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Twitter Informs Users Of DOJ WikiLeaks Court Order, Didn't Have To
Jan 08, 7:59AM
The US Department of Justice has served Twitter with a 2703(d) court order to reveal information about accounts related to people associated with WikiLeaks. The order is a request for account data including the ominous "correspondence and notes of record related to the account" for users Jacob Appelbaum (@ioerror), Rop Gongrijp (@rop_g), Birgitta Jonsittir (@birgittaj); Julian Assange and Bradley Manning from November 1, 2009 to present.
Kleiner Perkins To Invest In Groupon's Massive $950 Million Funding Round
Jan 08, 2:16AM
Last week we reported that Groupon was closing a massive $950 million funding round at an impressive $4.75 billion valuation in the wake of walking away from an acquisition offer from Google. Groupon already closed half of that — around $500 million — from Russian firm DST, Fidelity and Morgan Stanley. Now we've heard from multiple sources that distinguished Silicon Valley firm Kleiner Perkins is on the verge of participating in the round as well. It's unclear when the remainder of the round will close or who the other other participants aside from Kleiner will be. Kleiner has recently been making aggressive moves in Silicon Valley, including a $150 million slice of Twitter's recent $200 million funding round.
Yet Another Kevin Rose Rumor! iPad 2 Announcement Coming In "3-4 Weeks"
Jan 08, 2:13AM
Another year, another set of Kevin Rose predictions, this time about the iPad 2. Apparently Rose has revealed to the subscribers of his foundat.io/n newsletter (and everyone else) that the iPad 2 announcement will be coming in 3-4 weeks, giving the exact date of February 1st as a possibilty. So basically last year's iPad announcement date, plus a year. Briefly mentioned is a retina display and front/back cameras. The retina display tip seems to be the most controversial (Rose has amended it with a second update suggesting a higher dpi but not retina) and some people are saying it's impossible
Will A Q&A Ecosystem Bloom? Quora Launches An API In Alpha
Jan 08, 1:53AM
Many successful startups have followed a simple pattern in recent years. They gain the users then demand for an ecosystem begins. We saw this with Facebook, with Twitter, with Foursquare, etc. Quora is currently in the process of gaining those users. And now the demand for an ecosystem is kicking in. So they're releasing an early API to meet that demand. Specifically, Quora has launched an "Extension API". Engineer Edmond Lau has detailed it here, but essentially, it's a simple API that allows users who are building browser extensions based on Quora's data to access better data from users who are logged into Quora.
#LessAmbitiousMovies Got Over 364K Tweets, Reaching Over 27M Twitter Users
Jan 08, 1:18AM
If you've been on Twitter at all lately you're probably at least vaguely familiar with #LessAmbitiousMovies, which is a hashtag that exploded on Twitter on Monday night in what we thought was record time, judging by the fact that it seemed like our entire Twitter stream was at some point saturated with not so ambitious film titles.
Why Apple Will Let Verizon Announce An iPhone
Jan 08, 12:28AM
Editor's Note: Jim Dalrymple has been writing about Apple for more than 15 years. You can follow him on Twitter @jdalrymple and on his Web site at The Loop. Earlier today, Verizon announced a special event to be held next week and while the company gave no details, everyone is speculating that this is the long-awaited, much-anticipated Verizon iPhone. If that's the case, one question immediately leaps to mind -- would Apple really let another company announce an iPhone for them? We all know how secretive Apple is and how much they love doing their own events.
iTwin, A 2009 TechCrunch50 Finalist, Starts Shipping (CES 2011 Interview)
Jan 08, 12:23AM
We ran into iTwin co-founder Kal Takru at last night's press event, Showstoppers, and he had some good news for us. You may recall them as a finalist from 2009's TechCrunch 50 — and now they're shipping. That's a stage many startups don't reach. In case you've forgotten, the iTwin is a simple device for connecting two computers wirelessly. You plug one half into one computer, and one into another, and if all goes well, an encrypted connection is created between them (via the internet, not directly), letting you share files securely.
