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TechCrunch NY Is Holding Office Hours To Find The Big Apple's Best Startups
Feb 04, 6:16PM
Wanted: An entrepreneur or team of rivals who want to stand on stage to present their project to thousands of investors and members of the media. Sounds like you? You’re in luck. TechCrunch is holding Office Hours this week to scope out some potential Disrupt Battlefield and Startup Alley participants. These things usually sell out wicked fast so read on to figure out what to do. Office Hours is one of the best opportunities we can offer to a startup to get featured in our massive Disrupt NYC conference. More than a few of our past Disrupt alumni were discovered during Office Hours. It’s pretty straightforward: you come, we meet for 10 minutes, learn about your product, and give any feedback we may have. Do you have to be at office hours to grab a spot at Disrupt? Absolutely not, but putting a face to the name definitely helps. We’ll hold the meetings in our Aol Ventures office at 670 Broadway on Thursday, February 7, at 1pm. But before you rush over and sign up, there are a few requirements: Since we’re looking for potential Disrupt companies, we ask that you have an unreleased product. That means you’re in stealth mode, or in a private beta. You must be ready to launch in late April/early May. No PR people allowed at Office Hours. You can sign up for a session with John, Chris, or myself right here.Square Competitor mPowa Signs Up Portugal Telecom In Multi-Million-Dollar, 7-Year International Deal
Feb 04, 6:00PM
Competition and activity continues to heat up in the mobile payments market. UK-based mPowa -- a mobile payments provider that, like Square and others, provides a dongle that merchants can attach to a mobile device to process card payments -- has signed a white-label deal with Portugal Telecom for the carrier to resell mPowa's services as the centerpiece of its own mobile payments solution. The exact financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but mPowa's CEO Dan Wagner tells TechCrunch that the deal is for seven years, worth multiple millions of dollars as a minimum commitment, and potentially covers some 100 million people -- the size of Portugal Telecom's footprint across Europe, Latin America and Africa.Microsoft, The Web Is No Longer Good Enough; Windows RT Needs Apps And Fast
Feb 04, 5:57PM
I loathe using some websites. Twitter and Facebook are horrific on the web when compared to their iOS/Android apps. I simply refuse to use Zillow's website; I'll wait until my kids are done with the iPad to look for our new place. The same is true for Tumblr and other sites. The mobile first strategy is in full force and Microsoft needs to hop on board. With Windows 8, Microsoft is forcefully pushing the PC into the post-PC era. It's a touch first interface with the Desktop mode allowing for a more traditional Windows experience. But if Windows is to succeed, apps need to be the top priority and as a user of the Surface RT, it's clear Microsoft does not agree.Finance Is Boring? Mint Competitor Adaptu Hits The Deadpool
Feb 04, 5:31PM
Intuit's Mint has one less competitor now. Adaptu, a Portland-based startup that positioned its mobile wallet as an alternative to Mint, is closing its doors. The company announced the change via its website and in emails to its subscriber base. According to the company, the decision was made because Adaptu didn't want to have to transition away from its free model in order to remain in business."Evasi0n" Overloads Servers As Over 270,000 People Download The New Jailbreak For iOS 6.0/6.1 Devices, Including iPhone 5
Feb 04, 5:05PM
Jailbreaking has returned, and already servers are overloaded. Today, a group of iOS hackers styling themselves as the Evad3rs team has released a usable jailbreak for the iPhone 5, as well as any other iOS device capable of running iOS 6.0 or 6.1, with the exception of the Apple TV (3rd generation). The process of jailbreaking devices has grown more difficult through the years. This is thanks to security improvements on Apple's side and the lack of new bootrom-level exploits that would allow long-lasting jailbreaks on an entire family of iOS devices, regardless of the incremental iOS software updates that regularly patch the holes that jailbreaking software now exploits.Micro Drones Now Buzzing Around Afghanistan
Feb 04, 5:02PM
British soldiers are testing out tiny 4×1-inch mini surveillance drones throughout Afghanistan. “We used it to look for insurgent firing points and check out exposed areas of the ground before crossing, which is a real asset,” said Sgt. Christopher Petherbridge. The toy-looking Black Hornet Nano can fly for up to 30 minutes with a top speed of 22 mph, or a range of about one half-mile. U.K.-based Marlborough Communications landed a £20M ($31) contract to build a large hive of 160 buzzing helicopters. The drones were originally developed by Prox Dynamics for search and rescue missions and can be flown automatically using pre-programmed GPS coordinates. Now, I’m not a fortune teller, but something tells me a version of the Black Hornet Nano is going to be the hottest Christmas toy sometime in the near future.OpenFeint's Eros Resmini Leaves GREE For EIR Role With Peter Relan
Feb 04, 5:00PM
