Hi there!
Here's the latest feed from TechCrunch.
Add feeds@feed2email.net to your contact list to make sure you receive all your emails
Make sure to visit feed2email.net to get more feeds sent to your inbox.
To find out which feeds you are subscribed to, or to get further help, just reply to this email.
Facebook Blocks Path's "Find Friends" Access Following Spam Controversy
May 04, 10:04PM
Facebook's social graph went missing from yesterday's update to Path's smartphone app, and Facebook now confirms it has restricted Path's API access. Path can no longer look up your Facebook friends, which prevents it from sending them invitations or suggesting you follow them. The damaging blow to Path's growth may be in response to Path spamming user's contacts with invites last week.What Games Are: Ok Glass, Let's Talk Games
May 04, 9:05PM
It's a little bit sexy and a little bit dorky, but Google Glass has finally arrived. Beyond the initial productivity uses of the device, how important are games going to be for driving its adoption, and what kind of games might work for it?People Are Speaking, Markets Are Reacting, Fears Are Falling And Hackers Are Gonna Hack!
May 04, 7:00PM
Editor's note: Howard Lindzon is co-founder and CEO of StockTwits, a social network for traders and investors to share real-time ideas and information. The markets are not changing so much as the technology that makes markets move. The technology has enabled machines to ping each other at speeds that give them an edge over humans (at least in the very short-term) and people are connected to other machines and people in ways that can't be quantified. The social web and the leverage from these connections have the media confused, and it seems angry, if not completely wrong.Napster For Pirated 3D Printing Templates?
May 04, 5:44PM
Buy it in a store, laser scan it at home, upload it to the web, print it anywhere. 3D printing is poised for the mainstream, but what happens when one person's finely hand-crafted designs can be pirated and reproduced by anyone? Will 3D printing piracy social networks arise? And how will manufacturers lobby to stop them?Salesforce Joins Datahug's $4M Series-A, While Valley VCs Love Its 'Who Knows Who' Platform
May 04, 5:05PM
Last October, Datahug, a 'business networking automation' startup, which is also being used by VCs, secured a €2.5 million Series A financing led by European VC DFJ Esprit. But it's now adding to that pot. We've confirmed Salesforce has decided to join that round in an "expansion" of its Series A, which includes original investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson (in the US), DFJ Esprit (UK), Oyster Capital and leading Valley investor Ron Conway. The full A-round is now $4m and brings the total raised to $5.5M over two rounds.Gillmor Gang: Glass Onion
May 04, 5:00PM
The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor — well, we talked Google Glass. @scobleizer has certainly made the case for the life-altering shower-taking scenarios, but what the Gang got into was what happens next. Do we wait for the actual launch early next year, or is the die already cast with this alpha rollout? One thing for sure: there's plenty to unravel in this second Glass hour in a row.Celebrate Star Wars Day By Blinding General Grievous, Losing R2
May 04, 3:04PM
Beep boop boop bee squeee! Happy May 4th a k a Star Wars Day (say the date out loud and you'll figure out why). In celebration, quite a few hardware vendors have released special gear for the day, thereby allowing you to celebrate the magic of George Lucas in proper Mandalorian fashion.How To Go From $0 To $1,000,000 In Two Years
May 04, 3:00PM
Editor's note: James Altucher is an investor, programmer, author, and several-times entrepreneur. A few weeks ago I wrote a post about how this was the year you had to quit your job. I gave the reasons why. It wasn't a gung-ho "you have to be an entrepreneur" article. It was more: bad shit is happening in the corporate world and bit by bit you're going to feel the urge to quit.Google's Cloud Is Eating Apple's Lunch
May 04, 1:00PM
A new front has opened in the smartphone war, and for the first time in many years, Apple is both outnumbered and outgunned. I'm not talking about the phones themselves. iOS is still better than Android, although the gap has narrowed. The next iPhone will doubtless be the best phone in the world when it's released, as ever. It won't be as customizable - no Swype, no Facebook Home - but those remain relatively minor inferiorities. The new battlefront is different. The new battlefront is the cloud: Google Maps vs. Apple Maps, Siri vs. Google voice search, iCloud vs. Dropbox et al, and Google Now vs...well, nothing at all, yet. This is a big deal. As we grow accustomed to an always-online world of ubiquitous computing, your phone becomes less a device in and of itself and more a gateway to its cloud services. And it's very hard to argue that Apple is anything but the serious underdog here.Silicon Valley And The Reinvention Of Food
May 04, 4:00AM
Fake meats have been around for years, but a new crop of Bay Area startups backed by tech investors think they can make meat substitutes good enough to compete with the real deal. The most ambitious project is Rob Rhinehart's cheekily named "Soylent," an attempt to replace food entirely with a liquid shake that has all the protein, fat, carbohydrates and micronutrients you need. The only ingredients recognizable as food are salt and olive oil.With Over 15M Sites Built, Weebly Launches New Planner And Mobile Editor, Brings Website Creation Service To Android
