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Confirmed: Waze And Others Contributing To Apple's iOS 6 Maps' Crowd Sourced Traffic Data
Jun 13, 1:16AM
Shortly after yesterday's Apple WWDC keynote there was plenty of chatter amongst the pundits, journalists and developers about which apps Apple had screwed over with iOS 6. In particular is the turn-by-turn map services now baked into iOS 6, a move that removes Google Maps from the core OS altogether. Waze, which launched back in 2009, offers free crowd-sourced traffic and navigation via iOS, Android and other mobile platforms. While it wasn't touched on during the keynote, many assumed that Waze had essentially been killed off by Apple. A jovial Robert Scoble even declared to me that Waze was "screwed" shortly after the end of the keynote. Turns out that that's not true.Cloud Cruiser Raises $6M From ONSET Ventures To Help Companies Get Their Cloud Costs Under Control
Jun 13, 12:19AM
It seems like everyone is moving their IT into the cloud, but very few organizations have a real good sense of how much money they're actually spending there -- or how much money they could be saving by optimizing their costs. That's a problem Cloud Cruiser is looking to solve, by giving companies a comprehensive dashboard to see and manage all their cloud resources. To do so, the company has raised $6 million in Series B funding led by ONSET Ventures and added ONSET founder Terry Opdendyk to its board of directors. Founded in 2010, Cloud Cruiser has built a management platform that integrates with existing enterprise cloud services, keeping a running tally of all the services that a company is using and allowing businesses to lower costs by optimizing usage. Businesses can set budgets and track spend across the entire organization, tying services to individual users or groups. That lets enterprises get very granular reports about where their money is going and get alerts when spending hits certain thresholds.Placecast's ShopAlerts Platform For Geofenced Offers Hits 10M Active Users
Jun 13, 12:02AM
Mobile advertising company Placecast says that there are now 10 million active users on its ShopAlerts platform. To be clear, many of those people probably don't think of themselves as ShopAlerts users, because it's a white label product — mobile operators and other customers can use the technology to power their own mobile offers programs, which use geofencing technology to deliver an offer when a customer is near a specific physical location (most likely a store). Still, it's a sign that the technology is starting to attract significant consumer interest — especially since that 10 million number only counts consumers who have actually opted in to the program and are now receiving alerts.Twitter, Facebook, and Airtime Are Waging War Against The Internet's Stupidity
Jun 12, 11:52PM
The Web is overrun with dumb hashtags, chart-topping fart apps, and guys just waiting to show you their d*cks. But with this week's launch of Twitter's Tailored Trends, Facebook's App Center, and Airtime's safety net, some tech companies are fighting back. If you can't get people to act smarter, at least you can hide their idiocy, and that's what each of these products does. But can we make the Internet smarter and safer with without whitewashing away differing opinions and locking ourselves in an echochamber?Watch This Happy, Happy Man Refurbish An Old Apple II
Jun 12, 10:29PM
This charming man, Todd Harrison, bought a used Apple II and some drives from Ebay and did what any self-respecting geek would do: he gave them the attention and respect they deserved, cleaning all the parts and getting it ready to run some BASIC again. The machines were in pretty rough shape. He powered the CPU on and it seemed to fry a little and as he dug through the box he found packing peanuts in the casings and a number of special treats including a Hayes Microcomputer modem. Todd grabbed some rubbing alcohol and some Clorox and got to work. Why? Because he loved Apple IIs.Metal Parts Hidden Inside A Hard Drive Casing: The New Rickrolling?
