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Y Combinator Winter 2013 Demo Day, Batch 2: Meet Lollipuff, Goldbely, And More
Mar 26, 9:52PM
Y Combinator Demo Day, where 47 startups are taking the stage to pitch investors and press, continues to roll along. Here are short descriptions of the second group of presenting companies (the descriptions in the headlines come from the companies themselves). As we mentioned earlier, it's a smaller batch of startups this time around, and since many of them are presenting on an off-the-record basis, this is the last group that we'll be able to write about today.The Pint-Sized 'Fuel' Phone Charger Is As Useful As It Is Adorable
Mar 26, 9:36PM
Most of us have faced that sense of dread that comes when our phones lay drained and dysfunctional right when we need them the most. Sure, we could beat ourselves up for not charging them as long as we should have (or perhaps making a bad choice of phones), but that's where this particularly cute Kickstarter project comes into play. Devotec's Fuel micro charger is a terribly tiny rechargeable external battery for when a smartphone's charge goes south at an inopportune moment.Dungeons & Dragons Coming To iOS Later This Year As Wizards Of The Coast Teams Up With Playdek
Mar 26, 7:56PM
A new partnership between mobile game publisher Playdek and Wizards of the Coast, famed creator of Magic: The Gathering and other tabletop games will bring Dungeons & Dragons to the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch later this year. Playdek will be developing officially sanctioned and licensed titles that bring various Wizards of the Coast tabletop experiences to iOS devices, with the first such efforts slated to go live sometime in 2013.Paul Graham Says Y Combinator Is Pickier Than Ever, With 'Hardly Any' Bad Startups In Current Batch
Mar 26, 7:37PM
Before the pitches kicked off at today's Y Combinator Demo Day, partner Paul Graham said the incubator was stricter than ever when selecting the current batch — there are 47 companies demonstrating today, compared to 75 in the last session. "There are hardly any startups in this batch that are bad," Graham said. For that reason, he claimed that it will be just as hard for investors at this demo day as in the past to select the best startups. That's a general complaint about demo days in general, especially YC's (where there are more presentations, and those presentations are only a few minutes long), but Graham said it's not about the format. When it comes to choosing winners, Graham said, "if it seems like it's hard, it actually is hard." He added that it's best to think about the presentations as a "live action" name tag, and that investors should make their real decisions after talking to the founders.Y Combinator Winter 2013 Demo Day, Batch 1: Meet Wevorce, FlightCar, Thalmic, And More
Mar 26, 7:23PM
It's Demo Day time once again for Y Combinator, the startup incubator that has become a Silicon Valley institution since shaping its first class of startups back in 2005. A handful of us TechCrunch writers are here in Mountain View, California at the Computer History Museum, where the 47 startups that made up YC's Winter 2012 class are set to pitch to a room filled with tech investors, executives, and press (as you'll see from our co-bylined posts, covering YC Demo Day is a group effort.) This is the 16th ever Demo Day being put on by YC, and this class is notably smaller than the past two startup classes to graduate out of the program -- 66 startups graduated from YC's Winter 2012 class, and 75 startups graduated out of Summer 2012.Google Analytics Now Makes It Easier To Track Inbound Links And Stats From Its Social Hub Partners
Mar 26, 7:18PM
Google today announced that it has redesigned some of Google Analytics‘ social reports to make it easier for publishers to see when they get inbound links from other sites. The update also makes it easier to track how people are engaging with a publisher’s content through the new Data Hub Activity report. Google Analytics’ Social Data Hub gets this data from partner sites like Reddit, and Digg, through commenting systems like Disqus, Echo and Livefyre, as well as a number of other services. The standalone Data Hub Activity report provides publishers with a “timeline of the number of activities that have occurred in the Social Data Hub and the raw activities in a list below.” The data can also be filtered by specific networks. This Social Hub data was already available previously, but it was mostly buried inside Google Analytics’ social reports. Now that this data is more visible, integrating with the Analytics Social Data Hub will surely become more interesting for companies that operate social networks and platforms, as more Analytics users will now be aware of it and ask for this kind of integration so they can track their social engagement data in one place. Stats about trackbacks, too, were already available in Google Analytics, but they are now available in a standalone report. Previously, however, it was hard to see how important a certain inbound link really was. The new report, Google says, now provides more context “for the significance of each of these trackbacks by displaying the number of visits that were driven by each endorsing URL during the reporting period.”Walmart Follows Amazon's Lead, Starts Testing Locker Delivery In Retail Stores
