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Botched Software Update To Networking Gear Caused One Of GitHub's All-Time Worst Outages
Dec 27, 8:29AM
A botched software update to networking gear caused one of GitHub's all-time worst outages last weekend, the second major disruption that customers of the the popular social coding platform have suffered through in the past several weeks.Samsung Unveils ChatON 2.0, Gives Sneak Peeks Of Its Smart TV, Smart Hub Ahead Of CES
Dec 27, 5:52AM
Samsung is keeping its fans entertained during the lull between Christmas and New Years with a several announcements and teasers: a CES 2013 Smart TV teaser video, a sneak peek at its Smart Hub, a content platform for Samsung Smart TV, and a new version of ChatON that turns its cross-platform messaging app into a social media network.Fab Achieves Mobile Commerce Goal With 56% Of Xmas Day Revenue From Its Apps
Dec 27, 3:23AM
Fab announced today that 56% of its Christmas day U.S. revenue was from sales through its mobile apps, a new single day record for the design-focused e-commerce platform. Forty percent of its European revenue on that day was also via mobile, another milestone for the company.Top Japanese Messaging App Line Adds Kids Apps To Its Growing Product Roster
Dec 27, 2:43AM
Japan's top smartphone messaging app, Line, which reaches about a third of that country's mobile phone users, just announced the release of Line Kids (link via Google Translate), for children aged six and younger. Line Kids is currently available only in Japan, and developer NHN Japan says it does not currently have plans to release it outside of the country. But, as Kim-Mai Cutler noted in a November profile of Line, the app has the potential to become a very important messaging player throughout the world, and marketing to families and children will help it increase its already large user base.There Are Now 1,000 Members Listing Their Homes Through 'Unhotel' Service Onefinestay
Dec 27, 2:09AM
If you owned a swanky apartment or house, would you really want to rent it out to strangers? Well, startup onefinestay seems to have found an audience for its upscale twist of the Airbnb model, which it describes as running an "unhotel." The company says there are now more than 1,000 members in London and New York listing their homes exclusively through its service. The service launched in London, but onefinestay says it's growing quickly in New York, where there are now 150 members. The total has apparently quadrupled in the past 12 months — and back in July, when it raised a $12 million Series B, the company said it had crossed 500 homes.Netflix Confirms It Will Add Social Sharing Features In 2013, Once Obama Signs New Bill
Dec 27, 2:01AM
Netflix has confirmed to Talking Points Memo that it will introduce social sharing features for U.S. users in 2013, following the passage of a bill that will make it easier for users of the on-demand video streaming platform to share what movies they have seen with friends on their social networking accounts. The legislation, passed last week, just needs President Obama's signature.Virurl Integrates RSS Into Its Sponsored Content Platform
Dec 27, 1:24AM
Virurl has launched a new feature that it says will make it even easier for publishers to promote articles and videos through its platform. The feature is called RSS Ads, and it offers another way to convert articles into advertising — when a new article gets posted to a publisher's RSS feed, it automatically becomes an ad, which can then be promoted through the content widget displayed on Virurl's partner sites, as well as through the social influencers who get paid to share Virurl content. In the press release announcing the new feature, co-founder and CEO Francisco Diaz-Mitom said that it allows advertisers to "stay focused on what they do best — creating valuable content." The company also argues that by allowing publishers to promote, more content, it will increase clickthrough rates.A Whimsical Seasonal Greeting From A Human Camera
Dec 26, 10:45PM
One of the stranger things I came across while in Tokyo last month was a digital artist who built a human camera that requires touch from another person to snap photos. It is artist Eric Siu’s bit of rebellion against an increasingly technology-dependent world that distances people from real-life interactions. This effect is especially pronounced where Siu lives in Japan, as the Internet has allowed "Hikikomori" and "Otaku" sub-cultures to thrive. In “Hikikomori” culture, teens actually shut themselves in from interaction with the outside world. As social networking, e-mail and other forms of digital communication replace or squeeze out time for face-to-face meetings, Siu wanted to create a piece of technology that required the opposite — real human touch. The Touchy Camera, which he built using off-the-shelf parts for a few hundred dollars, is a wearable camera that requires another person to touch the wearer in order for it to work. Otherwise, the wearer is blind