Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Y! Alert: TechCrunch

Yahoo! Alerts
My Alerts

The latest from TechCrunch

Pudding Monsters: Cut The Rope Developer Zeptolab Announces Its Next Game Top
pudding_monsters_2Zeptolab's Cut the Rope is, without doubt, one of the most successful casual games of the last few years. Today, after 250 million downloads of the original game, the company just announced the launch of its newest game at LeWeb in Paris. The new game, called Pudding Monsters, is scheduled to launch in about two weeks and the team remains relatively tight-lipped about the actual gameplay, but I had a chance to give it a try last night.
 
Evernote Expands Its Premium Offerings: Evernote Business Now Live In 7 Countries With Sharing, More Data And A New Searching Algorithm Top
evernoteEvernote, the popular personal information and productivity app that last week announced another $85 million in financing and more than 45 million users, is continuing to expand its platform to cover evermore circles of use cases. Today, the company is officially rolling out Evernote Business, an enterprise-focused, premium version of the app that it first introduced in beta in August.
 
ScaleIO Raises $12 Million For Software-Based Storage To Compete Directly With EMC, IBM And Hitachi Data Systems Top
scaleioScaleIO has raised $12 million in a Series A round from Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), Greylock Partners, and private investors for its software defined storage technology. ScaleIO is one of a new breed of storage providers that use software to scale across thousands of servers.
 
ThisNext Launches Glossi, Its Free Digital Magazine Builder Top
glossi screenshotGlossi, the digital publishing platform from social commerce company ThisNext, is going into public beta today, which means that a much broader group of people can use Glossi's tools to build and publish their own online magazines with Glossi's tools (though you still need an invitation). CEO Matt Edelman said the company built Glossi in response to a number of different trends, including "the growth of visually-based content and social platforms." To take advantage of those trends, Glossi allows both brands and individuals to publish content in a format that mirrors print magazines pretty closely while also incorporating rich media and digital distribution. (And Edelman isn't the only one who sees an opportunity here — through their company AVOS Systems, YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen have also launched a magazine publishing platform called Zeen.)
 
BBM Money Launching In Indonesia "Shortly," Will Enable Peer-To-Peer Funds Transfer Via Messenger Top
bbm-moneyRIM today confirmed earlier reports it was planning a transactional service attached to BBM that would allow for direct money transfers, and put a name to the service – BBM Money. In an interview with the BBC, RIM Managing Director of RIM's South Asia operations Hastings Singh said that the company will be launching BBM Money in Indonesia first beginning "shortly," allowing anyone with a BlackBerry to transfer money directly to other BlackBerry owners.
 
YC-Backed Kicksend Makes It Easier To Share Photos With Friends And Family, Now Offers Prints At Target And CVS Top
kicksend-large-blueThe latest update to Kicksend's mobile apps seeks to make it even easier for users to share photos between groups of friends or family, and to send physical copies of those photos to the people they care about the most. Kicksend users will be able to get prints of their digital photos from other local retailers, including Target and CVS. Altogether, that will provide more that 15,000 locations.
 
Green Throttle, The New Startup From Guitar Hero Creator Charles Huang, Gets $6M To Redefine Console Gaming For A Mobile World Top
green throttleThe concept of video gaming has changed a lot in recent years, as mobile devices have become ubiquitous. And while more types of people may be indeed be playing more games more often these days, even though much of this is dubbed "social gaming" the actual physical practice of is less social than ever -- it's just one person heads down with his or her mobile device. A new startup called Green Throttle wants to shift that balance a bit, by allowing any Android device to power games that multiple people can play together on a television. The Santa Clara, California-based Green Throttle is announcing today that it has raised $6 million in a Series A funding round led by Trinity Ventures with participation from DCM to realize and scale out that vision.
 
No Facebook Account Required: Facebook Messenger For Android Lets You Sign Up With Just A Phone Number Top
Non-Facebook MessengerToday Facebook announced its first ever product open to people without a Facebook account. Starting now, the Messenger for Android app, and later its iOS counterpart, will allow signups from non-Facebook users with just a name and phone number. Facebook seems to have realized the limited reach of Messenger as is and wants to let you message your contacts whether or not they've joined Facebook.
 
Boombot Rex, A Durable, Affordable Bluetooth Speaker For The Adventurous Crowd Hits Kickstarter Top
rex-ruggedThere are plenty of Bluetooth speakers to choose from, which is exactly why I asked Boombotix co-founders Lief Storer and Chris McKleroy what made them think the market needed another one. But Boombot Rex, the company's latest Bluetooth speaker (it previously made a few different models based on collectable vinyl toy designs) is a different beast, and one they think can win over even the jaded Kickstarter crowd, which has seen countless iterations of wireless mobile speakers.
 
Ad Targeting Startup Adelphic Mobile Raises $10M Led By Google Ventures Top
adelphic-mobileAdelphic Mobile, a mobile ad startup founded by executives from Quattro (which Apple acquired and turned into its iAd program), has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Google Ventures. The startup previously raised a $2 million seed round led by Matrix Partners, and the firm also contributed to the new funding. In the funding press release, Google Ventures managing partner Rich Miner said the company is "pioneering a new way to identify mobile consumers by taking vast amounts of data and mining it to develop a holistic picture of the mobile user for brand owners."
 
