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Educational App Maker Mindshapes Picks Up $4M Round Led By Index; Adds Big 5 Publishers To Magic Town
May 30, 1:15AM
Another funding announcement that underscores what big business kids' and educational apps can be. Mindshapes, a UK-based developer of interactive learning apps, has picked up a $4 million round of funding led by Index Ventures, with Richmond Park Partners and existing investors also participating. The news caps off an eventful couple of weeks for Mindshapes. Earlier in the month, it had launched a flagship app, Magic Town, which Mindshapes calls the first virtual world based on picture book characters. Magic Town, a highly visual app, incorporates content licensed from Hachette Group, Simon & Schuster and Penguin Group, among others, into e-learning tasks. Mindshapes is ramping up content on Magic Town quickly: it currently contains content from 70 popular picture books but aims to have 200 titles in there by year's end.An $800M Buddy Media Acquisition Would Be Worth 8X Its Current Revenue
May 30, 1:13AM
Salesforce.com is acquiring Buddy Media, in the largest social marketing acquisition to date, according to sources close to the company are confirming. AllThingsD reported earlier today that Salesforce is getting close to a deal for more than $800 million, and we'd heard acquisition rumors too, though Buddy Media declined to comment. Now our sources say the price is considerably higher, more in the neighborhood of $1 billion.Groupon Picks Up Breadcrumb For A Little Point-of-Sale Magic
May 29, 10:33PM
Groupon just announced via its blog that it has acquired Breadcrumb, the creators of an affordable point of sale system and iPad app that targets local restaurants. While the terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed, Groupon has made a run of acquisitions over the last six months, and this move is likely one being made for talent. Not only that but the daily deals behemoth is looking to create more defined inroads with local mom and pop restaurants in its quest to become "the OS for local commerce," and adding Breadcrumb and its technology to the team is a step in that direction.Google Brings ChromeOS To The Desktop, Launches Its First Chromebox
May 29, 10:30PM
Google, together with its partner Samsung, launched a new Chromebook and its first desktop Chromebox today. The most important change to the new Samsung Series 5 Chromebook is that it is significantly faster. While earlier versions featured a battery-friendly Intel Atom chip, these first Chromebooks often felt underpowered. This new version features an Intel Core chip, as well as 4GB of RAM, an HD camera, two USB 2.0 ports and a 1280x800 display. Pricing starts at $449 for the WiFi-only version. While this is a nice update, what's more interesting here is the launch of Google's first Chromebox ($329), a Mac Mini-like desktop version of the Chromebook that features more ports than the Chromebook, though it is missing an SD card reader. Otherwise, though, its specs are pretty similar to the laptop version. This is the first time Google is officially putting ChromeOS on a desktop machine, something it hopes will make the browser-centric operating system more appealing to business customers.Why Facebook Is Still The Perfect Startup (Slides)
May 29, 10:16PM
Facebook had another tough day today in the public markets, with shares now trading at around $28 after debuting less than two weeks ago at $42.05. Good timing, then, for a new slideshow report out today from the boutique French consulting firm faberNovel, which encourages us to look at the bigger picture, and why, in its words, Facebook is "the perfect startup." The mammoth slideshow is an annual thing for faberNovel, which picks one company to tackle each year -- others have included how Amazon controls e-commerce, how Apple dominates, and what could go wrong with Google. Like those before, the one out today on Facebook is a deep-dive into the company, and it looks not just at the origins of the social network, but what sets it apart from other attempts at global social networks -- and other startups. (And by the way, faberNovel sees all this drama and attention on the IPO as just "one point on a startup trajectory." Some investors may not feel quite the same.)For Your Programmer's Arsenal: A Working Clippy For Any Web Page
May 29, 9:37PM
You're hitting deadline and you want to add that special something that will totally knock your web app out of the park. Do you add rounded corners? A Tweet This button? No, motherlover, you add Clippy JS. Clippy JS, made by Smore, is a cute little bit of Javascript code that allows you to embed Clippy, Merlin, Rover, or Links (all of Microsoft Office fame) into any webpage. You can make these folks do all kinds of things including look around, jump up and down, and even converse with your users. Why? Because it's funny, that's why.Keen On… Andrew Keen: On The Social Web's 'Creepiness' And How To Stop It [TCTV]
