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Sunday, June 30, 2013

OUYA Gets Its Official Retail Release, But The $99 Game Console Still Hasn't Reached Every Early Backer




TechCrunch » android





OUYA Gets Its Official Retail Release, But The $99 Game Console Still Hasn't Reached Every Early Backer



main-photo3

The Android-powered OUYA gaming console is celebrating its official first day of general retail availability today, a major milestone to be sure for the Kickstarter-funded piece of hardware. Many thought it would never make it this far, and that it would be vaporware before anyone actually got a chance to go and purchase one, but founder Julie Uhrman and her team have made good on making sure it hit store shelves in the U.S., U.K. and Canada, listed right alongside the marquee consoles by Sony, Xbox and Nintendo.


The $99 device offers over 170 games, all of which must have some kind of free-to-try component, along with media apps like Plex and TuneIn. OUYA also touts its large committed developer base, which has over 17,000 studios and game creators signed on to deliver content for the console, including Double Fine Productions. The console ships with one controller, and you can add another for $49.99. As of this writing, the launch seems to be going decently well, as Amazon.com is already showing the console as out of stock.


So far, OUYA hasn’t received the best of early reviews. Most have found its user experience lacking, and the pre-release version was definitely a “beta” release. Virtually everyone who got their hands on a backer edition expressed hope that the console would receive more polish, along with hardware fixes when it actually shipped. And now that it has, critics are going to go back to the well for a second drink, in the hopes that the OUYA team has made some considerable advances in the ensuing two month period.


Yet not all backers could even form an early opinion about the console. OUYA employed a staggered shipping strategy to reach all of its backers, with a timeline that was supposed to ensure everyone got a console before they become generally available. OUYA’s Uhrman sent out an update to backers this morning apologizing for not getting the console in backer hands before the public release, and shifting blame to their distribution partner, to DHL, and to backers with located internationally.


Delays for backer reward shipments on Kickstarter are nothing new, but it is very rare to see a product hit general market availability before getting out to the project’s first supporters. OUYA appears to be stumbling out of the gate in more ways than one, but at least now the product is out there in non-beta form, and ready to prove itself as a real consumer product, or, alternatively, to fail in the court of public opinion.










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As IPO Nears, Twitter CEO Says "We Think Of Revenue Like Oxygen"

Jun 29, 11:09PM

BN9bzMPCEAEbbCjAs Twitter nears its IPO, CEO Dick Costolo seemingly refuses to focus on the money. "We think of revenue like oxygen. Essential to life but not the first thing you think about in the morning," he told Katie Couric at The Atlantic's Aspen Ideas Festival. "I don't try to get caught up in short-term thinking about the company." Given the impending IPO, this is likely Costolo's last interview, so these quotes will haunt them as the $10 billion IPO frenzy ramps up.


CrunchWeek: Sean Parker's TechCrunch Post, VCs Get Into PR And Journalism, SnapChat Snaps Up $80 Million

Jun 29, 10:00PM

Screen Shot 2013-06-29 at 2.17.53 PMWhatever happened to the slow and lazy summer news weeks of yore? This past week certainly wasn't one of them, as evidenced by all the fun stuff we had to talk about during this episode of CrunchWeek. Leena Rao, Anthony Ha and I piled ourselves into the TechCrunch TV studio to discuss some of the most interesting tech news stories from the past seven days: Sean Parker's epic guest post on TechCrunch in which he tackled the criticism of his wedding and the larger state of modern journalism, venture capital firms such as First Round Capital expanding into publishing their own content, and SnapChat's $80 million round of funding ($20 million of which went straight to the app's two young cofounders.)


You Can't Quit, Google Reader, Because I Already Fired You

Jun 29, 9:00PM

reader-hits-the-roadGoogle Reader is dying come Monday, and the whole Internet is sad. I'm not sad. I won't miss it at all. I used to use Google Reader a lot, as in every day, and it was once a key component of my arsenal of work tools, too. Reader was the pulse of the Internet, my way of staying up to date with everything that happened while I was waking or sleeping. In tech news, having a resources like Google reader is important. Or wait no: was. Was important.


IE11 Gives Microsoft A Shot At Browser Redemption

Jun 29, 8:00PM

ie-logoInternet Explorer is a hard product to love. It was so bad for so long and Microsoft abused its position of having the dominant browser for so many years that even today, with a few solid releases under its belt, IE still feels like the browser you should hate. But with IE11, which just launched with the Windows 8.1 Preview, Microsoft is finally stepping up its game to the point where there's a reason to take IE seriously again. And it deserves another look from both developers and users.


