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Google Glass Year In Review
May 20, 12:00AM
It’s been a little over a year since Google started teasing something it called “Project Glass.” The futuristic, wearable computer that would change the way that you interact with the world was nothing more than a series of rumors for months before it was “formally introduced” in April 2012. Not known for hardware and not having a current bonafide physical device that was popular among consumers, many opined that this was Google’s way of begging for attention. It might have been, and it definitely worked. In thirteen months, Glass has gone from Star Trek fantasy to reality. It’s been quite the whirlwind of activity. The “wearable computing” age is upon us, and it’s been widely reported that Apple was working on a watch, therefore many assumed that Google was working on a similar device to keep up. This was clearly not the case and Google’s co-founder Sergey Brin took special interest in the Glass project and has been leading the charge going back to when prototype weighed around eight pounds in August 2011. Let’s take a stroll down memory lane, as a lot has happened over the past year in Glassland. It’s real(ish) The video from Google itself got sent people’s imaginations into overdrive. It was called “One day…” and gave us a glimpse into the life of a daily user of what Google had up its sleeve. We now know that the “One day…” reference had more to do with what the product could become, not what it would be in its first iteration: The user experience in this video is aspirational, at best, as the current iteration of Glass is more of a compliment and utility to your day, rather than the augmented reality “enhancer” as this video demonstrates. Still, the elements that make Glass handy are all there, taking calls, getting directions and taking pictures from a new point of view. Immediately after the video, and public admonishment that the project was real, the press wondered out loud if Apple should compete and that other companies should stand up and take notice. We also now know that the rumored final name for the device, Google Eye, isn’t likely. Good thing, because it sounds way creepier than Glass. We’ll get to more “creepiness” later. It was clear that Glass was getting a lot of attention, both positive and negative, from the start. Even Jon Stewart did a parodyZiff Davis Is Buying NetShelter/InPowered's Display Ad Business
May 19, 11:35PM
Digital media company and ad sales platform Ziff Davis is expanding its network of properties even further with the purchase of NetShelter's display advertising business, a well-placed source has informed us. The source couldn't share exact terms of the deal, but did reveal that InPowered, the product which NetShelter focused on and eventually essentially rebranded to last November, will be split into two teams, with half heading to Ziff Davis as part of the arrangement.Hey, Hardware Hackers! There's A WiFi-Enabled Arduino Now
May 19, 11:25PM
Lets say you've come up with a brilliant idea for some shiny new piece of hardware. You brush up your coding chops, scratch out a design, and set out to build a prototype. First, you'll need a programmable chip to act as the brain. Because of the relatively gentle learning curve and friendly community, you go with the Arduino. The problem: your hardware idea requires WiFi. Until now, that's actually been a pretty complicated issue.Google Believes Web Components Are The Future Of Web Development
May 19, 10:00PM
While it was missing the skydiving antics of last year’s event, Google’s I/O keynote last week wasn’t short on product launches. In between the splashy updates to Google Maps, Search, Android and everything else Google announced, the company also briefly talked about Web Components for a few minutes. While Google’s Sundar Pichai noted that it’s still early days for this technology, he also said he believes that “the vision for it is clear” and that it will allow developers to build “elegant user interfaces that work across all form factors.” Web Components are clearly a topic that’s close to the heart of a number of Chrome developers. Many of them, for example, cited it as one of the Chrome features they are most excited about at a fireside chat later in the week. A number of Google engineers are also working on Project Polymer, which aims to write a web application framework that’s built upon the idea of Web Components and will allow developers to use the ideas behind Web Components on browsers that don’t even feature all of the necessary technologies yet. The fact that it made an appearance during the keynote, right next to WebGL and other more established web development techniques, makes it pretty obvious that this is a technology that Google believes has the potential to change how developers write web apps going forward. So what is this all about? Essentially, Web Components give developers an easier way to create web sites and recyclable widgets on these sites with the help of the HTML, CSS and JavaScript they already know. The ideas behind Web Components have been around for a while (and a few years back, Microsoft backed a similar initiative that never got any traction), but even today, this is still a topic that’s pretty foreign to most. Building large, single-page web apps with a smart component models isn’t easy today. Web Components help developer encapsulate they HTML, CSS and JavaScript so it doesn’t interfere with the rest of the page and the page doesn’t interfere with it. It’s worth noting that, for the time being, developers can’t rely on this to work in all browsers. Chrome Canary includes support for Web Components, but it’s hidden behind a number of flags. Mozilla will likely start adding support for it in Firefox soon, too. Most importantly, though, the Polymer project aims to bring the concept toAn Interview With Dr. Joshua Pearce Of Printers For Peace
