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Why Does Hollywood Hate The Future?
May 22, 11:46PM
A few weeks ago, Chris Dixon tweeted something thought-provoking: "What were the last Hollywood movies you saw about technology & the future that were optimistic? They seem to be systematically dystopian." I happened to be sitting in a movie theater waiting for Iron Man 3 to start, so I tried to come up with a good counter-example. It's a lot harder than I thought it would be. Then the pre-movie trailers starting playing. The new Will Smith (and son) flick, After Earth: dystopia. The new Guillermo del Toro flick, Pacific Rim: dystopia. Even the new Superman flick, Man of Steel, could be classified as a technological dystopia (more below).Kim Dotcom Claims He Invented Two-Factor Authentication, Has A Patent To Prove It
May 22, 11:19PM
Oh, Kim Dotcom. You just never stop surprising us. Just hours after Twitter finally rolled out its long-awaited Two-Factor authentication, the Megaupload founder is claiming to have invented the entire mechanism… and he's got a patent to prove it.LinkedIn Has Definitely Acqui-Hired Maybe, Omar Hamoui's Polling Startup, Minus Hamoui Himself
May 22, 10:39PM
Fresh from closing its purchase of newsreading app Pulse, LinkedIn has made another acquisition to dive deeper into the mobile space. TechCrunch has found out, and confirmed, that the social network has aqui-hired Maybe, the social polling startup founded by Omar Hamoui -- the man who set up, ran and then sold mobile ad company AdMob to Google for $750 million.Encoding.com's Vid.ly Integrates With FreeWheel To Provide Monetization Of Universal, Cross-Platform Video URLs
May 22, 9:00PM
Cloud encoding vendor Encoding.com launched Vid.ly a couple of years ago to provide video creators with a way to publish a single universal video URL and then have that content accessible on any device. Now it's providing a way to monetize those videos, thanks to an integration with ad delivery platorm FreeWheel.GiftCards.com Agrees To Buy Giftly To Grow A Mobile Platform
May 22, 7:19PM
GiftCards.com, a Pittsburgh-based company that has been around for more than a decade and has sold 5 million gift cards, agreed to buy San Francisco startup Giftly to grow out a mobile platform. The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but Giftly had raised about $2.8 million from investors including Baseline Ventures, SoftTech VC, Floodgate, Thrive Capital, and Techstars' David Tisch. Giftly’s acquisition follows a number of other ones. Karma was picked up very early by Facebook although it may not produce meaningful revenue for some time for the social network, according to its earnings results earlier this year. Another gifting startup, Giftiki, which pooled together people’s money to get gifts, was acquired by Launchrock. Giftly built a platform that avoided the hassle of individually dealing with merchants and point-of-sale systems. They came out with a native mobile app last fall that made it easier to send presents to friends and family. The company’s platform didn’t put any limitations on what kinds of presents you could send because the company had a web of relationships with banks and credit card processors. When a recipient would go to redeem their gift, they would pay out of their own pocket, but Giftly would reimburse them that amount through their credit card. GiftCards.com said Giftly will be rolled into their operations, but will maintain offices in San Francisco. “We will continue to build out Giftly,” said Giftly’s CEO Timothy Bentley. “Our backend infrastructure will be used for their next generation products. We’ll continue to expand the ways our technology and services are available to developers, through our API, and merchants, through our merchant services.” The company is also looking to raise a first venture round, even though it’s been around for more than 10 years. That round will go toward completing the acquisition of Giftly. GiftCards.com has been around since 1999; they sell personalized, pre-designed and discount gift cards.Twitter Ups Web Security With Two-Factor Authentication Via SMS, But Shared Accounts May Still Be In Danger
May 22, 7:18PM
After scores of accounts were potentially compromised a few months ago, Twitter today launched two-factor authentication through SMS to protect people from hacks and phishing scams on the web. Unfortunately, it may not help shared accounts like big brands and news agencies where multiple people need to be able to log in and out but only one phone number can get the login verification codes.Twitter Introduces Charts By Genre And Popularity For Its #Music Service
May 22, 7:16PM
We've confirmed with Twitter that it has rolled out a new part of its #Music service for the web, charts that we were accustomed to from the company We Are Hunted, that it acquired and now powers the service.Founder Stories: Parse's Ilya Sukhar On Founding A Startup With Strangers
May 22, 7:00PM
For this week's episode of Founder Stories, I sat down with Ilya Sukhar, co-founder and CEO of Parse. The interview was taped days before Parse was acquired by Facebook last month. Parse is a cloud app platform that provides a set of SDKs that enable developers to focus on the execution of their application instead of rebuilding backend functionality for every mobile platform. Sukhar shares his experience of leaving Salesforce and going through Y Combinator for the second time.Adobe Acqui-hires Thumb Labs To Make Mobile Apps For Behance And Its New Creative Cloud
