Hi there!
Here's the latest feed from TechCrunch.
Add feeds@feed2email.net to your contact list to make sure you receive all your emails
Make sure to visit feed2email.net to get more feeds sent to your inbox.
To find out which feeds you are subscribed to, or to get further help, just reply to this email.
Analysis Of Apple's A5: It's Not What We Know, It's What We Don't Know
Apr 14, 12:55PM
When the A4 came out, I was surprised at the fanfare surrounding it. Why such a big deal? Apple was now designing their own chips, isn't that great?— came the echoing chorus. But they weren't — the A4 was almost entirely a Samsung design implementing existing ARM processor tech. But Apple touched it, so it turned to gold. I kind of expected Apple to ride that wave for a while and just "overclock" the processor for the iPad 2, but to my surprise, out came the A5.
Intel-Based Honeycomb Tablets On The Way This Fall?
Apr 14, 12:55PM
Despite the fact that all the major players in the tablet business are using non-Intel hardware, the semiconductor giant isn't about to give up. They got a black eye from ARM in this first bout, but according to Digitimes, they're ready for round 2.
TechStars Demo Day Preview: Immersive Signs And Veri Cool Learning
Apr 14, 12:31PM
Today is Demo Day for TechStars NYC. I'll be at the event, but here is a little preview from when I visited last week. TechStars organizers David Cohen and David Tisch showed me around the New York office. In this video, I get a peak at a smart digital sign being developed by Immersive Labs and a very cool learning app from a startup called Veri. The digital sign is a large flat screen display with a camera on top that detects the faces of people who stop and look at the signs. It tries to determine gender, age, distance from the sign and how long each person is paying attention. Software then tries to serve up the most relevant ads based on whether it thinks more men or women are looking at it, and other factors. Yup, this is exactly the kind of thing that leads to a Minority Report type of world.
Spotify Takes Axe To Free Music Service – Can It Still Claim To Slash Music Piracy?
Apr 14, 11:00AM
It turns out there really is no such things as a free lunch. Spotify is slashing in half the amount of free listening available to long term users of its service, with listening hours slashed in half from 20 to 10 hours from 1 May. New users will be moved over to this new restricted model in the next six months. The details of the new service is this: The existing free advertising supported services will still exist as they are today. "Spotify Free" needs an invitation to work but is unlimited. "Spotify Open" - where anyone can just register without an invite - becomes limited to 20 hrs a month, no invite needed. Brand new Spotify users still get to use the free service as it is today (either Spotify Free or Spotify Open) for the first 6 months, then the capping begins. But users who registered an account before 1 Nov who will see the changes from 1 May. 
NuCaptcha's Advertising Network For Video Captchas Goes Self-Serve
Apr 14, 10:00AM
NuCaptcha, a startup that develops video captcha technology, unveiled its ad formats last year. Today, the startup is releasing a self-serve advertising server that will enable both advertisers and publishers to sell their own captcha ads directly. Captchas are security questions you find on Web sites that require you to decipher and type words or numbers and detects whether the user is a human or a spambot. Most Captchas you see are transcription, text-based Captchas. NuCaptcha is trying to disrupt the space by adding video to the mix. NuCaptcha's ad format allows brands to place advertisements behind the actual Captcha text. NuCaptcha's video animation technology aims to be easier to read and more secure, with animation that makes the captcha far easier for humans to solve. 
Millennial: Thanks To The Verizon iPhone, iOS Impressions Grew 29 Percent In March
Apr 14, 9:43AM
Millennial Media's monthly mobile report is out today, giving us a view into how each OS and manufacturer is performing on the mobile ad network. Millennial, whose ads reach 90.3 million users monthly in the U.S.; is the third largest network behind Google AdMob and Apple's iAd, so data shared on Millennial's network is certainly indicative of the state of mobile advertising. For the fourth month in a row, Android led in terms of the largest impression for Smartphone OS, with 48 percent of impressions on the network. But it's important to note that Android's share has consistently fallen over the past two months on the network. While Android's share is falling, iOS impression share in the U.S. grew 11 percent month-over-month and represented 31 percent of the impression share of the Smartphone OS Mix. iPhone impressions actually grew 17 percent. Millennial reports that this growth is largely tied to the growth of the Verizon iPhone on the network; the Verizon iPhone actually accounted for 8.2 percent of iPhone impressions in March. RIM accounted for 18% of the impression share on Millennial's network.
The App Store Showing Strange Strings — A New iOS Product Or Just A Lazy Bug?
