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HTC Unveils HTC Watch Video Streaming Service
Apr 12, 1:21PM
After buying Saffron Digital two months ago, we didn't hear much about HTC's streaming video plans until today. The new Sensation on T-Mobile will be the first phone with HTC's Watch application, a video streaming service that will send new movies down the line over 3G and Wi-Fi.
eBay Acquires Turkish Marketplace GittiGidiyor
Apr 12, 1:17PM
eBay is announcing the acquisition of Turkish auction marketplace GittiGidiyor. The deal follows eBay's acquisition of a minority stake in the company in 2007. With the new investment, eBay now owns approximately 93% of the outstanding shares of GittiGidiyor. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Launched in, 2001, GittiGidiyor has more than 6.4 million registered users. GittoGidyor is essentially an eBay clone, but localized for the Turkish market. The business also includes a mandatory escrow service for payments between buyer and seller. GittiGidyor's largest categories are Fashion and Consumer Electronics. In addition to eBay, the company previously raised capital from iLab Ventures, founded and led by Mustafa E. Say. 
TxtEagle Raises $8.5 Million To Give 2.1 Billion A Voice
Apr 12, 1:08PM
Never mind tablets, smartphones, and mobile-social-location-photo-sharing apps. Heck, never mind computers. The single most important technology of the last half-century, the one that has drastically changed the day-to-day existence of very nearly everyone on Earth, remains the plain old GSM phone; unloved and half-forgotten in NYC and Silicon Valley, but still used by the billion in the rest of the world. That's why Boston-based TxtEagle last week raised $8.5 million from a consortium including Spark Capital and RBC Venture Partners. Well, that plus a clever business model, a nifty technology platform, and partnerships with 220 mobile operators in 100 countries who between them cover 2.1 billion subscribers. TxtEagle offers crowdsourcing and market research in developing markets. Clients such as UN researchers or advertisers hire them to survey masses of people; TxtEagle then forwards the survey (or other task) to thousands of individual members via their GSM phones, and pays them upon completion. You might guess that they communicate via SMS, and pay with cash — but no.
Cha-Ching: MediaStay's Game Monetization Solutions Snag $21.5 Million
Apr 12, 12:54PM
Mediastay is a French company that kind of stands out from the rest - and not just because it was founded by a group of teenagers back in 2000 (co-founder Eric Bennepthali started back when he was 16). The 60-person company specializing in online gaming payment solutions has just announced that it has closed a €15 million ($21.5 million) round of funding for further international development. The money comes from Iris Capital and IdInvest Partners (formerly AGF Private Equity).
Digital Lumens Closes $10 Million To Bring Smart, LED-Lighting To The Industrial Market
Apr 12, 12:45PM
A Boston-based, cleantech startup Digital Lumens closed a $10 million series B investment, the company announced today, that will allow it to bring its LED-based, intelligent lighting systems to warehouses and industrial facilities in the U.S., Canada and Mexico near term. The company's earlier backers all participated in the series B, including: Black Coral Capital, Flybridge Capital Partners, and Stata Venture Partners. Previously, the company focused on making warehouses greener in terms of lighting-related energy consumption. Digital Lumens' chief executive, Tom Pincince, said of the company's progress and near term strategy...
Cisco To Shut Down Flip Video Camera Business; Will Give Pink Slips To 550 Employees
Apr 12, 12:44PM
Wow. Cisco has just issued a release stating that in a strategic plan to "align its operations," the company will exit parts of its consumer businesses and realign the remaining consumer business to support four of its five key company priorities: core routing, switching and services; collaboration; architectures; and video. One of the casualties of this realignment: Cisco's video camera Flip business, which was part of its $590 million acquisition of Pure Digital. As part of the plan, Cisco close down its Flip business and "support current FlipShare customers and partners with a transition plan." Cisco will also refocus its Home Networking business and integrate Cisco umi into the company's Business TelePresence product line. As part of the transition, Cisco will eliminate 550 jobs. 
LivingSocial Taps Into Rewards Programs With Next Jump Deal
Apr 12, 12:15PM
Daily deals site LivingSocial is trying its darnedest to catch up to Groupon. It just raised another $400 million and is spreading its deals as fast as it can. Today, it is announcing a partnership with Next Jump, a company that runs rewards networks for corporations, MasterCard MarketPlace, and Hilton HHonors program. All together, 100 million consumers belong to rewards and perks programs run by Next Jump. Next Jump will gain full access to LivingSocial's inventory of deals, and the two companies will work together to integrate their respective technologies. It is a new distribution channel for LivingSocial which should help it keep scaling up the volume of deals and demand that it can handle.