Jun 12, 10:10PM
A man in China bought a Samsung hard drive for about $35 on Taobao. He opened it up, plugged it in, and found that it wasn't showing the full storage capacity on his computer. A few minutes later, he found out why - someone had replaced the innards with a bunch of nuts and bolts hotglued into the case. The light? It was just connected to a USB key.Birchbox Turns To Advertising Birchbox Men…In The Woman's Birchbox
Jun 12, 10:04PM
Birchbox Men launched in early April. The service promised to deliver the same sort of goodies as the woman's Birchbox, just with a male theme. As Kim-Mai wrote at the time, this could include four to five picks per month with samples like high-end shave gel, deodorant and skincare products from brands like Billy Jealousy, Costume National, Kérastase and Kiehl's. The Birchbox Men boxes could even include headphones or socks. But the company just ratcheted up the marketing with a little teaser in the woman's Birchbox this month, clearly targeting the subscriber's male counterpart -- Father's Day being this Sunday might have something to do with the timing, too.General Catalyst Joins SV Angel, Andreessen And Yuri Milner To Invest In The Y Combinator Start Fund
Jun 12, 9:44PM
The Start Fund, the consortium of top investors who are backing all Y Combinator companies, has a new partner: General Catalyst. The storied 12-year-old venture firm has already been busy expanding into Silicon Valley from its Boston home in recent years -- and it has already gotten into around ten YC companies, including top ones like rental marketplace AirBnB and payments company Stripe. So the fund is a natural extension of the firm's effort. Started early last year by DST's Yuri Milner and SV Angel (and later adding Andreessen Horowitz), it has been providing $150,000 convertible notes to every single company that gets accepted into Y Combinator, on top of the $20k that the seed-stage venture firm already puts in. This way, of course, these investors can get equity in any of the many YC startups that turn into big businesses, instead of having to battle it out in later rounds with the countless others who want in.Google's Chrome Web Store Adds Section For Offline Apps And More In-Depth Stats For Developers
Jun 12, 8:20PM
Google just announced that it is adding a few interesting new features to its Chrome Web Apps store. The company's store for free and paid web-based apps and browser extensions, which is featured prominently in the Chrome browser, is now also coming to six additional countries: Turkey, Ukraine, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates. Most importantly, though, Google is now adding a section with apps that work offline to its store. Among the apps currently highlighted in this section are some of Google's own apps (Scratchpad, Docs, Offline Gmail etc.), as well as apps from prominent third-party developers like Angry Birds and the NYTimes app.Velti Mobile Ad Report: iOS Pulls Way Ahead of Android, iPod Touch Beating iPad
Jun 12, 8:01PM
After spending last year engaged in a "tug-of-war" with Android over mobile ad impressions, iOS has been building a big lead in the past few months, according to a new report from mobile marketing company Velti. Velti's past reports pegged iOS share of mobile ad impressions at 53 percent in March, which increased to 55 percent in April, and now to 59 percent in May. The report also points out the strong performance of the iPod Touch, which received 14.9 percent of total ad impressions — not just more than any Android device, but also more than the iPad.ZURB Acquires Design Database And Community Pattern Tap
Jun 12, 7:28PM
Interactive design and strategy firm ZURB today announced that it has acquired Pattern Tap, "a place where designers can find inspiration and study patterns of user interaction." ZURB, which has released many of its internally developed apps for designers over the last few years (including Twitter Bootstrap competitor Foundation), plans to integrate Pattern Tab into ZURBexpo, its content-focused property that it uses to showcase its own blog posts, demos and other content it produces in-house. The financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.More iOS 6 Features: New Privacy Settings, Share Widgets, Revamped Store Apps & More
Jun 12, 6:30PM
Yesterday, Apple revealed the latest version of its iOS operating system, iOS 6, which promises over 200 new features. On stage, Apple presented a subset of these, touting new additions like an improved version of Siri, Facebook integration, a new phone app, FaceTime over 3G/4G, an updated version of Safari with iCloud Tabs, a new version Photo Stream, the introduction of PassBook, Apple Maps, and more. But now folks are uncovering a few more gems, as screenshots and videos from developer builds of iOS 6 leak into the wild. Below are some of the more minor (but still notable) features we've found.DIY Electronic Bike Shifter
Jun 12, 6:12PM
WHy ride like the rest of humanity when you can turn your bike into a robo-shifting supermachine? This Instructable by programmer and maker Nabil Tewolde shows us how to create a push-button-controlled electronic derailleur system with parts you can pick up at your local electronics shop.Nokia U.S. Head Confirms PureView Imaging Tech Is Headed To Future Lumia Phones