SmartThings Closes $3M Seed Round, Led By First Round Capital, Launches Competition To Grow Community Of Smart Object Developers Top
smartthingsInternet-of-things startup, SmartThings, has closed a $3m seed round. The round was led by First Round Capital and includes contributions from a swathe of angel networks and angels, including SV Angel, Lerer Ventures and CrunchFund. The startup will use the funding to launch a competition to grow the size of its 1,000-strong developer/maker community.
 
Poshmark Nabs $12M Series B Led By Menlo Ventures To Expand Its Mobile Fashion Marketplace Beyond iOS Top
poshmarkClothing swap meets have been happening for many years, so they are indeed a tried-and-true "industry" of sorts -- but can one be worth tens of millions of dollars? Well, it is scaled up to include people all over the world via the web and add in a major mobile angle, some big money is betting that it can. Poshmark, the startup that runs a mobile marketplace where women can buy and sell clothes from their own closets with each other, has raised $12 million in new funding.
 
Soundcloud Revamps Site, Announces New Numbers: 180M Users A Month And Counting Top
182351_10151563613908989_1230124158_nIt's been a while since we heard new user numbers from the "YouTube of audio" startup Soundcloud (though not much of a startup these days), so Le Web in Paris was as good a time as any to announce new user numbers. They've hit hit 180 million users a month and re-vamped the site with the 'Next' version after testing out their open Beta for several months.
 
Last.fm Founders' Next Track: Lumi, A Site That Uses Your Browsing History To Help You Discover Things On The Web Top
lumi logoFelix Miller and Martin Stiksel, the co-founders of the music discovery and streaming site Last.fm, went into a kind of startup hibernation after selling their early-moving, prescient startup to CBS in 2007 for $280 million. Today, on a cold December day in London, they are re-emerging with Lumi, a site that wants to tackle the discovery conundrum yet again, but this time on the wider web. And they want you to help them build it, with the launch of a "prototype" of the service out today.
 
Urban Airship Acquires Tello, Maker Of PassTools For Apple's Passbook, Because Not All Brands Need Fully Featured Apps Top
passtoolsA little over a year after Urban Airship's acquisition of location startup SimpleGeo, the company has moved to once again expand its feature set by acquiring venture-backed Tello in an all-stock deal. The startup, which debuted at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2010, had initially been focused on building real time feedback tools for business customers, but had more recently refocused its efforts on PassTools, a visual pass builder for Apple's Passbook. And it was this latter product which attracted Urban Airship's attention.
 
Bantr Goes International To Offer Soccer Fans A First Screen Experience — Apparently Top
147659v2-max-250x250There are a whole host of second screen apps catering to sports fans (the UK's Fanatix springs to mind), so it's curious that Bantr, which sees its full global launch today, is billing itself as primarily a first screen experience for soccer fans. That's because, along with powering real-time discussions and opinion before, after and during games, the web-based app pipes in live in-game data, such as text commentary and stats, meaning that it's possible to use Bantr even if the match isn't on television or you aren't at the game. It's also been designed to let fans follow multiple teams, games and leagues at the same time, which is of course how the more hardcore footy fans follow the beautiful game anyway.
 
Founded By 4 Ex-Googlers, QuBit Raises $7.5M Led By Balderton To Improve E-Commerce Personalization With Big Data Top
qubit-logoQuBit, a big-data startup whose analytics platform helps e-commerce sites with customer personalization, is today announcing that it has raised a Series A round of funding -- $7.5 million led by Balderton Capital with participation from existing angel investors. As part of the deal, general partner Bernard Liatuad -- who founded and sold Business Objects to SAP for $6.8 billion -- will join QuBit's board.
 
Mobile Health Moves Forward: FDA Approves AliveCor's Heart Monitor For The iPhone Top
Screen shot 2012-12-04 at 1.55.58 AMThe next time your doctor says, "I have an app for that," try not to punch them in their stethoscope. Why? Because they just might be using AliveCor. For those unfamiliar, the San Francisco-based company is the maker of a low-cost, clinical-grade mobile heart monitor (fondly known as an electrocardiogram, or ECG, monitor) that fits over the back of your iPhone.
 
Nest's Tony Fadell Talks Thermostats, Apple, Kickstarter And Hardware Startups At LeWeb Top
LeWeb_paris_12_logoAt LeWeb Paris this morning, Nest Labs' Founder and CEO Tony Fadell took the stage with the Iliad Group's founder Xavier Niel to talk about his advanced thermostat and the Internet of Things.
 
Every Little Bit Helps: To Shore Up Some Cash, Nokia Sells And Leases Back Its Espoo, Finland, HQ For €170 Million To Finland's Exilion Top
nokia-logoYou know times are tough when you have to sell the HQ and rent it back to raise a little capital. Well that's exactly what the once mighty mobile maker, Nokia, is doing. The company has just announced that it intends to sell its Espoo, Finland, headquarters to Finland-based Exilion, and rent it back on a long term lease.
 

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)