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Thursday, January 31, 2013

Jan 31 - New 'TechCrunch' feed email from feed2email.net

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Eventbrite Registration Gets Even Easier With One-Click Sign Ups For Free Events

Jan 31, 7:05PM

eventbrite one clickIt's already pretty darn easy to sign up to attend an event on Eventbrite, but I have to admit that there are still times when I grumble about having to fill out a short form. And if you're an event organizer, you probably want to eliminate any obstacles for potential attendees. That's why Eventbrite is starting to roll out an even faster sign-up process.


CES Awards The DISH Hopper "Best Of CES" After All, Drops CNET As Awards Partner

Jan 31, 6:52PM

HopperSling_3qtr_Left_elevated_Joey_ClippedCES today issued a press release announcing that DISH's Hopper with Sling technology built-in is the "Best of Show" after all, an honor it will share with existing winner the Razer Edge for the 2013 show. The decision follows the revelation that CNET was ordered to remove the Hopper from consideration after CNET parent company CBS asked them to. CBS is currently involved in litigation with DISH over Hopper functionality.


DerbyJackpot Makes Betting On The Ponies A Little Less Sketchy

Jan 31, 6:47PM

Screen Shot 2013-01-31 at 10.48.19 AMMy grandpa, like so many men with post-WWII PTSD, used hit the OTB downtown for a little Night Train, some betting, and some losing. That was then, this is now. You, too, can crack open a fine ripple and bet on the ponies but now you can do it from the comfort of your laptop. DerbyJackpot.com is, in short, is taking advantage of a legal loophole that makes horserace betting the only legal form of online gambling. And they're making it social.


Facebook Unveils The "Facebook Card," A Reusable Gift Card That Holds Multiple Balances From Different Stores

Jan 31, 6:34PM

facebook cardFacebook Gifts were one of the lower points of Facebook's earnings yesterday, but that doesn't mean the company isn't continuing to innovate on the gifting front. Today, Facebook announced the "Facebook Card," which is a new way for people to give their friends gifts to places like Jamba Juice, Olive Garden, Sephora, and Target, all on one reusable gift card purchased from Facebook.


YC-Backed Hipmob Wants To Become The Premier In-App Customer Service Tool

Jan 31, 6:00PM

imagesUsing text chat to provide customer service is a pretty standard tool on the web, but when it comes to mobile apps, these chats are still very rare, despite the fact that a lot of online commerce has already moved to mobile. The Y Combinator-backed Hipmob, which offers these chat features and integration with standard IM clients and CRM tools as a service, hopes to become the "premier support service for mobile," as the company's co-founder Ayo Omojola told me earlier this week.


Twelve South's New SurfacePad Gives Your iPhone A Smart Cover

Jan 31, 5:41PM

SPiPhone_stand_gallerymain_1TwelveSouth announced a new iPhone accessory today, one that probably looks familiar if you're aware of Apple's Smart Cover and Smart Case products. The SurfacePad for iPhone is a sheath of Napa leather that wraps around your phone and provides basic level protection while adding a minimum amount of weight and thickness.


Mobile Banking And Payment Startup mFoundry Sold To FIS For $120M On $165M Valuation

Jan 31, 5:32PM

mfoundrySome consolidation in the world of mobile payments and mobile banking: mFoundry is getting acquired by FIS for $120 million. FIS -- a banking and payment provider that works with some 14,000 banks worldwide -- already had a 22% stake in the company; today's deal will see it paying for the remaining 78% in cash. mFoundry provides mobile banking and mobile payment solutions to some 850 banks and retailers, including Bank of America and Starbucks, which uses some of mFoundry's technology to enable mobile payments, which complements the partnership that Starbucks has with Square.


Apple Reportedly Discontinuing Mac Pro Sales In Europe Starting In March [Update: Confirmed]

Jan 31, 5:19PM

Image (1) MacPro_3D_Box_34Whit49c4ea2009c5a-620x465.jpg for post 169301Apple's Mac Pro has been on the chopping block for a long time according to many industry watchers and pundits, and as of March it will actually get the axe in Europe. But the Pro's debatable market appeal isn't what's causing the termination of sales in that region: the existing models simply don't comply with Europe's new regulatory standards for consumer electronics, according to 9to5Mac.


Verizon Wireless Stores Now Selling Square Card Readers

Jan 31, 5:14PM

squarePayments startup Square has scored another retailer partnership, as today Verizon Wireless says it will begin stocking the Square Card Reader in its stores, effective immediately. The readers, which allow iOS and Android users to accept credit card and debit card payments, will sell for $9.97 at Verizon's stores, and come with a $10 credit to users' Square accounts, making the transaction essentially free for consumers. This is the same pricing that Square's other retailers have in place, too.


For Its Sixth Class, 500 Startups Accelerator Will Use AngelList For All Startup Applications

Jan 31, 5:00PM

Starship 500 blog imageEver since the launch of the 500 Startups Accelerator a few years ago, Dave McClure and his crew have filled five classes with recruits that have come through his vast referral network -- recommended by mentors, advisors, and alumni alike. But that will change this time around, as 500 Startups will now leverage AngelList for all applications after successfully testing out the platform.