DFJ Restructures Firm Partner Network

Jun 29, 7:00PM

DFJ | NetworkBack in 1990, then relatively young venture firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson started thinking about how to expand the firm's presence outside of Silicon Valley and share ideas and diligence with other VCs in the industry. DFJ created a partner network of independent VC firms across the globe that adopted DFJ branding. It was the closest thing to VC franchising at the time.


A Year After Launch (And With 300K Sites Created), 'Social Front Page' RebelMouse Mulls Ad Strategy

Jun 29, 6:00PM

rebelmouse officeIt's been a little more than a year since former Huffington Post CTO Paul Berry first launched RebelMouse, a service allowing users to pull their content together from across social networks. To mark the occasion, Berry stopped by the TechCrunch office to look back at the past year and hint at his plans for the future. Overall, Berry said that the service's growth has backed up his initial vision. "We haven't done any pivots — we've just been following the core path," he said. "A year ago, I had all these hypotheticals of how people could use the product. Now there's an insane amount of anecdotal evidence."


Nokia Launches Nimbuzz Chat App To Tell Indian Users To Trade Up To A Smartphone

Jun 29, 5:53PM

Nimbuzz WP7 Contact rosterAfter biding it's time in emerging markets, free messaging app Nimbuzz has ben ratcheting up the news and partnerships lately. It's hit 150m users globally, is strong in Asia, India and Saudi Arabia, has been adding new apps for platforms like Windows 8, and signing telco deals.


Gillmor Gang: Interdependence Day

Jun 29, 5:00PM

gillmor-gang-test-pattern_excerptThe Gillmor Gang — John Borthwick, Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor — marvel at the mutually assured creation of a partnership between Larry Ellison's Oracle and Marc Benioff's Salesforce.com. Few would have predicted such a stunning partnership just a few years ago, but the crescendoing intersection of cloud, social, and mobile has borne sudden fruit. The only constant:


Why Oracle And Salesforce, Once Bitter Rivals, Are Now On Cloud Nine

Jun 29, 4:00PM

cloudbuddies1280Marc Benioff and Larry Ellison, the CEOs of two of the more powerful enterprise companies in the world -- Salesforce.com and Oracle -- are not known to be the chummiest of execs. Before this week's sudden truce -- which will see the two companies integrate their cloud services -- the only clouds that connected the two were dark and foreboding ones, as the two pitted themselves and their companies against each other in brinkmanship-style competition, chasing similar acquisitions and similar strategies to stay within sight of each other.


If You Must Wear Your Tech, Try Not To Look Like An Idiot

Jun 29, 3:00PM

Sarah-Jessica-Parker-Google-GlassLike Dance Moms or protein-only diets, wearable tech is one of those things that simultaneously incites excitement, bandwagonning, distrust and disgust. Gut instinct tells us we're turning into cyborgs, which is either terrifying or great, depending on how you see it. Maybe we will become more efficient, fit versions of ourselves, or maybe we are simply setting ourselves up for the government to steal a new wealth of personal information. As Sarah wrote, the future of wearable tech is nearly impossible to predict, even for those most involved in its development. These are big concerns. But I have another one: that your wearable tech is making you look like a tool.


Pirate3D Printer Exceeds Kickstarter Goal By 14X

Jun 29, 2:00PM

pirate3dThe Pirate3D Buccaneer printer has been successfully funded on Kickstarter, reaching $1,438,765 in funds—more than 14 times its original $100,000 goal. The Singaporean startup burst onto the scene in May with news of its relatively inexpensive printer. The Buccaneer cost $347 on Kickstarter, far cheaper than the Makerbot Replicator 2.0 at $2,199. For reference, the Form One, which has just started to ship, set its Kickstarter pledge at $2,299. The printer is pitched as a consumer device, and Pirate3D makes a library of objects available through a drag-and-drop Web-based GUI (graphical user interface), for people unfamiliar with CAD (computer aided design) software to customize objects. You can download its Android app to test out the interface. Pirate3D is placing so much emphasis on this interface that it is resting its future survival on its software hopes, said co-founder Roger Chang. “I’m certain you’ll see a fake Buccaneer within the next six months,” he said. Hardware copying is inevitable in this business, and to stem the possibility of being edged out by a fake, the company is planning to outsource the brains of its device, he said. This will allow other hardware makers to produce similar machines, but still plug into Pirate3D’s software library. This will allow it to stay relevant in the industry, and ahead of the copies. The company is working on releasing an SDK (software development kit) for its Smart Objects library as well, to encourage the community to populate the pool of items in it. Over 3,000 machines have been ordered through Kickstarter, and Pirate3D is working with manufacturers in Singapore to get mass production going. The third-party manufacturers are headquartered here, but mass work will be done in China, where their factories are. With any luck, the first prototypes will come out in December, and proper models will start shipping in February next year, said Chang.