Mar 26, 7:07PM
Shipping things to your house is so 2011, so companies like Amazon are setting up physical lockers for you to pick your online orders up from. Today, Walmart has announced that they’re testing a similar program in about twelve stores. Basically, you can go online, order all of the things that you want, and your items will show up in this locker rather than your doorstep. This means that you can pick it up anytime you want, within two weeks. It’s a convenience thing for sure, and the reason why Google bought Y Combinator company Bufferbox and the reason why a company like Swapbox can emerge. We’d show you what the lockers would look like, but Walmart PR didn’t have any photos available since they haven’t been rolled out. I tried to get an artist’s rendering, but it probably just looks something like this: UPDATE: Our resident beautification expert, Bryce Durbin, has come up with an artistic rendering of what the Walmart lockers might look like: Clearly, Walmart has a slew of stores, around 4,000, with the company telling us that two-thirds of the U.S. population is located near a Walmart store. That’s mind-boggling when you think about it. With as many potential customers as Walmart has, it’s key to be able to cater to all of the needs that shoppers have. Sure, there will still be people who like to come in and browse, but for most of what Walmart has, you just need to get it when you need it. Walmart executives tell us that mobile is a huge part of the company’s future, allowing shoppers to scan items in and check out on their own. What does this move to automation mean for, you know, actual human beings who work there? We’re told that those folks will now have time to do other things like stock shelves. One overheard quote from Walmart’s media day was “E-commerce brought the store to the web, but mobile takes the web to the store.” That’s an interesting concept for sure, especially when you open up the Walmart app and it enters “store mode.” Yes, a subset of Walmart stores are geo-fenced and will help you navigate around the aisles and pick up the things you need. With so many stores, Walmart can do some interesting and wild testing to see what catches on. Will people want to order things and pickHavok Announces Project Anarchy, A Totally Free Engine For 3D Mobile Games
Mar 26, 7:04PM
Even if you've got no idea what the Havok engine is, you've probably seen it before. Name a best-selling video game, and the odds that it's using Havok in one way or another are pretty huge. This morning, Havok announced Project Anarchy, a 3D engine for mobile games that they plan to release this Spring. The twist? They don't want your money.Facebook Now Hosts 250M Monthly Gamers, Paid Out $2B To Devs In 2012
Mar 26, 6:40PM
Facebook stood loud and tall at today's Gaming Developers Conference, revealing that around 200 games on Facebook.com boast more than 1 million active users. Plus, more than $2 billion was paid out to game developers over the course of 2012. That's an increase of 30% over 2011 levels.Microsoft Announces Its Next Build Developer Conference: June 26-28 In San Francisco
Mar 26, 6:37PM
Build is Microsoft’s developer conference for its Windows, Windows Phone, Windows Server and Azure platforms, and the company just announced that Build 2013 will take place June 26-28 at San Francisco’s Moscone Center. Registration will open Tuesday, April 2, at 9am PT, and early-bird pricing for the first 500 registrants starts at $1,595. As Steve Guggenheimer, Microsoft’s corporate vice president and chief evangelist, notes in today’s announcement, “it's been a while since our last developer event in the Bay Area.” The last Build, which happened last October, right after the Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 launch, took place in Redmond, where the company erected a massive tent on its sprawling campus to host a few thousand developers. Build 2011 was held in Anaheim California. Guggenheimer, of course, didn’t reveal anything about the company’s plans for Build besides saying that Microsoft will “have updates and talk about what's next for Windows, Windows Server, Windows Azure, Visual Studio and more. Build is the path to creating and implementing your great ideas, and then differentiating them in the market.” Blue Earlier today, however, Frank X. Shaw, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of corporate communications, publicly acknowledged that “product leaders across Microsoft are working together on plans to advance our devices and services, a set of plans referred to internally as ‘Blue.’” This, as far as I can see, marks the first time the company has publicly acknowledged this project, and chances are we will hear quite a bit more about it come June 26. As is tradition at Microsoft now, Shaw also took a less-than-subtle swipe at Google in an earlier post today. “While some folks were out doing ‘spring cleaning,’ we used the opportunity to look back a bit at what has happened in the past season, and to look ahead at what we have coming,” he wrote in the post, which recapped some of Microsoft’s product releases over the last year.Add Bluetooth To Any Speaker With The Vamp, A Mobile Receiver With High-Quality Sound
