Thursday, August 2, 2012

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Scott Weiss Replaces Marc Andreessen On The Board Of Dalton Caldwell's Mixed Media Labs Top
marc andreessenIn a bit of fallout from Dalton Caldwell's decision to refocus his company App.net on building a real-time social platform, as well his subsequent open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg criticizing the company's "bad-faith" acquisition practices, investor Marc Andreessen is leaving the startup's board. Andreessen will be replaced on the board of Mixed Media Labs (the company that Caldwell co-founded to launch photosharing service Picplz, and which now operates App.net) by Scott Weiss, another partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Andreessen is a Facebook board member, so the swap is supposed to avoid the conflicts of interest likely to arise as Caldwell builds his own alternative to social platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
 
MindSnacks Nabs $6.5M From Sequoia To Bring Fun Educational Games To Your Mobile Device Top
MindSnacksLogoMindSnacks, the DreamIt Ventures accelerator grad that has become known for its addictive educational games for iOS (that feature an ever-present slug), announced today that it has raised $6.5 million from Sequoia Capital. Back in 2010, Jesse Pickard, Jeff Evans and Andy Mroczkowski initially founded MindSnacks as a way to help their friends and fellow gamers turn their Angry Birds and Temple Run addictions into something with a little bit more long-term value. Frustrated with the lack of options in language learning, they launched an educational app that used the addictive mechanics of mobile gaming to teach people those fundamental vocabulary, reading, writing and comprehension skills in their language of choice.
 
Report: Most U.S. Mobile Phone Owners Complain About Dropped Calls, SMS Spam & Slow Download Speeds Top
pew_logoJudging from the latest data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, U.S. cell phone users are at risk of turning into cranks. In this survey, the vast majority of cell owners complain about dropped calls (72%), unwanted sales and marketing calls (68%), text message spam (69%) and slow download speeds (77%). Smartphone owners, it's worth noting, reported more problems with dropped calls, unwanted text messages and slow download speeds than other cell owners.
 
Come Hear From Silicon Valley Legend Reid Hoffman At Disrupt SF This September Top
disrupt-sf12-eventWe are excited to announce that Reid Hoffman is the next special guest to join our incredible lineup for Disrupt SF. During his two decades in Silicon Valley, he has helped build seminal Silicon Valley companies of our time, including PayPal and LinkedIn, and invested in dozens of others including Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Last.fm, Ning, Six Apart and Zynga. He now leads top venture firm Greylock Partners. Meanwhile, our Disrupt speaker roster is getting packed. We'll also be hosting new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, Jessica Alba and Brian Lee, Vinod Khosla, super angel Ron Conway, Ben Horowitz, Marc Benioff, Kevin Rose, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, and many others. You can view the full list of speakers so far here. Stay tuned for more announcements.
 
Chick-Fil-A Is Actually Popular: How Social Media Distorts Your View of The World Top
ihwx.a18c16ed-9f29-4abc-961c-804ca0c52e20.250.250Despite an inescapable torrent of opposition from popular tech blogs, Twitter users, and city mayors against Chick-fil-A, the self-avowed anti-gay marriage restaurant enjoyed record-breaking sales yesterday. Had I just gazed the world through my Twitter feed, I would think Chick-fil-A was on the verge of bankruptcy...and also that Ron Paul was president, gay marriage was legal, and President Obama didn't have a decent chance of losing the election.
 
Lua Goes From A Manhattan Basement To $2.5M In Seed Funding From IA Ventures Top
ts_small_luaIt all started in a basement in Manhattan. The guys from Lua (which you may remember from the TechStars NYC Demo day a few months back) had the opportunity to meet with none other than Fred Wilson after a few friendly connections got them in touch. Wilson came to their basement "office," and sat down to give them about an hour's worth of feedback. It was then that Lua got the idea to apply for TechStars and take the leap. And it would seem that leap (with the help of Mr. Wilson) has paid off, as the company just announced a $2.5 million seed round led by Roger Ehrenberg's IA Ventures. Angels Aaron Stone of Apollo Global Management, Strauss Zelnick of Take-Two Interactive Software, John Maloney (former Tumblr president). The Dark Knight Rises producer Charles Roven also participated in the round.
 
Y Combinator Backed Startup Authy Wants To Help You Prevent A Dropbox Style Security SNAFU Top
authyIn response to a security breach, Dropbox promised to add an optional new layer of security known as two factor authentication. If you want to add two factor authentication to your own app but don't know where to start, you're in luck: Authy is a YCombinator backed startup launching today that makes it easy to add optional two factor authentication to your application. You just add some API calls to your app and your users will be able to use their phones as a second layer of authentication.
 
