Tuesday, December 11, 2012

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Twitter's Native App For iOS Updated With Image Filters, Auto-Enhance, Cropping And Scaling Top
instagram-iosTwitter's iOS native app initially got left out of the update party that brought Instagram-style filters powered by Aviary into the mix, but that omission has just been fixed. The 5.2 update for Twitter has just gone live on the App Store, making filters available to iPhone and iPad users. It also adds automatic enhancement features for color and exposure, as well as cropping and scaling.
 
Google News Gets An Updated Look On Tablets, Support For Gestures Top
newsGoogle just announced that it is updating the design of the Google News reading experience on tablets, including the Nexus 7, Nexus 10 and iPad. The new design, says Google, will make the service feel "even more natural and fluid on tablet devices."
 
Kazakhstan Beats Alabama On Science Tests. Massachusetts Bests Japan. Global Comparisons Are Silly Top
Apples-and-OrangesOne of America's worst performing education systems, Alabama schools, got beat on International science tests by the humble eastern European republic of Kazakhstan, and only narrowly outperformed Iran and Turkey. International math and science test results were thrust upon the news cycle today and opportunistic policymakers are decrying the inevitable doom America will face without a superior education system. Yet, levelheaded statisticians have attempted to argue why it's silly to compare the U.S. to the rest of the world. America is 300 million people strong; there's more variation between states than between competitor countries. For instance, in Massachusetts, home of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the average 8th Grader scores higher in science than their Japanese and Chinese counterparts.
 
Mobile Burst Top
mI use my phone far more than I use a computer these days. If you're not already, soon, you'll be doing the same. Yes, a huge part of this is that it's a device that is always with you. But recently, there's something else I've noticed too. For a few services out there, I far prefer to use their apps instead of their websites. What's interesting is that I don't mean service that only exist as mobile apps or were built to be mobile first, I mean services that have been around for a while but have now nailed their mobile experience.
 
Verizon Lists The Samsung Galaxy Camera For $549 Starting December 13 Top
galaxycamerablackVerizon just added theSamsung Galaxy Camera to its lineup of connected devices for this holiday season, available online starting December 13. The red carrier is charging $549.99 and the device comes in two colors. To add the Galaxy Camera to a Share Everything Plan, you can even upgrade for a special price of $5.
 
The New York Times Relaunches On Android With Support For More Tablet Sizes, New Text-To-Speech Feature Top
nyt-sectionsThe New York Times this afternoon relaunched its Android application, with an improved, more responsive design, and added support for text-to-speech functionality, allowing readers to listen to the Times' articles and blogs using Google's built-in voice engine or another of their choice.
 
Ask A VC: Kleiner Perkins' Megan Quinn Answers Your Questions Top
meganquinnThis week's Ask A VC is putting Kleiner Perkins' Megan Quinn in the hot seat. As you may remember, the show helps you get to know some of the investors behind the companies we write about on a daily basis.
 
Bing Gives Its Social Sidebar A More Streamlined Look Top
BingBing's social sidebar, which  displays relevant results from friends and experts on social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare, is one of the defining features of Microsoft's search engine. Today, Microsoft is giving the social sidebar a bit of a facelift by removing the dark gray background and making the overall design more streamlined and less cluttered.
 
NatureBox Lands $2M From General Catalyst, Redpoint To Go Big With Its "Birchbox For Healthy Foods" Top
Screen shot 2012-12-11 at 8.43.06 AMEarlier today, after nearly a year in development, Omada Health launched to bring diabetes prevention online in an effort to help fight obesity in the U.S. NatureBox wants to do its part, too, and is now announcing that it has closed $2 million in seed funding to accelerate its business and help anyone and everyone discover healthier eating options.
 
Judicata Raises $2M From Peter Thiel, Keith Rabois And Others To Give Lawyers Better Research And Analytics Tools Top
judicataLegal startup Judicata today announced a $2 million investment round from Peter Thiel, David Lee, Keith Rabois and Box founders Aaron Levie and Dylan Smith. The company wants to build better research and analytics tools for lawyers, in a way that dramatically changes the landscape of legal software, which Judicata founder Blake Masters describes as "notoriously inefficient and outdated" in a blog post announcing the news.
 
TechStars Seattle Startup Sandglaz Raises $500K For Flexible Task-Management Service Top
sandglaz1TechStars Seattle startup Sandglaz has raised a $500,000 seed round from private investors for its task-management service, which combines the practices of Agile development methodologies with traditional project management. Sandglaz, founded in 2011, is designed for high performance teams of five to 15 people who often have shifting priorities. The difference, says Co-Founder Nada Aldahleh, is the flexibility that the service gains by allowing for a more iterative project management.
 
