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Airbnb Open Sources Its Chronos Scheduler, A More Flexible Cron Replacement With A Web-Based GUI
Mar 15, 8:35PM
Airbnb just announced that it has open-sourced Chronos, the company’s replacement for the standard time-based Cron schedule that is probably familiar to everybody who has ever used a Unix-based system. Chronos runs on top of Apache’s Mesos cluster manager and allows developers to execute shell scripts at set intervals and, unlike Cron, you can also trigger jobs by the completion of other jobs. Chronos, the team writes, was born of Airbnb’s need to automate more of its data-processing pipeline. Until last December, Airbnb was apparently using a single hourly Cron job that would start its complex processing pipeline. The problem with this, the company’s engineers write, was that they “use a managed Hadoop product from Amazon, called Elastic Map/Reduce. High variance in network latency, virtualization and not having predictable I/O performance is an ongoing challenge in a cloud environment.” This increased the chance of something going wrong, so the team decided it needed a system that would allow for retries and would give its analysts the ability to see which jobs had failed. To make keeping track of Chronos even easier, the team also developed a web-based user interface that makes it easier to manage and run jobs than the usual text file Cron users have to rely on (Chronos also features an API, so you can always build your own GUI, too). Airbnb’s GitHub repository delves a little bit deeper into the details of how Chronos works and if you’ve got 45 minutes to burn and would love to hear more about Chronos, here is the tech talk the team did at Airbnb’s headquarters earlier this year:Facebook Fills CTO Role By Promoting Its VP Of Engineering, Mike Schroepfer
Mar 15, 8:21PM
Mark Zuckerberg has just made an internal announcement to Facebook naming its veteran VP of Engineering Mike Schroepfer as CTO, I've just learned from an industry source. Facebook has since confirmed to TechCrunch that Schroepfer will take the postion previously held by Bret Taylor, who left last year. Schroepfer has been at Facebook for nearly five years and led most of its latest mobile efforts.Gillmor Gang Live 03.15.13 (TCTV)
Mar 15, 8:13PM
Gillmor Gang - Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, Dan Farber, Keith Teare and Steve Gillmor. Recording live today at 1pm Pacific. Dear Microsoft, Samsung Isn't Very Happy With You
Mar 15, 8:11PM
There's been a lot of talk lately about Samsung's growing rift with Google. But what about Samsung and Microsoft? Samsung has indeed been moving away from Google's native apps with their own complement of directly competing services. And their insistence to continue developing Tizen as an mobile OS over which they have full control looms over Google's future as a valuable partner to Samsung. You can check out our thoughts about this here. But Samsung's executives have been voicing their discontent with Microsoft's products for quite some time. "Smartphones and tablets based on Microsoft’s Windows operating system aren’t selling very well," admitted Samsung Co-CEO J.K. Shin in his latest interview with the WSJ yesterday. "In Europe, we’re also seeing lackluster demand for Windows-based products." It's also worth noting that J.K. Shin gave his assurances that Samsung and Google were still very much on friendly terms. Samsung Executive Vice President Song Soo Jun, manager of the company's memory marketing division, was a little more blunt. "I think the Windows 8 system is no better than the previous Windows Vista platform." That's a low blow considering Windows Vista's reputation as a bloated and buggy OS that shipped too soon. Even more so when you consider that Windows 8 was supposed to be Microsoft’s great divergence away from the Windows of Yore. Samsung has reason to be unhappy with Microsoft – Windows 8 and Windows Phone devices as a whole just aren't selling well. Since its debut last October, Windows 8 only amounts to 2.3 percent of the global desktop OS market share. Microsoft has only managed to ship 1.5 million units of its Surface tablet, falling far below industry estimates of 3 million. Weak sales for Windows RT tablets in Germany is forcing Samsung to ditch their entire Windows RT lineup there. But from some perspectives, Samsung's attitude towards Windows Phone is one wrought purely from negligence. "There is no evidence that Samsung has any interest in seeing the Windows Phone platform succeed," writes Detwiler Fenton analyst Jeff Johnston. All of this says plenty about where Samsung and Microsoft respectively are today. Samsung's successes in the mobile market have seemingly turned the company overnight into a fearsome juggernaut with plenty of spending power. When it comes to mobile, Microsoft is still struggling to keep itself afloat. That's why it isn't surprising at all that Samsung feels confident enough about its own positionThere Is No Such Thing As A Great Launch Event
Mar 15, 7:57PM