Paul Ceglia Returns To Haunt Zuckerberg, This Time With More Alleged Email Evidence
Apr 12, 12:09PM
There used to be an interesting argument for Christianity. Either Jesus was 'right' or he was mad. But he couldn't be just misguided. A similar argument occurs to me regarding the case of Paul Ceglia who has returned to the fray after claiming back in August that he owned 50% of Facebook. Well, it appears he may, potentially, have some interesting evidence to back up this claim. He started from a tough place. A convicted felon, about to be charged with fraud on an unrelated company, Ceglia had waited seven years to file his first lawsuit. Facebook dismissed the claims. But now he's back with DLA Piper, a bigger law firm used to tech cases, which has gone through his email archive with a fine toothed comb and come up with a devastating initial salvo. 
The UK Startup Visa: Only Halfway There
Apr 12, 11:19AM
This is a guest post by Danvers Baillieu and Emma Peacock who are both senior associates at international law firm Pinsent Masons LLP. Danvers is the co-founder of Bootlaw.com, the legal meetup for tech start-ups and entrepreneurs and he specialises in technology law; Emma specialises in immigration and employment law and contributes to HRnetwork.tv and out-law.com. The news that the British government has introduced the new "entrepreneur visa" has been widely welcomed by the start up community, not least here on TechCrunch Europe, and cited as evidence that the UK has in one respect stolen a march on Silicon Valley as the US government seems unwilling or unable to make progress with its much vaunted Startup Visa Act. In the short time that the new rules have been in force, we have already been asked by London based start up clients to advise them on obtaining visas for overseas based founders under this new route and wanted to share our views - and specific concerns with the community, in the hope that this new regime can be further improved. The headline takeaway is that, to quote Jon Bon Jovi, "we're halfway there", but to quote John Reid, the regime is not yet "fit for purpose". 
SoundCloud Launches Audio Q&A Platform – Quora For Audio? [200 Invites To Go]
Apr 12, 10:17AM
SoundCloud, the audio platform not unlike Cinch or Audioboo, has launched Takes Questions, a new product in beta that lets anyone pose questions and others leave answers in audio, from a customisable webpage. Is this trying to be Quora for audio? Maybe not. There are far more 'media' reasons to create this feature. Takes Questions is going to allow celebrities and musicians who use SoundCloud - and there are a few, as the service has grown up as a predominantly music platform - to "engage more deeply engage with their fans, followers and friends in a simple-to-use and personal way" says the startup. This feels more like a public voicemail box to me.
China's Online Game Market Surges; Set To Top $8 Billion By 2014
Apr 12, 9:41AM
China's got game. A lot of game. In fact, the Eastern power is rapidly becoming the world's leader in the online games market. According to a study released by business and consulting firm Pearl Research, the online games market in China will exceed $8 billion by 2014. Though the Chinese gaming market experienced somewhat sluggish growth in the first part of 2010, by year's end it had rebounded to 25 percent overall growth, reaching $5 billion in sales. Thus, it seems that it is no longer even remotely outlandish to predict that China will make up a quarter of the industry's total global sales by 2014, with the U.S. falling to 22 percent, as forecasted by The Financial Times, via investment bank Digi-Capital in February.
StylistPick Secures $8M In Series A To Expand Its Monthly Fashion Offers
Apr 12, 9:28AM
Proof that online fashion remains a hot space, StylistPick, the fashion buying site that offers members a personalised offer each month, has raised $8 million in a Series A round co-led by Accel Partners and Index Ventures. Founded in 2010, Stylistpick offers a neat take on the fashion club model: Customers signup to StylistPick and are asked to take a short quiz to "identify their fashion profile". Then each month via email they receive tailored recommendations for fashion items such as shoes and bags, which claim to be matched to their taste as well as being picked by "leading fashion personalities" or professional stylists as used by celebrities such as Alexa Chung, Dannii Minogue, Paloma Faith and Pixie Lott. Interestingly, each offer is pegged at a set price of £39.95p including postage and members can also choose to decline said offer and therefore skip the month.
The Price Is Right, Now It's Time To See How The iPad Newsstand Really Does
Apr 12, 7:49AM
Lost amid the uproar over Apple's in-app model change was that fact that their new in-app subscription service creates the first real opportunity for news publications to thrive in the Internet-connected world. Why? It's connected to iTunes (and as such, millions of credit cards) and it's extremely simple. But due to some of Apple's demands — namely, that customers be in control of offering up their own information — publications have been slow to adopt the new service. So it hasn't really been put the the test. But it's about to be. Earlier today, Bloomberg Businessweek released their iPad app. Along with it comes a subscription option administered by Apple. You have one choice: after your one free trial issue, you must subscribe for a monthly fee. The cost? $2.99. Yes, for the entire month. It's almost shocking because it seems downright fair.
