We’re just now learning what level the devastation that Hurricane Sandy caused on the East Coast, specifically in New York City, and people are starting to send the wagons around to raise money to assist those in need. We learned yesterday that mentions of blood donation and the Red Cross skyrocketed on Twitter during the peak of the storm, and other organizations are starting to get involved. → Read More
Love it or hate it, Windows 8 is a big deal which is only going to get bigger. Particularly the Metro side. The Windows Store will bring app store economics to the PC in a way that most users have never experienced before, and that represents a golden opportunity for developers. However they will have to move incredibly quickly to get ahead of the rush. → Read More
To operate in the 21st century as if it is still the 20th is certain death for most businesses. Not instant, but certain. And it was certainly this practice that led two of the largest publishers to combine their lot. The resulting business will have to change all the same, but it’s easier to navigate these waters as a single raft (of the Medusa variety, but a raft nonetheless) than as a flotilla. → Read More
Many would say Angel List has become an indispensable resource for investors and startups to find, connect and recommend each other. This almost altruistic effort has taken Silicon Valley to the world, and, increasingly, the world to Silicon Valley. Slowly but surely European-based startups have also started using it over the last couple of years, and, used in combination with CrunchBase, it can… → Read More
The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, John Taschek, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — stumbled through and upon the possibilities of an orbiting metadata cloud. Mark our words, Instagram’s success with the pre-teen set sets the table for powerful social graphs where photos share equal weight with GPS, swipe, and realtime contextual data.
While we detoured slightly in anticipation of the social… → Read More
President Barack Obama, Julian Assange, Mayor Cory Booker and more. On the eve of America’s political new year, Election Day, we highlight this year’s most innovative people in democracy. → Read More
The last time I wrote about 3D printers, an appalling number of people in the comments – including VCs who really, really should know better – kept writing things like: “Nearly identical comments were made about personal computers, desktop printers, color printers, laser printers…” and “just like printing at home” and “Let’s use the traditional paper printer as an example” and “it will follow… → Read More
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is asking for help in explaining to the federal circuit why copyrighting APIs is such a bad idea.
The EFF’s request comes after a victory earlier this year when U.S.District Court Judge William Alsup ruled in the Oracle v. Google case that an API cannot be copyrighted. → Read More
Editor’s note: Boris Chan is a principal at Xtreme Labs who leads product development and innovation efforts.
Apple finally unveiled the iPad mini last week. Perhaps its main selling point is that it runs the same apps as the iPad and works just as well with the same screen resolution despite its smaller size. → Read More
Recovering from Hurricane Sandy is no small feat as most of Lower Manhattan is still in the dark without power. I talked with a couple of people working in startups who had to find a place to get back work. But the most difficult part was probably to set aside the devastation and get the businesses back on track. Those companies are fragile and can’t risk a companywide blackout for a week. → Read More
Digital marketing company Kenshoo has raised $12 million in new funding.
The round was led by late-stage investment firm Tenaya Capital, with participation from all past investors, including Sequoia Capital, Sequoia Growth Fund, and Arts Alliance. A Kenshoo spokesperson told me this brings the company’s total funding to $30 million. → Read More
Happy iPad mini day. Since my review a few days ago, by far the number one question I’ve been asked about the device is: how does it fit into my life? Do I really need another iPad — let alone a smaller, less powerful one with a non-retina screen? Will I use it alongside the regular iPad? What about alongside a MacBook? Instead of those devices?
This question keeps coming up, of course… → Read More
Nick Bilton of the New York Times is reporting that Twitter is working on adding filters for photos to its product. This is clearly an attempt to add to its current capability to upload photos. At first blush, you will think that this is purely a defensive move against Facebook and Instagram. While that might be partially true, adding filters to photos does not cancel out Instagram whatsoever. → Read More
Foursquare has been taking VC meetings recently, looking into raising a Series D round of funding of between $50 million and $100 million according to multiple sources. In previous rounds, the company has brought in over $71.4 million in financing from Andreessen Horowitz, Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures and others.
