Thursday, October 4, 2012

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PSA: Facebook Has One Billion Users, But The Top 25 Nonprofits Only Reach 32M Of Them Top
nonprofits on facebookFacebook today announced that it now has 1 billion monthly active users, but although it is a social network, that doesn't mean that many on there are using it for social causes. Today the company said in a developer blog post that the top 25 nonprofits with Facebook Pages are connecting with over 32 million people worldwide. That works out to just 3.2% of its monthly active user base.
 
Romney Won The Debate: USC's Social Media Crystal Ball Knows It Top
blog_romney_crystal_ballRomney ended the night as the undisputed champion of last night's talking-point ping pong (er, "debate"). A post-event poll by CNN showed a Grand Canyon-size 2:1 gap among viewers in favor of Romney's performance. But the big victory of the night may have gone to the University of Southern California for an experimental new social media monitoring tool, which showed a similar gap in the sentiment of tweets after the broadcast. Until now, attempts at deciphering public opinion from the young, liberally biased universe of social media have been dismal failures, but this new tool may be closer to cracking the problem.
 
Mozilla's First Preview Release Of Firefox Metro Arrives On Windows 8 Top
metropreview-startWith the official launch of Windows 8 just around the corner, Mozilla today unveiled its first preview release of Firefox Metro. The Metro version of Firefox, Mozilla says, was "designed from the ground up for Windows 8" and already includes many of the usual Firefox tools and features. Despite the fact that this version is called "Firefox Metro," this version runs in both the old-school Windows desktop environment and the Metro/Windows 8-style environment.
 
Dave McClure's 500 Startups Hires Two New Venture Partners To Focus On New York City And India Top
Dave McClure (image courtesy of Flickr user Technotheory)As the market for angel and seed investments has heated up, Dave McClure's 500 Startups has been growing aggressively. It was just six months ago that 500 Startups raised its second fund, bringing on an additional $50 million to invest in early-stage companies. Now it's adding two more venture partners, who will oversee investments in another two strategic markets. 500 Startups announced today that Shai Goldman and Pankaj Jain are joining the fund as Venture Partners, focusing on investments in New York City and India respectively.
 
Sunglass Takes Its Browser-Based 3D Modelling Platform Out Of Beta, Keys In On Communication Top
sunglass-screenshotSunglass, a company that made its private beta debut back at TechCrunch Disrupt New York, is announcing its official, wide public launch today. The startup provides a web-based tool for sharing and collaborating on 3D models created in a number of CAD programs, including SolidWorks, Autodesk Inventor and SketchUp, and this latest release adds new features designed to improve the communication layer for projects.
 
Join Us In November At Our TC Northern Meetups: Toronto, Detroit, Chicago Top
meetups21 (1)If you're going to the North Country Fair where the wind hits heavy on Lake Michigan, we want you to attend one of our TC Northern meetups to be held in Toronto on November 5, Detroit on November 7, and Chicago on November 9. That's right: we're bringing the magic of our Southeast Meetups to Hogtown, Motor City, and the City in a Garden and we'd love to see you there. Registration is now open. We have great venues in each city: The Steam Whistle in Toronto, Hockeytown Cafe in Detroit and Zhou B in Chicago. Along with the massive meetups, we are also holding office hours in each city -- more on this later. And of course there is no cost to attend these events, but space is limited. Just come out, have some free drinks thanks to our sponsors and talk startups with TechCrunch.
 
Janrain Offers New Facebook Auto-Sharing Tool; Makes Reading TMZ Less Embarrassing Top
embarassed"Frictionless sharing," the Facebook Open Graph mechanism which some news sites and video apps have poorly used to boost their own virality at users' expense, has been one of more controversial changes Facebook has made in recent months. Social news readers, for example, broadcast the articles you read to your Facebook friends, and led to embarrassment as users caught themselves auto-sharing content they would rather not admit to. The experience was bad enough that, this May, Facebook finally cracked down on auto-sharing apps by implementing a 10-second rule before sharing took place. Now, a company called Janrain is offering an alternative to Facebook's own implementation of auto-sharing. Built on top of Facebook's Open Graph technology, Janrain's one-click sharing mechanism offers users more control over their sharing behaviors. And one of the first companies to adopt the tool is TMZ - a site no one wants to be busted auto-sharing content from.
 
Fulfilling Open Source Promise – HP Is Hiring 50+ Developers For WebOS Top
open-webosHP is hiring 50 developers for the WebOS platform, marking a new turn for the company's troubled mobile market play. The news comes as HP continues its effort to make WebOS a secure, open platform.
 
Disrupt Battlefield Finalist Expect Labs Locks Up $2.4M In Funding For Its Real-Time Conversation Analyzer Top
logo-expectlabs-stackedWell, it looks like Tim Tuttle is doing pretty well for himself. His last company, the video search platform Truveo, was acquired by AOL in early 2006 for an undisclosed (but reportedly hefty) sum, and now his latest venture has just gotten a considerable financial shot in the arm. Expect Labs, a TechCrunch Disrupt SF Battlefield startup that Tuttle co-founded with Moninder Jheeta, announced earlier today that it has locked up a $2.4 million investment from KPG Ventures, Google Ventures, and Greylock Partners (among others).
 
Apple Seeks Patent For Headphones That Can Go From Wired To Wireless In An Instant Top
12.10.04-Headphone-3A new patent application uncovered by AppleInsider today shows that Apple is working on ways to make hybrid headphones that work via both Bluetooth and a wired connection, and can switch seamlessly between the two. It's a system designed to come in handy during physical activity, complete with the ability to recharge directly from the attached device.
 