Authy Brings Two-Factor Authentication To Self-Hosted WordPress Sites

Jan 31, 5:00PM

android_store_512If you run your own WordPress site, chances are you are using a pretty secure password to keep hackers from posting random stories to your blog. Still, even the best password isn't as good as using Gmail-style two-factor authentication, but unless you are a programmer, chances are you don't have the expertise to make this happen. Authy, which offers two-factor authentication as a service, is hoping to solve this by launching a WordPress plugin today that replaces the standard WordPress login with a more secure two-factor authentication login system.


After A Successful Kickstarter Campaign, Connected Data Raises $6M For Its Transporter Secure Cloud Storage Device

Jan 31, 5:00PM

Transporter_OneA new company called Connected Data wants to change the way people do cloud storage, with a dedicated, Internet-connected storage device called the Transporter. After a successful Kickstarter campaign, the company is looking to get the product in more people's hands, and will be helped in that pursuit by $6 million in Series A funding led by Floodgate, with participation from Northgate Capital.


YC Alum 42Floors Raises $12.3M Led By NEA To Take Its Office Rental Search Engine US-Wide And Beyond

Jan 31, 4:59PM

42floors logo42Floors, the Y-Combinator-incubated startup that has built a search engine for the office rentals market, has raised another $12.3 million -- funding that founder Jason Freedman says the company will use to take its service to markets outside of San Francisco and New York, including its first international move to London by the end of this year. The Series B round was led by new investor NEA, with participation from existing backers Bessemer Venture Partners and Thrive Capital, as well as new investor Columbus Nova Technology Partners.


Republican Senator Says 'Video Games Is A Bigger Problem Than Guns'

Jan 31, 4:56PM

supermarioThis just in from the land of crazy: Republican Senator Lamar Alexander says that "video games is [sic] a bigger problem than guns." We've included the full quote and video below of his Interview with NBC's News' Chuck Todd, responding to a question about background checks for gun owners.


German Fashion Moodboard Startup Stylight Secures "Significant" Multi-Million Euro Series B From ProSiebenSat.1′s SevenVentures

Jan 31, 4:53PM

Stylight logoMunich, Germany-based online fashion moodboard startup, Stylight, has secured a multi-million euro investment from SevenVentures, the venture subsidiary of media company ProSiebenSat.1. The exact amount has not been disclosed. ProSiebenSat.1 operates 29 TV stations across Europe -- and this reach will also benefit Stylight, as the startup said the company will give it "extensive media coverage".


Braintree's New Payments Layer Lets Users Sign Up For Apps Without Re-Entering Their Credit Card Data

Jan 31, 4:00PM

venmo-braintreeBraintree, an Accel and NEA-backed payments company that’s now processing more than $6 billion a year, is launching a new payments layer that lets users sign up to pay for goods and services without having to re-enter their credit card details. Say you use one app in Braintree’s network — like Airbnb. If you’re a new user to Uber, you won’t have to re-enter your credit card all over again because it may be stored in Braintree’s network. They’re calling it Venmo Touch, which keeps the brand of the startup Braintree bought in August for $26.2 million. When you sign up for an app in the Venmo network, you’ll have the option of saving your credit card details in it so they can be used in other apps on the platform. The idea is that by removing one step of friction, more users will go through and complete transactions. The default is checked to opt in users, and Braintree is keeping the initial beta really small with apps like HotelTonight, TaskRabbit and Wrapp. “There’s tremendous overlap in the customer bases of these apps,” said Braintree CEO Bill Ready. “Putting in your card information into an app is painful and people are doing it 10 to 15 times.” Braintree recognizes that a credit card might belong to a particular user through device fingerprinting, which collects a number of attributes about a device to create a unique ID. Ready wouldn’t reveal what inputs the company is using to fingerprint devices, but they could include the device model, browser, network and so on. You’d use enough inputs (potentially hundreds) to create enough combinations so that it would be highly improbable to create duplicates. They also don’t store financial details locally on the phone. “Your data is stored in the cloud,” Ready said. “If we see anything suspicious, we can prompt for the CVV again.” Braintree has about 35 million uniques on its network and processes more than $6 billion in transactions a year. $1.5 billion of that is on mobile devices. The company’s clients include Uber, Rovio, LivingSocial, Airbnb, Fab.com, GitHub, OpenTable, LevelUp, TaskRabbit and HotelTonight. They charge 2.9 percent plus 30 cents of each transaction. Ready says the business is profitable even after paying the payment networks and credit card companies their transaction fees. The company has raised at least $69 million in two rounds from Accel Partners, NEA, Greycroft Partners and


Rovio Adds 20 New Levels To Angry Birds Star Wars With Escape From Hoth Episode

Jan 31, 4:00PM

angrybirdsstarwarsA new update out today for Angry Birds Star Wars adds 20 new levels to the game for free, via the new Escape From Hoth content pack. It brings new types of enemies via the "mynock pigs," and adds another boss fight into the mix as well as new bonus levels. I don't know how close to canon this is, but it looks like fun and it's a free extension of Angry Birds gameplay.