Indian Stealth Startup Mojostreet Secures $350K From Former Microsoft VP, Others
Apr 12, 5:47AM
Hyderabad-based Mojostreet, a location-based mobile gaming startup, announced today that it has received $350K in seed funding, led by Srini Koppolu, former Managing Director of Microsoft India and J.A. Chowdary former Managing Director of Nvidia India. Mojostreet will use its infusion of capital to ramp up hiring efforts and to assist in the startup's beta launch in early May. Like a mix of its American counterparts Foursquare, SCVNGR, and Booyah's My Town, Mojostreet's first product is a location-based app, which will allow users to check in at various point of interests in a game format. At launch, Mojostreet will be restricted to 5.5 million locations in India, but Founder and CEO Kalyan Manyam said that he hopes to launch Mojostreet in the U.S. and Singapore shortly thereafter.
VHX Wants To Be Your Video Dashboard For The Entire Internet
Apr 12, 4:26AM
Launching in private beta today and founded by original Vimeo developer Casey Pugh and Know Your Meme co-founder Jamie Wilkinson is VHX.tv, a site that aims to "combine the best parts of the TV experience with the best of the web." But wait, haven't we heard this like a bajillion times? Right away there's something different about VHX as a video-sharing experience, namely that when you hit the service after initially registering and following other users, the videos in your VHX dashboard start playing right away, almost like you've turned on the social video TV.
Ask a VC: Bijan Sabet Returns to the Hot Seat. Send Your Questions Now!
Apr 12, 4:16AM
This week, I invited Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital back to Ask a VC, because it’s been a while and there were a ton of questions we didn’t get to last time. Sabet is in the middle of some of the most interesting companies on the Web today including Tumblr, Twitter and Boxee. And as you [...]
Run iPhone Apps Directly From Your Browser With Pieceable Viewer
Apr 12, 2:12AM
Part of i/o Ventures first cohort, Pieceable is launching its first product today, the Pieceable Viewer. As you can see above with the Yelp app or here with apps like Hipmunk or Foodspotting, the viewer allows you to run and test out embeddable iPhone apps from your browser. Developers can publish their apps directly to the service and the Pieceable team will create a web page that displays a fully functional copy of the app. Developers or anyone who needs to share an app can then send a link to whomever they'd like to give the demo to. "It ends up being the easiest way ever to share an iPhone app on the web," CEO Fred Potter tells me. "There's no UDID exchange, there's no worry about the 100-device limit Apple places on dev accounts - it's zero friction and hassle."
Location Discovery Service Scoville Lets You Find Hot New Local Spots
Apr 12, 12:26AM
If you are a lover of spicy foods or hot sauces, you may be familiar with the "Scoville Scale", which measures the degree of spiciness of chili peppers and their many conveyances. Launching today in public beta is Scoville, a startup aimed at taking the temperature of local destinations. Taking a page from the Scoville Scale, the startup wants to help you record, discover, and share hot or trending destinations. Just as Twitter has its #followfriday hashtag, in which users suggest their favorite people to follow every Friday, Scoville is employing #toptuesday to give locations their due. 
Amazon, Love The Kindle Ads Idea — But The Right Price Is $99
Apr 11, 11:21PM
When I first read the new that Amazon would begin selling an ad-supported Kindle, my heart sank. This is the beginning of the end, I thought. But that was only because the Businessweek article about the change left out one key detail: the ads will not be shown during the reading experience. Jason dug up those details. Amazon will only be showing the ads on the Kindle home screen and on the screensavers, which is great. In exchange, people will be able to buy a Kindle for $25 cheaper — $114. An attractive price, no doubt. But it's also ones that begs the question: why on Earth not go to the killer $99 price point?! Imagine a Kindle for $99. There would be a frenzy. Amazon would sell so many of them.
BrightSource Nabs $168 Million From Google To Develop Ivanpah Solar Power Plant In The Mojave
Apr 11, 11:04PM
Developers of large-scale, solar power plants BrightSource Energy Inc. closed another $168 million investment, the company announced today — this time from Google corporate. The funds will go towards the completion of the humongous, Ivanpah solar power tower plant in the Mojave Desert now under construction. Three years ago, Google.org invested $10 million, and took an equity stake in BrightSource. This deal hailed from Google's Green Business Operations team, however, and the funds are to be applied towards the completion of the Ivanpah project (not Brightsource's overall business) a Google spokesman confirmed... 