Big Data Company RainStor Raises $12 Million Series C From Credit Suisse And Rogers Venture Partners Top
rainstor-logoRainStor, makers of a "NewSQL" database, announced that has received a $12 million series C round led by Credit Suisse And Rogers Venture Partners with participation by previous investors Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures, Storm Ventures and The Dow Chemical Company. The company has now raised at least $23.5 million.
 
AAP Publishers Get More Control Over Google As They Settle 7-Year Copyright Infringement Suit Over Google Library Project Top
books_logoGoogle has finally made some headway on the litigation over copyright infringement for the Google Library Project; and the deal puts in place another key piece of the puzzle for Google Books. Google has reached a settlement with the Association of American Publishers, ending a seven-year legal dispute over the use of books and journals by Google in its Library Project. The suit was first filed in 2005 by McGraw-Hill, Penguin USA, Simon & Schuster, Pearson Education and John Wiley. It was one of a number of legal actions taken by publishers against the search giant as it moved further into books. Among those, Google is still in dispute with the Authors Guild, although it appears to now be working through another high-profile dispute, with French publishers.
 
This Robotic Museum Docent Will Lead You To Your Doom (Or The Next Exhibit) Top
BIB street smartBIB is a line-following robot that just took a job at the Technical Museum in Malmo, Sweden. She leads guests around the exhibits, talking about each one, and she stares at them malevolently with her single LCD eye. Voiced by Swedish comedienne Anna Blomberg, BIB can keep herself from hitting other patrons and will ask for help if she falls over or falls off her line.
 
Moveline's New Mobile App Makes Moving Even Simpler Top
Screen shot 2012-10-04 at 10.45.51 AMTechStars NYC graduate Moveline is having a big day. The company's mission to alleviate the struggle of moving your home just got that much sweeter, with the introduction of an iPhone app.
 
Flipboard Begins Sourcing Content From Kickstarter, Picks Projects Focused On Future Of Publishing Top
kickstarter_blogFlipboard, the popular social news magazine for iOS and Android, is now turning its editorial eye to the land of KickStarter. Starting today, the company will begin sourcing projects from the crowdsourced funding platform which it will then include in various sections of its Content Guide. Because Flipboard is most interested in the future of publishing and content distribution, the initial group of projects selected focus specifically on that subject matter. Going forward, Flipboard says it expects to add a couple more projects per month to its curated content collections.
 
Nokia Lumia 920, Lumia 820 To Hit AT&T Shelves In November Top
lumia920AT&T has just announced plans to carry Nokia's new flagship Windows Phone 8 devices, the Lumia 920 and the Lumia 820. Nokia fans have been excited about these for a while, considering that Windows Phone 8 brings a bit more capacity for impressive specs, and Nokia has added its Pureview imaging to the flagship 920.
 
Jolla Confirms It Will Unveil Sailfish MeeGo-Based OS Next Month Top
jolla_colorFinnish mobile startup Jolla has announced it will be unveiling its forthcoming MeeGo-based mobile OS -- codenamed Sailfish -- at an event in Finland next month. It says it plans to demonstrate Sailfish at the Slush startup conference in Helsinki, Finland, on November 21-22.
 
Amazon Lowers Cloud Drive Prices, Announces Availability In Italy, Spain In Addition To UK, Germany, France Top
Amazon Cloud DriveAmazon introduces Cloud Drive in Italy and Spain following September's launch in the UK, Germany and France. Cloud Drive is Amazon's digital locker offering to complete its media offering. As the Kindle Fire is expected to launch in Europe in the coming days, Cloud Drive will allow users to store their photos, music and documents in the cloud and stream this data to a Kindle Fire or a computer.
 
Flayvr, A Mobile App That Automatically Creates Photo Albums, Raises $450K Seed Round Top
flayvr playerThe proliferation of smartphones has made it incredibly easy for us to take numerous photos and record videos, but it has also left us to deal with massive media archives stored on our devices. When you need to locate one specific photo, or find those you shot at a given event, it can be difficult. A new mobile application called Flayvr, aims to help with this by automatically organizing photos and videos into collections, titling them appropriately, and offering tools for quick, one-click sharing to social networks. The company, based in Tel Aviv, has also just closed on a seed round of $450,000 from Israeli angel investors.
 
ZocDoc Debuts 'Check-In' To Let You Fill Out Those Pesky Medical Forms Before Your Doctor Visit Top
Screen Shot 2012-10-03 at 10.33.04 PMZocDoc, the startup that makes a web-centric booking platform for medical appointments, today is launching its first new product since its inception: ‘Check-In,’ a service that lets patients fill out those pesky medical forms online prior to their doctor’s appointment. ZocDoc says that Check-In will be free for patients and come at no additional cost to medical providers who are existing users of ZocDoc. The Check-In feature also saves patient information so that forms can be pre-filled before appointments. According to ZocDoc, this has been the top requested feature from current ZocDoc users. The roll-out of Check-In will be gradual — starting today, 10 percent of ZocDoc patients will be able to use the feature, and it will be rolled out to all users over the coming weeks. On the whole, ZocDoc’s growth has been going strong since it launched way back in 2007. The company currently works with healthcare providers in 31 metro areas in the United States, and is available in a total of 1400 cities, purportedly covering more than 1/3 of the US population. ZocDoc has raised some serious venture capital funding from big-name backers — a total of $95 million to date from the likes of Goldman Sachs, Khosla Ventures and DST Global, to name just a few. Healthcare is an increasingly attractive space for tech founders, but it’s also a very difficult one to get a real foothold in; so it’s good to see ZocDoc iterating on products that could have broad consumer usefulness and appeal such as Check-In. Here are a few screenshots of ZocDoc Check-In (click to enlarge):
 

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