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Google Responds To Android Malware, Will Fix Infected Devices And 'Remote Kill' Malicious Apps
Mar 06, 6:19AM
On March 1, news broke that dozens of malicious applications had made their way to Android Market, each infected with a rootkit that could grant hackers deep access to Android devices that installed them. Google removed the malicious applications from Android Market within a few minutes of being notified, but has otherwise remained silent on the situation. Until now (at 10PM on a Saturday...) Google has now confirmed that 58 malicious applications were uploaded to Android Market, and that they were downloaded onto around 260,000 devices before Google removed the apps Tuesday evening. That number sounds alarmingly high, but Google believes that only device-specific information, namely the phone's IMEI number, was compromised — and that no personal data or account information was ever transferred. Given that these apps were getting root access, this could have been a lot worse. Now the cleanup begins.
The App Wall
Mar 06, 1:47AM
A couple nights ago, a friend sent me a message. "So glad we finally have a way to talk without hanging out." He was, of course, kidding. He sent me the message through Yobongo, a new location-based realtime chatting app that launched this week. Earlier in the day, we had a similar conversation on GroupMe. And before that, Beluga. And HeyTell. And Facebook Messages. But his joke also has a serious subtext. Increasingly, I find myself running into a wall. I'm using too many apps of the same nature for any of them to actually be truly useful. And in fact, I now have too many apps in my life in general. I've hit the app wall.
955 Dreams Plays The iPad Like Jazz
Mar 05, 11:45PM
"The shallow experience for a user has to be very interesting. The deep experiences have to be profound." That statement, which is profound itself, is how 955 Dreams co-founder Kiran Bellubbi approaches app creation. And so far, that approach is working — very well. The companies hit app, The History of Jazz, has been earning rave reviews and selling like crazy. And it's not a $0.99 app selling like crazy — The History of Jazz is priced at $9.99. In the age of cheap apps, that may seem like a lot. But the model is working for 955 Dreams because they feel they've hit on a deeper experience that the iPad can offer. "I think it could have been $12.99. We always tell people it's on sale," Bellubbi jokes. "It's tough to price chewing gum."
View Is Like Foursquare Tips, But Visual And In Realtime #SXSW
Mar 05, 10:41PM
Right now in private beta and planning on launching right before SXSW, location relevancy service View wants to tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it. Unlike Foursquare Tips, there's no checking in to View, you just open the app and the relevant information ("discovery") comes to you on your View Wall in realtime. Discoveries like "The wi-fi password to this restaurant is gofish123,""Amy is the best waitress here, plus she gives free drinks," and "Did you know that President Nixon gave a speech in this building?" are accompanied by photos and location. 
OMG/JK: A Kiss For iPad 2, A Slap For Xoom
Mar 05, 8:56PM
It's war! This week, I went to the unveiling of the iPad 2 and got some hands-on time with the device afterwards. Meanwhile, Jason bought a Xoom and has been extensively testing it out. The consensus? iPad 2: Good. Xoom: Bad. At least for now. I haven't extensively played with iPad 2 yet, and Google is undoubtedly going to patch the Xoom. But still, first impressions are key. Jason and I discuss these two products in depth in this week's episode of OMG/JK, and we also dive into the upcoming group messaging war that is likely to break out at SXSW next week. Now that Facebook has bought Beluga and really kicked everything into a frenzy, the ultimate winners are far from clear.
Fly Or Die: The iPad2, ecoATM, and SocialEyes
Mar 05, 8:00PM
Last week was about the other tablets, but this week was all about the iPad 2. You've read all the posts and previews, but will it fly as high as Steve Jobs says it will? And what, if anything could kill the iPad 2? Watch this episode of Fly or Die to find out. Crunchgear editor John Biggs and I also discuss the prospects of two new startups that just launched this week at DEMO, ecoATM and SocialEyes. The ecoATM is a kiosk that takes your old cell phones and recycles them for cash. SocialEyes, which I covered earlier this week, brings your Facebook friends into a multiple-party video chat experience.
'Tweet Viewer' Virus Spreads On Twitter
Mar 05, 7:51PM
There is something amazing about how desperately humans want to see who has viewed their online profiles. This desire has been taken advantage of (again) by Twitter spammers as tweets like "WOW! You can see WHO VISITS your TWITTER profile. That's cool! :) - http://bit.ly/tweetviewer" and "I just viewed my TOP20 Profile STALKERS. I can't believe my EX is still checking me every day" are proliferating this morning, at about 159 tweets a minute. The "See Who Viewed Your Profile" application preys upon this exact curiosity, asking users for Twitter oAuth, and then using that authorization to tweet out the above. And while it's not clear that it's doing anything behind the scenes, at the moment it is definitely using the acces
First Piece of Mozilla's Web Apps Project Arrives, But Can it Outfox Chrome?
