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.
TenderTree Rolls Into Beta To Help You Find Reliable Senior Caregivers
May 11, 1:55PM
It's always refreshing when a startup tackles a real-world problem instead of building another photo-sharing/local reviews/social calendar service. Case in point: TenderTree, a company that's trying to improve the way people find reliable care for their aging family members, and then pay them for their work. A recent participant in the latest 500 Startups batch with less than a million in funding, TenderTree is launching now into its beta, targeting the San Francisco Bay area to start.Viddy Confirms $30M Round From NEA, Goldman, Khosla & Battery Ventures
May 11, 1:49PM
Alexia said this was coming a few weeks ago, so it shouldn't come as a huge surprise, but... Viddy announced this morning that it has closed a $30 million Series B funding round. The new financing comes from investors that include NEA, Goldman Sachs, Khosla Ventures, and Battery Ventures, and the round closed just a few months after Viddy raised $6 million in a Series A round back in February. The investment was made as the race to become the next "Instagram for video" heats up, especially after Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion just a few weeks ago. With that in mind, Viddy, Socialcam, Klip, Mobli, and others have been trying to attract users who wish to share their personal mobile videos with each other.IBM's Chess-Playing Computer, Deep Blue, Celebrates 15th Birthday
May 11, 1:43PM
It was 15 years ago today that a computer - a conglomeration of transistors, memory, and storage media - could beat a world-class chess player. Called Deep Blue, the machine was part of a mission that culminated in IBM's creation of a supercomputer that beat chess master Garry Kasparov two wins to one. While the concept is delightfully antiquated today (after all, IBM now makes a computer that can beat us all in Jeopardy and our phones can understand us to an extent unimagined even a decade ago), it was an important turning point in the climb down into the uncanny valley. Deep Blue, in short, made computers personable.Fly Or Die: Olympus OM-D E-M5
May 11, 1:28PM
The Olympus OM-D E-M5 is arguably the best micro four-thirds camera Olympus has to offer. We've had issues with past m4/3 iterations like the EP1 and EP3, like awful color reproduction and slow auto-focus. The same problems don't persist here, and anything that impresses John on the photography front is a rare gem certainly worth consideration.A Dreamy Look At A Would-Be Nokia Lumia 850
May 11, 1:22PM
This Nokia Lumia 850 is not real. It's just a concept. But I would be proud to carry that phone in my pocket if it was real. The concept comes by way of The Nokia Blog, a fan site that found the concept made by Luxembourgish designer, BrianMFB. The 850, that once again is just a mockup, shows a slimmed down Lumia 800 that still regains a lot of the original character. The backside has tappered edges and flush mounted side buttons. The screen is a modest 3.8-inch as a 950 would likely have a larger screen.Amazon To Launch Color Ebook Reader Later This Year, Says Report
May 11, 1:07PM
A color Kindle might be on the way. Industry watchdog publication, Digitimes, says Amazon will launch one in the second half of this year. The report goes on to state that the new models will forgo the traditional infrared touchpanels used in the current model for multitouch capacitive panels. Digitimes expects Amazon to adapt E Ink's upcoming color EPD panels in their ereaders so don't expect LCD displays. This move, if true, would put the Kindle in a strange spot between a full-scale tablet and a tradition b/w ereader. Amazon has so far been very successful in marketing the Kindle's grayscale screen against full color tablets like the iPad. The Kindle Fire showed that there is a demand for color ereaders as well, though. A color eink display might be the start of a larger content push from Amazon.No Tablet News Yet From Nokia, But It Is Launching Its E-Reader Reading App
May 11, 12:02PM
There are still some big question marks over what Nokia plans to do in tablets -- a market where it is now possibly the only major smartphone maker yet to make a device -- but at least Nokia is moving ahead with the launch of tablet-friendly services. Today, it said it would begin the global roll-out of Nokia Reading, a Windows Phone app originally announced back in February for reading e-books on a Lumia device. The company says that initial countries that will get the app are France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain and the UK, with others following later this year. It is compatible with all four Lumia models: the 900, 800, 710 and 610.Qype, The Yelp Of Europe, Claims Top Dog Status With 860,000 Places Reviewed, Expands Daily Deals
May 11, 10:14AM
