Thursday, November 1, 2012

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Twelve South's HiRise Stand For MacBook Provides Height-Adjustable Notebook Elevation Top
twelve-south-hirise-macbookIf you have a notebook Mac and you use it both in an office and on the road, you probably know by now that having it at a comfortable viewing angle when in the office is key to the long-term health of your spine and posture. There are many stands out there to help you get those MacBooks up off the desk, but a new one from Twelve South seems to offer a much more flexible solution compared to most, thanks to fully adjustable height.
 
Latest Rovio Angry Birds Star Wars Trailers Show Playable R2-D2 and C-3PO "Birds" Top
angry-birds-star-wars-splash_wide-4_3_r560Facepalm. Rovio just released a new gameplay trailer of the upcoming Angry Birds Star Wars mashup. As shown in the first trailer, the playable characters each feature unique abilities. R2-D2 has a tractor beam and C-3PO falls apart -- just like the Star Wars brand is falling apart!
 
Stop, Thief: Apple Patents Movement-Based Theft Detection System For iOS Devices Top
iphone5-theftAn Apple patent application spotted Thursday by AppleInsider shows a system for detecting unusual motion via a portable gadget's accelerometer which would sound an alarm, making said device harder to steal. The system is a simple one, without the kind of sophisticated face detection we saw in a previous application, but it could be much more effective for curbing thefts at the moment they occur.
 
Big Money For Cheap Razors: Dollar Shave Club Raises $9.8M, Launches In Canada Top
dollar shave club logoDollar Shave Club, the startup offering a subscription razor service that costs as little as $1 per month (plus shipping), has raised $9.8 million in Series A funding. Co-founder and CEO Michael Dubin said the new round, which was led by Venrock, will allow the company to develop "the next iteration of Dollar Shave Club" and "to really grow into the lifestyle service" that he wants it to be. He declined to offer too many details on that front — it sounds like Dollar Shave Club has some big product news coming in the near future, and he didn't want to give too much away ahead of time. However, he did say the funding has already helped the company build some important backend tech tools, like "really basic metrics."
 
Science's TripleThread Brings Personalized Commerce To Retailers; Powers Mens Clothing Site Fourth And Grand Top
scienceOn the heels of launching social commerce startup TopFloor, LA-based incubator Science is debuting a new retail technology, TripleThread. Additionally, this technology is powering personalization and styling for a new personalized, mens' e-commerce startup that was incubated by Science, Fourth And Grand.
 
Freshplum Goes After Small Businesses With A Dead Simple, Stripe-Enabled Shopping Cart Top
helium-1Freshplum, an analytics startup for online retailers that was founded by a former Facebook product manager, is going after small to medium businesses with an easy way for anyone to add a shopping cart to their site. Called Helium, the product is based off a product that another company in the Y Combinator network, payments startup Stripe, launched a few weeks ago. Stripe recently launched a product called Connect that makes it easy for any business to enable its customers to do direct transactions without having to wait weeks for approval by a payments processor. Freshplum’s founder Sam Odio says that while the developer community appreciates Stripe for its simple API, it’s not really that easy to use for non-technical business owners. “Stripe is a great product. We’re big fans of the company. The only problem is that for a small business, it’s actually pretty difficult to integrate,” he said. “You need to have programming experience. You need to set-up a back-end to store the order data, and you need to set up a shopping cart front-end and pass that order information to Stripe. So Helium is essentially a front-end for Stripe.” With Helium, you add a line of Javascript and then another line of code wherever you want a “Buy Now” button. You’ll get a dashboard that shows you recent orders and lets you easily add items. While Stripe could go ahead and build a comparable product for small to medium-sized businesses, Odio says that hopefully Freshplum will be moving fast enough that by the time they do, his offering will have sophisticated retail analytics to offer customers. Freshplum’s core business is in analytics that help retailers optimize on pricing, so that they don’t charge too much or too little for their products. They already have a product in beta for the very biggest online retailers that’s generating revenue. Helium is for the lower-end of the market. Odio says this group might include a blogger looking to sell content, or musicians that are selling unreleased tracks. Freshplum will take a 2 percent share of revenue on top of Stripe’s 2.9 percent and 30 cents per transaction. He says that makes it roughly equal to Gumroad’s 5 percent plus 25 cents a transaction. The company has raised $1.4 million in funding from investors including Google Ventures, Charles River Ventures, NEA, Y Combinator, former Gmail product manager Gabor Cselle, CRV’s George
 
The DIY Renaissance: U.K. Accelerator Springboard Launches Dedicated Bootcamp For Hardware Startups Top
Screen Shot 2012-11-01 at 09.54.11Move over software, the London and Cambridge, U.K.-based accelerator, Springboard, is launching a dedicated program for hardware startups, focusing on the Internet of Things. The new three-month accelerator bootcamp -- called Springboard Internet of Things -- is backed by program partners ARM, Unilever, Neul and Raspberry Pi.
 
Hey Google, Your Nexus 7 Marketing Images Look Like Crap Top
nexus1No one understands why President Obama didn't hammer Governor Romney on his 47% secret video comments during the first presidential debate. In hindsight, a mistake. Like President Obama, Google is throwing away its best ammunition against the iPad mini - pixel density - by publishing marketing materials that make the Nexus 7 look like a turd.
 