Mar 05, 7:30PM
At great long last, Mozilla has revealed the first developer release of their Web Apps Project, which aims to build the infrastructure for an open web app ecosystem. Back in May of 2010, Google announced plans for what would become the Chrome Web Store. Mozilla responded immediately with plans for its own web store, now known as the Web Apps Project. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Google was first to the punch; the Chrome Web Store launched in December, and we've been waiting for Mozilla's "more open" rejoinder since. The initial phase of Mozilla's project is finally here and shows that the company is making a serious attempt to take advantage of what few limitations there are in Chrome's ecosystem. Of course, whether it can compete toe-to-toe in the long run remains to be seen.
Gillmor Gang 3.5.11 (TCTV)
Mar 05, 6:00PM
The Gillmor Gang — Cluetrain co-author Doc Searls, Betaworks' John Borthwick, Robert Scoble, and Kevin Marks — explored Apple's launch of the iPad 2 and its impact on the linked worlds of television, technology, and the social wave. Scoble and I were lucky enough to attend the launch event and the appearance of Steve Jobs to a standing ovation. There may have been no "one more thing" but the event itself seemed to have that aura about it. Funny, passionate, and not about to miss this event if he could help it, Jobs alternated between a detailed dissection of Apple's lead in the marketplace and simply standing back and marveling at the power of this emergent platform. . 
(Founder Stories) Foursquare's Dennis Crowley: "Stop Sketching, Start Building"
Mar 05, 4:35PM
All this week, we've been running segments of our Founder Stories interview with Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley (see links at bottom for past episodes, or watch the whole 45 minute interview below). In this final episode (video above), Crowley answers some rapid fire questions from host Chris Dixon. What was his best business decision ever? What does he like least about being a CEO? Who are his mentors? What are his favorite iPhone apps? And what advice does he have for other founders? You'll have to watch the clip above to find out, but I will tell you his answer to the last question. "Forget about where you want to be and go out and build stuff. Dodgeball came from being bored at work, . . . things happen because you make them happen. Stop sketching, and start building." Good advice. (Videos after the jump). 
RIM Finally Sees The Light. Unfortunately, It's An Onrushing Train – Or Is It?
Mar 05, 2:11PM
Strange things are afoot in my hometown of Waterloo, Canada, which doubles as Research In Motion's headquarters. ShopSavvy says that someone there has been running their Android app — on BlackBerry devices. Separately, Bloomberg has reported that RIM's forthcoming PlayBook tablet will run Android apps. A video from the Mobile World Congress allegedly shows a BlackBerry employee confirming "We'll also support Android apps." Their UK managing director refuses to comment on the subject. And if rumours of the mountain en route to Mohammed isn't enough for you, there are also reports of Mohammed travelling to the mountain: BGR claims that RIM will soon release their prized BlackBerry Messenger app for both Android and iOS. Thus far it's all just smoke and rumors, no confirmed fire ... which is also how one could describe the PlayBook itself. RIM first announced the device back in September. My very first TechCrunch post in November was in part about how RIM should embrace Android, he said slightly smugly. Since then, Samsung has released the Galaxy S, and Motorola the Xoom and Atrix; next week, the iPad 2 will emerge — and yet the PlayBook still has no firm ship date. But at least RIM have been busy on the BlackBerry front, right? I mean, in the last four months, they have announced or released ... er... absolutely nothing in terms of new handsets. (They have, however, announced three new VaporBooks. I'm sorry, PlayBooks.) Perhaps they were focused on shoring up their inferior app-development tools? Ask this developer, whose caustic and hilarious rant about RIM's extreme developer-unfriendliness went viral in the hacker community last week.
Wow. Just… Wow: Facebook Hits Record $75 Billion Valuation On SecondMarket
Mar 05, 2:53AM
Last week, in our weekly report on the insanely hot Facebook stock trading going on behind the scenes on SecondMarket, I wrote the following: "Do I hear $75 billion next week?" I was sort of kidding. But it looks like the joke is on me! Sure enough, Facebook did hit a $75 billion valuation on SecondMarket this week, a new record.