1.4B Smartphones In Use By 2013; Only 45M Windows Phones, 20M BB10s As Android, iOS Lead In 'A Race Of Two Horses And Two Ponies'

Jan 31, 3:53PM

poniesABI Research has put out its latest projections on the lay of the land for smartphones and tablets worldwide in 2013: it says that there will be 1.4 billion smartphones, and 268 million tablets in active use this year, with Android keeping its lead in handsets and iOS continuing to dominate in tablets. Microsoft and BlackBerry will continue to remain in the game in smartphones with small shares of the market -- but big enough to keep developers interested. In other words, it won't be a two-horse race, ABI tells me: "Maybe a race of two horses and two ponies."


Twitter Currently Experiencing Widespread, Rolling Service Outage [Update: Resolved]

Jan 31, 3:23PM

fail-whaleTwitter is currently experiencing a widespread service outage that appears to be intermittent, according to our checks with the web client, third-party apps and website service status checking tools. Other TC staff are able to access the service on and off every few minutes, but it seems like the stream is interrupted, and third-party clients like Tweetbot still appear to be having trouble connecting at all, although they're still able to send and receive direct messages.


Amazon Expands Its Original Video Lineup With Five New Children's Pilots, Including Those From The Jim Henson Company & Blue's Clues Creator

Jan 31, 3:12PM

AmazonStudiosFor parents, Amazon's latest additions to its original video lineup is kind of a big deal. Today, the company says it has green-lit five new children's test pilots to beef up its catalog of original video content on Amazon Instant Video and Prime Instant Video, as well as on European counterparts LOVEFiLM UK and LOVEFiLM Germany. One of the new pilots, "Teeny Tiny Dogs," is produced by The Jim Henson Company and created by Howard Baker of "Rugrats" fame. Another is an animated series called "Creative Gallery," which comes from Angela Santomero. Parents may not recognize her name, but they'll know her work - she's also the creator of "Super Why!," as well as Emmy-nominated "Blue's Clues," and "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood," the latter which extends the legacy of Mister Rogers' world of make-believe into a new series.



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59% Of All Android Tablet Usage Comes From The U.S., And The Forked Amazon Kindle Fire Is The Most Popular Brand




TechCrunch » android





59% Of All Android Tablet Usage Comes From The U.S., And The Forked Amazon Kindle Fire Is The Most Popular Brand



Kindle Fire -1

Android tablets have nearly caught up to iPad devices as the world’s most popular tablet platform, and some project that they may even overtake iPads later this year. According to new research from app analytics company Localytics, the U.S., and specifically Amazon, should take the most credit for that trend: some 59% of all Android tablet usage came from the U.S., with over half of that attributed to Kindle Fire and Fire HD tablets, working out to a 33% share.



The numbers are based on usage of apps with Localytics analysis and marketing data installed on them. Localytics says that in total there are 500 million+ unique devices running that software.


That is enough of a lead, in the leading Android tablet market, to make Amazon’s Kindle Fire the world’s most popular Android tablet. But it’s a very regional victory for now, and would likely to come a surprise to Android users outside of the U.S.


The U.S. is Amazon’s first and main market for the Kindle Fire, with Amazon only starting to roll out the tablets to other markets towards the end of 2012 (first in the UK market), around a year after launching in the U.S.


That means that some 89% of Amazon’s tablets “live in America, with most of the rest in Great Britain,” writes Localytics’ Daniel Ruby. “After those two, no other country has even one percent of worldwide Kindle Fires.”


In the rest of the world, however, the Android tablet game is Samsung’s to lose. Ruby tells me that the Korean device maker’s Galaxy line accounts for 76% of all Android tablet usage across non-U.S. markets. Nexus 7 came in second at 15%, and Kindle Fire’s global share is just 9%.


Localytics notes that if Amazon manages to work out its international distribution, then “their U.S. success suggests they could quickly dominate the Android tablet market worldwide.”


Indeed, in the market where Amazon has been the longest, it has stolen a march on traditional competitors like Barnes & Noble, whose Android-based Nook has only 10% of the market in the U.S., and even less than Amazon outside of there.


The rise of the Kindle Fire speaks to another, persistent trend in the Android world: the presence and success of “official” Google versions of the platform and those that are not.


Because Fire is built on a “forked” version of Android, the Google Play app storefront doesn’t appear on it.


That means two things: first, Amazon gets more control to push its own advertising, and its own services on the devices over those of Google and others — something it is doing more by extending payment services and possibly adding in the ability to incorporate a voice API for voice recognition services.


Second, it means more legwork for developers and an imperative to create apps specifically for the Kindle Fire, if not with a view for global distribution today, then for the promise of it in the future.


“Any Android developer with a focus on tablets should be distributing their apps in the Amazon App Store,” writes Ruby. “The degree to which Amazon has dominated their most serious geographical market should speak to the future potential, and since Google Play is unavailable on the Kindle Fire family, adding Amazon’s App Store as a distribution channel is important.”


Figures from ABI Research in November 2012 noted that in the last quarter, iPad devices accounted for 55% of sales, while Android tablets accounted for 44%.










Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Jan 30 - New 'TechCrunch' feed email from feed2email.net

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California Starts Sending Big Bills To Startup Investors For $120 Million In New Retroactive Taxes

Jan 30, 7:02PM

brianoverstreet taxMany entrepreneurs, investors, and early employees in startups in the state of California are now starting to receive big bills in the mail for back taxes that they never expected to owe. That's because in late December, when many of us were heading out for the holiday break, the state's Franchise Tax Board eliminated a deduction that had been available since 1993 to people who made money from selling stock in California-based small businesses, as long as they reinvested their gains in other small businesses in the state.