May 22, 6:58PM
Another step for Adobe in its bid to become the go-to place in the cloud for those working in design and other creative industries: it is acquiring Thumb Labs, a bootstrapped, New York-based mobile app design agency. Jared Verdi, one of the co-founders of Thumb Labs along with Rich Kern, tells TechCrunch that financial terms of the Thumb Labs acquisition are not being disclosed. The news follows on from Adobe’s acquisition of another New York-based design startup, Behance, a platform for designers and others in the creative industries to share their work, which Adobe picked up in December 2012 reportedly for around $150 million. Earlier this month, Adobe put the Behance acquisition into context when it announced a massive push on its Creative Cloud strategy, with social/community features powered by Behance. Verdi tells TechCrunch that Thumb Labs will see out existing contracts it has with other clients, but as of May 31, it will focus its efforts exclusively on making mobile apps for Behance. That’s a position it knows well. Thumb Labs, which officially launched as a business in 2011, created the first mobile app for Behance, and as it points out in a note announcing the deal on its site, “We have been working closely with their talented team ever since.” That’s included a new version of the Behance app, and its Creative Portfolio app. There are under 10 people working for Thumb Labs right now, Verdi says, and all of them are joining Adobe, based out of New York. Thumb Labs’ other clients have included a roster of startups, such as TechStars alum Bondsy (a platform to trade goods with friends); CanDoBaby (an app to make baby books); and ReadyForZero (a debt management app). The main part of Thumb Labs’ work will now be focused both on maintaining Behance’s existing apps, as well as developing new ones. This will include “definitely some tablet work”, including an iPad app, as well as apps for more platforms beyond Apple’s, and in general making Behance’s main site design responsive so that it’s more mobile-web friendly. Over time, there will be more focus on other Creative Cloud initiatives, which makes sense considering how linked the rise in cloud services has been with the boom in smartphone and tablet use. “We’ll also be working with other teams at Adobe for integration into the Creative Cloud. Mobile is a big part of that,” VerdiWe Want YOU To Be The New TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Editor
May 22, 6:48PM
One of the most rewarding aspects of TechCrunch's Disrupt events is the Startup Battlefield -- like a mini-startup school, the dozens of chosen startups that go through the Battlefield training process end up with solid presentation skills, hard-earned pitching prowess and newfound courage. We're looking for a bright, talented person to help manage this process, to take our Startup Battlefield companies from 1,000 hopeful applicants to 30 contenders to five sparkling finalists. As Battlefield Editor, you'll head up one of TechCrunch's most remarkable and valuable franchises and run point for it at our TechCrunch Disrupt conferences, held yearly in SF and NYC (and this year in Berlin).Google X Acquires Makani Power And Its Airborne Wind Turbines
May 22, 6:43PM
After previously investing in the company, Google has now acquired Makani Power, a green energy startup that is currently building airborne wind turbines. The acquisition was first reported in Brad Stone’s Businessweek story about Google X, and judging from Stone’s story, the team will join Google X. Google invested $10 million in the Alameda, Calif.-based company in 2006 and another $5 million in 2008. As far as we can see, this also marks the first time Google has acquired a company specifically for its Google X skunkworks. Stone reports that Google CEO Larry Page approved the acquisition, but as Google X’s director Astro Teller notes, Page said that X “could have the budget and the people to go do this, but that we had to make sure to crash at least five of the devices in the near future." The company was founded by Saul Griffith and Don Montague, a former World Cup windsurfer. The price of the acquisition was not disclosed. Google has confirmed this acquisition and provided us with the following statement from Astro Teller, Google X’s “Captain of Moonshots”: Creating clean energy is one of the most pressing issues facing the world, and Google for years has been interested in helping to solve this problem. Makani Power's technology has opened the door to a radical new approach to wind energy. They've turned a technology that today involves hundreds of tons of steel and precious open space into a problem that can be solved with really intelligent software. We're looking forward to bringing them into Google[x]. Makani says it hopes that this acquisition will provide it with “the resources to accelerate our work to make wind energy cost competitive with fossil fuels.” The acquisition comes just a week after the company completed the first autonomous flight of its Wing 7 prototype. Here is how TechCrunch columnist Matylda Czarnecka described the project back in 2012: The Makani Airborne Wind Turbines, which resemble mini airplanes, are launched when wind speeds reach 3.5 meters per second. Rotors on each blade help propel it into orbit, and double as turbines once airborne. The blades are tethered to the ground with a cord that delivers power to throw them into the sky and receives energy generated by the turbines to be sent to the grid-connected ground station.Join CrunchGov's Town Hall With @CoryBooker On Immigration For #iNewark Right Now