PercyVites Are Personalized Video Invitations For Your Kid's Birthday, Starring Their Favorite Cartoon Character Top
Invitation_Email_PageBack at our TC Meetup in Toronto, we stumbled upon a new startup that's looking to change the way you handle your kid's birthday. PercyVites, which launches publicly today, lets you send personalized video invitations to your child's friends for their birthday. Currently, the web service supports the character Callilou, a popular PBS character. Users have the ability to customize the general template with their child's name, the birthday activities, date and time. From there, it's simple to just send along the video to parents' email addresses, where they can watch the video invite along with their kids.
 
ZenPayroll Launches Cloud-Based Payroll Service With $6.1M In Seed Funding From CEOs At Yammer, Box, Yelp And Dropbox Top
zenpayrollY Combinator company ZenPayroll launched its cloud-based payroll service today with $6.1 million in seed funding from Google Ventures and investments from the CEOs at Yammer, Box, Yelp and Dropbox.
 
DIY: Make Your Own Solar-Powered Raspberry Pi FTP Server Top
rpi-solar-ftp-server-panel-sideIn the pantheon of geek projects there are few things as potent as the creation of an FTP server. Rather than doing cool stuff like serving up web pages or handling phone calls, an FTP server just sits there serving up files like a Michelin-starred chef slinging hash at a diner. But what if you made it solar-powered? What then?
 
With Over 400,000 Users, Social Media Manager Buffer Gets A Refresh On Web & Mobile, Moves Away From Being A Destination Site Top
buffer logoBuffer, the social media manager that allows you to schedule posts to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, is today launching a redesign of its service on both web and mobile. The updates, six months in development, are meant to increase focus on analytics and third-party integrations, encouraging users to post to Buffer across the web, instead of visiting the website itself.
 
LaunchGram Adds TV Shows To Their Alerts Service Top
LaunchGramLaunchGram is an alert service that allows consumers to subscribe to news about imminently launching products. After doing so, they receive email alerts and breaking news about those products. We first  told you about the service back in April. At the time they only let you subscribe to breaking news about video games, electronics, cars and movies but now TV shows are on their list of alert-able items.
 
Sitting At Number 3, Yahoo! Says Speed Enhancements For Mail Saves Users Over 36M Minutes A Day Top
Gmail finally beats Hotmail, according to third-party data [chart] — Tech News and Analysis-1Oh, Yahoo! Mail. It's one of those products that many of us used at one point, and it either stuck or didn't. For a lot of users it did stick, as it is currently the No. 3 mail product on the web, behind Microsoft and Google's products, of course. Today, the company announced a redesign across all platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone and web. Internally, the company called it the "Cuatro" release, for obvious reasons. I had a chance to speak with Adam Cahan, SVP, Emerging Products & Tech, at Yahoo!, who is in a role that's just a month old, set up by its CEO Marissa Mayer.
 
Access4Kids Helps Disabled Kids Rock Out On Their Tablets Top
hgImage.phpHere's a bit of heart-warming tech on a fine Tuesday morning. It's called Access4Kids and it's a device that lets you control a tablet with gross motor movements. Rather than tapping on a screen, you can touch various parts of a control pad that sits on your wrist, allowing you to select on-screen items and swipe away items in order to scroll down pages of text.
 
Rovio Grabs A Producer And Says It Will Finance The Upcoming Angry Birds Film Itself Top
john-cohenA feature-length Angry Birds film is making baby steps forward. The game’s maker Rovio acknowledged that it will be producing and financing the film itself and that it picked up another producer in John Cohen, who also produced Despicable Me (pictured left). David Maisel, who was the former Chairman of Marvel Studios and the executive producer of Iron Man, remains executive producer of the film. He’s a special adviser to the company. The film will arrive in theaters in summer 2016, or three and a half years from now. The fact that Rovio is financing the film itself is not terribly surprising. The company has always done business in an unusual way. Its Series A venture round was $42 million and primarily in secondary liquidity, according to sources familiar with the deal. And the company has embarked on an unusual effort to build hundreds of activity and theme parks around the world. Rovio says it is following Marvel Studios’ example in producing and financing films outside the traditional studio system. Because of this, it will get to retain full creative control. Cohen also produced Hop, a film from Illumination and Universal last year. Before that, he was the vice president of production at Twentieth Century Fox Animation, and worked with Blue Sky Studios on Ice Age, Robots, Ice Age: The Meltdown and Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who. "I'm so excited and honored to be working on this film with Mikael, David, and Rovio's incredibly talented game developers and artists," Cohen said in a statement. "From both an entertainment and strategic perspective, Rovio is at the forefront of game innovation and is trailblazing terrific new ways for Angry Birds fans to interact with these characters.”
 
Apple Patents Intelligent Caller ID That Turns Inbound Communication Into A Contextual Trip Down Memory Lane Top
phone_heroApple has been granted a new patent today (spotted by AppleInsider), called "Image selection for an incoming call" which describes a system for dynamically choosing an image to display for inbound caller ID, sourced from either a locally stored image library or a cloud-based gallery. It uses cues like Contact info including phone numbers, and potentially also iMessage email addresses to see who's reaching out, and then selects an image to display based on contextual cues and other info.
 

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