Just as we get news of some consolidation in the local content market in the UK, some news of expansion, too: Qype, the Yelp of Europe (and Yelp's closest competitor in the region), today announced that the number of places reviewed on its site has reached 860,000, with the number of monthly unique visitors now at 25 million. It claims that this makes it the biggest reviews site in the region, about five times bigger than its closest competitor, the U.S.-based Yelp. And while companies like Groupon are trying to move beyond the daily deal to become the platform for local commerce, Qype is doubling-down on the concept, expanding its own deals offerings with a free service to attract more local businesses to the concept.Consolidation Hits UK Local Sites: Zoopla Buys UpMyStreet, Folds It Into Its Own Property Pages
May 11, 6:38AM
The UK housing market has been on shaky legs for a while now -- with tight lending conditions, unemployment and general consumer confidence all playing their part in slowing things down -- and that is having the inevitable knock-on to sites built up to serve that sector: today brings news that Zoopla, one of the UK's bigger property sites, is buying up a smaller competitor / data supplier, UpMyStreet, and folding the latter company's business into its own. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it looks like the acquisition means curtains for the UpMyStreet brand, one of the oldest local-listings sites in the UK: if you visit that URL now you will see that the site now automatically redirects to Zoopla's pages, with no sign of UpMyStreet branding to be seen.Startups Court Dev Bootcamp's Ruby Grads: 88% Have Offers At Average Of $79K
May 11, 4:29AM
This year, Shereef Bishay came up with an ambitious engineering and educational challenge: Try to take 20 aspiring developers, at various levels of ability, teach them Ruby on Rails, and have them job-ready in 10 weeks. The result: Dev Bootcamp, a 10-week engineering gauntlet specifically that subjects those willing to some 400+ hours of intense technical training. The cost, with a $1K discount for signing up early, is $11,200, which can be paid in lump sum or in monthly payments over two years. While that may sound like a lot, compared to the cost of a 4-year education, it's minimal. Of course, it's all about the return on investment. And judging by the numbers Dev Bootcamp has shared, the future looks bright. Altogether, 88 percent of its students have received job offers, with the average salary being offered at $79,000. As to who's doing the courting? ThoughtWorks, Ooyala, DailyKos, Inigral, MochaLeaf, Zendesk, Milyoni, and GeneralThings, to name a few. Not bad for 10 weeks.Pay To "Highlight" Your Facebook Status Updates To More Friends – A Reckless New Ads Test
May 11, 2:11AM
Only 12% of your friends see your average status update, but Facebook is testing an option called "Highlight" that lets you pay a few dollars to have one of your posts appear to more friends. Highlight lets users, not Pages or businesses, select an "important post" and "make sure friends see this", but not color it yellow as Stuff wrote when it first spotted the feature. A tiny percentage of the user base is now seeing tests of a paid version of Highlight, but there's also a free one designed to check if users are at all interested in the option. Highlight could show Facebook's willingness to try more aggressive ways of making money, which should delight potential investors. But Facebook is playing with fire here. The service has always been free for users, and a pay-for-popularity feature could be a huge turn off, especially to its younger and less financially equipped users who couldn't afford such narcissism.Here's What The Facebook App Center Is Really About
May 11, 2:00AM
The tectonic plates in the app world have been shifting quite a bit lately, in ways that will significantly impact developers and users. One major upcoming shift is coming from our friends in Redmond--Windows 8-- and yesterday, we witnessed another major shift as Facebook announced their new App Center. After sleeping on it and reading dozens of generic blog posts about the announcement, this is what I think the Facebook App Center REALLY means (complete with lame taglines for your entertainment):Meet The 10 Startups Who Just Got Their Wings At AngelPad's Spring 2012 Demo Day
May 10, 11:44PM
AngelPad, the startup accelerator program started two years ago by ex-Googler and tech investor Thomas Korte, held Demo Day for its Spring 2012 class in San Francisco this week. The event was a very buzzy one, with ten solid startups pitching to a standing-room-only room packed with investors.With 12M+ Downloads, Scan Launches Scan-to-gram, A New Way To Follow People On Instagram
May 10, 11:36PM
Three guys from Provo, Utah set out on a mission to make QR codes, those boring pixellated, black-and-white squares come alive -- in other words, to extend their functionality by turning them into realworld "like," "follow," and "buy" buttons. And it's been working. In February, Scan announced a seed funding round from Shervin Pishevar, Google Ventures, CRV, Start Fund, Social + Capital, Ludlow Ventures, and more. The company moved their operations from Utah to San Francisco, and is currently sitting at just over 12 million downloads across iOS devices. As Scan is in the business of creating apps that extend the potential application of QR code tech, Scan is today leveraging the buzz around Instagram to let businesses, organizations, etc. build their Instagram user base via QR codes. The new app, appropriately called Scan-to-gram, which launches today, lets users scan QR codes and instantly follow a company and its employees. Notable Instagrammers to be part of its initial launch, including Warby Parker, Zooey Deschanel, Nike, Marc Jacobs, and, notably, the Instagram team itself.Saas For Cows! Farmeron Raises $1.4 Million *Seed* To Ease Farmers' Lives
