The latest from TechCrunch
- Report: 'Peak Bandwidth' Threatens Global Economy Unless Decisive Action Taken
- Evoz: Baby Monitoring 2.0 Comes Of Age
- Agilyx Raises $22 Million To Turn Plastics (Back) Into Oil
- April Fools 2011: The Big List
| Report: 'Peak Bandwidth' Threatens Global Economy Unless Decisive Action Taken | Top |
| Sometimes humor is the best mechanism to explain an opaque topic. Public Knowledge, a group that concerns itself with defending consumer rights in "the emerging digital culture," has released a report today entitled "Peak Bandwidth." Keep in mind today’s date, is all I have to say. The report says that the "era of plentiful, low-cost bandwidth is approaching an end. The supply of bits, the raw material of our information economy, is rapidly dwindling… unless mitigation is orchestrated on a timely basis, the economic damage to the world economy will be dire and long-lasting." You hear that, we’re running out of bits! The bandwidth crisis—and why else would the likes of AT&T have to impose bandwidth caps if we’re not in the middle of a crisis? —has been caused by hogs like "young people" and " cord-cutters ." These people have placed an "unbearable strain on our bandwidth supplies," and in effect have clogged the pipes to the point where we now have to ration bandwidth. Most ominously: "Once bandwidth is gone, it's gone. Used up bits are gone forever. They don't come back and can't be replaced." Read More | |
| Evoz: Baby Monitoring 2.0 Comes Of Age | Top |
| Very soon (as in: in the next few days), I’ll become a father for the first time. And of course, as every existing parent seems to know, babies cost money. One of those unbearable things young parents need to purchase without further ado, is a baby monitoring system. Me and my wife already bought one, but while we were evaluating existing systems I couldn’t help but notice that even the more advanced ones on the market today seem little more than glorified walkie-talkies . A couple of weeks ago, knowing that I would soon become a dad, Jyri Engestrom nudged me and said he had stumbled upon a fledgling company, Evoz , that set out to build a baby monitoring system for the always-connected generation, and that I should check it out. A couple of emails with the startup in question later, yesterday I finally got a live demo from the company’s founder Avishai Shoham . The verdict? It’s freaking amazing. Imagine if you had an iPhone or iPod touch to spare, and that you’d simply install it in a charger in your young child’s room like you would any baby monitor. Now imagine that an always-on application installed on the device would let you call in from anywhere in the world to hear how your baby is sleeping (or exactly how hard he or she is crying, or if you’re lucky, laughing or playing). Imagine that you could also opt to receive ‘quiet’ alerts by SMS or email whenever your kid cries for longer than, say, 5 minutes, so you can give the babysitter a quick call to see what’s up after e.g. a meeting or dinner. Imagine that the app also automatically collects data on the sleeping and crying behavior of your child, and that you could analyze that data to see if he or she matches the behavior of children of the same age. And that you could just as easily get in touch with a network of baby health experts or sleep consultants if you have any questions or concerns. Evoz lets you do all that, and more. The company isn’t quite ready to launch yet, but intends to roll out its service more broadly in the next few months. Shoham tells me the company will eventually support multiple mobile platforms. Also in the works: a proprietary hardware unit so you don’t necessarily need a spare iOS or Android device to monitor your baby (prototypes are already in the wild, however, and you can see what it looks like in the image above). Early adopters with young children (aged 18 months or less) that own at least 2 iOS devices (iPod touch, iPhone, iPad) and don’t mind testing out an unpolished product and provide feedback to the team can apply for early access to Evoz Monitors here . Please note that you’re required to fit the above criteria to get in – only 20 fast responders will be allowed access to the private beta service. Investors, take note: Evoz is in the midst of raising a first round of funding, Shoham says. | |
| Agilyx Raises $22 Million To Turn Plastics (Back) Into Oil | Top |
