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Apple Responds To DOJ eBook Lawsuit, Calls it "Fundamentally Flawed" and "Absurd"
May 25, 11:55PM
Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice accused Apple and a number of other large U.S. publishers of conspiring to fix eBook prices and filed an antitrust lawsuit. While most of the publishers quickly settled the lawsuit, Apple decided to fight. Earlier this week, as Ars Technica reports today, Apple responded (PDF) to the government's accusations. Apple doesn't mince words in its response. The company's lawyers call the case against Apple "fundamentally flawed as a matter of fact and law" and say that the idea that Apple tried to reduce competition and fix prices is "absurd."TinyTap App Lets Kids Create Customized iPad Books & Games
May 25, 8:15PM
TinyTap is a new iPad application designed for kids which introduces a different angle on the "record-your-own-voice" storybooks craze, by offering a playable book or game you and your kids can customize with your own photos, camera shots, music, narration, and more. The resulting creations can then be shared with family and friends. And, for a little inspiration, the built-in TinyTap store offers a collection of pre-made games which kids can customize with their own voice and actions.Gillmor Gang Live 05.25.12 (TCTV)
May 25, 8:00PM
Gillmor Gang - John Taschek, Robert Scoble, Keith Teare, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor. Recording has concluded.
MoPub Launches A "Buy It Now" Private Marketplace For Mobile Advertisers
May 25, 7:43PM
MoPub, an ad serving startup for smartphone apps, is announcing a new way for its publishers to offer their inventory to advertisers — a private marketplace limited to select publishers and advertisers. Basically, the market creates a more direct relationship, where publishers get more control and predictable pricing, while advertisers get early access. Advertisers will get first look a publisher's inventory — MoPub compares the marketplace to a eBay's Buy It Now model, where buyers can skip the auction process and just purchase an item at a set price (in this case, an ad impression). They also get access to special data like demographics, geography, and in-app purchase history.Gadget Of The Week: The Parrot AR.Drone 2.0
May 25, 7:04PM
There are plenty of ways to get your flight school kicks with your smartphone or tablet — this missile shooting Griffin chopper comes to mind — but few manage to ooze as much style (or cost as much money) as Parrot's AR.Drone 2.0. Getting the thing ready to fly is surprisingly simple. Once you've popped the battery into place, and turned the thing on, the Drone creates its own Wi-Fi network that the control device connects to. From there, just fire up the FreeFlight app on your iOS or Android device and you're off to the races.SimplyUs Brings Couples Closer, With An App For Organizing Their Lives Together
May 25, 7:00PM
The latest entrant into the couple-sharing mobile app space is SimplyUs, a Toronto-based startup that aims to make couples happier by adding a little organization into their lives. While other apps built for couples are primarily built for keeping a private collection of photos and memories, and providing private communication tools, SimplyUs takes a whole different approach: It's focused on improving couples' lives by helping them to become more organized together. As a result, its main features are built around joint calendaring and list tools.Death To The Install! Play Facebook Games Straight From News Feed
May 25, 6:58PM
Facebook games just got a lot more viral. People don't want to install and give data permissions to games, they want to play them, so now Facebook is allowing games to be played directly from within news feed or Timeline stories. These previews give gamers a taste and could get them over the install hurdle once they're already addicted. Facebook has to keep delivering growth for apps to get developers to stick around, or better yet, build for it first. Feed gaming could be a big selling point that could get devs to prioritize Facebook's canvas over iOS, Android, Chrome web store, and other platforms that force people to download and install before the fun starts. Some of Facebook's most popular games are already using this tactic. Read more to try out playing Angry Birds, Bubble Witch Saga, and Idle Worship from the feed...White House Receives Flood Of Innovation Fellow Applications After Its Disrupt Announcement
May 25, 6:48PM