Judge Allows Sony's Request For Identifying Information For Anyone Who Visited Hacker's Sites
Mar 05, 1:34AM
This is a rather disturbing turn of events. Federal Magistrate Joseph Spero has approved a request by Sony to subpoena the hacker GeoHot's web host, as well as YouTube, Google, and Twitter, for identifying information on anyone who has accessed, commented, or viewed information relating to the hack. At best this is lazy on Sony's part and irresponsible on Magistrate Spero's, and at worst it is a deliberate and malicious wholesale violation of privacy. The pretense for this wildly overreaching action is that Sony needs this information to prove the case should be tried in San Francisco, in federal court and close to Sony's headquarters. And why do they feel it should be? Because that's in Sony's terms of service. This after another judge noted that by Sony's standards, "the entire universe would be subject to [her] jurisdiction."
WordPress.com DDoS Attacks Primarily From China, Possibly Politically Motivated
Mar 05, 12:50AM
After recovering from the largest Distributed Denial of Service attack in the service's history ("multiple Gigabits per second and tens of millions of packets per second") yesterday morning, blog host Wordpress.com was attacked again very early this morning, finally stabilizing its service at 11:15 UTC (around 3:15 am PST). Wordpress.com serves 18 million sites, many of them news sites like our own, which lead some to conjecture that the attacks had come from the Middle East, a region experiencing its own Internet issues at the moment. Not so says Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg, who tells me that 98% of the attacks over the past two days originated in China with a small percentage coming from Japan and Korea.
IntoNow Hits A Million Shows Tagged In A Month. Two And A Half Men One Of The Shows #Winning
Mar 05, 12:50AM
Just about a month ago, we wrote about IntoNow, a new service that allows you to tell your friends what television shows and movies you're watching in realtime. But unlike other media "check-in" services, you do this simply by hitting a button and letting your phone listen to what you're watching. It's awesome. Really, really awesome. Others seem to agree, as today IntoNow is announcing that they've already hit a million shows/movies tagged in a month. They're seeing an average of about a show tagged each second, with a peak of 17 tags a second during primetime hours, co-founder Adam Cahan says. But the most interesting thing so far about the service may be the data they're collecting about how people are consuming media.
A Day In The Life Of A Liveblogger
Mar 05, 12:21AM
I hate liveblogging major events. It's hard. It's painfully frustrating, and lifespan-limitingly stressful. I also absolutely love it, and it's one of my favorite parts of this job. It's something that, from a technical stand point, was next to impossible to accomplish just years ago. It lets us transport our readers from their offices and living rooms to a spot right beside us in the packed auditorium, an experience that post-event recaps and standard news posts just can't provide. Our liveblog of Apple's iPad 2 event on Wednesday went well; in fact, the response was probably the most unanimously positive one I've seen to anything I've ever done here. We've received thousands of e-mails, tweets, and comments about it, many of which asked how it all works and what it's like to do. Rather than respond to each one individually, I've put together this post. It is, as best as I can convey, a look at things from the other side.
Foursquare's SXSW: Version 3.0, Party, Concert, 18 New Badges, And A Genius Amex Deal
Mar 04, 11:49PM
Of all the startups launching things at SXSW this year, the most closely watched may be Foursquare, since they're a company that got their beginning at the conference two years ago. And it's looking like they're not going to disappoint. A couple weeks ago they gave a hint of what they had cooking: "NEW APP + NEW BADGES + PARTIES + CONCERT + MOAR". Now we know a little bit more. As you can see on this page, the plan is to launch the Foursquare 3.0 app, host a party on Saturday night, host a concert on Monday night, and launch 18 new badges to earn during the conference. But there really is more.
Google To Shut Down Gizmo5 On April 3
Mar 04, 11:03PM
Back in November 2009 Google acquired Gizmo5, a powerful VoIP telephony service that allows users to place and receive calls from their computer and mobile phone applications. Today, the company has started informing users that it will be shutting down Gizmo5 service on April 3, 2011. Since acquiring the startup, Google has integrated Gizmo5 technology into Gmail/Gtalk, which has allowed users to make phone calls directly from their Gmail inbox since August of last year. It's a great feature — particularly if you're using Google Voice — but we're hearing that it can't do everything that Gizmo5 can. For example, using a supported SIP application, Gizmo5 allows users to make/receive phone calls using their Wifi connections on their mobile phones. Google Voice still has yet to enable Wi-fi calls.