HTML5 Could Help Bring Some Sanity To Online Guitar Tabs
Jan 08, 12:17AM
If you've ever searched online for guitar tablature (a popular music notation format used for guitars), you know that it's a generally miserable experience. First there's the problem of quality — there's myriad versions of popular songs out there, and many of them are wrong. But even once you've found the tab you're looking for, actually using it is a pain. The most basic tabs are just text documents, with notes presented using a combination of ASCII characters. That works, but it's no better than looking at the tab on a piece of paper — you can do much better by taking advantage of the fact that you're viewing the tab from a computer. Now an experiment on Mozilla's Hacks portal, which showcases neat things that are being done with Firefox, gives a glimpse of what tabs could look like in the future with the help of HTML5.
CrunchGear Drives GM's Autonomous EN-V Concept Vehicle
Jan 08, 12:04AM
We're here at CES in Las Vegas live streaming the show floor; getting our hands on all the super-modern and futuristic cool stuff. Today, GM asked us to come by and check out what they think the future will be like for some people. This future has many types of vehicles that fit entirely different lifestyles. That future is of course more than 10 years away, but we'll get there with working concepts like the GM EN-V. And they gave us the keys.
TechCrunch Giveaway: Tickets To The 2010 Crunchies #Crunchies
Jan 07, 11:18PM
The Finalists for the 2010 Crunchies Awards have been announced and voting has already started. So why not give away some free tickets to a few lucky readers? People say the Crunchies are to technology what the Oscars are to Hollywood. You can read the full list of winners for 2009 here, 2008 here, and 2007 here. Some [...]
Disrupt Winner Qwiki Is In The Middle Of Raising A Quick $8 Million
Jan 07, 11:06PM
Qwiki, the visual search startup that won the top prize at TechCrunch Disrupt last September is in the middle of raising as much as $8 million in a series A financing. According to an SEC filing, it has already sold $5 million worth of the round. Both venture capital firms and individuals are investing. It appears that a large part of the round ($4 million so far) is being taken up by a pooled investment fund from Felix Venture Partners, at least according to this separate SEC filing. The company is still raising money to complete the round. Qwiki has already raised $1.5 million in seed capital from angel investors including Keith Rabois (from PayPal, Slide, and now Sqaure), Shervin Pishevar (SGN), an Jawed Karim (the third YouTube founder), and Elad Gil (Google, now Twitter). The company was founded by Doug Imbruce and Louis Monier (who founded AltaVista).
CES Showstoppers: In Video
Jan 07, 10:52PM
Showstoppers, like Unveiled and Digital Experience, is a peripheral show to CES but it offers close hands-ons with lots of great gear. Here is the huge mass of videos we've collected and we'll pop out items that made us smile.
Video: Hands-On With The RED Scarlet
Jan 07, 10:36PM
I just wrapped up a short interview with Ted Schilowitz from RED, in which he told us (and all our live stream viewers) all about the new RED Scarlet (AKA Epic Light) digital cinema camera. I got to hold the thing and revel in its 3K glory; and while RED devices are notoriously never "final," this felt about as final as it gets. I don't want to repeat what's already out there regarding the resolution, accessories, dates, and so on, which are all googleable (and some not final), so I'll stick to general impressions and you can watch the video for specifics. A few beauty shots are included for you to covet.
Sustainability Roundtable Raises $1.2 Million To Help Corporations Go Green
Jan 07, 8:52PM
A new SEC filing revealed that the Cambridge, Mass. consultancy Sustainability Roundtable, Inc. (SR Inc.) raised about $1 million to help corporations green their facilities and operations, and learn how to run their businesses in an environmentally and socially responsible manner. With a special focus on energy efficiency and real estate, SR Inc. bills itself as a provider of "shared cost" research and consulting services to its members. According to the company's LinkedIn page, their client-members include several private sector corporate real estate, tech and green building businesses including: Adobe Systems, Akamai, Autodesk, Gensler, Harvard University, IBM and Siemens Industry...