Giveaway: An Exclusive Screening Of CNBC's Peter Thiel "20 Under 20″ Documentary Next Week Top
Screen Shot 2012-08-01 at 3.45.32 PMWhen Peter Thiel identified the next bubble as one in higher education, it ignited a bit of controversy here on TechCrunch. He told TechCrunch last year, "A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed. Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It's like telling the world there's no Santa Claus." He backed up his beliefs with a provocative fellowship program meant to lure teenagers to drop out of college. Called 20 Under 20, a select handful of brilliant, ambitious young people get $100,000 to ideally move to the San Francisco Bay Area to work on whatever they want for two years. They are including the youngest person to have ever created nuclear fusion, teens that are working on medical imaging, mobile apps and solutions to alleviate global poverty and inequality.
 
Facebook Drops Below $20: Worth Less Than What MSFT Offered For Yahoo In 2008? Top
facebook market capToday, Facebook hit a new milestone, perhaps one that it won't be celebrating much: the stock went down past $20 a share. In fact, as this post is being written it's trading at $19.99. Because this number is a bit arbitrary, here's some context for how the mighty sometimes become less mighty: this might make Facebook worth less than $44.6 billion, what Microsoft offered to pay for Yahoo in 2008:
 
Gild Grabs $2M To Help Companies Find And Hire Top Programmers Top
Screen Shot 2012-08-02 at 10.34.45 AMUnemployment is worryingly rampant in the US right now -- which makes the ongoing "hiring crunch" in Silicon Valley even more absurd. It's fair to say that nearly every single company that TechCrunch covers is hiring. But they're not looking for just anyone. They're looking for programmers. And good programmers are really hard to find. A startup called Gild says it can help, and it's raised $2 million in new seed funding from Globespan Capital Partners and Sequoia Capital's Mark Kvamme to do so.
 
TechCrunch Giveaway: A Nest Thermostat Plus Free Ticket To Disrupt SF #TCDisrupt Top
Nest | The Learning Thermostat | HomeDisrupt SF is right around the corner and here's another chance for you (or someone you know) to win a ticket! This is going to be one of the biggest technology conferences of the year and we have already announced some special guests and speakers including: Kevin Rose, Michael Arrington, Marissa Mayer, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, Jessica Alba, Marc Benioff, and many more. Be sure to check out all of the speakers we have announced so far. And stay tuned, because we have a lot more surprises to come.
 
LOLs Acquired: Here Are YouTube's Next 16 Comics Top
youtubeAbout a month ago, YouTube put out a request to its creators, asking for the funniest among them to apply and be considered for the most recent version of its YouTube Next Creator program. While YouTube has previously sought creators in health and fitness, cooking, and vlogging categories, this time around the video site wanted some comic relief. And so it put out a call for YouTube Next Comics. This morning, YouTube announced the 16 winners, who will receive some new equipment and a little jolt of promotion from the giant video site. Participants in YouTube Next programs get $5,000 in video equipment and $10,000 worth of ads on YouTube for their channels. They also receive a little bit of mentorship from other successful creators -- in this case, three months of educational workshops, including help from the folks at CollegeHumor and Glozell.
 
Getaround Raises $13.9M Series A Led By Menlo Ventures, Launches Getaway For Managed Car Rentals Top
getaroundPeer-to-peer car sharing service -- and former TechCrunch Disrupt winner -- Getaround just raised $13.9 million in new funding to expand into new markets and improve its product. It's also rolling out a new product called Getaway that will let users who never use their cars to rent them out for months at a time, with Getaround managing rentals and handling all maintenance. Getaround's $13.9 million Series A round was led by Menlo Ventures, with managing director Shervin Pishevar joining the company's board. Other investors include new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, A-Grade Investments, and Eric Schmidt's Innovation Endeavors, as well as Collaborative Fund, SOSventures' Sean O'Sullivan, Correlation Ventures, HotelTonight CEO Sam Shank, Yammer CEO David Sacks, Saba Software CEO Bobby Yazdani, Hoteles.com founder Matias de Tezanos, Clarity.fm founder Dan Martell, and .CO CEO Juan Diego Calle.
 