May 10, 10:45PM
A lot of people in Silicon Valley are pretty obsessed with organic this and that. One or two startups have looked at the whole connecting-fams-with-consumers-directly model, even. So it's odd that it's taken a startup from little old Croatia to realise that it's the farmers themselves that could use a little help. And let's not be parochial about this. Farming is big business. The 'market' of medium and corporate-size farms around the world is worth a juicy $12 billion - but as of today it's often run on outmoded systems. Thus, Farmeron.com, a startup billing itself as one of the world's first agricultural SaaS companies, plans to change all that. It's closed a $1.4 million seed (one time this word is highly appropriate) round co-led by Lee Hower of NextView Ventures and Jeff Clavier of SoftTech VC. Other prominent angels - Evan Nisselson of LDV Capital, Niko Hrdy, Taavet Hinrikus - also participated. The funds will be used to hire key management team members and to staff sales and support teams both in US and Europe.CapsulePen Is A Pen-Shaped Pill Case That May Resurrect The Pocket Protector
May 10, 10:42PM
This is clever. A new Kickstarter project aims to disrupt the pill case market. True, it's not the sexiest industry in the world, but it's ripe for some disruption, since there just so happens to be a huge market for it and there's very little, if any, differentiation between current competitors. So what is it? Well, in a few words, it's a pill case that's shaped like a pen, fittingly named the CapsulePen.FTC: It's Up To Facebook To Decide Whether An Instagram Investigation Will Impact The IPO
May 10, 9:49PM
Some slightly conflicting stories zipping across the ether today involving Facebook, its $1 billion acquisition of Instagram and a rumored Federal Trade Commission investigation into the deal: The FT is reporting that this could delay the acquisition. Betabeat is reporting that this could actually delay Facebook's IPO. Could it be both? Either? Neither? We reached out to the FTC to get some info straight from the horse's mouth.KeKu Promises Cheap, High-Quality Calls To Any Phone Number Worldwide
May 10, 9:40PM
KeKu is a VoIP telephony startup that has quietly build a global platform during its beta phase. Now, the company is ready to come out of beta. At its core, KeKu is pretty similar to services like Rebtel and even Skype, as it focuses on letting you make cheap international phone calls and also offers free calls between its own users. KeKu, however, puts a stronger emphasis on what it likes to call "any-to-any" calling than most of its competitors. This means that you can use it to make calls from your landline, mobile phone or the company's free Android or iOS apps to call any phone number in the world (a BlackBerry app is also in the works).Twitter Buys Personalized Email Marketer RestEngine To Deliver Best Tweet Digests
May 10, 9:04PM
Twitter has just finalized a deal to hire the team and buy the technology of RestEngine, a personalized email marketing service, which could help Twitter deliver email digests of great tweets you've missed. The deal fits well with Twitter's recent talent acquisition of Summify, which creates these kinds of personal news digests. RestEngine had been powering re-engagement emails for social game companies like Crowdstarthat enticed users to start playing again by telling them what their in-game friends had been achieving. Three of four founders will be joining the flock, and the company's technology will come along with them. RestEngine's founder Joe Waltman called this is an acquisition since Twitter's gaining both employees and tech, though Twitter views it as an acqui-hire. Co-founder Joe Waltman won't be moving to Twitter as he tells me his entrepreneurial spirit is too strong and he'll be working on new projects after a vacation. It looks like Twitter's got a plan to get more of its inactive users tweeting again...Disrupting Media: Where Do We Go Now That We've Won? With Henry Blodget, Jonah Peretti And Gabe Rivera
May 10, 8:49PM
In a world where Instagram is worth more than the New York Times, old media is no longer dying, it's dead. Instead, in its wake, we've got the Wild West: A chaotic morass of never-ending slideshows, puny WordPress blogs breaking big time news (and selling for tens of millions) and the merger of lolcats and politics on a site which focuses just as much on content sharing as content. Although we all agree that new media is just media now, there are many perspectives battling it out for the future of the medium and whatever form it will take -- Aggregation vs. Original content, etc, etc and so on and so forth -- "The medium is the message" is at its most poignant in online media.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