From what we’re hearing the company seeks to flesh out this round at a… → Read More
It may not have a cool name like “Siri,” but you can’t accuse Google’s Voice Search app of lacking personality. Or self-awareness, for that matter. In case you missed it, Google upgraded its iOS search app on Tuesday with improved voice search functionality – it’s the closest iOS users can get to a “Google Now“-like experience. The new app can return information like weather, stock quotes, sports… → Read More
Facebook’s executives gained the right to sell stock this week and three are now starting to cash out. SEC docs show COO Sheryl Sandberg is selling 352,904 shares to pull in $7,474,506.72. That’s just 1.91% of her current, massive stake. General Counsel Ted Ullyot is selling a little too. However, Chief Accounting Officer David Spillane is selling over 61%. That’s 256,000 shares out of the 416,000… → Read More
The iPad mini may have a display that’s being singled out in most reviews as below Apple’s recent standards, but a look under the microscope by Repair Labs affirms what I’ve been noticing in person: while the mini definitely doesn’t offer the same kind of quality as an iPad with Retina Display (3rd or 4th gen), its screen is a big step up from the 2nd-generation iPad. → Read More
OMGPOP founder Charles Forman has raised some money for his new venture Picturelife, according to an SEC filing. The startup, which is focused on backing up, storing, and providing access to all of your photos in the cloud, closed a $4 million in new funding. The app works by syncing photos from multiple devices, and giving users the ability to access them from anywhere. Users can also import and… → Read More
Apple’s minor bug-zapping update for iOS 6, iOS 6.0.1, is already making up 7.5 percent of mobile web traffic as measured by ad network and analytics firm Chitika, just 24 hours after release. If you’ve been following, you’ll note that that’s just half of the 15 percent adoption rate iOS 6 saw a day after being in the wild, but this is a minor update, making that uptake rate impressive. → Read More
Nexage is hoping to expand the capabilities of its mobile ad exchange with the launch of a new service called Nexage Connect.
Mark Connon, the company’s executive vice president of corporate and business development, said advertisers and publishers can do a number of things (largely related to targeting) in the desktop world that they don’t have easy access to in mobile, due to restrictions on… → Read More
Silicon Valley might be in for a big weekend. The Giants won the World Series. Oh, and quite a few new Facebook millionaires were minted. The social network’s employees got a $3.1 billion bonus this week as their RSUs turned into shares they can actually sell. COO Sheryl Sandberg scored about $400 million herself, and just sold off $7.4 million.
Now the question is whether Facebook employees… → Read More
Apple’s 4th generation iPad boasts a faster processor, the new A6X chip, which makes it twice as fast as the 3rd generation iPad, based on benchmark tests, in terms of raw processing power and graphics. That sounds good, but what does it mean in practice? Well, there’s a noticeable boost all around, but we’ve got a hands-on video with three scenarios where you can see the differences. → Read More
Originally a Kickstarter project, Ubi is a ubiquitous computing device. Designed to plug into your wall and remain dormant until you talk to it, this little computer can perform searches, wake you up, and even sense environmental conditions in every room. → Read More
Chris Anderson, the longtime editor-in-chief at Wired magazine, is leaving the tech journalism stalwart. The news was announced at an all-hands meeting held at Wired’s offices this morning, we’re hearing. It has also started to leak out on Twitter (you can’t trust writers to keep anything secret, I tell ya.) → Read More
The iPad mini hit store shelves today, and I got the chance to get one for myself. The device is a terrific consumer tablet, but it has a lot of potential to be an even more impressive player in retail, restaurant and industrial applications. The iPad mini’s big brother has done a good job of making headway in businesses and customer service, but the iPad mini has a strong chance to help drive… → Read More
In a cool report by the Georgian Government, Georgian CERT researchers claim to have nabbed a hacker by infecting his PC with malware and tracking him down by grabbing his files, photographs, and even viewing him at work. The hacker ran the Georbot Botnet, a botnet designed to spy specifically on Georgian citizens. → Read More
A new study shows that the media can significantly reduce partisan bias by simply making the text more difficult to read. Researchers found that participants in two different studies became more moderate on issues of Muslim rights and capital punishment when they were forced to read an eye-straining, light-grey, vertically stretched front. “Not only are people considering more the opposing… → Read More
As you know, the devastation of Hurricane Sandy has hit millions. Many turned to Twitter to discuss what they were going through. Today, the company shared some interesting facts and numbers having to do with Hurricane-related activity on the site.
What does this tell you? Twitter was a fine replacement for cell phones and landlines that weren’t working. The interesting thing about these… → Read More
Digital metrics firm comScore today released its most recent mobile market share report, detailing trends in the mobile industry for the three month period ending in September. The survey of over 30,000 mobile subscribers in the U.S. revealed that smartphone penetration topped 50 percent for the first time ever in the study’s history, with Android and Samsung leading the charge. → Read More
The founders of LitPick have known each other since birth. Seth Cassel and his dad Gary founded their first company, FlamingNet in 2002 when Seth was in fourth grade. Designed as a book review site, Seth and his dad Gary built the site themselves and began taking a profit. → Read More
The 6th Annual Crunchies Awards
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