May 22, 6:41PM
Some of the Internet’s most notable personalities are bringing attention to the need for immigration reform in a 36-hour social media marathon, The March for Innovation. It’s an issue we know our readers care about, so we’re thrilled to give you the opportunity to join part-time superhero, full-time mayor of Newark, definitely-maybe Senate candidate, and one of The Most Innovative People In Democracy, Cory Booker, in a rousing town hall. Mayor Booker and I will be answering questions on Twitter and responding to a few reader questions in our comments (officially begins Noon PT). Background As I’ve written about before, the United States definitely has a costly tech-talent shortage, which can only be filled by attracting the best and brightest from around the world. Despite near unanimous support for more high-skilled immigrants, the United States Congress could not move forward without a comprehensive package that included all foreign-born workers. A set of proposed drafts that will eventually become a single comprehensive bill is currently winding its way through both chambers of the Congress; sticky issues on agriculture workers, border security, gay rights, and an abusive high-skilled visa system threaten to derail any progress at all. How To Influence As Senator Jerry Moran (CrunchGov Grade: A) told me, policymakers really do respond to public pressure, especially social media. The March For Immigration isn’t about advocating a particular position, but about letting Congress know that the electoral consequences of failing to pass a bill will be greater than passing an imperfect one. To participate in the discussion, comment below and/or tweet Booker (use hashtag #iNewark). Talk Amongst Yourselves Here are a few very important questions that citizens should be asking Is immigration reform a voting issue for you? If so, why? If you have a personal story, please tell us on Twitter or in the comments. Do you believe that high-skilled immigrants create or take jobs from Americans? One large union, the AFL-CIO, has supported a 90-day hiring wait period to force employers to seek out Americans first (calling the tech industry “greedy” for opposing it). This waiting period has consequences; for the first time in decades, the U.S. is bleeding high-skilled talent because immigrants don’t feel welcome. Immigrants, over the long run, have founded extraordinarily profitable companies, such as Google and PayPal, so the question is complex. Should rights for foreign-born same-sex couples be included? Recently, the Senate rejected a provision to grantDeeplink.me Lets Mobile Users Navigate Through A "Web" Of Apps
May 22, 6:40PM
Have you ever wished that you could navigate through the apps on the phone as easy as clicking links on the web? Such a thing may now become a real possibility thanks to a new service from Cellogic, called Deeplink.me. In a nutshell, it’s a bit.ly for mobile app deep linking – meaning not necessarily just linking to the app itself, but to a specific page, section or - in the case of a mobile game – a specific level, within an application. The link (deeplink.me/yourname), meanwhile, works from anywhere, whether web, mobile web, or any other native mobile application. It can automatically detect where an end user is coming from and whether or not they have the necessary mobile app installed on their device. If the link is clicked on the web, it would simply point the user to the developer or publisher’s web version of that same content. If on mobile with no app installed, it could be configured to point to the app store or mobile website instead. And if the app is present, it could take you right to the relevant screen. All of this is configurable, of course. The idea came about as an offshoot of what Celllogic is currently building with Nextap, a content discovery network for mobile applications. Nextap is a much bigger product built on top of this deeplink technology, and, even pre-launch, it has paying customers. These include several large news publishers and a few big-name app and game developers. During the development process for Nextap, the team decided to spin off the Deeplink tool, which will allow end users to move horizontally through apps. As Cellogic CEO Itamar Weisbrod explains, Nextap’s customers wanted to use the technology as something of a “bit.ly for deep linking” so they could tweet out links, share them on Facebook, email and elsewhere. “One of their biggest issues is that they’ve invested so much in these native apps, but they’re still silos,” says Weisbrod. “So we said, well, we have the analytics, we have this platform, we could just give you this one URL and you can generate the links for your apps, and you could then link to specific parts in your apps.” The implementation requires minimal configuration on the app developer’s side since the function the link is calling is already present. Developers only have to add a few lines of code, Weisbrod says. And onHTC Can't Stanch The Flow Of Departing Senior Talent As Internal Turmoil Prevails