Eros Resmini, who oversaw developer relations for mobile-social gaming network OpenFeint through its $104 million acquisition by GREE, just left the Japanese gaming company not long after it transitioned its platform building strategy back to headquarters in Tokyo, Japan. He’s taking an entrepreneur-in-residence role with Peter Relan, who created gaming-centric incubator YouWeb and was a co-founder of mobile game developer Crowdstar, OpenFeint and HTML5 gaming startup Spaceport. Resmini couldn’t share any details on his next project, except that it won’t be in gaming and it will be something that will “reshape the startup growth landscape.” “I had a real great opportunity to learn about building and scaling companies. Now, it’s about trying something new,” said Resmini, who was most recently a senior vice president of marketing and developer relations at GREE. “The gaming industry is going through a period of maturity and consolidation, but that didn’t have any bearing on my personal decision.” OpenFeint was one of GREE’s first big-ticket acquisitions to enter the U.S. market. The company, worth $3.4 billion on publicly traded markets, is one of Japan’s two most prominent mobile gaming platforms. With slowing growth opportunities in the local market, both GREE and its rival DeNA have probably spent somewhere near $1 billion on splashy U.S. acquisitions and hires to pursue reach in the Western markets. But even though GREE spent $104 million for OpenFeint, which had 75 million users at the time of the sale, the company ultimately shut down the mobile gaming platform late last year. As other large companies including Facebook have seen, it is strategically difficult to build a platform on top of someone else’s platform — namely Apple’s iOS. GREE has a two-prong strategy in the West — one is to become a major first-party game developer. They’ve done that through deals like the $210 million acquisition of Funzio. Second, it’s to replicate the model they have in Japan where they are also a platform provider that earns revenue through distributing and taking revenue share from third-party games. The OpenFeint deal was about building out this platform strategy. But in shutting down OpenFeint, GREE ultimately decided to move their platform-building strategy back to Japan, which resulted in layoffs for some local U.S. employees. The U.S. office, which now has more than 500 employees, has since switched to focus mostly on game development. “These things are always tough when you’ve invested time intoReal-Money Gaming Platform Betable Signs Canada's Frima Studio
Feb 04, 5:00PM
Betable, a gaming platform that enables developers to use real money instead of virtual currencies, just signed one of Canada’s largest independent developers Frima Studio. Frima, which has about 350 people and is based in Quebec, is opening up a real-money gaming division called 3OAK. Instead of going their own way with acquiring gambling licenses in different countries, Frima said they chose Betable to fast-track the process. Betable is a real-money gaming platform that already has a gambling license in the U.K., so that third-party developers can incorporate real bets in their games without having to go through the legal hassle of getting their own permits. “They’ve already secured legality, which is a blessing to us,” said Mikael Lefebvre, who is a director of Frima’s 3OAK studios. “It makes our life much easier.” This is a big year for Betable as the company is trying to get ahead of a wave of developers moving into social casino style games like slots and Slingo. At the same time, a difficult economic recovery has made more domestic states at least consider loosening online gambling regulations to improve their finances. Zynga recently made its first moves toward enabling real-money gaming by applying for “preliminary finding of suitability” from the Nevada Gaming Control Board and partnering with bwin.party to offer real-money bets in the U.K. While Betable hasn’t said how many games or developers it has signed or how many players it reaches so far, the company has disclosed partnerships with developers like Big Fish Games, Digital Chocolate, SGN, Slingo and Mandala. Big Fish, in particular, is a noteworthy client because their game Big Fish Casino is consistently one of the top 20 grossing iPhone games in the U.S. Betable’s belief is that the casual gaming market is going to change over the next 18-24 months as some developers choose to pick up real-money betting and suddenly acquire a host of new “whales” or lucrative players. Those developers will suddenly be able to spend more on marketing, boosting costs for other similar game makers. At the same time, real-money gaming creates its own unique set of challenges. Managing a game economy with real money is different from one with virtual currencies, where the developer needs to tweak currency sources and sinks properly to avoid inflation or deflation. Betable also says that it legally needs to manage the direct relationship with a game’s real-money players.Leaked T-Mobile Calendar Points To March 27 Release Date For The BlackBerry Z10
Feb 04, 4:51PM
Between multiple simultaneous press conferences and sinking funds into a questionable Super Bowl commercial, BlackBerry is keen to make sure that its BB10-powered hardware is still on your mind. Really, the only thing that BlackBerry hasn't been very comfortable talking about in public is when exactly the Z10 will make its long-awaited U.S. debut. Those are announcements best left to carriers, and thankfully they're not immune to leaks.John Goodman To Star In One Of Amazon's Original Comedy Series Pilots, Alpha House