Tomorrow's Surveillance: Everyone, Everywhere, All The Time

Jun 29, 1:00PM

the-conversationEveryone is worried about the wrong things. Since Edward Snowden exposed the incipient NSA panopticon, the civil libertarians are worried that their Internet conversations and phone metadata are being tracked; the national-security conservatives claim to be worried that terrorists will start hiding their tracks; but both sides should really be worried about different things entirely.


Launching A Startup? Make A Clean Legal Break From Your Employer First

Jun 29, 4:00AM

ContractEditor's note: Stephanie Singer practices law at WilmerHale, where she advises emerging companies in the technology and life sciences industries on formation, financings and ongoing corporate matters. Before quitting your job to launch a startup, read the documents you signed with your current employer carefully. They could contain provisions that put your new venture at risk.


After Three Months Of Work, Digg Reader Officially Opens To The Public

Jun 29, 3:39AM

digg-mac2Despite much wailing and gnashing of teeth Google Reader is finally set to go dark next week, and more than a few companies (including TechCrunch owner AOL) are shooting to fill the gap it's going to leave behind. Digg Reader is probably the most prominent of those reader replacements, and just a few minutes ago the team officially announced on the Digg blog that the long-running project is now open to the public.


Foundation: Evan Williams on Hatching Big Ideas

Jun 29, 12:00AM

Screen Shot 2013-06-28 at 2.24.02 PMIn today's episode of my Foundation series, serial entrepreneur Evan Williams talks candidly about his experiences building Blogger, Twitter, and his latest project, Medium. Ev recounts the early days of Twitter, shares what he's learned about how to scale fast-growth products, and explains his philosophy about the power of collaboration.


Drew Houston And Bryan Schreier On Dropbox's Future As An Enterprise And Consumer Company

Jun 28, 10:30PM

11969v4-max-250x250Dropbox founder and CEO Drew Houston and Sequoia Capital partner Bryan Schreier joined us in the TechCrunch TV studio for a special three-part series on how Houston and Schreier work together on recruiting, growing as a CEO, and building the company.


Co-Founder "Who Made Numbers God" At Zynga Joins Bee Cave Games As Advisor/Investor

Jun 28, 10:23PM

Screen Shot 2013-06-28 at 6.14.04 PMZynga co-founder and godfather of metrics-based game development Eric Schiermeyer quietly slipped out of the company, is working on a new startup, and today announced he's become an investor and advisor to Bee Cave Games. Bee Cave Games CEO Erik Bethke tells me Schiermeyer's advisor role is a weekly commitment and his investment is part of a forthcoming funding round in the low millions.


Ask A VC: General Atlantic's Brett Rochkind On Spotting Startups That Have IPO Potential

Jun 28, 9:30PM

general-atlanticIn this week's Ask A VC episode, General Atlantic Managing Director Brett Rochkind joined us in the studio to talk about international investing and more.


Yahoo To Sunset AltaVista, Axis, RSS Alerts, and Nine Other Products, Some As Soon As Today

Jun 28, 9:09PM

yahoo-logoYahoo under Marissa Mayer is taking a page from her old employer, Google, and sunsetting 12 products, with some starting as soon as today. Included are Alta Vista and other search products like its experimental Axis extension, as part of "an ongoing effort to sharpen our focus and deliver experiences that enhance your daily lives," in the words of Jay Rossiter, EVP of platforms.


Google+ Tries To Gain Photo Sharing Ground By Making It Easier To Move, Download, And Upload Your Pics

Jun 28, 8:04PM

autoenhancePhoto sharing just got a little better on Google+, as the social network has made it easier for users to move, download, and upload their pictures. Google+ engineering manager Jon Emerson wrote today that the new features came from user feedback. Users can more easily move batches of photos between albums, use a new download option to quickly save photos, and upload large sets of photos faster.



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Saturday, June 29, 2013

India Passes Japan To Become Third Largest Global Smartphone Market, After China & U.S.