If you woke up this morning wondering why Samsung is being berated on social media less than 24 hours after announcing its latest flagship phone, might I point you here and here, where you can read of the magical night at Radio City Music Hall when Samsung paid Broadway actors to play out scenes using the new phone for two hours. In a word, it was surreal. But that seems to be the norm these days with CE launches. I can’t think of a single product launch that has left me thinking: “what a great product.” Instead I’m left thinking about how long and torturous the presentation was. Tolerating the presentation long enough to begin loving the product has become a growing obstacle for the tech press, and it’s something marketers are trying desperately to solve. HTC and BlackBerry annoy us because they bring exec after exec on-stage for hours to demo a phone whose features we could understand in about 20 minutes, sometimes electing celebrities to do their bidding. We’re annoyed with Qualcomm at CES for going way off the hinges trying to make mobile processors look like the priority of every teenager’s life. Sony, I can’t even talk about, after they made us sit through two full hours of game demos without ever letting us see the next PlayStation. Who’s idea was that? Seriously? With Samsung’s presentation last night, the company managed to roll all of the worst gimmicks in product announcements into one, long, wacky show. Even the Galaxy S 4, Samsung’s beast and the latest generation of the top-selling Galaxy S line, couldn’t make it through the announcement phase without looking like a tween being dropped off at school by over-protective, off-their-rocker parents. Has there ever been a good product launch? Has a company ever found a way to make the device loveable, important, and must-have without letting their marketing spunk dirty up the whole show? And if so, what does it look like, this flawless CE debut? I can only think of one product launch that left myself, and the tech press, with a good taste in their mouth. It will enrage the flame-throwing phandroids, but the truth often does, so oh well. Apple’s announcement of the iPhone, and maybe the iPad, was the first and possibly only time that a product has overshadowed the event. This is not a hat-tip to Apple’s marketing, whoDropbox Bought Mailbox Because It Wants To Be More Than A Cloud Storage Company
Mar 15, 7:14PM
Dropbox earlier today caused a Friday boom with its acquisition of hot new mobile mail startup Mailbox. The move has two layers of significance for the company, and it points to what more we will likely see in its future:FuzeBox Hires Google's Amritansh Raghav And Skype's Eran Shtiegman To Lead Product And Engineering
Mar 15, 7:13PM
Video conferencing company FuzeBox is announcing two big hires today — Amritansh Raghav, former engineering director for Google Compute Engine, and Eran Shtiegman, a former director of product management at Skype (where he worked on social products and ads). Raghav is the company's new chief security officer and senior vice president of engineering, while Shtiegman will be the vice president of product and user experience.Princeton Review Founder's Startup Noodle Acquires Lore To Build An Education Marketplace Around Search
Mar 15, 6:57PM
Last summer, we told you about the launch of Noodle Education, a startup co-founded and led by John Katzman, perhaps better known as a co-founder of The Princeton Review and 2U (formerly 2tor). The startup is on a mission to bring a Netflix-style recommendation engine to the fragmented and noisy world of education. Not unlike Google, Noodle Education wants to organize the world's learning platforms and aggregate the huge amount of educational info out their on the Web into a learning-centric, personalized search and recommendation engine. The startup has been quiet since, but today we've learned that the company has made its first acquisition, scooping up Founders Fund-backed learning management startup, Lore.New Google/Motorola X Phone Rumors Point To Multiple Models And Aggressive Price Tags
Mar 15, 6:55PM
Now that Sony, LG, HTC, and Samsung have all pulled back the curtains on their flagship Android smartphones, the rumor mill can churn with renewed focus on yet another nebulous device -- Motorola's secretive X Phone. Or rather, X Phones. According to Android And Me's Taylor Wimberly, X Phone isn't going to be a product name so much as it is a banner that multiple phones will fly under, and his sources assert that we've already seen the first of those devices in wild.Y Combinator-Backed InstantCab Provides A Hybrid Alternative To Ride-Sharing And Taxi Apps
Mar 15, 6:53PM
InstantCab has a unique twist on the transportation app business, by combining inventory of taxi drivers along with community ride-sharing drivers. Together, the company hopes to meet all of the demand that the San Francisco market is throwing at transportation apps, while providing all the same reliability and competitive pricing that local passengers have come to expect.Singapore Restaurant Booking Site Chope Raises $2.5M Series B
Mar 15, 6:50PM