May 03, 10:30PM
In this day and age, if you own a small business, you need a web (and mobile) presence. It’s just the way it is. Some might opt just to go for a social media approach, a Twitter account and a Facebook page, but the likelihood is that you want something a little more flexible, high-quality and something that gives you more control over the user experience. More and more, people are turning to Wix and Weebly. The two big “W’s” in the website creator world. For those unfamiliar, Weebly is a service that lets you, your mom, grandmother, four-year-old cousin and anyone you know create a quality website for free. Launched out of Y Combinator in 2007, Weebly has had over 15 million sites created using its service to date, which collectively attract more than 100 million unique visitors each month. This week, Weebly has kicked its service up a notch with an all-new overhaul to its website builder — one that’s been a year in the making — and the launch of an interactive “Site Planner.” This new site planner is designed to help give people ideas and a little lightbulb-style inspiration that will help them walk through the creative process and vision for the site. Plus, Weebly now offers an HTML5 site creator that offers new themes and pre-fab building blocks to customize their new site, and, most importantly, a new mobile new editor that helps them optimize their site for mobile devices, along with a now-globally available Android app. In the lead-up to the big launch, co-founder David Rusenko tells us, Weebly surveyed several million consumers and found that about 56 percent of them, understandably, don’t trust a business that doesn’t have a website. And, yet, 58 percent of businesses don’t have a website. Pretty eye-opening in today’s world, when over a billion people are on Facebook and hundreds of millions have so much computing power in their pockets. Ask the Weebly founders who their core audience is and they’ll tell you, proudly, that it’s entrepreneurs — people who are trying to build their own small businesses, across every industry, not just techies. And, regardless of technical proficiency, the problem that most small business owners struggle with is how daunting it can be to face that blinking cursor, the blank page. It’s the same issue we scribblers deal with in cases of “writer’s block.” When building websites,Ask A VC: Index Ventures' Mike Volpi On What To Look For In A Board Member And More
May 03, 9:30PM
In this week's Ask A VC episode, we sat down with Index Ventures partner Mike Volpi. Volpi, who makes investments in both enterprise software and consumer internet companies, serves on a number of boards, including Path, Sonos, Lookout, Hortonworks, Soundcloud, Big Switch Networks, Zuora, Foodily, and Storsimple. We asked Volpi what his biggest challenge is as the board member of a startup, and what entrepreneurs should be looking for in a board member.Audience Development Startup LinkSmart Raises $5 Million From Foundry And Costanoa
May 03, 9:17PM
A little less than a year ago, a little company called LinkSmart launched to help publishers use text links to get their readers reading more. Now it has raised $5 million in Series B funding to take its technology for growing audiences and make it more widely available. The financing was led by Foundry Group and Costanoa Venture Partners.Roelof Botha On Why Sequoia Isn't Giving Its Billion-Dollar Companies IPO Pressure [TCTV]
May 03, 8:56PM
A funny thing has happened in tech in recent years. It used to be that you could expect a venture-backed company to file for an IPO soon after a few rounds of funding -- after, say, its Series C or Series D raise. But now we're seeing companies' venture capital investment go well into the hundreds of millions, and valuations cross over into the 10-figure range, with no S-1 filing in sight. Sequoia Capital, for instance, is said to have a dozen portfolio companies with valuations of more than $1 billion who are still private entities.With New Service, Any Device Could Run Almost Any Program From Anywhere
May 03, 8:40PM
In the near future, the only difference between a smartphone, tablet, and a laptop will be the size of the screen. Hardcore gamers could play 3D intensive games in a smartphone, and Michael Bay could render “Transformers 4″ from his iPad. Otoy, an LA-based software company, has discovered a way to stream any application to any device, completely through a web browser. It’s difficult to overestimate the potential disruptiveness of Otoy, as a breakthrough streaming service could, in the near future, end the need for app stores and computer upgrades (see a demo below). Otoy has a habit of impressing the tech press with its surprising ability to stream 3D intensive graphics to devices that shouldn’t be able to run them. Since Otoy’s 2009 demo, there’s been a rush of companies in the ever more crowded “cloud” services industry, such as Onlive’s streaming video gaming. Up until now, video games were shackled to certain consoles, mobile apps to particular app stores, and software to particular operating systems. If we didn’t own an iPhone, Windows, and or an Xbox, we couldn’t use a lot of cool applications. But, every device runs Internet