TechCrunch » android





India Passes Japan To Become Third Largest Global Smartphone Market, After China & U.S.



Indian Flag Wallpapers (7)

India pushed past Japan to become the third largest global smartphone market in Q1, according to a new report by Strategy Analytics. The analyst notes it’s the first time ever that India has moved up into third place. The top two worldwide markets for smartphones remain China and the U.S.


Smartphone makers including Apple, Samsung and local Indian mobile maker Micromax (an Android OEM), are driving higher volumes in the country thanks to improved distribution networks, according to the analyst.


Strategy Analytics said India is growing four times faster than the global average,with 163% year on year growth across India in Q1, compared to worldwide smartphone volumes expanding 39%. It noted that India’s market is rising quicker than China (86% YoY), Japan (24% YoY), the US (19% YoY) — and “almost all other major countries”.


The rise of India as a smartphone powerhouse is not surprising — given its huge population, including a growing, wealthier middle class, and rising interest in owning consumer electronics — coupled with parallel smartphone saturation in developed markets such as Japan and Europe. Saturation in those mature markets means companies like Apple and Samsung have been shifting more attention to emerging markets to try to ensure they maintain their own growth.


Figures put out by analyst IDC yesterday suggest the mature Western European smartphone market shrank more than expected in Q1, with total shipments dropping 4.2% year on year to 43.6 million units. This European slowdown is having the biggest impact on Apple’s marketshare, with IDC noting that iOS continues to lose ground in the region, declining to 20% in Q1, down from 25% in the year ago quarter.


Although it’s losing share in Europe, Apple has been gaining in India. Back in March IDC noted Cupertino had jumped to second place for revenue share in India, taking a 15.6% share in Q4 last year, after getting smaller local retailers distributing its iPhones. Apple has also been offering amortized payment plans to help spread the upfront cost of buying its devices — to widen access to what remain premium priced products vs the Android-powered competition.


Although Samsung and Apple are among the “key brands” driving growth in India, Strategy Analytics said it’s domestic players rather than foreign firms which are growing fastest. It name checks Micromax, Karbonn and Spice (all Android OEMs) as three examples of homegrown mobile makers with a growth rate of between 200% and 500% on an annual basis.


The local market also has what it describes as an “extra long tail of Indian microvendors” — such as Lemon Mobile — that it says is surging at 1000%+ YoY. “They are almost all using Android software, which captured 89% share of the entire market in the quarter,” the analyst added.










Jun 29 - New 'TechCrunch' feed email from feed2email.net

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Foundation: Evan Williams on Hatching Big Ideas

Jun 29, 12:00AM

Screen Shot 2013-06-28 at 2.24.02 PMIn today's episode of my Foundation series, serial entrepreneur Evan Williams talks candidly about his experiences building Blogger, Twitter, and his latest project, Medium. Ev recounts the early days of Twitter, shares what he's learned about how to scale fast-growth products, and explains his philosophy about the power of collaboration.


Drew Houston And Bryan Schreier On Dropbox's Future As An Enterprise And Consumer Company

Jun 28, 10:30PM

11969v4-max-250x250Dropbox founder and CEO Drew Houston and Sequoia Capital partner Bryan Schreier joined us in the TechCrunch TV studio for a special three-part series on how Houston and Schreier work together on recruiting, growing as a CEO, and building the company.


Co-Founder "Who Made Numbers God" At Zynga Joins Bee Cave Games As Advisor/Investor

Jun 28, 10:23PM

Screen Shot 2013-06-28 at 6.14.04 PMZynga co-founder and godfather of metrics-based game development Eric Schiermeyer quietly slipped out of the company, is working on a new startup, and today announced he's become an investor and advisor to Bee Cave Games. Bee Cave Games CEO Erik Bethke tells me Schiermeyer's advisor role is a weekly commitment and his investment is part of a forthcoming funding round in the low millions.


Ask A VC: General Atlantic's Brett Rochkind On Spotting Startups That Have IPO Potential

Jun 28, 9:30PM

general-atlanticIn this week's Ask A VC episode, General Atlantic Managing Director Brett Rochkind joined us in the studio to talk about international investing and more.


Yahoo To Sunset AltaVista, Axis, RSS Alerts, and Nine Other Products, Some As Soon As Today

Jun 28, 9:09PM

yahoo-logoYahoo under Marissa Mayer is taking a page from her old employer, Google, and sunsetting 12 products, with some starting as soon as today. Included are Alta Vista and other search products like its experimental Axis extension, as part of "an ongoing effort to sharpen our focus and deliver experiences that enhance your daily lives," in the words of Jay Rossiter, EVP of platforms.