Chope has raised $2.5 million (S$3.2 million) in Series B funding. The round was led by local publishing house, Singapore Press Holdings, which now owns about 25% of the startup, valued at $1.4 million (S$1.81 million). Chope operates a similar service to OpenTable, and allows restaurant bookings through its website and mobile apps. It provides a restaurant booking backend system licensed from a UK provider to its member restaurants, and that links up to its web front end to allow the bookings to be made. The news was disclosed quietly to the Singapore Stock Exchange over the weekend from Singapore Press Holdings. The Singaporean startup launched in 2011, and expanded to cover Hong Kong in mid-2012. It has 224 restaurants on its roster, and makes about 10,000 reservations a week, according to Arrif Ziaudeen, its CEO and co-founder. It celebrated its millionth diner served in July last year. The company also managed to get its app preloaded onto the Samsung Galaxy S3 models sold in Singapore. The obvious inspiration for Chope's creation, OpenTable, began operations in San Francisco in 1999, and has about 25,000 restaurants in its database. Like OpenTable, Chope's service is free to users, and the company charges restaurants a fee to use its reservation booking system, with additional fees per diner coming in through the website. OpenTable has expanded to include other European markets such as France, Germany and the UK in recent years. Additional questions have been sent to Chope on how much control Singapore Press Holdings will have over its day-to-day operations, now that the publisher owns a decent chunk of it.BraveNewTalent Admits 'Social Recruitment' Didn't Work, But Pivot To Enterprise Is 'Paying Off'
Mar 15, 6:39PM
BraveNewTalent launched as a 'social recruitment' platform back in 2010 and went on to secure VC funding a year later. But last year saw the startup pivot in a big way. The original model was geared towards the idea that people would want to follow companies they might want to work for in the future, and companies in turn wanted to educate potential hires about how they work. If the recruitment process was started earlier earlier - even before positions became available - some of the talent issues would go away. At least that was the theory.I'm More Afraid Of The Chinese Government Than The U.S. Government
Mar 15, 6:35PM
There are two governments vying to be the best at spying on U.S. citizens: the American government and the Chinese government. While I'm not thrilled about either military sifting through my private data, if information sharing allows the U.S. government to block Chinese hackers, I'll happily choose a democratic government over a viciously authoritarian one.Chamath Palihapitiya To Join Us For Disrupt NY
Mar 15, 6:18PM
With Disrupt NY just a month out, we're excited to announce former Facebook executive and unconventional venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya will be taking the stage at the Manhattan Center.Y Combinator Company Swapbox Launches And Aims To Pick Up Where Bufferbox Left Off
Mar 15, 6:07PM
You know the drill, you order something from your favorite site and you can’t wait to get the package. Like a blogger normal person, you go to work and hope that the package is there when you get home. That hope slowly turns into worry as you picture your valuable freight sitting outside of your home, while people walk by it and wonder what it is. There are a few companies providing solutions for this problem, setting up physical locations for you to have your packages shipped to, such as commerce juggernaut Amazon. A few months ago, Google picked up a Canada-based company called Bufferbox, a YC-alum, which left the space wide open for a startup to jump in and fill the void. That startup also comes from Y Combinator, Swapbox, and the team is launching physical kiosks in the San Francisco area during its beta period. Currently, there are two Swapbox locations, one at Stanford, where the co-founders Nitin Shantharam and Neel Murthy attended school, and the other in Glen Park. Currently, you can have your first package delivered to a Swapbox for free, and pay $1.99 for each one after, which is next to nothing. I sat down with the team and discussed their plans, which are pretty lofty and impressive. TC: Tell us about your team. Neel Murthy: Team is two people – Neel Murthy and Nitin Shantharam. We’ve know each other for like 15 years, since we we’re kids in Southern California. We also have a great group of advisers and of course a ton of support from YC. TC: How many Swapbox locations do you hope to have open in the next six months? Neel Murthy: Our goal is to have at least 15 locations in the next six months. The mission is to bring a Swapbox close to as many people in San Francisco as fast as possible. In addition, we don’t want to put these in locations where people don’t need Swapboxes, so consumer demand will dictate how many/where Swapboxes are in SF. TC: What is the biggest hurdle to working in the real world vs. virtual? Neel Murthy: The biggest hurdle with the real world is that we have physical devices that take up space and weigh something, which obviously presents logistical challenges that traditional companies don’t see. However, what we really want to do is merge the real world with theIt's Not Just Reader – Google Kills Its RSS Subscription Browser Extension, Too