because the camera’s shutter doesn’t open without contact from someone else (see the GIF I made below). If you touch him for 10 seconds or longer, that camera snaps a photo that’s viewable from an LCD screen on the back of the his head. We walked around with it one morning in the Roppongi Hills area in Tokyo. And to make an understatement, the effect on bystanders was a bit magical. Some people would run away if they saw us come close, while others started asking questions. When some of them touched him and the shutters in front of his eyes opened, they gasped and smiled. The camera works when human touch completes a simple circuit. Siu hands you something that looks like a lightbulb to hold in one hand, and when you touch him with the other, it completes a basic low-voltage circuit. Siu only has one version of the Touchy camera, although people have asked him before about buying one as a toy. Since releasing it earlier this year, he’s performed all around mainland China and Asia and actually has gotten a bit of interest in it as a product. He says he would be open to making others if there was demand. He and his partner, another character named Margaret Toucha, just made a holiday video (above) filled with boxers, pole dancers and some meandering around downtown Tokyo.Journalists' Addresses Posted In Revenge For Newspaper's Google Map Of Gun Permit Owners
Dec 26, 9:15PM
A week after the Newtown massacre, The Journal News published an interactive Google Map with the names and addresses of gun permit owners in select New York cities. The bold move has escalated into a transparency arms race, after a Connecticut lawyer posted the phone number and addresses of the Journal's staff, including a Google Maps satellite Image of the Publisher's home. "I don't know whether the Journal's publisher Janet Hasson is a permit holder herself, but here's how to find her to ask," read Christopher Fountain's blog post. The double irony here is that open data was heralded as a tool of enlightened civic dialog, and has been co-opted for fierce partisanship, bordering on public endangerment.Box's Gameplan For 2013: A Third-Party App Economy; Expanding Security And More
Dec 26, 8:56PM
As you talk to Aaron Levie, the co-founder of fast growing cloud storage company Box, it's hard not to notice his incredible energy when he talks about enterprise storage possibilities. Six years in, Levie is still as passionate about what he is trying to build as he was back in Mike Arrington's backyard pitching VCs on Box in 2006. Box has had a big year, and one that many could call a turning point for the company. After raising $125 million in new funding a reported $1.2 billion valuation in July, the company is finishing off 2012 by nearly tripling revenue from last year, and preparing the company to possibly enter the public markets in 2013 or 2014. We sat down with Levie to talk about Box's gameplan for 2013, his education in being a leader and CEO, and more.Gracenote's Ad Replacement System That Personalizes TV Commercials Will Start Trials In 2013
Dec 26, 7:53PM
Most TV commercials are poorly targeted and show things you'd never buy. But not for long. Gracenote's new ad replacement system combines viewing habits with personal info to show you more relevant commercials. Gracenote will demo it at CES and start trials in 2013. The rev-share is still in talks, but higher CPMs could enlarge the $70 billion TV ad market and give Gracenote and partners a nice cutPublishing: The Road Ahead
Dec 26, 7:46PM
With the closing of Spin Magazine's print edition alongside the failure of the print edition of Newsweek (not to mention the shuttering of countless newspapers and magazines around the world) you'd be hard-pressed to say that publishing - particularly in the news space - is doing well.Google Extends Free Gmail Voice Calls In The U.S. And Canada Through 2013
Dec 26, 5:35PM
In what is becoming somewhat of a holiday tradition for Google, the company just announced that it is extending free domestic calls from Gmail in the U.S. and Canada for yet another year. Just like at the end of 2011 and 2010, Google today said that Gmail users will once again get one more year of free voice calls from the Gmail chat widget.Inside Snapchat, The Little Photo-Sharing App That Launched A Sexting Scare
Dec 26, 3:00PM
It started with an assumption, really. Snapchat, a photo-sharing application that auto-destroys images seconds after being opened, launched in September 2011 with zero media coverage. A homegrown product, built by two Stanford guys, grew to now see over 50 million snaps per day today. In fact, Facebook launched a clone of the app just Friday. It wasn't until the company made its first milestone announcement, nine months after launch, that the media picked up the story. The New York Times' Nick Bilton whipped out all this cute PEW research on sexting in adults and teens, and referenced "suggestive" marketing materials and even pointed out the app's "mild sexual content or nudity" warning. >From that moment on, whether in milestone achievements, feature and expansion announcements, or stories about Facebook's new Snapchat clone, Snapchat was branded a sexting app.Amazon Pulls Self-Published Memoir About Star Wars Because It References "Star Wars"