May 29, 9:25PM
In this very unique edition of the "Keen On" web video series series typically hosted by Andrew Keen, we had the chance to turn the tables on the self-professed antichrist of Silicon Valley. Keen was interviewed on-stage by our own Alexia Tsotsis last week at the TechCrunch Disrupt NYC conference, so I was able to snag him just after that for a conversation about his new book, "Digital Vertigo: How Today's Online Social Revolution Is Dividing, Diminishing, and Disorienting Us." Akismet Just Filtered Its 50 Billionth Piece Of Spam, Now Seeing 700 Spam Comments Per Second
May 29, 8:49PM
WordPress just hit an impressive milestone today: it has now filtered its 50 billionth piece of spam. Akismet, the homegrown comment filtering system from WordPress maker Automattic is the tool responsible for all the spam fighting. And those spammers keep the system busy. In April, Akismet blocked 1.8 billion spam messages, or 60 million pieces of spam per day, 2.5 million per hour, or 700 per second. Whoa, that's a lot of spam.RIM Halts Trading To Issue Business Update, Hires RBC And J.P. Morgan For "Strategic Review"
May 29, 8:39PM
Canadian smartphone manufacturer RIM has briefly ceased trading of their stock today in order to issue a "business update" from CEO Thorsten Heins to their stockholders. Though the release takes the time to outline some of the company's recent personnel changes, Heins also points out that the company has enlisted the services of both the Royal Bank of Canada and J.P. Morgan to help the company evaluate their financial strategies going forward.Bitly Goes Beyond Link Shortening, But Its Users Are Not Amused
May 29, 8:25PM
Bitly launched a major update and redesign of its link shortening service today that, in the eyes of many of its users, de-emphasizes some of its core feature. Instead of being able to just copy and paste a link, users now have to go through a few extra steps to get their shortened links, for example. This extra complexity brings many new features to the service, but some of its users are anything but happy about the changes.Facebook Has Lost About $35 Billion In Value Since IPO As Shares Dip Below $29
May 29, 7:31PM
Pain, pain, and more pain for Facebook's stock. Facebook sunk into the $20s for the first time today, declining about 9 percent as options trading started. The decline also came a day after a third wave of reports came out about a Facebook phone, which would push the company into the risky and expensive world of building hardware. Shares hit a new low of $28.65 and have closed nearly 10 percent lower at $28.84. After-hours trading has the company down another 0.5 percent to $28.69. That gives the company a market capitalization of $79.02 billion, down from $115 billion market cap Facebook opened at on the day of its IPO when it started trading at $42.05 a share.** (That said, if you're a glass-is-half-full kind of person, Facebook is now cheap, cheap, cheap!)Game Closure Poaches Zynga's CTO Of Mobile To Lead HTML5 Game Development
May 29, 6:51PM
Last we heard from Game Closure, the young startup had just turned down offers from Zynga and Facebook on its way to a $12 million raise from Highland Capital, Greylock, Benchmark, General Catalyst, and more. Even in spite of $100 million-plus offers, Game Closure CEO Michael Carter tells us that the startup is not eager to sell -- not now, and not in the future. Yet, stealing high-placed executives at the big gaming companies? Not a problem. Today, Game Closure, which is building a game development environment and SDK that makes it easy for developers to create, host, and deploy HTML5, cross-platform, multiplayer games, is announcing that it has poached Laurent Desegur away from Zynga, making the engineer and executive VP of Mobile Engineering. Until recently, Desegur had been CTO of Zynga Mobile, on top of being a veteran of Netflix, Big Fish Games, Amazon, Apple, and EA -- to name a few.Amazon Instant Video Comes to Xbox 360
May 29, 6:05PM
Amazon just announced that its Instant Video service is now available on Microsoft's Xbox 360. With the Amazon Instant Video app for Xbox Live Gold subscribers, Xbox users can now access the roughly 120,000 movies and TV episodes available for renting and purchasing on Amazon's streaming video service. The app also offers access to the more limited Prime Instant video selection, Amazon's video service for its $79/year Prime members.Doing It Wrong: Irish Newspaper Licensing Organization Asks Women's Charity To Pay For Links