Hands-On Video: Surface V2 At CES
Jan 07, 8:35PM
We saw the Surface V2 (as they're calling it) soft-launched at the press day before CES, then demonstrated briefly by Ballmer in his keynote, and at last given official status with pictures and all the next morning. And then we got the the chance to try it out in person at the Microsoft booth. We've got video, some hands-on pictures, and our first impressions of the device. One thing I should make clear right away, which is of course slightly disappointing, is that this is definitely not a consumer device. It's too expensive and development is very much aimed at commercial deployment. That said, they hope to make the devices ubiquitous enough that having one at home would be redundant. You may form your own opinion of that strategy.
Ask a VC: Why SaaS Is More than a New Business Model, Plus Salesforce v. Yammer v. Jive (TCTV)
Jan 07, 8:24PM
Who cares about enterprise software? Apparently you do. Even though I posted this solicitation for Ask a VC questions late on a Thursday, I woke up this morning to one of the better inboxes of questions since the show began. Our guest in your virtual hot seat was Jason Green of Emergence Capital. Like a lot of things in tech, Green is a believer that the hype in software-as-a-service may have over-promised in the short term, but has underestimated how big this trend will get over time-- and how big companies can get. His LPs certainly hope so. There are few firms who have bet so heavily on this single trend.
There's A Verizon Event. Apple Fanboys Are Invited. See Where I'm Going Here?
Jan 07, 8:12PM
Hmmm. Earlier today, BGR published a story that Apple is looking to launch the iPhone on Verizon's network as soon as February 3. That's in line with an earlier report about no-vacation windows for Apple retail employees. And now something curious has just appeared in my inbox. An invite to a Verizon event, taking place in New York City on this coming Tuesday, January 11. Could it be?
Announcing Your 2010 Crunchies Finalists
Jan 07, 8:04PM
The finalists for the 2010 Crunchies Awards have been chosen. Over 243,000 votes were made across all categories and many outstanding achievements were discussed. Along with our partners GigaOm and VentureBeat, we are very proud to announce this year's finalists for the best in technology for 2010. Categories range from Best Social App and Best Mobile App to Best Angel of the year and Best New Startup or Product. Even Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange made the list, as well as first time nominees Quora and Instagram. Mobile apps dominate throughough and last year's overall winner Mark Zuckerberg is up for CEO of the Year. Voting begins now. Everyone is eligible and encouraged to vote. You may vote once per day, per award category, until voting closes on January 19, 2011 at 11:59pm PST. There are 20 award categories open for voting, recognizing the top accomplishments across a variety of fields and roles. If you are a finalist, create a badge and get your community excited about this honor and to vote for you as a winner. To commemorate today's announcement of the Finalists, we are excited to release our next set of tickets through Eventbrite. The release begins at 1pm PST so please act fast and get them while you can. 
Quora Answers The Question: How Will You Avoid Becoming Yahoo Answers?
Jan 07, 7:35PM
As we're all well aware by now, the Q&A service Quora is exploding with growth. And while that may seem like a good thing, there are two distinct downsides. First, Quora is a pretty complex site and so scaling to accomodate huge user growth is difficult. And second, there has been a belief since the site launched to the public that as it grew more popular, the less useful it would become. Put another way, there's a fear that it will turn into Yahoo Answers. Quora addressed the first issue a couple days ago. The second, co-founder Charlie Cheever addresses today on the service. In a post entitled, "Commitment to Keeping Quora High Quality", Cheever outlines the steps Quora is taking to ensure that the community remains the same great place for knowledge as it grows in size. So what are the steps? The biggest and most immediate one Cheever highlights is a better on-boarding process. Cheever notes that it can be difficult for new users to understand how to properly ask questions on the site. So they've created a tutorial quiz that walks them through the process before they submit the first question.
Twileshare – File-Sharing On Twitter The Way It Ought To Be
Jan 07, 7:28PM
We've become used to the idea of sharing photos on Twitter (from Twitpic to Instagr.am), video (YouTube to Qik) and audio (Cinch to Soundcloud). But have we done much file-sharing via Twitter? Not to date. There's Tweetshare, Filesocial and Tweetcube but they are not something you will see in the average user's stream - or at least not mine, and I follow nearly 4,000 accounts. Twileshare is still in beta and launched just before Christmas but already it's seen a lot of viral traffic from what I can see. There are now 24,000 mentions of it on Google. 