With 4.5M Users, Instructure Takes On The Courseras & Udacities Of The World With Its Own Open Course Network Top
PrintInstructure launched Canvas in 2011 to give educational institutions an alternative to the ubiquitous (but much criticized) software of educational giants like Blackboard. Today, the company is adding another piece to its learning management system with the launch of its own MOOC hybrid, which allows schools to define the structure of their online courses and customize the learning experience.
 
FastMail Escapes The 1990s With Sleek New Interface Top
fastmailFastMail is a popular e-mail provider among power users who want to be customers instead of products. But its interface has been stuck in the 90s -- until this week when it rolled out a brand new AJAXy UI. And it's really, well, fast.
 
Turntable.fm Founder's New DJZ Dance Music Site And DJZtxt App Will Make Your Eyes And Ears Bleed Top
DJZ SiteElectronic dance music (EDM) is all the rage with kids born after 1990 (Generation Z), and Turntable.fm founder Seth Goldstein is brining the scene online. Today he launches DJZ, a news hub website, and DJZtxt, a messaging app that turns emojis into sounds. With $1 million in funding from Kleiner Perkins, music industry folk and more, DJZ could capture the youth's eyes and dollars, or get skipped.
 
Watch Nerdery: Up Close With The New Seiko "Orange Monster" Top
Seiko-SRP313-watchIf you know me, you know two things about me: I love watches and I smell, faintly, of ferret. That's why I'd like to share my excitement at this review of the new Seiko SRP313K1 "Orange Monster," one of the nicest and least expensive automatic diving watches you can buy.
 
Apple's R&D Spending Climbs $1 Billion To $3.4 Billion During FY 2012 Top
Apple-Logo-MacBookApple released its 10-K filing with the SEC today, reflecting its financial status and records for the entirety of 2012. Most of the content is what we've seen already from quarterly results, but a couple of statistics stood out as particularly interesting and worthy of note. For one, Apple spent $3.4 billion in research and development during its 2012 fiscal year, up $1 billion from 2011.
 
Another 'Sexy' Enterprise Exit: EMC Buys Web Security Firm Silver Tail Systems Top
Some would say the Enterprise has always been sexy (see what I did there?)The tech press doesn't always give enterprise software startups as much attention as companies on the consumer-focused side. That is slowly changing now, though -- the words "enterprise" and "sexy" have shown up together in a growing number of conference panels and press reports in recent months.
 
Photo Sharing App Batch Finally Closing Its Doors Since Team Is Now At Airbnb Top
10837680_a6ccb07bc3We knew that the Dailybooth team, creators of photo sharing app Batch, moved on to greener pastures at Airbnb. The acquisition was to bolster the mobile apps and presence for Airbnb. What we didn't know is what the fate of its products would be, but now we do. Today, the "Batch team" sent out an email to its users informing them that they should download their photos, because the service will be shutting down:
 
Blue Box Raises $3.5 Million For Cloud And Hosting Service With An OpenStack Flavor Top
logoblueboxBlue Box has raised $3.5 million for its OpenStack-infused cloud and hosting service designed for companies that have major traffic volumes and big apps and rely on a high level of uptime.
 
Get Ready For Some Fireworks: Activist Investor Carl Icahn Sets His Sights On Netflix, Taking A 10% Stake Top
carl-icahn-oCarl Icahn has bought a big chunk of Netflix stock — nearly 10 percent altogether. It's not clear exactly what his intentions are, but according to the filing, the investment was made because Icahn believes the stock is undervalued. And he might have a point: Netflix was once sitting pretty at about $300 a share, but has fallen fast. Netflix shares were hovering around $60 last week.
 
One Year In, Nextdoor, The Social Network For Neighborhoods, Talks Numbers [TCTV] Top
Screen Shot 2012-10-31 at 1.09.55 PMThis time last year marked the debut of Nextdoor, a site that allows people to build private online social networks for their local neighborhoods. The startup has a very noble aim -- bringing people who live in real-life communities closer together -- but at its launch, many people were a bit skeptical. Would people really want to sign up for yet another social network? How would Nextdoor differentiate from the social networking superstar, Facebook? Could Nextdoor be attractive to people beyond tech-savvy urban centers such as San Francisco?
 
Zillow Acquires Real Estate Shopping And Collaboration Platform For Brokers And Homebuyers, Buyfolio Top
buyfolioReal estate search giant Zillow has acquired Buyfolio, an online and mobile collaborative shopping platform where home shoppers can search, track, organize and discuss for-sale listings with their real estate agent, significant other or a private group. Financial terms were not disclosed.
 
Outdoor Ad Startup ADstruc Launches A New Ad-Buying Workflow And Partners With Telmar Top
adstruc logoADstruc has been working to modernize the buying of outdoor advertising for the past couple of years. Now it's taking two big steps in that process with last week's launch of the new ADstruc platform, and today's announcement that it's partnering with ad software maker Telmar. CEO John Laramie told me that the new platform builds on the services that ADstruc already offers, but the company describes the new platform as not just a new feature or tool, and instead "a complete workflow solution" offering "the easiest way to buy and sell outdoor advertising" like billboards. Agencies and other advertisers can post requests for proposal (RFPs) for their campaigns, and outdoor ad companies can bid to participate. The advertisers can actually browse the bids in a map, narrow down their search based on different criteria, and even see what their ad will look like in a given location. It's a big change, Laramie said, from an industry where most of the campaign planning happens on spreadsheets.
 

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