Google Forms Gets A Refresh, Adds Collaboration And Smarter Editing Features

Jan 30, 6:43PM

google_drive_ios_logoGoogle Forms just got a nice little refresh and now allows you to build questionnaires and collect the data in a Google Drive spreadsheet a bit easier. The new version of Forms now allows you to collaborate with others while building your questionnaires and surveys, a feature that has long been standard across the rest of the Google Docs/Drive suite. In addition, Google also added a few new editing features to the service.


Dropbox Launches Instant File Previews And Virtual Photo Album Sharing

Jan 30, 6:29PM

Dropbox Photo SHaringToday Dropbox launched the ability to instantly preview any file you've saved so you don't have to download it to know what it is. It also launched a photos tab for the web to make it easy to view and share photos you've uploaded. Product Manager Chris Beckmann explained "Both are related to a shift that we're seeing thats underway at Dropbox from thinking about things as files to thinking about things as users' content."


Nokia Starts Rolling Out Windows Phone 7.8 To Lumia Owners, Will Continue Over The Coming Weeks

Jan 30, 6:24PM

lumia900_465Nokia has announced via its Conversations blog that the long-awaited Windows Phone 7.8 update, which brings a few of the features from Windows Phone 8 to older hardware, has begun rolling out to owners of Nokia 510, 610, 710, 800 and 900 owners and will continue to do so over the next few weeks through February, pending operator approval.


Yesterday Alicia Keys Was An iPhone Addict, Today She's BlackBerry's Global Creative Director

Jan 30, 6:08PM

lololIt wouldn't be a BlackBerry press event without something totally unexpected and semi-weird thrown in the mix. Today, at BlackBerry's media conference revealing BlackBerry 10, the company appointed Alicia Keys as the new Global Creative Director. Her first act as GCD was to talk about how much she loves BlackBerry 10 at today's media conference. Her other responsibilities are somewhat unclear -- just like will.i.am's role at Intel.


Uber Comes To Asia, Starts Trials In Singapore

Jan 30, 6:05PM

Uber Singapore bookingUber has brought its premium taxi calling app to Singapore—the first country in Asia to get it. The company has been trialing its service here for the past week. According to users who have tried it out here, it runs Mercedes Benz S-Class sedans, setting it above the usual smaller Toyota cabs that the dominant service, ComfortDelGro runs. Of course, it charges a premium for the luxury, and fares are about 50 percent more costly than the regular cab, going for about $5 as a base charge and costing $10 as a minimum fare on top of that. Here’s the price list for Singapore. The company is planning its official launch in the island state around late February, and has started hiring a small base of local staff. It was speculated that Uber would choose Tokyo for its Asian debut, since its founder, Travis Kalanick, had visited the land of the rising sun to explore the option. Hong Kong may also be next; Uber has hired someone on the ground there. Uber has had its fair share of run-ins with the law in the US. Since its launch in 2010, Kalanick has been served with cease-and-desist letters from the California Public Utility Commission and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. He got one in Boston as well, got sued in Chicago, and faced blocks in Washington D.C.. In Singapore, taxi drivers are regulated by the government, so an individual cab driver that isn't tied to any of the cab companies still needs a taxi license. Uber might circumvent this rule and not have to register itself as a taxi company here by claiming its cabs can't be flagged on the road, and are private to those hailing them via their smartphones. But since Kalanick isn't new to lawsuits, the company looks like it's taking its typical "launch first, ask questions later" approach to the market. He plans to be in Singapore late February to launch the service officially.


The BlackBerry Q10 Is A Curious Blend Of Old And New

Jan 30, 6:01PM

bbq10-1You know, for a company that made its mark thanks to devices with physical QWERTY keyboards, BlackBerry really didn't spend much time chatting about the Q10. It's going to hit the street well after the all-touch Z10 does so it's an understandable move, but I've heard many a person begrudgingly stick with an ailing BlackBerry because of its top-notch keyboard. Thankfully, I managed to corner a Q10 for a little hands-on time, and its keyboard is just as good as ever -- the big question is, how's the rest of it?


Lyft Strikes Deal With California Regulator To Remove Fines, Expands Its Ride-Sharing Service To LA

Jan 30, 6:00PM

Lyft Highway shotThere's a ton of good news today for Lyft. The company has struck a deal with the California Public Utilities Commission that will remove fines and allow it to continue operating in the state. It also announced plans this morning to expand its service to Los Angeles. The move into L.A. marks the first expansion market for Lyft, which became available to riders in San Francisco last summer.


As It Moves Beyond Rentals To Become An Academic Hub, Chegg Brings 2.5M Textbook Solutions To iOS

Jan 30, 5:53PM

Screen shot 2013-01-30 at 7.59.17 AMChegg has long been known as a textbook company, becoming one of the first companies to bring textbook rental online and reach widespread adoption. But with Amazon, Apple and others moving aggressively into the textbook market -- and the market and textbooks themselves increasingly going digital -- Chegg has been re-positioning. Today, the textbook company is eying EdTech's Holy Grail of becoming the OS for students (or in their words, the student's academic hub), a big change for a company that launched behind the Textbookflix.com URL back in 2005.