Camera+ Records An App Double-Double: 1 Million Downloads, 1 Million In Revenue
Jan 07, 7:11PM
Increasingly, you hear about huge download numbers of popular mobile applications. But few give out actual revenue numbers that are equally impressive. The reason for this is obvious: most simply don't have impressive revenues. And part of the reason for that is that many of the biggest apps are free. But TapTapTap long ago decided that model wasn't for them when it comes to their app Camera+. And that decision is paying off — literally. As they've announced on their blog today, TapTapTap has hit both one million downloads of Camera+ and one million dollars in revenues from the app, the rare double-double in the app world. Revenues include both sales of the app itself (which currently sells for $0.99) and in-app purchases, co-founder John Casasanta writes. And what's perhaps most impressive about the two milestones is that TapTapTap hit them despite being pulled from the App Store for a four-month stretch last year (something they illustrate humorously in the graph above).
CrunchGear's Live CES Video Stream Is Live Once More
Jan 07, 6:30PM
The live stream is up and we're planning to keep it live for the next six or seven hours. Today's plan is to start in the north hall with the A/V equipment and car gear, then work our way through the central hall and end up in the top half of the south hall. We're hoping to get some special appearances today, perhaps an interview or two, and I'm hoping to get a look at one of the only RED Scarlet cameras in the world. As always, you can communicate with us via Twitter by using hashtag #crunchgear. Head over to the CES site to start watching, and come back throughout the day to see the latest news and new, unexplored regions of the cavernous Las Vegas Convention Center.
Film Site MUBI Secures $2.4 Million To Socialise Cinema Buffs
Jan 07, 6:13PM
MUBI, the online cinema platform, says it's hit a significant growth curve recently, crossing one million registered users. It's also raised $2.4 million from Angels to strengthen its balance sheet and grow the team in a round round led by Eduardo Costantini and which includes existing investors, Martin Varsavsky (founder of Fon), and Alec Oxenford. 
Report: Analysis Of The Great Mobile App Store Boom Of 2010
Jan 07, 5:49PM
Last year, the world went app crazy. If anything, 2010 was the year of the mobile App Store—not only for Apple, but also for Android, Blackberry, and even Nokia. App store analytics firm Distimo has a new report looking at Great Mobile App Store Boom of 2010. While Apple ended the year with roughly 300,000 apps in iTunes, the Android Market grew to about 130,000, while Nokia's Ovi Store got to 25,000 apps and BlackBerry App World reached 18,000. The number of apps in iTunes doubled, but the smaller app stores grew even faster, with the number of Android apps up 544 percent, Blackberry apps up 268 percent, and Nokia apps up 258 percent. Angry Birds is the most popular app across all mobile platforms, while Facebook is the most popular non-game app. Distimo also found that the categories with the strongest growth on the iPhone were serious business apps (up 186 percent) and medical apps (up 156 percent), whereas the fastest-growing categories on Android were more frivolous: comics (up 802 percent), card and casino games (up 644 percent), and entertainment (up 589 percent). Go figure.
Greystripe's Flashy iOS Ads Help Boost Mobile Ad Network's Revenue By 400 Percent
Jan 07, 4:47PM
Mobile ad network Greystripe launched its workaround to bring Flash-like ads to iOS devices last year, with the hope that advertisers who still want to use Flash-based ads would choose the network's format over Apple's iAd format. It looks like Greystripe's proprietary Lightning Technology could pay off for the network. The mobile ad network's Flash-based revenue in 2010 was boosted by 50 percent thanks to the Flash workaround, with overall revenue growing by 400 percent from 2009 to 2010. Greystripe's Lightening technology transcodes Flash authored ads as HTML5 to mobile devices that do not support Flash Player (such as the iPhone and iPad); these ads will be supported in both applications and on the mobile web. There's no work for the advertisers or publishers; Greystripe says the transition from Flash to HTML5 is seamless. And Greystripe's technology for Apple's Safari web browser allows real-time transcoding of Flash authored creative work to HTML5.
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