| A Portland area startup selling patented systems that turn plastic trash into synthetic crude oil, Agilyx , closed a $22 million series B round, the company revealed on Thursday. The systems (image below) look like the kind of equipment you’d see in a brewery. Here’s how they work, according to the company website: Plastic feedstock, a mix of everything from grocery bags to vehicle dashboards and computer monitor cases, are dropped by a crane into a sizable vessel, where they are indirectly heated until they turn into a liquid, and then a gas. With a series of controlled pressure and temperature adjustments, the gases are pulled through pipes into a central, condensing chamber. There, the gases cool off, and contaminants are siphoned away. The synthetic crude oil that remains is transferred into a tank. The company can transport these tanks full of synthetic crude, and sell it to oil refineries that make it into heating oil, diesel or gas and more. The company’s chief executive, Chris Ulum, told TechCrunch that Agilyx sells the crude it generates, through off take deals with large refineries, on behalf of those who install their systems. His was the first company to strike this type of deal, he claims. (off take agreements are reminiscent of power purchase agreements that wind and solar industry players strike with large-scale utilities.) The company also helps prospective buyers to finance their systems. Investors in the series B round for Agilyx included: Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital , the company’s original backers, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) which led the round, along with Waste Management (NYSE: WM) and the investment affiliate of the global oil and gas company, Total S.A. (NYSE: TOT). A senior vice president with Chrysalix, Brian Wawro , said Agilyx gave him tremendous hope, not just for a successful initial public offering, hopefully by the end of 2012, but also for a solution to burgeoning problems affiliated with plastic and e-waste, globally. He noted: “Agilyx solves a huge problems on the waste side, and on the energy side. We have all these plastics that don’t see a high rate of recycling, things like grocery plastics, shopping bags, dry cleaning bags, e-waste, auto shredder residual like dashboards and wiring from a crushed vehicle, and they’re in a single waste stream, most of the time. What you do with that? To dispose of contaminated [and mixed] plastics, now, costs about $400 or $500 a ton, to go to landfill. Agilyx has a far more economic solution which is to not just dispose of this, but create a valuable end-use product from it — oil that is widely refinable. That’s a very attractive use of waste to everyone from municipalities, to plastic aggregators… We’ve also talked about the possibilities of using the Agilyx system in some form — putting it on a barge — to deal with things like the Pacific Trash Vortex .” Several major plastic gyres, or floating, gigantic masses of plastic— one in the Pacific is twice the size of Texas , according to National Geographic — pollute the ocean today. The gyres, and plastic waste generally in the ocean harms wildlife in several ways. Animals may eat plastic particles, and can die from resulting digestive problems; they may get injuriously tangled in plastic waste; and they suffer from exposure to chemicals released by plastic waste that’s biodegraded in the water, namely BPA (bisphenol A) which disrupts their endocrine systems and negatively effects reproduction. According to Project Kaisei , an environmental non-profit dedicated to raising awareness about waste in the ocean: “every year, over 300 million tons of plastic are produced, much of it for one-time, disposable use, and roughly 90% never makes it to be recycled.” So far, all of Agilyx installations have been terrestrial. On land, the company faces a challenge in scaling to the mass market— it must obtain permits, state-by-state in the U.S., proving air emissions from its processes are safe. Agilyx obtained its first such permits in Oregon. Ulum said his company has four pending projects in California, and he expects at least the largest of these to be permitted soon, and operating in full by the end of 2011. Other plastics waste to energy companies — like Polymer Energy, LLC in Minnesota, or Envion in Washington D.C. — face the same regulatory scrutiny. Plastics to fuel companies also compete with, when they’re not supplementing the work of, more traditional recyclers, incinerators and land fill businesses, as well as companies that tout the benefits of plant-based plastics, which are not as easily processed and converted back into synthetic crude. CrunchBase Information Agilyx Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| April Fools 2011: The Big List | Top |