Microsoft Announces Git Support For Visual Studio, Team Foundation Server And Service

Jan 30, 5:30PM

Git-Logo-2ColorMicrosoft just made a major announcement that will likely take many developers by surprise. At the ALM Summit in Redmond, WA this morning, Microsoft Brian Harry just announced that its Team Foundation Server and hosted Team Foundation Service (TFS), as well as the complete Visual Studio 2012 suite (through a plugin the company is releasing today) will offer support for Git, the increasingly popular distributed revision control and source code management system invented by Linux founder Linus Torvalds.


BlackBerry Bluetooth Mini Stereo Speaker Gives You A Speakerphone That Goes Anywhere For $79.99

Jan 30, 4:28PM

bb-speakerRIM's accessories are almost as interesting as its first BB10 shipping hardware, and in addition to an external battery charger, they've also got a Bluetooth Speaker/speakerphone that's extremely portable, delivers decent sound and won't cost you an arm and a leg. Plus, the unique design means it clips onto your sun visor in the car for hands-free communication.


BlackBerry External Battery Charger Bundle Means The Z10 Can Live Longer Away From Outlets For $49.99

Jan 30, 4:27PM

IMG_6396BlackBerry didn't only unveil the Z10 today, it also introduced a couple of accessories, including the external battery charger for the LS1, the Z10's 1800 mAh battery. The external charger is extremely slim and portable, and houses a covered slot for a spare battery, as well an integrated micro USB cable that slides nicely into the case when not in use.


The First BlackBerry 10 Device To Make U.S. Debut In March, Coming To All Four Major Carriers

Jan 30, 4:20PM

availabilityWe're right in the thick of RIM's big BlackBerry 10 announcement in New York, and it's been nothing if not eventful so far. CEO Thorsten Heins just recently unveiled the new BlackBerry Z10 (full review here) a little while ago, and now the topic of conversation has turned to something else: availability. RIM's first BlackBerry 10-powered device will first appear in the UK and Canada, with sales beginning tomorrow across the pond and Feb. 5 in the Great White North for $149.99 on a 3-year contract.


PlayHaven Grabs Google Admob's Mobile Cowboy Yim As COO

Jan 30, 4:06PM

yimPlayHaven, the gaming service provider that helps studios monetize their players better, just grabbed Google Admob’s Charles Yim as COO. He’ll oversee the company’s international expansion, developer relations and business development. He had a similar role at Google where he managed the ad network’s key relationships with the biggest game developers like Rovio. He joined AdMob on the business development team before the company was acquired for $750 million by Google in 2010. (“Mobile cowboy” is a nickname he got at SXSW a few years ago for wearing cowboy hats and boots all the time.) PlayHaven is a company that’s had nine lives, I mean, pivots. It started as a gamer’s social network that transitioned into making communities for mobile games. Now it focuses on maximizing lifetime revenue from players for developers. It launched a product last year, that implemented an HTML5 layer inside games so developers could automatically swap in and out promotions based on a player’s history or demographics. A “whale” that spends a lot would be shown different adverts than a player who advances in a game without spending anything. That helped the company rack up 4,000 developers on its platform, close an $8 million round of funding in November and grow to about 60 employees. Yim had advised the company through this evolution. “I’ve known the CEO Andy Yang personally and watched the development of the company,” said Yim. “They’ve identified product-market fit, they’re ready to scale and I’ve to come help them out.” PlayHaven’s business has two prongs — an in-app advertising network that reaches about 100 million monthly uniques and a platform of revenue maximization tools. Those tools segment out users based on their spending habits, and help developers understand which ads or promotions to show them. “If you look at the tools in this industry today, it reflects the maturity of this ecosystem,” he said. “We no longer just slapping ads on top of games without much thought about what’s the best point in the game to show an ad, who are the appropriate users to show an ad to or not show an ad to.” They face dozens of competitors that overlap slightly (though not totally) with their mission. Big service providers like Flurry and Tapjoy help developers acquire users, but they’re not necessarily primarily focused on maximizing engagement or retention. Chartboost is another competitor that recently raised $19 million from Sequoia


The Blackberry Z10 Is A Solid First Offering For BB10 Hardware, But The App Gap Looms Large

Jan 30, 3:57PM

z10-13BlackBerry''s big day is here, and so is the first BlackBerry 10 smartphone. A company's hopes are resting on this bold (no pun intended) new device, and to some extent, a nation's as well. I've been using the BlackBerry Z10, the flagship BB10 handset, for the past week now, and in that time I've been putting this new smartphone through everything I could think of to throw at it to see if BlackBerry is finally fielding a device that can roll with the big boys.


The Keyboard Lives On As BlackBerry Unboxes BB10-Based Touch-Qwerty Hybrid Q10

Jan 30, 3:35PM

BB10 launch event londonThe BlackBerry keyboard is dead, long live the BlackBerry keyboard. Despite the full throttle touchscreen focus of its new mobile platform, BlackBerry 10, RIM has not forgotten its most fervent fans' adoration of those little black keys and has thrown them a bone -- or rather a handset. Meet the hybrid BlackBerry Q10.


