open, subject to our getting licensing," said Pincus, who was speaking on the analyst conference call discussing Zynga's disappointing second quarter earnings. Those markets don't include the United States: "The US is obviously an attractive market, but it's not an open, regulated environment today."
 
Roku CEO Defends International App Takedown, Says More Content Is Available Thanks To DISH Exclusive Top
roku 2 xsLast month, Roku sent an email out to its developers, telling them that an exclusive deal with DISH meant it would be taking down independent apps for international content. With the launch of the satellite provider's DISHWorld international channels, which are available for $19.99 a month, some 25 apps were taken off the Roku Channel Store. While a number of Roku developers are upset with the takedown and have begun questioning the open nature of the platform, Roku CEO Anthony Wood said the decision will mean more, and higher-quality content available to users through the DISHWorld channel. "In general, we still want Roku to be a super-open platform," Wood told me by phone today. But he said that in the case of international content, he said Dish is the largest provider of those channels both by satellite and, with its over-the-top channels on Roku, online.
 
SocialTables Is An Event Planning App For The True Social Butterfly Top
scaled.socialtables-horizIf you've ever had to think about whether Uncle Phil (the one with the ear hair) should be sitting next to Aunt Clara (the one with the walker) or with the other guys at Frank's table ("Drunk" Frank), SocialTables has you covered. The site, recently relaunched with an entirely new UI and design, allows party planners to create mockups of their space, plop guests at different tables, and then organize the whole party via an iPad in real time. Never again will you have to cut out little circles and put little scraps of paper on the dining room table with each guest's name: this thing can do it for you. The platform is built in HTML5, which makes it easy to use in the browser, and the system pulls social data from each guest in the guest list, allowing party planners to seat like-minded people together or, barring that, create a little frisson by sticking cat lovers with stoat fans. It's completely collaborative and non-linear so multiple users can work on the same floorplan.
 
Tesla Motors: $27 Million Q2 Revenue, On Track To Ship 5000 Model S Sedans By Year-End Top
model-s-alpha-and-roadster_960x640_hTesla Motors, the Silicon Valley based electric car company led by PayPal founder Elon Musk, today announced its financial results for the second quarter of 2012. The announcement encompassed the standard earnings information -- revenue, spending, profits, and the like -- which we'll get to in a minute. But the real news most Tesla-watchers wanted to get from the Q2 results was an update on the rollout of the Model S, Tesla's new all-electric sedan that started shipping last month (you can watch my test drive of the car here.) But as far as the Model S production goes, there was no real news -- which, as they say, is good news.
 
Zynga Falls Short Of Analyst Estimates For Q2: $332M In Revenue, Bookings Decline From Last Quarter, Lowered Outlook Top
zynga logoZynga didn't meet analysts' already-low estimates in its just-released earnings for the second quarter of its fiscal year, in which it showed revenue of $332 million and lost $22.8 million, or 3 cents per share (according to GAAP measures). Analysts had predicted the company would earn 5 cents per share on revenue of $344 million. Zynga says it now has 72 million daily active users, up from 59 million in the previous quarter, and 306 million monthly active users, up from 228 million. Bookings, meanwhile, were $302 million, up 12 percent from the same period last year, but a sequential decline from the previous quarter.
 
Western Digital's Q4 2012 Earnings Beat Forecast: $4.8B in Revenue, Earnings of $2.87 Per Share, 71M Drives Shipped Top
western_digital_logoWestern Digital just reported its earnings for its fourth financial quarter of 2012. The company reported revenue of 4.8$ billions and earnings per share of $2.87. On a non-GAAP basis, net income was $872 million, or $3.35 per share. That's far better than what most analysts expected and also better than the company's own guidance of $4.2 billion to $4.4 billion in revenue. The consensus was that Western Digital would report revenue around $4.25 billion and earnings of $2.47 per share. In the year-ago-quarter, the company reported earnings of $0.67 per share.
 
Hardware Startups: Join Us At TechCrunch Disrupt In San Francisco Top
hardware-alleyDisrupt has long been the birthplace of software startups - but that's changing. With the launch of Hardware Alley at Disrupt NY, we've inaugurated a very cool opportunity for hardware startups to grab a little Disrupt floor space and we're doing it again in San Francisco. Hardware Alley happens on the last day of Disrupt and lets you get into the event at a discounted rate for one or all three days. Smaller startups should contact me directly at john@techcrunch.com but if you're funded, ready to rock, and interested in holding court with some of SF's preeminent VCs and thinkers, head over here to buy tickets.
 
Paul Graham Says Y Combinator Companies Have Raised More Than $1 Billion Top
y-combinatorY Combinator co-founder Paul Graham tweeted today that YC's 380 companies (prior to the current batch) have raised $1,048,274,000. Y Combinator, which launched in 2005, takes on two classes of startups per year into their three month program, during which they mentor and connect the founders and invest in the companies.
 
Screw Objectivity: Study Finds Opinionated Journalism Boosts Civic Engagement Top
success kid little boy fist on beachVeteran journalists who sing the praises of objective reporting have steadily lost ground to the media's new guard of proudly opinionated voices, from broadcasters such as MSNBC and Fox News, to the growing menu of online news blogs. There's been endless theorizing over whether objectivity should dominate reporting in the 21st century, but what does the evidence say? A new experimental study [pdf] finds that opinionated reporting is better at motivating the politically unengaged than objective reporting.
 
Botiful Is The Telepresence Robot We've All Been Waiting For Top
56bade87c9e20b5475b661533d635946_largeWe've seen a few telepresence devices in our day, including the incredible AnyBot, but this little guy looks like it may make life at the office a little less weird and a little more bearable. It's essentially a little telepresence platform for your Android phone (if the creator, Claire Delaunay, nets $100,000 she'll make an iPhone version) that roams around and lets you chat with people in the vicinity. Think of it as a little robotic dog wearing your face.
 
Stealthy Online Shopping Startup Commerce Sciences Launches A Meebo Bar For E-Commerce Top
Commerce Sciences - LogoCommerce Sciences, the stealthy Israeli and Palo Alto-based e-commerce startup, is launching into open beta today, and is finally revealing what it has built. It's a Meebo Bar for e-commerce! The company made waves earlier this month when it announced $1.8 million in seed funding from Eric Schmidt's Innovation Endeavors, Israeli VC firm Genesis Partners, T5 Capital, and a number of angel investors, including Backplane board chairman and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale.
 
Did Apple Just Quietly End Development Of Safari For Windows? Top
safari_windows_logoSafari 6 brings improved performance and many new features to OS X, including offline reading lists, a unified search field and support for Do Not Track. What seems to be completely gone from Apple's site now, though, is any mention of the Windows version of Safari. Indeed, it looks like Apple has removed all download links for Safari from its site for the time being. This could be because Apple is currently highlighting Safari's new features in Mountain Lion (which pre-installs Safari 6), or because Apple has indeed ended development of Safari for Windows. Windows users can still download the old version from Apple, but the link is hidden on the company's support page.
 

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