May 19, 9:01PM
Joshua Pearce, PhD, is a researcher at Michigan Tech who rearches open source and low-impact solutions to engineering problems. He is also the founder of the Printers For Peace contest, an effort to bring together clever 3D-printed ideas that have loftier aims. You can win one of two 3D printers if you submit the winning project.Acrobotics Wants To Kickstart Smarter Cities With Its Smart Citizen Environment Sensors
May 19, 8:30PM
There's plenty of buzz about the concept of making our cities "smarter" -- that is, loading them up with sensors and data-driven services to improve efficiency and quality of life. Hell, even Google has taken to loading up its event venues with scores of sensors. Most of the discussion out there deals with how local governments are working toward this lofty, nebulous goal, but a team called Acrobotics Industries is trying to put with onus on the citizens themselves. To that end the team has kicked off a $50,000 Kickstarter campaign for a small sensor array called the Smart Citizen kit in hopes that people will start collecting and sharing their environmental data with the world.Leaked Memo Shows Barnes & Noble Bringing Web Browser And Email To Simple Touch eReaders In June
May 19, 8:01PM
An upcoming update will bring a web browser, email and update store app to Barnes & Noble's super affordable Nook Simple Touch line of eReaders, which will begin rolling out June 1 according to a source close to the matter who wishes to remain anonymous. The 1.5.0 update was created in response to the positive critical and customer response to the recent Nook tablet update that brought Google Play to B&N's Android-powered devices.How Cheap Genetic Testing Complicates Cancer Screening For Us All
May 19, 6:31PM
Sometimes, more medical information is a bad thing. The influential United States Preventive Services Task Force recommends against most women getting genetic screenings for their susceptibility to breast cancer. Why? Because the tests are imperfect: for every woman who gets tested for genes associated with onset breast cancer, even more will falsely test positive, leading spooked patients into needless surgery or psychological trauma. Super cheap genetic testing from enterprising health startups, such as 23andMe, have complicated cancer detection for us all by increasing the accessibility of imperfect medical information.Android's Design Principles And The Calculus Of The Human Pleasure Response
May 19, 6:22PM
Android UX and interaction design leads Helena Roeber and Rachel Garb gave a talk at Google I/O this year about the Android Design Principles (ADP) they helped create and introduced back in 2012 with the launch of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. The ADP foll three simple principles, essentially "enchat, simplify and amaze," but there's much more to those principles that that relatively slippery and non-scientific language might lead you to believe.Iterations: How Tech Hedge Funds And Investment Banks Make Sense Of Apple's Share Buybacks
May 19, 5:00PM
Apple has a good deal of cash. And, in the Valley, the startup ecosystem -- for many reasons -- wants to see Apple spend that cash. As their cash pile continued to grow as their stock price and market cap soared, Apple's inability to provide robust software services combined with opportunities to expand their reach through acquisitions has become a fancy parlor game which includes every stripe of public and private investor imaginable. On top of this, pumping even a small percentage of cash pile into acquisitions could provide another pool of much-needed liquidity for founders and investors alike. While it all makes sense on paper, part of what makes Apple "Apple" is that they operate in the way that they want to -- not how the market wants them to. Recently, in response to a variety of pressures to do something, to do anything, Apple announced a two-part share buyback. There are many explanations for this financial strategy, and while the Valley may have their own analysis, I reached out to some friends who work in tech banking or at tech-focused hedge funds and asked them to send me a paragraph on their perception of the move. Because of the world these folks work in, I've reproduced their answers below anonymously, as they are not permitted to publicly share their opinions on such matters:Yahoo Board Has Approved A $1.1 Billion Cash Deal For Tumblr, WSJ Reports
May 19, 4:26PM
The Wall Street Journal is now reporting via Twitter that the rumored $1.1 billion cash acquisition deal for social blogging site Tumblr has been approved by Yahoo's board of directors. The Tumblr acquisition was rumored last week, with a price tag reportedly north of $1 billion, which appears to be accurate if the WSJ's sources are correct.Finding Patterns In The Tableau IPO
May 19, 3:00PM