RIM Drops Research In Motion And Rebrands As BlackBerry, Trading As BBRY

Jan 30, 3:32PM

thor5No more RIM-shots allowed if you are among those who like to joke about the trials and tribulations of the Canadian handset manufacturer. Today the company said that it was dropping its Research In Motion name and would from today be known as BlackBerry only. It finally aligns its branding with company name.


Google Puts The Nexus 4 Back On Sale In UK, France And Spain

Jan 30, 3:03PM

google-nexus-4Google yesterday started to offer the Nexus 4 once again in the Google Play stores in the U.S., Canada and Germany, and today it's started to roll it out to the rest of the markets where it quickly went out of stock last year. Users can now order the devices in the UK, FranceSpain and  Australia, with shipping times of around 1-2 weeks, although more exact times might be given at checkout. [Australia is not live yet, we've been told.]


Live From RIM's BB10/Z10 Media Event In NYC

Jan 30, 2:35PM

IMG_0626After what feels like years of decline, CEO shakeups, and launch after launch of the same old stuff, RIM is turning a new maple leaf. The Canada-based firm is today unveiling its BB10 operating system, which will determine the future of the company in many ways.


Twitch Gets Embedded In Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2, Providing Instant Broadcasting Of User Gameplay

Jan 30, 2:00PM

Twitch_LogoE-sports streaming provider Twitch is getting a huge validation of its platform from one of the biggest video game franchises out there. Today the company is announcing that gamers playing Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2 will soon be able to instantly stream their game sessions online with a single click.



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See Ya, Symbian: Q4 Was The “Last Meaningful Quarter For Symbian Sales” Says Nokia




TechCrunch » android





See Ya, Symbian: Q4 Was The “Last Meaningful Quarter For Symbian Sales” Says Nokia



symbian_foundation_logo broken yellow

Nokia is slowly turning around its ailing mobile handset business and today that effort had a nice fillip, by way of some revised figures in which it “exceeded expectations” for Q4 sales. Within that, Nokia says that in Q4 it sold 4.4 million Lumia devices — exactly twice as many units as those of its once-mighty Symbian platform, which sold 2.2 million.


But in case you missed the writing on the wall, the decline was underscored once more in a conference call today discussing the revised figures. There, Nokia’s CFO Timo Ihamuotila said that Q4 would be the “last meaningful quarter for Symbian” sales and handsets for the company, as its business increasingly becomes a mix of Windows Phone devices, smartphones based on Series 40, and more lower end devices.


The gradual disappearance of the platform, now running as an unmanned, licensing operation, is nearly complete — with its progression strangely also conveyed through its logo, which once looked a bit different to the disintegrating, current one illustrated above:



Nokia about a year ago was rumored to be preparing to shut down Symbian phone production altogether by cancelling contracts for upcoming devices. Nokia never publicly confirmed or denied the accuracy of those reports. But in reality it looks like it’s letting the market do the shutting down for them.


That has been played out in global market shares as well as actual unit sales. Gartner’s most recent figures for global handset shipments, covering Q3, indicate that Symbian lost nearly all of its worldwide market share in the last year. In Q3 the platform accounted for 16.9% of all handset shipments worldwide — still enough to put it in second place to Android. By Q3 2012, that share had dwindled down to 2.6%.


Since Nokia’s Windows Phone-based Lumia devices sold 2.9 million units and Symbian sold 4.4 million units in Q3 2012, in effect, Q4 2012 was the quarter in which Windows Phone and Symbian swapped places.


There will be some sentimentalists and Symbian/Nokia fans who have long been lamenting the neglect and decline of the platform, for years the driving force of the company’s smartphone business and smartphones worldwide.


But early mover is often a losing position in the world of technology. The pace of change, as dictated by the later entrants of Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS, was just too much for Nokia and Symbian to keep up.


Lest anyone get comfortable, however, things may yet change again for all we know.


Nokia is already predicting a “seasonally weak” slow Q1 — with operating margins back to flat-to-negative estimates, and ever more competition from Android and Apple weighing upon it. Combining that with the fact that Nokia will not categorically rule out Android in its future, we could yet see more carpet pulled out from under Nokia’s users’ feet.










Tuesday, January 29, 2013

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Twitter's Vine Experiences Its First Service Outage 5 Days After Launching

Jan 29, 7:10PM

vinedownVine, Twitter’s latest foray into video sharing, seems to be having some service issues at the moment. We’ve been trying to access and use the app here at TechCrunch with no progress, and Vine has tweeted to confirm the service issues. Vine launched last Thursday and has had a whirlwind of a week. Though relatively buggy for an app launched by a major company like Twitter, Vine was welcomed by the tech blogosphere as the next Instagram, as it lets you share six-second looping videos (with or without sound) to all your favorite social networks. However, the fun ended quickly as users noticed a slight porn problem on the app. A porn clip called “DildoPlay”, which showed up on the app’s Editors’ Picks section on Monday, made matters even worse. Twitter claims that the clip was chosen because of “human error.” Then, Apple removed Vine from the App Store’s Featured section, presumably after seeing that a porn clip had been featured within the app. Vine has since started censoring the app, filtering out searches for various porn-related search terms. Today, the string of obstacles gets a bit longer with the reported service outage. Vine is experiencing a temporary service interruption. Thanks for your patience. — Vine (@vineapp) January 29, 2013 Is everyone looking for the newly-hidden pr0n on Vine all at once, because the service appears to be down. — Eric Zeman (@phonescooper) January 29, 2013 We’ll be sure to update the post as soon as Vine is back up and running. Stay tuned.


Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor…If There's Room After More PhDs

Jan 29, 6:57PM

new-york-statue-of-liberty"In the 21st century we can no longer afford to have an immigration system where less than 10 percent of the people who come here do so based on the skills that they bring to this country," said immigration reform leader, Senator Marco Rubio, as he introduced a new high-skilled immigration bill. Once a country where "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," was the mantra of immigration, the overwhelming presence of technology is changing America's values to prioritize the promise of innovation over the world's neediest.


Over $1B In Gorilla Glass Sales In 2012 Helps Propel Corning To New Single Quarter Sales Record

Jan 29, 6:49PM

corning-gorilla-glassCorning announced its quarterly results today, and the company beat Wall Street expectations despite a drop in quarterly earnings, thanks in part to a 14 percent year over year increase in sales. Sales for Q4 2012 topped $2.14 billion, with sales of Corning's Gorilla Glass, the ultra durable material used in the construction of many smartphones and tablets including Apple's iPhone and iPad exceeding $1 billion for the year.


WalletKit Hustles Its Way Into 500 Startups With Its Mobile Pass Builder For Apple's Passbook

Jan 29, 6:25PM

WalletKit-iphoneWalletKit, a 500 Startups-backed platform allowing businesses to create passes for mobile wallets like Apple Passbook, is today making its public debut just ahead of 500 Startups' Demo Day. Although pass-building toolkits are now a fairly crowded space, WalletKit offers a couple of differentiated features - anyone can update the passes created on its platform with new promotions, offers and other changes, and it's also planning to target all top wallet platforms eventually, not just Apple's.


Shirley Hornstein Apologizes, Promises Change

Jan 29, 6:13PM

shirley hornsteinFive months after we wrote about Shirley Hornstein and how she fooled a number of startups, Hornstein has responded in a blog post apologizing for her behavior and declaring that she has "made the decision to stop." My initial post included a legal complaint by Founders Fund against Hornstein alleging that she had been falsely claiming a connection to the venture capital firm and its partners, and I also posted as a number of images where Hornstein had Photoshopped herself next to celebrities. Other than that, I didn't delve into many specifics, instead outlining a pattern of behavior that I'd heard about from a number of sources, where Hornstein would get involved in startups by claiming important Silicon Valley connections and making big promises, then fail to deliver. BetaBeat went into more detail, describing allegations that included credit card fraud.


PhotoSocial Just Updated Your iPhone's Photo Gallery For The First Time Since 2007

Jan 29, 6:00PM

Screen Shot 2013-01-29 at 11.41.02 AMApple has made some amazing upgrades to the iPhone since it launched in 2007. We've met Siri, moved from plastic to glass to anodized aluminum, and experienced a number of design changes both physically and on the software level. But one thing that has changed very little since 2007 is Apple's Photo gallery. But 1UP Industries founder Jeff Bargman has plans to change all that with a new iOS app called PhotoSocial. In his own words, it's a modern day photo gallery that's socially aware.


LG's Nexus 4 Finally Returns To The U.S. Google Play Store

Jan 29, 5:52PM

nexus4-8There are whole host of new smartphones waiting for their time to shine at Mobile World Congress (not to mention an event or two before the big show), but you're in luck if you're a domestic Android fan smitten with LG and Google's Nexus 4. The hard-to-obtain handset first reappeared in the German Google Play Store earlier today, and now those of you in the U.S. can finally purchase one again too.


Ceph-Powered DreamObjects Now Ready For Production Use

Jan 29, 5:38PM

dreamobjectsDreamObjects, DreamHost's scalable cloud storage solution built atop Ceph, is now available to the general public. DreamObjects offers APIs compatible with Amazon S3 and Swift, making data migrations (in or out) fairly easy. And to celebrate the announcement, DreamHost is offering introductory pricing for new customers.


DB Networks Raises $4.5M From Khosla Ventures For Database Security To Protect Against Malware

Jan 29, 5:26PM

logo-newdbDB Networks has raised $4.5 million in Series B funding from Khosla Ventures for its database security equipment. DB Networks has developed a security platform for real-time advanced database attack detection.


Fly Or Die: Temple Run 2

Jan 29, 5:21PM

Screen Shot 2013-01-29 at 12.13.20 PMTemple Run was one of the biggest games of 2012, so it only makes sense that the guys from Imangi Studios would create a sequel. Since launching on January 17, the app has seen some solid success, with over 6 million downloads on opening day alone. This could be thanks in part to the new Temple Run course, which includes ropes, train cars, curves, stairs and hills. However, Temple Run 2 still keeps the same familiar gameplay we've come to know and love.