Apr 14, 7:34AM
Well this is interesting. Amid all the hoopla about the new iOS Twitter client Tweetbot tonight, people began noticing something. In The "Requirements" section of the App Store, there's something odd listed. Alongside the usual iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad compatibility, apps are being listed as compatible with something named "ix.Mac.MarketingName". Yep. Weird. And this is all over the App Store right now. Now the big question: is this just some fluke, a bug — or is this actually a placeholder for something much more? A fourth type of iOS device perhaps?
AngelPad Opens Up Its Summer 2011 Applications
Apr 14, 6:46AM
AngelPad, the incubator found by ex-Googlers in order to help a select 15 startups make it here or anywhere, has officially opened up its application process for its summer 2011 cohort. AngelPad selects startups twice a year and is looking for its third round of contenders today, putting out it's application tonight in order to find the best and the brightest. In case you're debating about whether to apply to YCombinator, 500 Startups or AngelPad, founder Thomas Korte tell me that what makes Angelpad different from other accelerator programs is its size (small) and its emphasis on product and market. 
In The Post-Client Era, Did Tweetbot Just Swipe Twitter's iPhone Crown?
Apr 14, 6:25AM
Don't focus on making new Twitter clients. The message has been very clear — well, moderately clear — for weeks now. If you're a third-party looking to develop in the Twitter ecosystem, you should focus on data or niche experiences. Good thing Tweetbot didn't listen. If you've looked at Twitter tonight, there's a good chance you've seen the massive amount of buzz surrounding Tweetbot. It's a new Twitter iPhone client made by Tapbots. And yes, it is very good.
TechCrunch Review: RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook Enters The Tablet Wars
Apr 14, 1:11AM
In the tablet world right now, there's the iPad and then there's everyone else. Sorry, Xoom, despite your hype, you just don't cut it yet. But a new challenger is just about to take the stage and it comes from a somewhat unlikely player: RIM. People have been talking about the BlackBerry PlayBook for months now following its initial unveiling last September and a buzz-worthy showcase at CES back in January. But at the time, RIM noted that there was much work still to do before it would be released. And that work is continuing right up to the April 19 launch next week. But the product is complete enough now that RIM felt comfortable giving out review units. We got one of them and have had a chance to use the device extensively over the past week or so. So how is it?
Another Group Photo Sharing Service? Yeah But ZangZing Actually Works
Apr 14, 12:01AM
The digerati ponder Color and its tens of millions of dollars in financing. It will become the next Cuil, or it will turn Facebook into a buggy whip, or both, depending on who you talk too. Only time will tell. Meanwhile, the actual user experience is horrific (luckily the product seems happily disconnected to the company's hype). Meanwhile, I still want to make on the fly photo albums during events. I've wanted to do this for a long time, and there aren't many options out there. Flickr has some limited group sharing but it's too onerous for one time events, and works better for long term groups (butterfly lovers or whatever). MG managed to use Color for a weekend trip to Mexico that ended dramatically if not surprisingly with a bout of Montezuma's revenge. Few others will bother until the app has gone through a few more versions. Anyway, new startup ZangZing will fit this need nicely. It's a beautiful photo repository that focuses on sharing and presentation. If you're at an event, say a wedding, and you want to start a group album, just upload a picture from the wedding via email and then invite your friends. They can reply with their own photos, which are added to the album. And they can add new friends by email invite as well, unless someone's changed the privacy setting to make an album private or even password protected. There's no need for anyone to create a new account, simply by responding to the email with photos they've begun the process, and can finish the rest later, if they like. It's one of the ways Posterous grew so fast, by making account creation so simple that you're done before you even know you've begun. 
Living the Knowledge Life: A Thiel Fellowship Finalist's Response
Apr 13, 11:42PM
Editor's note: This post is a response to an ongoing educational debate over the efficacy of Peter Thiel's fellowship, which encourages young entrepreneurs to "stop out" of school. The post addresses Vivek Wadhwa's post "Friends Don't Let Friends Take Education Advice >From Peter Thiel" and Sarah Lacy's "Peter Thiel: We're in a Bubble and It's Not the Internet. It's Higher Education." Dale J. Stephens is a 19-year-old educational deviant and entrepreneur leading UnCollege, a social movement supporting self-directed higher education. He's working on building a platform to validate lifelong learning.
Five Open Questions For Data.gov Before We #SaveTheData
Apr 13, 10:41PM
Data.gov is coughing blood. The budget being negotiated by Congress will reduce the Electronic Government Fund by 75%, and the same open-gov advocates who championed the project for two years are now taking up arms to save it by persuading people of its importance. Data.gov has had around 1.5 million downloads in the past two years, but the impact of those downloads hasn't been made clear enough and the site is difficult to use. This past week, I started a discussion on how to turn the project around. It drew great responses from people knowledgeable about Data.gov, but despite invitations, neither the Sunlight Foundation nor a representative of Data.gov took part. After a week of discussion, a series of common, simple questions emerged and as calls to #SaveTheData intensify, we still don't know the answers to them.