| Yes, folks, that’s right. That special, special time of year is upon us. It's April Fools 2011! We take April Fools pretty seriously around here, so we’ll be constantly updating this post with the best April Fools jokes and pranks the World Wide Interwebernets has to offer. All night and all day. As long as it takes. If you find a gem, please share it with us in the comments. Thank you in advance. So, without further ado, here is Aol HuffingtonCrunch’s big list of April Tomfoolery: The April Foolings An Airline Finally Offers Child-Free Flights Ryanair beats most to the punch with an announcement that the Irish airline will be offering child-free flights beginning in October. “ When it comes to children we all love our own but would clearly prefer to avoid other people's little monsters when travelling. While half our passengers would like us to divide our cabins up into 'adult' and 'family' areas it is not operationally possible due to our free seating policy, with optional priority boarding” , said Head of Communications Stephen McNamara. Google Places Filed As Spam TechCrunch reports that the internal war at Google continues, as Google Places is officially filed under “spam”, and removed from Google search. Google Chief Revenue Officer Nikesh Arora was even spotted on Demand CEO Richard Rosenblatt’s yacht, Adsense. Marissa Mayer was even quotes as saying, “Screw the webspam team", and "It's not like people are going to start using Bing". You Can Take Rosenblatt’s Life, But Not His Yacht TechCrunch reports that Demand CEO Richard Rosenblatt was none-too-happy about Mike revealing details about his yacht, Adsense. Maybe if he had enough sense not to call it Adsense… Spotify Kills European Service To Go American TechCrunch’s Paul Carr reports that everybody-not-living-in-America’s favourite music service, Spotify , is officially ceasing all international operations in an effort to fund the company’s American infiltration. That’ll teach ‘em. Sean Parker, one of the company's first US investors, told TechCrunch, “Europe isn't cool. You know what's cool? America." Atlassian Launches Angry Nerds Atlassian is launching its own take on hit Angry Birds….Angry Nerds. “What do you do when you have bugs in your code? Send in the Angry Nerds. Consider these issues…resolved.” ThredUP Launches Clothing Swap For…Dad Kids clothes and toys swap site thredUP will now be catering to dads with the launch of a paternity clothing swap. Previously the site had been focused exclusively on moms and kids, but is not moving into the Dads market. Deals4Hipsters A Groupon Clone, Deals For Hipsters launched as a daily deals site for the quintessential hipster. According to the site, “Nothing is more important to us than taking your money and spending it on material goods of our own. If you ever feel like Deals 4 Hipsters let you down, give us a call and we’ll think about sending you a nice thanks for trying card – simple as that.” HuffPost Irks NYT In a move sure to irk at least two or three people who work for The New York Times, The Huffington Post has erected a paywall that applies only to NYT employees. YouTube Travels Back In Time Following on its memorable April 1st pranks like, Rick Rolling its entire user base, for example, YouTube will be reverting its videos back to what it would have looked like around 1911, complete with grainy, sepia video footage, no audio tracks (save for piano accompaniment), and title cards in place of the site's normal comments. Joel On Software Gets Pwned Software developer Joel Spolsky rants about everything from software to other kinds of software on his blog, Joel On Software . This hilarious parody site, Joel On Coal , was created for April Fool’s Day. Google Autocompleter Google begins its April Fools celebration with this job posting for an “autocompleter”. “Every day people start typing more than a billion searches on Google and expect Google to predict what they are looking for. In order to do this at scale, we need your help … As a Google Autocompleter, you'll be expected to successfully guess a user's intention as he or she starts typing instantly. In a fraction of a second, you'll need to type in your prediction that will be added to the list of suggestions given by Google. Don't worry, after a few million predictions you'll grow the required reflexes.” Gmail Motion Google introduces Gmail Motion , which allows you to control Gmail with your body. Finally . Groupon Now Owns April Fools Day The uncertainty over April Fools Day’s intellectual trademark led Groupon to purchase the rights to everybody’s favorite joke day. You can read Groupon’s patent application here . Groupon has also issued cease and desist letters to all the major violators of its trademark. Watch out, you could be next. LinkedIn LinkedIn’s “People You May Know” contact recommendation engine has gotten a little cheeky on this Fools’ Day of April. LinkedIn has begun recommending people that clearly wouldn’t want to become my professional contacts. Though, Albert, if you’re reading this, feel free to peruse my resume. Some great examples of relativity. uTest Launches Dating For Software Testers uTest , a marketplace for software