Feb 04, 4:36PM
Amazon, like competitors Hulu and Netflix, is set on producing original content for its Instant Video library. Along with various children's series, the company is also working on six new comedy pilots which users will then vote on, deciding who keeps on filming and who shuts down.Google Extends Payout Schedule For Developers By 2 Weeks, As "New Forms Of Payment" Are Added To Google Play
Feb 04, 4:11PM
Google recently changed its payout schedule for Android app developers, moving from a window which saw developers paid two days after the month ends, to a new window where the payout date is 15 days after the month's end. The move will allow Google to hold onto payments longer, which benefits the company of course. But when Google informed developers of the change, it cited "new forms of payment" as the reason for the lengthened window.Here Are The Top 10 Super Bowl Ads According To 30K TiVos
Feb 04, 4:10PM
Last night's Super Bowl was a nail-biter, but most of today's conversation will likely center around the ads, not the Raven's last-second safety or Jacoby Jones' 108-yard kick return. But which ads were the best?Half Of Canadian Pre-Registrations For BlackBerry Came From iPhone, Android Users
Feb 04, 3:58PM
With the debut of BlackBerry's new BB10 OS and its accompanying handsets, many have questioned whether the revamp is enough to pull iPhone and Android enthusiasts into the BlackBerry fold. But a new research note from CIBC analyst Todd Coupland suggests that BlackBerry may be appealing to users on other platforms just as much as it's exciting loyal BlackBerry customers. "In Canada 50% of preregistration at the carriers are not currently Blackberry users," Coupland said. "This was a surprise and a datapoint that will be watched closely in other regions."Telefonica Digital Acquires Controlling Stake In Brazil's Axismed, Its First Move Into E-Health Solutions
Feb 04, 3:01PM
Telefonica Digital, the tech arm of carrier giant Telefonica, has been making a lot of consumer-focused acquisitions and investments in the last year -- and now it's showing that it has an equal interest in enterprise verticals, specifically in e-health: today it announced the acquisition of a controlling stake in Axismed, a chronic care management provider based in Brazil. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.Fiksu Introduces Support For Facebook Mobile App Install Ads, As The New Ad Format Shows Early Traction For Top Developers
Feb 04, 2:51PM
Fiksu, a Boston-based app marketing startup, is today rolling out support for Facebook mobile app install ad optimization. The company previously supported optimizations for display ads, video ads, incentivized installs and more, but the move to add Facebook is a testament to the social network's growing influence as a way to drive app installs for publishers.StatCounter: Nokia Cedes Global Mobile Internet Usage Top Spot To Apple — But Samsung's Star Is Rising
Feb 04, 2:45PM
Nokia's slide down the mobile rankings continues: StatCounter figures for January 2013 show Apple dislodged the Finnish mobile maker for the first time as the most popular mobile vendor in terms of global internet usage. Meanwhile Samsung took second place. The figures come from StatCounter GlobalStats web traffic analytics research.Andre Cassagnes, Creator Of The Etch A Sketch, Dead At 86
Feb 04, 2:34PM
What Andre Cassagnes thought of today's beeping and whirring playrooms we don't know. We do know that the former electrician, born on September 23, 1926, created his iconic toy after noticing how graphite clung to a thin film of plastic while he was marking up a light switch decal. He tinkered with the idea for a while and created the L'Ecran Magique in 1959. Ohio Art licensed his idea in 1960 and the red-framed device was born.France Won't Get LTE On The iPhone Before The End Of 2013 As The ARCEP Fails To Make A Decision
Feb 04, 2:28PM
It keeps getting worse for French iPhone owners. The agency for telecommunications ARCEP has just announced that it would meet with the four French telcos to know if and when it should refarm Bouygues Telecom's 1,800MHz band to bring LTE to the iPhone 5. The three other companies are begging the ARCEP to wait until at least 2014 to start this process, effectively lobbying for slowing down innovation in this industry.Twitch Launches $8.99 Per Month Premium Tier, With Custom Emoticons, Badges… And No Ads
Feb 04, 2:00PM
Ever since it was launched in 2011, e-sports streaming specialist Twitch has been free to view. Like other streaming video sites on the web, Twitch has relied on ads as its primary source of monetization. But frankly, no one likes ads, and so the company is rolling out a new premium tier, called Twitch Turbo, which will provide ad-free viewing, as well as a few other features, for $8.99 a month.Nokia CEO Hints At Tablet-Shaped, Windows-Based Hardware In Its Future
Feb 04, 1:23PM
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has given the company's clearest hint yet that it wants to get back into tablets. Speaking to the Australian Financial Review, he stopped short of announcing a Nokia-branded tablet is coming but confirmed the company is taking a close look at the space.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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