Amazon Announces Ad-Supported Kindle For $114 (That's $25 Off)
Apr 11, 10:28PM
Amazon's Kindle is about to become even more affordable. Today, the company announced that it's releasing a new version of its popular eReader with a new feature that everyone will like: a price-tag that's $25 cheaper than the Kindle Wi-Fi's normal $139. But it comes with one minor catch: Amazon will be placing 'Special Offers' — also known as ads — into specific parts of the Kindle UI. But fear not, skeptical bibliophiles: Amazon says that the ads will only show up on the Kindle's home screen and screensavers, and they won't show up when you're actually reading. For those of you who haven't used a Kindle before, the home screen is, as you'd expect, the menu where you select what content you'd like to read (you don't see it often unless you frequently jump between books). And the screen savers show up whenever you put your device to sleep (on current models these include portraits of famous authors and art). In other words, the ads should be pretty unintrusive. 
Turner Invests In TeePee Games, A Pandora-like Social Games Engine
Apr 11, 10:26PM
There are now, by some estimates, 35,000 social games. Can you name the top five? I thought not. In other words, the sheer number of social games across the web, mobile and social platforms like Facebook mean they are now presenting the same problem as iPhone or Android apps: how do you discover the good ones? TeePee Games is a consumer portal that aggregates social games. It's starting with Facebook but will soon extend to smartphones and other online games, allowing gamers to tailor games to their profile, cutting through the usual noise. It's built a discovery engine, not unlike the way Pandora or Last.Fm suggests new artists to you. Today the startup, which already has $500k in Angel backing, has signed a 'strategic partnership' with Turner Broadcasting Europe (home to Cartoon Network, TNT, Adult Swim and others). The fact that Turner is 'backing' the development of TeePee's games discovery platform is code for some kind of investment in the company, but so far both, including CEO/'Chief TeePee' Tony Pearce, are coy about how much this amounts to.
ZuluTime Issued Patent For Location Aware Wireless Networks
Apr 11, 10:21PM
Geoff Rhoads, co-founder of ZuluTime, a company developing location-based services for wireless networks, is a prolific inventor. The amateur astronomer and astrophysicist has over 300 patents to his name, ranging from digital watermarking (his patents are currently used in currencies around the world to prevent counterfeiting) to 30-meter-tall deep space telescopes. Back in 1995, Rhoads founded Digimarc, a company that provides solutions for media identification and management, counterfeit and piracy deterrence, and digital commerce, after becoming frustrated with the vulnerability of his digital photos of deep space imaging -- even in spite of copyrights. Under his guidance, Digimarc developed some 600 patents, and was named by The Patent Board as one of the top 50 most prolific patent producers in information technology, and sold the majority of its patents to Intellectual Ventures in 2010 for over $40 million.
Winklevosses To Challenge Today's Facebook Ruling
Apr 11, 10:17PM
Earlier today a panel of Federal Appeals judges ruled that the Winklevoss twins had to accept a ruling that had them make due with a meager $65 million in settlement. But apparently the case is not closed, as the Winklevosses will be filing for a rehearing with the entire 9th Circuit Court of Appeals bench. Jerome B. Falk, Jr., of Howard Rice in San Francisco, lead appellate counsel for Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra gave me the following in a statement: "The Ninth Circuit has affirmed the District Court's enforcement of the settlement over my clients' objection on the ground that the settlement was obtained in violation of the federal securities laws. I appreciate the Ninth Circuit's thorough discussion of the issues.
KIT Digital Buys IP Video Management And Delivery Company Ioko For $91.4M In Cash And Stock
Apr 11, 9:25PM
In the midst of a major buying spree, KIT digital has announced another purchase today—Ioko, a software and technology services provider for multi-screen video delivery. KIT Digital, the provider of video asset management software and related services, will pay approximately $74 million in cash and 1,509,805 restricted shares of KIT common stock, with a total deal value of $91.4 million. Ioko provides an end-to-end managed cloud-based platform for multi-screen video delivery over connected IP devices to telecommunications cable, media and entertainment companies around the world, with a particular focus on North American, Northern European and Australasian markets. Ioko currently generates approximately $54 million in annual revenues related to IP video asset management, through a combination of recurring managed service fees, software licenses, maintenance fees and professional services.
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