Mixpanel Launches Revenue Analytics To Track The Lifetime Value Of Your Customers

Jan 29, 5:16PM

mixpanel revenue analyticsBack in December, analytics startup Mixpanel made a splash when its co-founder Suhail Doshi and its investor Marc Andreessen called for an end to "bullshit metrics". What is and isn't a vanity metric (to put it more politely) can be debatable, but today it's launching analytics for something that's squarely in the "not B.S." bucket — a company's revenue. Doshi said that for many companies, revenue data is usually stored in a database, requiring some work and technical expertise to extract — which means that teams often operate with a limited idea of how much money they're making at any given point in time. With Mixpanel's revenue analytics, companies can view their revenue data in an easy-to-understand dashboard. The product can integrate with their existing database, and businesses can also add a snippet of code to their website that sends data to Mixpanel every time there's a transaction.


500px Returns To The iOS App Store, With Mature Content Warning And Photo Reporting Button

Jan 29, 5:06PM

500px-iconToronto's 500px got its popular photo sharing iPhone app back on the iTunes App Store today, following a takedown that Apple said stemmed from multiple user complaints about pornographic material. The app returns with an age-gate warning, advising that the content in the app is for 17+ audiences, and also adds a new "Report Photo" button to help users quickly tag things they find offensive for potential removal from the network.


Pluto Media Nabs $500K From OpenFeint, Webvan Co-founder & Others To Create An Educational Gaming Platform For Kids

Jan 29, 5:00PM

PlutoLearnsPiano2Another day, another vote of investor confidence for educational gaming. Today, Pluto Media, the Menlo Park-based maker of educational, tablet-based games for kids, announced that it has raised $500K in seed funding from Learn Capital's Rob Hutter, along with individual investments from NewSchools Venture Fund's Jennifer Carolan and Peter Relan, the co-founder of OpenFeint, WebVan, Crowdstar and YouWeb. The follow-on seed financing adds to the $500K the startup raised from former Accel partner Abhay Parekh and Silver Lake's Dave Roux in December 2011, bringing its total funding to $1 million.


BeauCoo, The Mobile Fashion Network For Women, Expands To The Web

Jan 29, 5:00PM

WET3rCF4pUzZXVnlBmmHP6g1e1Sj8i3zrHrzueDHJzQThe Calgary, Canada-based fashion network BeauCoo, which aims to connect women with other women who share a similar body type to make online and offline shopping more social, fun and practical, launched as a mobile-only service late last year, but the team has now decided to also embrace the web. BeauCoo, which raised a $1.1 million seed round led by Zinc Ventures last September, is launching its full web presence today, which, just like the mobile site, is only open to women.


TC Makers: Engineering The Perfect iPhone Cover At Element Case

Jan 29, 5:00PM

TechCrunch Makers: Element CaseA buddy of mine who lives in Shenzhen said that the best tech business to be in - the one that offers the most profit for the least amount of work - is soft goods, meaning cases, bags, and other paraphernalia. Don't tell that to the guys at Element Case. Their amazing metal and wood iPhone cases take hours to build, months to design, and they look simply amazing.


Apple's Next iPad Could Sport A Slimmer Shell, Take A Page From The iPad Mini Playbook

Jan 29, 3:59PM

ipad59to5macApple's next iPad might look like an enlarged iPad mini, according to new pictures received by 9to5Mac that claim to represent the device's new back casing. The pics aren't "verified," the blog says, but 9to5Mac's track record is solid, with another example that it generally posts good info coming earlier this week. And let's face it, Apple has nowhere to go with the big boy iPad except for slimmer and lighter, if it wants to keep the thing appealing.


HTC May Unveil Its New Flagship Phone At New York And London Press Events On February 19

Jan 29, 3:53PM

Image (1) HTC-Store-520x245.jpg for post 48119Mark your calendars, Android fans -- HTC has just started sending out invitations to press events in New York and London on February 19. Granted, those invitations are very vague (no teasing any big features a la Motorola, I'm afraid), but the Taiwanese company is widely expected to officially reveal its latest flagship Android smartphone, codenamed "M7."


Microsoft Office 365 Home Premium Arrives (Half A Decade Too Late)

Jan 29, 3:26PM

officeballmerIn 2006, Google announced its first public release of what later became Google Docs, today known as Google Drive. It's 2013, and only now does it feel like Microsoft is fighting back. Microsoft today announced the reinvention of its Office flagship application for consumers, with the debut of Office 365 Home Premium. The service - yes, it's a subscription-based service - includes support for up to five devices, all the familiar Office applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, etc., etc. - as well as additional online storage in Sky Drive (20 GB), and 60 free minutes to use on Skype each month.


The Surprisingly Comfortable Mio Alpha Heart Rate Watch Does Away With Those Pesky Chest Straps

Jan 29, 3:20PM

scaledwm.IMG_1439The Mio Alpha made a bit of a splash on Kickstarter earlier this year when it promised a heart rate-sensing watch that didn't use chest straps or similar encumbrances to measure your exertion. They went $200,000 over their goal of $100,000 and just started shipping in time for pre-marathon season.


Google Giving Grant Worth $1M To Fund Free Raspberry Pi For 15,000 U.K. Schoolkids (Updated)

Jan 29, 3:16PM

googlechestertonGoogle's philanthropic arm, Google Giving, has awarded a grant to the Raspberry Pi Foundation to fund 15,000 U.K. schoolchildren to get their very own Raspberry Pi micro computer to learn to code. The size of the Google Giving grant has not been disclosed but the Model B Pi, which the kids will be getting, retails for $35 -- so taken at face retail value the grant is worth $525,000.



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