TC Cribs: Inside The Snuggified Home Of Posterous
Apr 13, 10:13PM
It's time for a new episode of TC Cribs, and this week we're showcasing the home of one of the easiest-to-use blogging platforms around: Posterous, the service that lets you turn an email into a blog post (among other things). As you'll see in the tour, the Posterous office is located in the heart of San Francisco's Mission District so there's always something exciting going on outside the window. The team has also developed a strange affinity for a certain inexpensive beer... and Snuggies. Oh, and don't worry if you're not sure how to actually pronounce "Posterous" — in this episode, we answer the question once and for all. If you haven't already, make sure to check out the past episode of TC Cribs: - Inside The Psychobox: A Tour Of Dropbox's Bumping Office
- Take A Doc On The Wild Side At Scribd (With Bonus Go Karts!)
Let Me Goo.gl These New Features For You
Apr 13, 9:55PM
Back in September, Google formally launched goo.gl, the official URL shortener from the tech giant. The service first went into operation late in 2009 and was tied to Google's own products, like Google Toolbar, but now it's a direct competitor to the myriad consumer-focused shorteners, the most famous of which is bit.ly. Today, goo.gl has announced a handful of new features that should make fans of the service happy. First up is easier copy and pasting — after you submit a link, Google will automatically highlight the resulting shortened URL, which means you can immediately hit Control-C to copy it. No, not a huge deal (and rivals like bit.ly already do the same thing), but if you use this as part of your workflow, you'll appreciate it. 
4INFO Nabs Mobile Ad Exec Ray Colwell As Chief Revenue Officer
Apr 13, 9:43PM
Mobile advertising company 4INFO has made a key hire today. The company has added advertising exec Ray Colwell as chief revenue officer. Most recently, Colwell was the vice president of national and direct sales at display ad network Collective. Colwell has helped to create mobile campaigns for brands including Discovery, Bank of America, Procter & Gamble and Ford and was previously vice president of mobile video ad network Transpera (which was recently acquired by Tremor Media). 
The Ceglia Vs. Zuckerberg Story Gets Its Own Taiwanese Animation
Apr 13, 8:00PM
After parsing through all the alleged Paul Ceglia and Mark Zuckerberg emails in the Ceglia vs. Zuckerberg amendment, all I can say is that I'm pretty excited for The Social Network 2. In the meantime we'll all have to make due with this animation from Taiwan's NMA News. Partially traffic-baiting tech blogs and partially expressing creativity in what has to be hours of mind-numbing CGI work, the geniuses at NMA have this time chosen to portray Facebook as one battleship, convicted felon Paul Ceglia and his law firm DLA Piper as another trying to attack Facebook with canons and of course the recently deposed Winklevoss twins as rowers, whose dinky row boat is capsized by Facebook.
After Agreeing To DOJ Settlement, Google Closes $700M Acquisition Of ITA Software
Apr 13, 7:49PM
Last Friday, the DOJ cleared Google's $700 million acquisition of travel software company ITA. The DOJ said that if Google complied with a proposed settlement, Google could in fact buy the company. It looks like Google has agreed to the DOJ's terms, according to an update to Google's blog post announcing that the deal was on its way to be cleared. The DOJ said last week that if Google didn't agree to the terms of the settlement, the search giant would be face an antitrust lawsuit. The DOJ requires that Google develop and license travel software, establish internal firewall procedures and to continue to fund software research and development in the industry. 
Mozilla Introduces Aurora, The Pre-Beta, Post-Nightly Firefox — It's Their "Dev" Build
Apr 13, 7:15PM
While Google Chrome may still only have about 10 percent market share in the web browser world, it's effect on the space has been much greater. For example, remember when Google said that Chrome would begin releasing new versions every six weeks? Well now we're seeing both Mozilla and Microsoft move towards that type of rapid iteration. In fact, Mozilla has moved so much in that direction that they've decided to alter their standard release model. In a post today on their blog, Mozilla has formally introduced the new channel structure for Firefox builds. And this means the creation of a new type of Firefox build that neither a nightly (read: highly unstable) or beta (read: fairly polished) — they're calling it Aurora. In Chrome parlance, it's essentially their "Dev" build.