May 22, 6:36PM
A brain drain at a big tech company is never a good thing, and when a lot of that departing talent consists of high-level execs moving on in rapid succession it's bound to look like curtains to outside observers. That appears to be the case at HTC, which is losing a lot of senior execs according to multiple reports today from The Verge, CNET and Engadget, and a source has pointed us to yet another recent high profile departure.Amazon Wants To Build A Bio-Dome Three Blocks From An Actual, Normal Park
May 22, 6:22PM
Amazon has reportedly submitted plans for a new futuristic headquarters in Seattle that couples a skyscraper and an accompanying tri-sphere bio-dome like structure. According to the plans, the structure will be able to hold various forms of plant life and become a place where employees can "work and socialize in a more natural, park-like setting." Because God forbid employees walk to the park that's three blocks away.Runscope Lands $1.1M From True Ventures And Andreessen Horowitz For Tools That Address The Broken API Plague
May 22, 6:12PM
Runscope launched at the Glue conference today with $1.1 million in seed funding from True Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz for its tools that monitor API traffic and address the problems with broken APIs. Also participating were Lerer Ventures, and a group of prominent angel investors.Made For The World. Built And Designed In China.
May 22, 5:48PM
For years, the iPhone has carried a small etching on the back that says ‘Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China.’ It’s fueled the stereotype that China is the world’s factory, but hasn’t had a flexible enough education system to produce R&D talent that can also design world-class products for a global audience. But that’s a stereotype that isn’t exactly true anymore. A small group of companies — both small, bootstrapped app startups and multi-billion dollar giants like Tencent — are showing that they can design apps or higher-end hardware with international appeal. Tencent, one of the country’s gargantuan Internet powers with a market cap of $72 billion dollars, often likes to point out the international reach of its messaging app Weixin or WeChat. That app has blossomed to more than 190 million monthly active users over the past year and with about 40 million of registered users outside of China. “I’m very glad to see the internationalization of Tencent,” said the company’s CEO Pony Ma this month at the GMIC conference in Beijing. He later added, “The manufacturing sector in China went globalized and the service industry can be internationalized as well…. It’s difficult, but if we can make it, it would be a revolution.” Interestingly enough, WeChat’s growth abroad is being fueled by the Chinese diaspora — immigrants are taking WeChat with them to stay in touch with their families back home, according to app-tracking services like Onavo. They base this hypothesis on the correlation of WeChat active usage with that of other Chinese-language apps. Younger Chinese startups are also building internationally as well. I met a Shanghai-based startup called Intsig two weeks ago that has a business card scanning app called Camcard with 50 million registered users and 10 million monthly actives, with half of them outside of China. “A lot of people are surprised when they find out we’re a Chinese company,” said Louisa Cao, who heads marketing for the company. It helps that exchanging business cards is much more ritualized and formal in China and Japan than it is in the West, so that gives startups in Asia a competitive edge on understanding what consumers want in a product in this area. Similarly, messaging apps out of Asia like Line, Kakao and WeChat are leading the way, with Western startups like Path arguably borrowing some of their strategies like stickers. Blux, another company outPhoto App Piictu To Join Betaworks Company Kandu, Will Shut Down On May 31st
May 22, 5:34PM
Another photo sharing app bites the dust? Or is something with promise getting another chance? Either way you look at it, betaworks is adding more technology and team members to its arsenal, as photo sharing app Piictu has announced that the team will "join forces" with a betaworks company that has yet to launch.Google Drive App For Android Gets Card-Style Redesign, Document Scanner With OCR And Improved Spreadsheet Editing Experience
May 22, 5:11PM
Google's Drive app for Android just got a major redesign that brings the Google Now-like card-style look the company introduced with Google Now to its mobile productivity app.Tribune Confirms Former Yahoo Exec Shashi Seth Will Lead Its Newly-Formed Digital Ventures Unit
May 22, 5:09PM
Shashi Seth, whose résumé includes management and executive roles at Yahoo, Aol, and Google, is joining the Tribune Company as the president of a new unit called Tribune Digital Ventures. Seth's role was first reported yesterday at AllThingsD, and the company is now confirming the news. It says Tribune Digital Ventures will operate as an independent unit based in Silicon Valley.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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