Editor's note: Glenn Solomon is a partner with GGV Capital. Some of his recent investments include Pandora, Successfactors, Isilon, Domo, Square, Zendesk, Quinstreet, and Nimble Storage. Stanford-born and Seattle-based Tableau Software (DATA) enjoyed a tremendous debut on the public markets on Friday, closing on its first day of trading at over $50/share, up over 60 percent from its $31/share IPO price. The company raised over $250 million through the sale of approximately 14 percent of the company, and its enterprise value now sits at approximately $2.5 billion.Illinois Library Embraces Crowdfunding To Bring Its Patrons A 3D Printer (And A Giant Hulk Statue)
May 19, 2:48PM
Retooling the traditional public library for a more technically savvy populace is no small feat, especially when library budgets across the U.S. have been gutted these past few years. That sad state of events has forced some libraries to take matters into their own hands. Consider the case of the Northlake Public Library in Northlake, Illinois -- it wants to give its communinity (and especially the town's children) access to a slew of new digital creation tools to help inspire the next generation of makers and artists, and it's decided to turn to Indiegogo in hopes of making it happen.Former Google Exec Turns Whistleblower On Company's Tax Avoidance Machinations In The UK
May 19, 2:40PM
Google is under fire in the UK for its tax practices in the country, and a new key witness (who spoke to The Sunday Times) might put them in deeper hot water when he hands over a reported 100,000 emails and documents to the British Revenue & Customs (HRMC) services. Barney Jones, a former Googler who was at the company between 2004 and 2006, says he has material proof that Google's London sales staff which would negotiate and close sales for the UK market, despite claiming its Dublin HQ handled finalizing all deals.YouTube Turns Eight As Platform Surpasses More Than 100 Hours Of Video Uploaded Per Minute
May 19, 2:29PM
YouTube turns eight years old today, reminding each of us in some odd way how young or old we really are. Remember, the company launched back in 2005, the same year that Michael Jackson was found not guilty of child molestation, and Lance Armstrong was winning his seventh Tours De France, and Arrested Development was still on the air. A lot has changed since then, but YouTube's growth remains strong as ever. YouTube announced that its community now uploads more than 100 hours of video to the platform every minute. Minute. That's the equivalent of four days worth of video every sixty seconds.David Karp's Dilemma
May 19, 5:48AM
As the Tumblr/Yahoo deal continues to be negotiated by press, and the world gears up for whatever is being announced Monday morning, Tumblr founder David Karp is probably having a very interesting weekend. It's likely, in between multiple discussions with his board members and Marissa Mayer, that he'll take a break, like a walk or something, to gather his thoughts.Backed Or Whacked: Reading And Writing Through Crowdfunding
May 19, 5:30AM
Editor's note: Ross Rubin is principal analyst at Reticle Research and blogs at Techspressive. An ancient and once-sacred bond between author and audience, reading and writing have become but two more tasks along with a multitude of other things that we do on a host of digital devices -- watcing videos, listening to music, playing games, and really anything except using Facebook Home. Still, there are some for whom the intimate act of interface between pen and paper retains more magic than all the electrons powering all the devices in the world have not been able to recreate. For them, a trio of European crowdfunding projects have trotted out a range of products to improve both endpoints of analog document creation.Mark Suster Talks Founder CEOs, The Acqui-Hire Frenzy, And Much More [TCTV]
May 19, 4:05AM
Mark Suster of Los Angeles' GRP Partners is known for his unique insights on the tech and digital media worlds, having famously had success on "both sides of the table" as a repeat entrepreneur turned investor over nearly two decades in the industry. And he hit headlines several times this week, with his viewpoints on acqui-hires (he says they're often very bad) and founders stepping down from the CEO role (he says sometimes, it's the best thing that can happen.)Confronting The Reality Of US Broadband Performance
May 19, 4:00AM
Editor's note: Richard Bennett is a Senior Fellow with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and co-author of ITIF's 2013 report, "The Whole Picture: Where America's Broadband Networks Really Stand." We've all heard the story: America's broadband networks are second-rate. We pay exorbitant prices for shoddy service because broadband providers print money and hold innovation in a death grip. While America languishes, our competitors in Europe and Asia are racing ahead to a user-generated content utopia. The only way forward is a government takeover, or, failing that, a massive dose of regulation.The Future Of Mobile-Social Could Spell The End For Social Networks
May 19, 2:16AM
Editor's note: Keith Teare is the founder of just.me and a partner at Archimedes Labs. He is also the co-founder of TechCrunch. This was a momentous week for those of us who are watching the rapid transition that is taking place from desktop computing to mobile., and particularly for those focused on mobile-social as I am due to my job at just.me. Here is my take on what we just witnessed.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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