Android Adds Sprint To Its Carrier Billing Arsenal To Help The Paid Market Grow
Apr 13, 6:44PM
One of the big holdups in terms of paid applications on Android has been the lack of great billing options. In the beginning, there was Google Checkout, but relatively few people use that. So Google came up with a better idea: tying payments into carrier bills. They were quickly able to get both T-Mobile and AT&T on board with that. And today a third big U.S. carrier comes on board: Sprint. Google says that a phased roll-out of the new option is underway right now and should reach all customers in a few days. When it's done, Android users on Sprint will see an option to "bill my Sprint account" in the Android Market payment area. Such a payment won't require the user to enter any other payment information, and the charge will show up on your monthly Sprint bill.
Social Influence Measurement Startup Klout Passes 2K API Partners
Apr 13, 6:32PM
Klout, a startup that measures influence on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, has hit a significant milestone today—2,000 developers using the startup's API. That's up from 250 developers last year. Klout evaluates Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook users' behavior with complex ranking algorithms and semantic analysis of content to measure the influence of individuals and topics around the web. On Twitter, Klout's influence score is based on a user's ability to drive action through Tweets, Retweets and more. On Facebook, Klout will examine how conversations and content generate interest and engagement, via likes, comments, and more, from the network's 600 million-plus users. 
The Future: Microsoft Demos A Kinect-Driven Armchair
Apr 13, 6:31PM
The Kinect has already powered countless awesome hacks but even a motion-controlled mini humanoid isn't in the same room as this Microsoft-built armchair. The MIX11 crowd pleaser was built using the upcoming Kinect PC SDK that opens up development over Visual Basic, C++, C#. The chair itself is powered just by hand motions -- even reclining -- and feature omnidirectional wheels for smooth rolling. Right now it's just a proof of concept, but Microsoft will release the chair's source code with the SDK for further tomfoolery.
News Reader FLUD Raises $1 Million From Cavs Owner, Others
Apr 13, 6:02PM
FLUD, a news reader app for the iPad and iPhone, announced today that it has raised $1 million in seed funding from a flock of notable angel investors. The round was led by Quicken Founder and Cleveland Cavaliers Owner Dan Gilbert and ePrize Founder Josh Linkner, through their new venture fund Detroit Venture Partners. Other investors included Ludlow Ventures and Behance Founder Scott Belsky. Since launching in August 2010, the FLUD team has been working part-time on its news reader app, so Founder Bobby Ghoshal said that the startup will use its new funding to go after top engineering talent -- and begin working on the project full time. At present, FLUD is only available on the iPhone and iPad, so the team will push towards becoming device and platform agnostic. With the new funding in tow, Ghoshal said that he expects FLUD for Android to launch within the next few weeks. 
Take Out Slideshows And Other Forced Search, And Bing's Market Share Isn't Quite 30 Percent
Apr 13, 5:26PM
A couple days ago, the headlines blared that Bing now has 30 percent search market share in the U.S. Not so fast. Those numbers were based on Hitwise estimates. Today, comScore came out with its own qsearch estimates, which is what Wall Street analysts following Google report. The comScore numbers tell a slightly different story. If you include all searches, then the combined market share of Bing (13.3 percent) and Yahoo (17.7 percent), which is powered by Bing, is indeed 31 percent. But this "core" search number includes Google slideshows, contextual search in places like Yahoo News, and Google Instant. Every time you go through a slideshow on Yahoo, for instance, related search results appear below, inflating its numbers. But ComScore strips out those numbers to come up with what it calls "explicit search" (you know, when someone actually types a query into a search box). When you look at explicit search, Bing and Yahoo combined only had 29.5 percent market share in the first quarter of 2011.
Hacker Gains Access To WordPress.com Servers, Site Source Code Exposed
Apr 13, 5:12PM
Wordpress.com has revealed that someone has gained root-access ("low-level," as in deep) to several of its servers this morning and that VIP customers' source code was accessible. Wordpress.com VIP customers are all on "code red" and in the process of changing all the passwords/API keys they've left in the source code. "Tough note to communicate today: Automattic had a low-level (root) break-in to several of our servers, and potentially anything on those servers could have been revealed. We have been diligently reviewing logs and records about the break-in to determine the extent of the information exposed, and re-securing avenues used to gain access. We presume our source code was exposed and copied. While much of our code is Open Source, there are sensitive bits of our and our partners' code. Beyond that, however, it appears information disclosed was limited."
If at any time you'd like to stop receiving these messages, just send an email to feeds_feedburner_com_techcrunch+unsubscribe-hmdtechnology=gmail.com@mail.feed2email.net.
To stop all future emails from feed2email.net you can reply to this email with STOP in the subject line. Thanks