Dec 26, 2:30PM
After months of selling a self-published memoir about the effect Star Wars has had on his life, author Gib Van Ert found that Amazon has pulled the title because it references the words "Star Wars" and, presumably, describes some exciting star warring within. Amazon pulled the ebook but, inexplicably, left the paperback version intact.That Instagram Taco Bell Commercial Isn't Part Of Its Business Model
Dec 26, 7:30AM
Beloved phone camera app Instagram sure had a tumultuous week before Christmas, when a change in the wording of its terms of service caused the Internet to erupt in a chasm of knee-jerk reactions: "Instagram is going to sell my photos!" the jerkiest knees exclaimed.Developing That Connected Space Between The Cloud And Everything Else
Dec 26, 5:00AM
Yoics is a startup with a cloud service that connects and networks devices to the cloud. It sounds simple enough but realistically the complexity in connecting devices individually into a network of shared features shows how primitive the general cloud is in its present form. Yoics, which this week received $1 million in a CrunchFund lead investment, is a service that provides accesss directly at the core TCP service level to provide a “service level virtual private network.” It provides access for developers to their devices and apps, but also the ability to 'virtualize' various elements of the products so unique access can be provided. The Yoics API allows networked devices to be connected to or shared like any web service, while maintaining privacy and security for users. Yoics abstracts the physical device itself to make distinct features available such as a the camera on a laptop or a smartphone. For Yoics, the cloud serves as a hub that it uses to layer services. Yoics automates the manual work it would normally take to manage devices. The virtualization aspect to this is key here. Most remote management services access the entire device, not discreet features. Yoics explains the complexity this way: In a world where everything is connected to the Internet, it is actually hard to network various devices to one another. This is especially true for the various silos of LAN and mobile devices from various makers. To make a device on a LAN remotely accessible requires the network router to be configured to open a port and for the remote user to know the (static) IP address and port number to access it. This type of complex configuration is typically beyond the skill set of most consumers and also creates a security vulnerability that can be exploited by a variety of threats. Yoics hits on a huge problem. The gap between device manufacturers is enormous. Each smartphone maker has different ways they configure their devices. Further, the cloud in its current form is not meant to accommodate networking between devices and their respective features. And it’s why the definition of that space between the cloud and everything else represents one of the biggest opportunities for the new year and well beyond. Here’s why. Everything is getting connected. Cars, houses, and any device imaginable will soon have the ability to connect with one another. But those devices have to connect via the cloud, each withTwitter Is Already Winning The Social TV War, But It Will Soon Do More
Dec 26, 3:00AM
Twitter is reaching out to TV producers and showrunners to find out ways that it can further integrate with the TV experience. That could mean Twitter-based voting, in the case of some competitive reality shows. It could also mean introducing interactive elements in scripted shows that viewers could use to unlock new content or web experiences.In Mexico, Tech Is Used To Help Combat Narco Violence, Insecurity
Dec 26, 3:00AM
Google has been used for many ends, but in the hands of researcher Viridiana Rios, the search engine has become a tool to fight Mexican drug cartels and help the government organize to prevent violence. Rios is a researcher at Harvard University who recently published a paper about a tool she created to track publicly available cartel data and how it can inform Mexican security officials' work.Samsung Seeks U.S. Sales Ban On Some Ericsson Products As The Two Continue Wrangling Over Patents
Dec 26, 2:45AM
The patents war between Samsung Electronics and Ericsson rolls on. The Korean electronics company has announced that it filed a complaint last week against the Swedish telecom manufacturer with the U.S. International Trade Commission, requesting a U.S. import and sales on some Ericsson products. This latest action comes one month after Ericsson sued Samsung in the U.S. for patent infringement,and requested an ITC U.S. import ban on Samsung products.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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