Mar 26, 6:14PM
The Jambox (or its many equivalents) is fine, but I much prefer the experience of visiting second-hand shops around the city in hopes of finding a tower speaker relic that smells musty but still has a richness of sound and vintage appeal. Now a new Kickstarter project wants to help make sure proper speakers (the kind with removable cloth covers built strictly for sound first and style second) can easily take advantage of Bluetooth.Radio Startup Jelli Wins Patent On Crowd-Controlled Broadcasting
Mar 26, 5:55PM
Jelli, the radio startup offering local stations tools that allow their listener base to control the music selection and playlists, has just been awarded a patent on the concept of user-controlled broadcasting. The patent (U.S. Patent No. 8,392,206) is dubbed "Social Broadcasting User Experience," and refers to a range of methods related to audience participation with a one-to-many transmission, regardless of the transmission method.Simpler Raises $1.2M From Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins, Khosla To Make Employee Onboarding Paperless
Mar 26, 5:30PM
Simpler, a new startup that wants to disrupt employee onboarding, is launching today and announcing $1.25 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins, Khosla Ventures, SV Angel, Data Collective, AngelPool, Kenny Van Zant, Alex Bard, Gary Benitt, Elad Gil, Sid Henderson and Formation8. Simpler is in private beta, and companies can sign up here.Google To Send Out Invites To Its Glass Explorer Program Over The Next Few Days, No Word On When It Plans To Ship Them
Mar 26, 5:19PM
Google just announced that it will send out invitations in the next few days to those who participated in its #ifihadglass campaign. Later this week, it will contact those who had the best ideas through Google+ and Twitter and invite them to purchase Glass for $1,500 and then pick up their devices at a number of events that the company is planning in San Francisco, New York and L.A. later this year. It’s not clear when exactly Google plans to ship these Glass Explorer Editions. During I/O last year, Google allowed developers to pre-register for Glass, but it’s been very quiet about the program ever since. Given that it is about to make its selection for the #ifihadglass program public (and with the next I/O kicking off just a few weeks from now), chances are the company will also provide an update to these pre-registered developers soon. For now, Google stressed in today’s Google+ post, the program is only open to individuals. “We also want to call out that we received great applications from businesses. At the moment, our Explorer Program is only for individuals. However, we are working on connecting with businesses in other ways,” the Google+ team writes. @lavr_mvlno You’re invited to join our #glassexplorers program. Woohoo! Make sure to follow us – we’ll DM in the coming weeks.— Project Glass (@projectglass) March 26, 2013T-Mobile's "Uncarrier" Pricing Isn't So Different From The Contract Devil You Already Know
Mar 26, 5:09PM
T-Mobile held a special event today to announce the death of the contract, with the carrier moving to a new model where customers purchase their own phone and are under no obligation to stick with their service over a long-term contract. It's cute, but here's the thing: smartphones are super expensive, so that either becomes an up-front cost, or one that's helpfully defrayed by T-Mobile over the course of a multi-year monthly installment plan payback.Zillow Rentals For Android Now Features Google's 3D Maps And Spanish-Language Support
Mar 26, 5:06PM