Disrupt isn't just a great launch platform for startups. Earlier this week at TechCrunch Disrupt New York, President Obama's senior technology advisor, Todd Park and U.S. CIO Steven VanRoekel announced five new federal initiatives to get entrepreneurs and other innovators to work on the White House's new digital road map for open government. Within the 24 hours after the announcement at Disrupt on Wednesday, Park told O'Reilly's Alexander B. Howard earlier today, the White House received 600 applications to be a Presidential Innovation Fellow and "another several hundred people had expressed interest in following and engaging in the five projects in some other capacity."PayPal Rolls Out To 15 More National Retailers, Announces Deals With 6 Top POS Software & Terminal Makers
May 25, 6:09PM
PayPal is expanding its in-store payments technology to 15 new national retailers, following its initial brick-and-mortar rollout with Home Depot earlier this year. At a press conference held yesterday at PayPal's San Jose HQ, the company confirmed it is now adding new merchants including Abercrombie & Fitch, Advance Auto Parts, Aéropostale, American Eagle Outfitters, Barnes & Noble, Foot Locker, Guitar Center, Jamba Juice, JC Penney, Jos. A. Bank Clothiers, Nine West, Office Depot, Rooms To Go, Tiger Direct and Toys "R" Us. The merchants will soon be integrating PayPal technology at their point-of-sale, allowing customers to choose it as an alternative payment option to cash, check or charge.Facebook Camera Could Backfire and Get All Of FB's Apps Buried In A Folder
May 25, 5:50PM
Not everyone loves Facebook enough to give it three, four, or five spots on their homescreen. So yesterday's launch of Facebook's third consumer iOS app, Facebook Camera, could actually end up reducing usage of Facebook's main app, Messenger, and others by compelling people to consolidate them into a folder. This issue isn't one just for Facebook but for any developer looking to break out specific features of a cluttered omni-app into streamlined standalone apps. Is a lightweight feel worth the risk of app overload?Talking (And Rocking) With gTar Creator Incident
May 25, 5:34PM
Sure, UberConference took home the Disrupt Cup and its accompanying $50,000 (giant) check. But it could be argued that Incident, makers of the gTar, had already won. The company's Kickstarter project skyrocketed from $10,000 in funding before stepping on the Disrupt stage, to a current $220,000. This is big, considering that Disrupt is a web/software conference and a hardware startup went all the way to the very end. Even Michael Arrington was impressed, which says quite a bit. But none were more impressed or intrigued than myself, which is why I wrangled the Incident guys together backstage and begged and pleaded to play the gTar. Kindly, they obliged.Exec, The YC-Backed Mobile App For Instantly Doing Your Errands, Raises $3.3M
May 25, 4:59PM
Exec, a mobile app that instantly gets people to do your errands, has raised $3.3 million, according to an SEC filing. The company's co-founder Justin Kan, who is also behind Justin.tv, Twitch.tv and SocialCam, says he's not ready to disclose investors yet, except to say that there are around 25 different individuals in the round. The filing only shows Exec's team on it, so it's hard to tell who the firms or angels in the round are. What's Exec? It's kind of comparable to TaskRabbit, because you can call on people to run your errands from an app. But Exec doesn't require a bidding process and it calls up 'Execs,' or people to do your tasks, instantaneously. It also has a flat rate of $25 an hour. Exec covers all sorts of errands -- deliveries, chores, cleaning, even art. One 'Exec,' who cleaned my house once, has also coached YC founders on their pitches for Demo Day. Seriously. "This money is for building out the San Francisco Bay Area market," Kan said.Loyalty Startup Belly Hits 1 Millionth Check-In; Active Merchants Say Belly Check-ins Top Foursquare
May 25, 4:56PM
Belly, the Chicago-based loyalty platform which just closed its $10 million Series B from Andreessen Horowitz earlier this month, is today announcing a pretty significant milestone: its 1 millionth check-in. The startup allows customers to check-in to a location using a physical loyalty card or mobile app which they scan via a consumer-facing iPad installed at point-of-sale. By doing so, customers collect points that can later be redeemed for unique rewards tailored specifically for the business in question. The company has been growing fast, and CEO Logan LaHive tells us that in some of Belly's locations, there have been more Belly check-ins within its first month of being up-and-running, than the total number of Foursquare check-ins the business has seen to date.Apple's iOS and Mac App Stores Now Feature "Free App Of The Week" And "Editor's Choice" Promotions
May 25, 4:41PM
In an apparent effort to help its users find more interesting apps in its cavernous digital stores, Apple today made an interesting tweak to its iOS and Mac app stores. Both now feature a "free app of the week" and an "editor's choice" section. As Apple's official App Store Twitter account announced yesterday, Cut the Rope: Experiments is Apple's choice for this week's free app in the iOS store. Editor's Choice apps include Extreme Skater and Facebook Camera for iPhone, Sketchbook Ink for iPad, and Cobook and Deus Ex Human Revolution in the Mac App Store.Southeast, Here We Come: The Savannah, Atlanta, Charlotte, And Raleigh-Durham Meetups Are Go