Jun 12, 6:10PM
The charmingly chunky PureView 808 was the first to sport Nokia's impressive new imaging technology, but it (thankfully) won't be the last. In a brief video interview with HowardForums, Nokia US President Chris Weber noted that the company's lauded PureView camera tech would eventually find a new home on Windows Phones. "You can expect we'll be bringing PureView technologies to the Windows Phone platform and future Lumia devices," he said. "We're absolutely committed to doing that."Kytephone Officially Launches App To Turn Android Phones Into Kid-Safe Devices
Jun 12, 5:59PM
Kytephone, the mobile app that transforms Android smartphones into kid-safe devices, is officially making its public debut today. The startup had previously been in beta, following its reveal at this spring's Y Combinator Demo Day, where founders Renat Gataullin and Martin Drashkov first detailed their company's vision. The idea behind Kytephone is simple. It addresses parents' growing concerns over the access that these mobile computers (aka smartphones) offer children. Kids can surf the web, download apps, text and call anyone, snap photos and send them around to friends (or strangers) and more. But on the other hand, equipping kids with a phone is often seen as a must for reasons related to convenience and safety. That's where Kytephone comes in. By locking down the phone, the app allows parents to give kids a smartphone for all the good reasons, without the negative consequences.Twitter Launches Tailored Trends Based On Your Location And Who You Follow
Jun 12, 5:41PM
Twitter just announced that it will now personalize its trending topics section based on your location and who you follow. This update, says Twitter, will ensure that the trending topics list will now "show emerging topics that matter more to you." You will still be able to switch back to the standard, non-personalized view and see what's trending in a specific city or country (or worldwide), but the tailored trends will become the default. Twitter is currently rolling this feature out to all of its users, but this will be a gradual roll-out, so it may take a little bit before these updated trending topics appear in your account.Siri's Nemesis Evi Relaunches, Recruits Berkowitz From Wolfram Alpha, Opens US Office
Jun 12, 5:25PM
We saw what happened yesterday with the Siri announcements from Apple. Clearly they see it as core to their strategy and its deep integration inside iOS reflects its increasing importance. Plenty of other players see the importance of voice-driven Q&A-plus-actions and a few attempts are roaming around on Android, such as Vlingo. However, the Siri-like app to beat right now is Evi. It launched in late January and soon had Apple threatening to pull it from the app store, although it was later left alone. Since then Evi - which works on any iOS device - has appeared on Android and the company behind it has a bunch of new moves out today.Hipmunk Raises $15M Series B, Promises Big Product Improvements
Jun 12, 5:21PM
My favorite travel site Hipmunk just announced that it has raised $15 million in a Series B round of funding. The round was led by Institutional Venture Partners, and IVP parter Todd Chaffee will be joining the Hipmunk board. Previous investor Ignition Partners also invested.Drag-And-Drop Mobile App Builder Tiggzi Makes Building Native And Web Apps Easier, Adds SMS and mHealth Plugins
Jun 12, 5:20PM
We first wrote about Tiggzi, a DIY mobile app maker that gives you far more flexibility than most of its competitors, when it launched its public beta a few weeks ago. Since then, the service, which was developed by software engineering company Exadel, has added quite a few more features, making it even easier to develop relatively fully featured apps with its drag-and-drop interface. Among these new features are the ability to expert native iOS binaries and to export Windows Phone source code (Tiggzi promises that the option to export the compiled binaries for Windows Phone is coming soon). Tiggzi also added support for AT&T's text messaging and MHealth API. Starting later this month, Tiggzi will also launch its own database solution, Tiggzi DB.CakeHealth Launches Version 2.0 For A New Look And Feel To The "Mint.com For Health Insurance"
Jun 12, 5:04PM
CakeHealth, the online tool for managing and tracking healthcare expenses, is rolling out a completely rebuilt and redesigned version of its web app today. The San Francisco-based CakeHealth first debuted with the aim of being "the Mint for health insurance" back in September 2011 as a finalist at TechCrunch Disrupt. CEO and founder Rebecca Woodcock came by TechCrunch TV this week to give us an update on how things have been going since then. You can watch our interview in the video embedded above to hear about what's new in the redesign and rebuild, how health care reform could impact the company, what motivated her to start CakeHealth in the first place, and more.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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