May 29, 5:53PM
An Irish women's charity, Women's Aid, linked to some articles on the Irish Examiner (like this, this, and this) and thought that all was right with the world. Heck, that's how the Internet works, right? It turns out that according to the Irish Newspaper Licensing organization, you need to pay to link to the newspapers. And there the troubles begin.HTC Evo 4G LTE Review: Initial Impressions (Hands-On Photos)
May 29, 5:41PM
Evo. It's one of the few HTC/Sprint models to make a splash in the mobile ocean, and after a brief stay at U.S. customs, the latest iteration should do the same. The Evo 4G LTE is the most powerful Evo to date, with a 4.7-inch 720p display, a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, and 1GB of RAM under the hood. But these specs are in no way novel, which means that quite a bit comes down to HTC's software offerings and design language.Sprint's Aging iDEN Network Could Go Dark As Soon As June 2013
May 29, 5:30PM
Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has been planning to kill off the carrier's aging iDEN network since 2010, but now Sprint has finally delivered a date for iDEN's demise. The carrier has just announced that they plan to pull the plug on their iDEN network as soon as June 30, 2013. Thankfully, from the ashes of the company's near-dead 2G network will rise enhanced 3G service and Sprint's new 4G LTE network.Viddy Updates iOS App To Add Custom Cover Art, Faster Uploads, And Local Language Support
May 29, 5:19PM
Mobile video sharing service Viddy has been busy adding new features to its iOS app, which will now provide more customization options for content that users upload. Along with the latest app update, Viddy has also rolled out a new web experience that makes more of the mobile features available to users who don't have the app installed. Viddy version 1.7, which goes live in the app store Tuesday, will let users designate Instagram-like cover art for their videos. The app will suggest a few still images from each video to use as thumbnails, or users can select to upload their own images from the iPhone's photo library. Once an image is chosen, users can then add one of 16 different custom effects to the thumbnail.This Sassy Little Robot Lets Your Friends Follow You Around With Telepresence
May 29, 5:15PM
Although one could argue that Facetime and Skype are already nearly perfect telepresence systems, there's definitely some value in having a jolly little robot sit on your shoulder and transmit, in real time, everything you see and hear to a friend far away. Right? Please say I'm right? This experimental robot is called the Miniature Humanoid 2 or MH2 and was built in Japan by Yuichi Tsumaki, Fumiaki Ono, and Taisuke Tsukuda of Yamagata University in Japan. The robot requires a big honking backpack so it's a little bit cumbersome but essentially the MH2 can move around on your shoulder as you move around the world, creating a sort of Master/Blaster relationship or, more likely, a Kuato/host human situation.iPhone App Downloads Dropped Again In April, As Apple's Bot Crackdown Continues
May 29, 4:21PM
Mobile app downloads continued to decline in April and the cost to acquire loyal users picked up, reports mobile marketing firm Fiksu in its latest report out today. This downward trend was expected, as no major events sparked app discovery during the month, explains Fiksu CEO Micah Adler. However, mobile app marketers were particularly aggressive in the social networking and games categories during April, both of which experienced volatility throughout the month. With the former (social networking), the reason had to do with the $1 billion acquisition of Instagram, which drew increased attention to the category. There were also a number of new game releases in April, which led to increased interest and competition among the developer community in that category, as well.More FB IPO Fallout? Russia's Leading Social Network Vkontakte's IPO 'Postponed Indefinitely'
May 29, 4:05PM
In the aftermath-analysis about what exactly happened in the Facebook IPO, and what it might mean for the future, here's one side-effect to the east of Nasdaq: Vkontake, the top social network in Russia, which shares a shareholder with Facebook, Mail.ru, has decided to delay its own IPO. The news was confirmed by the company's CEO Pavel Durov on Twitter. In Russian, he tweeted, in answer to a Russian journalist's question about the planned IPO date, "It's not planned. The IPO of Facebook has destroyed the faith of a lot of private investors in social networks and the IPO of VK has now been postponed indefinitely."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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