May 25, 4:24PM
TechCrunch is headed down south this summer and we're starting our trip in Savannah, Atlanta, Charlotte, and Raleigh-Durham. We already have some great spots lined up but we definitely need your help finding a few more locations. We begin by riding down to Savannah where we'll see what the Coast is up to then on to Atlanta, Charlotte, and ending in Raleigh-Durham where we'll have a great night planned of networking, chit-chats, and boozing.Techmeme's Gabe Rivera Opens Up About New Vs. Old Media
May 25, 4:07PM
To any member of the tech media, Techmeme is the first site you visit in the morning, and the last site you check before bed. It's a thermometer of today's news, with more context per headline than any single news source can offer. This is the beauty of aggregation, which some more traditional media outlets frown upon. But founder and CEO Gabe Rivera has been doing this since 2004, and has incredible insight into the differences between old media and the young guns. I grabbed him backstage during Disrupt NYC 2012 after his panel on the tech media to see how he felt about new media's dependance on sources like The New York Times, the myth of objectivity, the difference between click bait and link bait (if there is one), and his personal source preference when he sits down with a cup of coffee to read the day's news.Umbel Gets Strategic Investment From Knight Foundation To Change The Way Online Audiences Are Measured
May 25, 3:45PM
Reporting and analytics firm Umbel wants to provide new metrics for measuring content online, to help publishers better monetize their content. And it's getting some validation from the Knight Foundation, which was just announced as a strategic investor in the startup. Umbel uses big data analysis of publisher data to better measure audiences that view their content. By using public data provided by social logins, it can provide real-time data about those audiences and help publishers engage with them.CloudFlare To Launch Service For Sites Dealing With Tortuous EU Cookie Law
May 25, 3:39PM
The European "Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications" that regulates the ways websites can track users, is coming to sites which serve European users, which covers plenty out there. The Directive requires that sites disclose the use of cookies on their site and allows visitors to opt-in to their use. It could be an immediate turn-off for users, but it's here to stay. On Saturday, May 26, the UK implements the first phase of the law, so website owners are scrambling to ensure they are in compliance (assuming they even know about it). As we've said before, we think it's dumb and will make it much harder on European startups. The first requirement of the UK law is that sites do an audit to determine what cookies are used on their site. The Directive asks them to identify two types of cookies: those it deems "strictly necessary" and those that are not. The problem is that most sites have no idea what cookies it might be serving to users. However, US-startup CloudFlare is about to launch a service which will tell site what cookies they are serving and a way to control them: CloudFlare Audit + Control.The TechCrunch iPad App Is Now Live
May 25, 3:24PM
Spring has sprung and like Persephone loosed from Hades' bonds, our iPad app is now available to all and sundry. This app is literally years in the making and we have been back and forth and up and down regarding functionality, design, and look and feel for most of this month. I'm pleased to report, however, that it is ready to go, free, and fabulous. The app connects our blog content with live Internet reactions as well as some amazing functionality centered around CrunchBase data. You can also just view Gadgets and Mobile content with one click and an offline mode will cache content for the road. It is retina-ready and looks pretty darn good.International Space Station Successfully Grabs SpaceX's Dragon Capsule (Update: Berthing Complete!)
May 25, 3:19PM
If SpaceX founder Elon Musk felt like winning the Super Bowl when the Dragon (perched atop a Falcon 9 rocket) finally launched on Tuesday, he must be absolutely over the moon now. At 9:56 AM Eastern this morning, astronaut Donald Pettit coaxed the International Space Station's gangly robotic arm into grabbing the unmanned Dragon capsule, marking the first time a private spacecraft has docked with the station. "Looks like we've got a Dragon by the tail," Pettit said.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.
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