browsers, and specifically, the JavaScript which Otoy utilizes to render the software. Soon, the monopoly that iOS, Windows, and Xbox wields over users will end, and the freedom to use any piece of software on any device will become the norm. Even cooler, we may no longer need to shell out $3,000 on a high-end laptop to run games or graphics software. At Otoy’s media event with Mozilla and Autodesk at San Francisco headquarters, we saw the graphics-hungry first person shooter, Unreal, run seamlessly on an iPhone. In essence, Otoy brings a supercomputer to your phone or tablet. “That’s going to have huge implications in my business” said celebrity talent agent and Otoy investor, Ari Emanuel, who sees the ability of more filmmakers to make movies in less time and for less money. Currently, it takes an entire day to render movie-quality scenes. With Otoy, globally distributed teams could work in real time (some at the beach) without having to stagger their work for an entire day between revisions. So, how much will it cost if Otoy completely replaces my computer needs? About $300, estimates Urbach, based on 8 hours of use per day for consumer applications (Otoy charges by computing power and is currently targeting artists). There isWe've Heard A Similar Reaction To Google Glass Somewhere Before
May 03, 8:38PM
Google Glass is finding its way to developers and others and the reaction has been, well, predictable. So far, there are those who think that Glass will absolutely change the world, that it’s our version of the flying car. Those people are full of shit. On the other side of the coin, there are those who say that Glass will never find a place in the hearts of consumers, that it’s unnecessary and that Google is just trying to be cool. Those people are also full of shit. The problem is that when new things are introduced, people don’t know how to react, so they go to what they know. There’s either delirious glee or there’s immediate doom and gloom. The fact of the matter is that nobody knows what the future of Glass looks like. Not even Google. This is the very reason why the device was seeded with developers first: Their applications will be what makes the product interesting or not. If iPhone developers had been the only ones with an iPhone, then they would have been called names, too. It’s just the nature of the tech beast. I was around for the launch of the iPhone, the device that some, including Steve Jobs, said would revolutionize the way we do everything. For the most part, it has in many ways. When it launched, I remember handing my precious cellular device to people who couldn’t wait to take it for a spin. They spent about five minutes tapping around and then handed it back, saying things like “Oh, well I guess that’s cool.” It wasn’t until the App Store was introduced until the real power of the iPhone came into play. Surfing the web, checking stock and weather information and reading your email wasn’t all that amazing and magical. Here’s CNET’s “Bottom Line” on the original iPhone in 2007: Despite some important missing features, a slow data network, and call quality that doesn’t always deliver, the Apple iPhone sets a new benchmark for an integrated cell phone and MP3 player. Is that how you’d explain the iPhone now? Not really. Then, you had this wonderful moment… During that clip, Steve Ballmer showed himself to lack the vision to even think about creating a device that could unlock the potential of so many different people, be it developers or consumers. That’s exactly the reaction I’m seeing on the doom-and-gloom sideHere's What The Large Hadron Collider Looks Like Through Google Glass
May 03, 7:56PM
If Google is worried about Google Glass being too "nerdy", they probably wouldn't be sending people rockin' the Glass into the heart of the most gloriously nerdy thing in the world, the Large Hadron Collider. Fortunately, Google doesn't seem to care (nor should they) if their amazing little experiment gets a few knocks along the way. As a result, we get videos like this one.Gentry Underwood On How The Overnight Success Of Mailbox Came From Years Of Working On Orchestra
May 03, 7:05PM
The quick adoption of Mailbox only came after the team behind it spent years developing and iterating on a productivity app called Orchestra. In a conversation backstage at Disrupt NY 2013 earlier this week, co-founder Gentry Underwood walked me through how Mailbox came to be.Everyone! Look! Acer!
May 03, 6:53PM
When was the last time you talked about Acer? Never? Me too. The company, which is the fourth largest PC maker in the world by the way, announced the Acer Aspire R7 this morning. It's a mighty morphing Windows 8 portable. Like the Lenovo Yoga, it features versatile hinges that allow the computer to take different forms. The Aspire R7 is not the next big thing. No one is going to buy this thing. But that's probably just fine.New VC Firm Happens Right Under Our Nose
May 03, 6:24PM
My old boss used to say that a story is something you'd tell someone in a bar or at lunch, so I'm going to tell you guys the tale I've been telling people at bars and lunches. Yesterday, Aol Ventures head Mike Brown announced through Dan Primack that he'd be leaving Aol to start his own VC firm, Bowery Capital.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.
To stop all future emails from feed2email.net you can reply to this email with STOP in the subject line. Thanks