Google Licenses Rovi's Program Guide Patents For Its New Fiber TV Service Top
rovi-logoOne of the main surprises of Google's Fiber announcement in Kansas City last week was that the company also plans to provide its own TV service to the residents of its 'fiberhoods.' There are some issues with Google's Fiber TV service, including the fact that it seems to be missing quite a bit of content, but it's definitely looking to be a very competitive offering. To make all of this work, however, Google apparently needed to license a number of patents. As digital entertainment technology provider Rovi announced today, Google has signed a multi-year licensing agreement with the company that provides Google with a license to Rovi's "interactive program guide patent portfolio for set-top boxes, as well as online and mobile platforms."
 
Sharp To Cut 5,000 Jobs Globally Top
sharp-logo Reuters is reporting that LCD-maker Sharp is looking at cutting 10 percent of their workforce or about 5,000 jobs globally. Sharp currently has excess LCD panel stock due to a fall in demand this year.
 
Crane & Canopy Is Bringing Internet Business Models To The Home Goods Market Top
Crane and Canopy logo squareCrane & Canopy is a newly launched online home goods store that's benefiting from the power of the Internet to flatten the traditional supply chain and save on costs. Like many of the new arrivals in the e-commerce space, the company isn't hiding the same old business model from the brick-and-mortar era behind a shiny new front-end. It's getting rid of all the extra people and processes in the typical supply chain scenario by handling everything in-house, including design, CAD work, importing and exporting, prep work, and sales. And if that doesn't get you excited (what, are you dead inside?), then how about this: Crane & Canopy has some really, really cute duvet covers and shams for super cheap.
 
App Analytics Firm Xyologic Goes Consumer With New Search Engine, Gets Backing From Gaming, Music Heavies Top
xyologic app storeA big step up for Xyologic, the app analytics firm out of Berlin: it's announcing a significant round of funding from Signia Venture Partners, the investment vehicle led by gaming entrepreneur Rick Thompson (Playdom); Klaas Kersting (Gameforge), and Soundcloud founder Eric Wahlforss; and it is setting its sights on the consumer market with the beta launch of a new app search engine -- the first, it claims, aimed at mainstream users and specifically at searching for mobile games across the whole of an app store. The beta launch of the Xyo app store today covers only Android apps, which a user accesses through a browser, but Matthaus Krzykowski, co-founder of Xyologic, says that the plan is to use some of the new funding to extend that to iOS and other platforms in the very near future, as well as launch mobile apps with the same functionality. He will not comment on the amount of the funding, but it's first significant investment in Xyologic after a bootstrapped launch. TechCrunch understands from a separate source that it is in the range of seven figures.
 
Amazon Revamps Its Mobile Apps: Adds Browse By Department, Subscription-Based Shopping Top
amazon-iosToday, Amazon is updating its mobile applications for Android and iOS with a couple of notable additions that will make using these small-screened counterparts more in line with the desktop-sized website. Probably the most helpful change is the ability to browse and shop by department (finally!). Prior to the change, shopping in Amazon's mobile app was primarily kicked off by doing product searches. The other new arrival is the inclusion of Amazon's Subscribe & Save program, which you can think of as Amazon's own take on this whole subscription-based e-commerce trend. But instead of sending you carefully curated boxes of stuff monthly, Amazon lets you schedule shipments of items in need of regular replenishment, like pet food, personal care goods, office supplies and more.
 
Aereo Offers A "Try For Free" Option In NYC; Android And PC Support Later This Summer Top
Aereo Pricing Plan Grid (Final Hi Res)After a small victory in court this past July, NYC-based Aereo today announced a new set of pricing options and the end of the invitation-only rollout for the live broadcast TV over the Internet startup. The service is still only available to those physically residing in New York City but for those of us elsewhere, we can now choose from four different pricing options and even a free to watch option. The latter gives viewers access to the service for one continuous hour each day sans DVR functionality. A day pass (read: 24 hours) will set you back one George Washington with monthly and annual pricing at $8, $12 and $80, respectively.
 
GASP! RIM CEO Details Potential Options For Licensing BB10 Top
happyberryRIM is in trouble and is seemingly finally listening to reason. Speaking to The Telegraph, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins talked about how RIM could go about licensing its next-gen BlackBerry platform. But that's assuming manufacturers like Samsung or Sony would actually want to build a BlackBerry 10 device. Heins' comments show once again that RIM is exploring all the options for the ailing company. After years of failing to innovate and relying on aging platforms, the company lost its once-dominant grip on the smartphone market. Heins previously briefly talked about licensing options but never with these sorts of specifics. But now, after two killer (read: horrible) financial quarters, the Canadian company is likely open to all options.
 

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