testing services, announced today that they will be launching a dating site, QAdate , for software testers. Even software testers gotta find love, man. Software pimpin’ ain’t easy. Starbucks Thank God Starbucks is finally putting its baristas on scooters , as the coffee giant today launches its “Mobile Pour” feature. Watch out, Zaarly . “We’ve even made ordering easy with our Mobile Pour app for your smartphone. Simply download it, allow it to pinpoint your location, select your coffee order and keep walking. Your fresh, hot Starbucks brew will be in your hands before you can say abra-arabica.” Abra-arabica! /gets coffee thrown in face Google AdWords This just in from Google AdWords: It seems that many newcomers to display advertising feel that they missed out on the glory days of advertising in the 2000s. So, Google is offering an opportunity to make up for lost time with old school ads in Display Ad Builder. Options include: "Punch the Monkey", "Click here for smileys", "LOLcat", "Dancing .gif", "Pop ups galore", and "Scratch off". SoundCloud Music distribution platform SoundCloud today announced it will be adding a righteous new feature that will allow you to customize your profile with some amazing background animations. Because, you see, it’s all about self-expression. You have to express yourself, and there’s no better way to do that than with SoundCloud’s killer new background customization features. Just try not to have a seizure. Hulu Hulu seems to have taken a page from YouTube’s April Fools Day Manual, bringing us back in time to when video killed the radio star — except in Hulu’s case we are transported to a time when modems were dial-up, hyperlinks were underlined, and images were grainy. I believe they called it “the mid-to-late nineties”. Whenever that was. All I remember is the bursting of some sort of bubble. Memory goes blank after that. XKCD The great XKCD webcomic is trying to give us a headache , and I think it’s working. Funny or Die Last year it was Bieber or Die , when the Thing They Call Bieber decided to buy the site and use it as he pleased. This year, Funny or Die has spawned the Rebecca Black version of the site, which is all Rebecca, all the time. Includes such hits as “Betwixt the Music: Rebecca Black”, “The Top 7 Days We So Excited For”, and “Which Seat Should I Take? W/ Rebecca Black”. Toshiba Toshiba, always at the forefront of gadgetry innovation, has announced the world’s first 3D monacle , for all you Monopoly-loving robot guys out there. “Infusing advanced 3D technology into such a small device wasn't easy. Two triangular polarizing lenses were melded in parallel and encased in black-plated tungsten carbide for a lightweight and durable construction. For comfort, the casing was molded into the shape of an average human eye hole, and draped in bonded leather.” Bonded leather?!? Alright! Newslite’s Facebook Announcement Newslite is breaking the news that Facebook will soon be rolling out wedding and baby filters, so that users can turn off the incessant chatter of their friends droning on endlessly about upcoming weddings as well as births and all baby-related content. The social network also expects to soon begin preventing all individuals from uploading pictures of their children to use as their profile images. With these updates rolling out, Facebook expects to hit the 1 billion user mark within weeks. Google Helvetica A fan of web-safe, browser-compatible fonts, then whatever you do, don’t type “helvetica” into Google search. No, just kidding. You should do it. See what happens. We dare you. It’s comical. Sans comical. Qualcomm Qualcomm recently announced its next mobile processor architecture for the Snapdragon family, Krait. Snapdragon is Qualcomm’s platform for smartphones, tablets, and smartbooks. Qualcomm today announced that it will be sending its employees on a “Way of The Dragon Retreat”. Then there’s something involving Kimodo dragons, it’s hard to say really. I do like Bruce Lee, but I’ll let the video explain. Thumbs Up Gadget developer Thumbs Up has a fantastic new product that it will be rolling out worldwide this fall — an iPhone controllable wifi Eagle powered by the Sun. Can you believe it? Simply download the free app and transform your machine into an all seeing remote control roving eye. The "RC Eagle i" will be fully compatible with national wifi networks so you can control your precarious bird of prey from hundreds of miles away. How does it stay aloft? Well, the sun of course. What were you gonna say? A battery? Pssh. Americans must stand and salute as this majestic gadget passes overhead. Unfortunately, though, it’s only available in the U.K., but writing your congressman/woman could change that. A Few From The Vault | |
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