Zillow today launched the latest version of its Rentals mobile app for Android. The app includes a number of new features, such as integrated 3D maps from Google, but it also marks the company’s first foray into offering foreign language support. The Zillow Rentals app now features Spanish-language support in an effort to “better serve the rapidly growing Spanish-speaking community in the United States.” This, Zillow claims, makes it the “ first major online real estate company to optimize its app for the Spanish-speaking community.” It’s still pretty unusual for app developers to launch a Spanish-language version of their apps for the large Hispanic and Latino population in the U.S. As Zillow notes, however, this segment in the U.S. is growing at four times the pace of the national population and is adopting smartphones significantly faster than other segments. It’s not clear if Zillow will also bring Spanish-language support to its other apps for purchasing real estate or to its iPhone apps. A Zillow spokesperson told us that its Android app had reached a level of maturity that justified its focus to add Spanish. This new version also introduces support for Google’s 3D maps and filters for laundry and parking, but otherwise, the app mostly remains unchanged compared to the previous version. Zillow says about 7 million users visit the site’s properties to look for rentals. Zillow recently expanded its set of tools for rental professionals and acquired the rental and real estate search site HotPads for $16 million. Its database currently features about 600,000 rental listings, which are also syndicated to other platforms, including Yahoo Homes and HGTV’s FrontDoor.After Serving Hundreds Of Thousands Of Rides, Lyft Acqui-Hires Cherry Operations Team, Plans Launch In Seattle
Mar 26, 5:00PM
After serving two markets in California, ride-sharing startup Lyft is getting serious about expansion into other markets. To do so, the company has acqui-hired the operations team behind Cherry, the on-demand car wash startup. And it's got plans to launch in Seattle, making its service available there seven days a week beginning April 12.Burn Note Comes Back With A Vengeance, Aims To Protect Your Private Messages With New Mobile Apps
Mar 26, 5:00PM
Way back in January 2012, a service called Burn Note launched, aiming to protect your private messages by destroying them after a certain period of time. Right around the same time, the concept of ephemeral messaging caught on with mainstream users with the launch, and mini-controversy, of Snapchat. While Snapchat allows you to send photos and videos that self-destruct, something that was copied executed quickly by Facebook, Burn Note is back and it’s still focused on the straight-up messaging aspect of communication. Today, Burn Note is launching new iOS and Android apps that have some really interesting features that limit the viewing area of messages to further protect them from getting screenshotted by the recipient. While this might sound overly paranoid, there is absolutely a useful place in the world for technology like this that has nothing to do with sexting. I spoke with Burn Note’s creator, Jacob Robbins, and he explained the new “Spotlight” approach to viewing a message, and it’s really cool. Not only that, but it uses patent-pending technology, as Robbins has clearly spent time on the service since it launched early last year. What Spotlight does is force you to use your finger, or mouse on the desktop, to hover a spotlight over the message, exposing only bits of it at a time. This is great to stop people from screenshotting or copying your messages, as well as discouraging those pesky people that like to read over your shoulder. Here’s a quick look at how it works: The messages in Burn Note self-destruct using a timer that starts once the message is opened by the recipient. The service will take a guess at how long the reader will need to read it, or you can set the time yourself. Once the timer expires, your message is destroyed forever. By destroyed, Robbins says that all message data are securely deleted from the Burn Note services and both participants’ devices. This is a key component for a service like Burn Note: If that trust is lost, then so is Burn Note’s chance of success. You can send messages to other Burn Note users, email addresses or send a link to anyone on any platform. Robbins says the goal of Burn Note is to: “allow online communication at the same level of intimacy as in-person conversation; more personal than sharing on a social site, sending email or using SMS.” IFacebook Expands FBX Retargeted Ads, Based On Your Online Browsing, From Sidebar To News Feed
Mar 26, 4:59PM
Last year Facebook tested out and then launched Facebook Exchange ads in its right-hand column, a way for advertisers to market themselves to users based on those users' online browsing habits, using a cookie-based real-time bidding platform. Those ads have proven to be some of Facebook's strongest performing ad units, so now it's taking them a step further, with an alpha test to extend FBX ads into the desktop News Feed, the place where users spend most of their time on the social network.John Donahoe, eBay President And CEO, To Take The Disrupt NY Stage
Mar 26, 4:35PM
We're pleased to announce John Donahoe, President and CEO of eBay, as a Disrupt NY speaker. Under his tutelage, eBay and its subsidiary PayPal have grown tremendously, with both companies expecting to do $20 billion each in 2013 mobile commerce.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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