There Will Be Karaoke: SXSW RVIP Goes East Coast Vs. West Coast Vs. Press Vs. Investors
Mar 04, 10:26PM
If you've ever been to SXSW, you know what the RVIP Lounge is. It's the RV that drives around Austin at night luring the drunken masses onboard to belt out Ace of Base songs. Yes, it's the mobile karaoke extravaganza. And yes, it will be back this year. With a big time twist. This year's RVIP has attracted four big sponsors: Foursquare, Andreessen Horowitz, Get Satisfaction, and Wired. And each sponsor represents a faction at the conference that will be battling for respect, to the death... of their voices. East coast startups will be represented by Foursquare. West coast startups by Get Satisfaction. Investors by Andreessen Horowitz. And lastly, the press by Wired.
Instagrams Go Head-To-Head With Pic A Fight
Mar 04, 10:01PM
Notifo co-founders Paul Stamatiou and Chad Etzel have built Pic A Fight, a combination of Facemash and Instagram which allows you to vote on the aesthetic value of Instagram photos in a side to side comparison. The concept behind Pic A Fight is super simple, just click on the pic you think is better. If you'd like to add or battle your own photos you can log in with Instagram and Pic A Fight will upload your pics and give you a profile, like this. To battle your friends' photos just visit their profiles.
Twitter Will Shut Off GeoAPI To Developers
Mar 04, 9:43PM
When Twitter bought Mixer Labs in December, 2009, it inherited the startup's then-recently launched GeoAPI, which offered a platform for building geo apps. The GeoAPI combined a places database of 16 million businesses with a reverse-geo-coder and support for geo-coded Tweets, Flickr photos, and even an iPhone SDK. Twitter kept the GeoAPI going after the acquisition—but that ends at the end of March. According to a developer who used to build his product on the GeoAPI, Twitter is shutting it down for outside developers. It is too much of a hassle to maintain, apparently. Twitter will still use it internally for its own apps. (Note that this GeoAPI is not the same as Twitter's more limited Geotagging API, which is still fully functional). So far no announcement on this. It's going in the deadpool. I've reached out to Twitter for a comment.
Libya Finds New Way To Cut Off Internet
Mar 04, 8:23PM
Here we go again: After a six hour shutdown about two weeks ago, traffic monitors are once again reporting that Libya has lost internet connectivity, most notably that search queries to Google from Libya have flatlined starting around a day ago. Unlike the last time Libya went offline and the process used to shut down the connectivity in Egypt (where Internet service providers simply shut down their servers) someone has come up with a more technologically advanced way of taking the country offline this time. According to Rensys the routes in Libya are still up, but there is no data packet traffic on the still open routes as the traffic is "blackholed" right before it enters the Libyan netspace.
Android Market Malware Has Users Begging Google To Remotely Disable Bad Apps
Mar 04, 6:35PM
These past few days haven't been Google's best. The company ran into a bit of a problem with its Gmail service late last week, with some users reporting that all of their e-mails had been deleted. Google says the problem only affected a fraction of its user-base, but seeing headlines along the lines of "USERS REPORT GMAIL DELETIONS" probably didn't go over too well in Mountain View. Then there was the Android Malware incident, which is technically still ongoing. A series of malicious apps had appeared in the Android Market, apps capable of stealing user data and "dialing out" without the express permission of the phone's owner. What to do?
TechCrunch Giveaway: Tickets to Sarah Lacy's SF Book Launch Party #TechCrunch
Mar 04, 6:01PM
We have released tickets to Sarah Lacy's San Francisco Book Launch Party twice. Each time, tickets to her party sold out incredibly fast. We received many emails, tweets, and Facebook messages of people asking for more tickets to be released. In light of the popularity of the party, we are giving away our last 5 tickets. Since Michael Arrington promised an awesome party, that is exactly what we are going to go. The party will start at 6:00pm PST on Wednesday, March 9th at SWIG in San Fransisco. If you are one of our 5 winners, your ticket will include an open bar, lots of free food, and a signed copy of Sarah's new book.
Keep Track Of All The Apps Launching At SXSW At AppShowcase
Mar 04, 5:45PM
South by Southwest is not only a launching platform for new startups, but has also become a destination for existing companies to show off new features and technologies. For example, we know Foursquare has some surprises for us in the next week or so, and I'm sure there will be a host of other companies launching SXSW dedicated apps or features as the conference approaches. Appstores.com is making it a whole lot more easy to find any apps that are SXSW related or that could be useful at the event. Called the Unofficial SXSW AppShowcase, the store aims to be the go-to destination for relevant SXSW apps. The dedicated SWSW app store is powered by AppBistro's AppStores.com, which launched as a a white label platform to create app stores on the fly. Appbistro launched at TechCrunch Disrupt last year, as a Facebook Page app marketplace.
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