Mar 15, 6:05PM
Oh Google. Thought we wouldn't notice that you're trying to kill off not just Google Reader, but your support and endorsement for the RSS format itself? People have just started noticing that Google's own RSS Subscription Chrome browser extension has disappeared from the Google Chrome Web Store. Though it's unclear at this time exactly when the extension was removed, the change appears to be recent.Digital Forensics And Cyber Security Firm AccessData Gets $45M Investment From Sorenson Capital, Silicon Valley Bank
Mar 15, 6:00PM
AccessData was among the first companies to focus on digital forensics, cyber security and litigation support when it was founded all the way back in 1987. The company never took any outside funding. That is, until today. Access data just announced that it has received a $45 million investment from Sorenson Capital Partners and Silicon Valley Bank. This funding, the company says, allows it to “reduce outside ownership and add Sorenson as a strategic, long-term partner.” The investment consists of a $20 million equity trade from Sorenson Capital and $25 million in structured debt from Silicon Valley Bank. In today’s announcement, AccessData’s CEO Tim Leehealey explains the company’s decision for this move and argues that "by consolidating our ownership and adding a strategic partner like Sorenson Capital, while strengthening our relationship with Silicon Valley Bank, AccessData is better positioning itself to take advantage of its unique place in the market.” "By combining AccessData's strong market position with Sorenson Capital's proven track record of taking companies to the next level, we believe we can accelerate growth at AccessData and deliver extensive value to shareholders and customers alike," said Ron Mika, a co-founder and Managing Director of Sorenson Capital in a prepared statement today. "This is an exciting company and a compelling opportunity. We are anxious to see where the team can take it over the coming years." AccessData says it currently has about 130,000 users in law enforcement, government agencies, corporations, consultancies, and law firms around the world. The company has offices in Washington D.C., New York, Houston and San Francisco, as well as in the UK and Australia. Its flagship product is the cyber-security platform CIRT 2, which integrates network and computer forensics, malware analysis, large-scale data auditing and remediation. The company argues that its combined expertise in forensics, data auditing, malware analysis, network security and other aspects of cyber security allows it to provide services that its competitors aren’t able to offer their clients.FCC Introduces "Experimental Authorization" Program To Give Commercial Space Companies Access To Spectrum
Mar 15, 5:34PM
The FCC has introduced a plan to give commercial space companies like SpaceX access to the spectrum they need to perform missions. The plan will allow companies to apply for spectrum on a temporary basis so they can safely operate their missions, as scheduled. As it stands now, companies like SpaceX (with its Dragon resupply missions to the ISS and Falcon9 rocket launches), and XCOR Aerospace and Space Expedition Corporation (who have introduced the LINX for quick trips to space and back) must request spectrum on an as-needed basis. And there are no insurances that they'll get what they need, when they need it, to facilitate communication with these space crafts.With $2 Million From Andreessen And Others, YC's Amiato Launches To Bring Big Data A/B Testing With SQL To All
Mar 15, 5:11PM
Sometimes it takes a bit more time to get something right -- especially when it's technically challenging. That's why Amiato, a Palo Alto, California-based startup, labeled itself as one of the "off the record" Demo Day companies when it graduated last spring from the Winter 2012 class of Y Combinator. But today Amiato, which was previously known as Nou Data, is coming out of the shadows with a product that seems like it could be well worth the wait. Amiato has built a tool that lets companies, websites, and apps perform comprehensive A/B test analysis on their products at big data scale. What's especially compelling is that from end to end, Amiato can be used by relatively non-technical product managers, requiring no assistance from engineers or IT administrators to make the most of the tool -- all that's necessary is a knowledge of SQL, which many PMs have, or the ability to work a translation tool that speaks SQL.Dropbox Buys Mailbox, All 13 Employees Joining And App Will Remain Separate
Mar 15, 5:05PM
Dropbox has acquired Mailbox, the popular email app for iOS devices, in a deal the terms of which weren't disclosed. The companies reported the deal to the Wall Street Journal on Friday, saying that Mailbox would remain a separate app as the entire team joins Dropbox.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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