Google+ Tries To Gain Photo Sharing Ground By Making It Easier To Move, Download, And Upload Your Pics

Jun 28, 8:04PM

autoenhancePhoto sharing just got a little better on Google+, as the social network has made it easier for users to move, download, and upload their pictures. Google+ engineering manager Jon Emerson wrote today that the new features came from user feedback. Users can more easily move batches of photos between albums, use a new download option to quickly save photos, and upload large sets of photos faster.


YouWeb Founder Peter Relan Sunsets His Gaming Incubator, Will Open A New Company Building Studio Soon

Jun 28, 7:45PM

About Peter « YouWeb Incubator YouWeb IncubatorPeter Relan is best known for his gaming and mobile incubator YouWeb, which spawned Crowdstar, Agawi, Spaceport, OpenFeint and others. Today, the serial entrepreneur is announcing that YouWeb will no longer be incubating any additional companies, and Relan will be moving on to a new venture.


This Week On The TechCrunch Gadgets Podcast: Bye Bye BlackBerry And Vanilla Android On The HTC One/GS4

Jun 28, 7:00PM

3OOEDefBlackBerry is "circling the toilet," as Chris Velazco puts it so eloquently. Meanwhile, Google is now offering stock Android versions of the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4. We're also mildly interested in Hyundai's new infotainment system, Blue Link, (especially given Apple's foray into the car with iOS 7). Just as you'd expect, we discuss all this and more during this week's TechCrunch Gadgets Podcast.


UK's BSkyB Wins Case Against Microsoft Over Use Of "SkyDrive" Name In Europe; May Have To Drop Name Or Pay Fines

Jun 28, 6:30PM

SkyDriveMicrosoft went big on pushing cloud services this week at its Build conference, but today it was dealt a blow for how it might get to market them in Europe. BSkyB, the pay-TV broadcaster part-owned by News Corp., won a judgement in the England and Wales High Court against the U.S. software giant, for infringing the "Sky" trademark.


Google+ Turns 2, Rolls Out Redesigned Follow Buttons And Badges, Introduces Badges For Communities

Jun 28, 6:22PM

2013-06-28_1113Google+ turned two today. To celebrate, Google's social network didn't just dress up Mr. Jingles, but it also launched a redesign of its Google+ plugins for websites, including its Follow, +1 and share buttons, as well as its badges for pages and profiles.


With All That Developer Mojo, Google Is Like An Ass-Kicking Octopus

Jun 28, 5:55PM

Screen Shot 2013-06-28 at 12.30.22 PMFor James Governor and the RedMonk crew, craft beer is a metaphor for talking about developer communities, the cloud and all that goes with them. It's something these guys do every day, providing their own independent analysis about the millions of programmers who RedMonk Co-Founder Stephen O'Grady calls the new kingmakers.


Facebook Announces New Review Policy To Prevent Ads From Running On Controversial Pages And Groups

Jun 28, 5:31PM

facebook adsFacebook just announced a new review policy for Pages and Groups, a policy aimed at reducing cases where ads run alongside content that the advertiser or their customers might find objectionable. Earlier today, a BBC report stated that Marks and Spencer and BSkyB had pulled "all or part of their spending" on Facebook after a BSkyB ad (which was "promoting an M&S voucher") was shown alongside a Facebook Page that was titled "cute and gay boys" and included photos of teenage boys. The story said Facebook was going to make an announcement to address these types of concerns later today.


Labster Gamifies Bio-Tech Teaching So Students Can Use Their iPads To Blow Stuff Up

Jun 28, 5:15PM

labster-isoEducational games to make learning more engaging for students are nothing new, but Labster, a bio-tech education startup founded back in 2011 and just now coming out of stealth, has gone further than most by creating an entire virtualised laboratory for teaching bio-tech students without the need to purchase expensive lab equipment or conduct potentially hazardous experiments for real.


CE Week's Startup Pavilion Serves Up Bikes, Hydroponics, And Rotary Phone Photo-Sharing

Jun 28, 4:39PM

Screen Shot 2013-06-28 at 12.33.51 PMIn the Startup Pavilion at CE Week, there's just as much diversity as there is similarity among the new flock of products and services hitting New York. We saw a number of bikecessories, bike services, and reached the other end of the spectrum by visiting a cloud-based hydroponics monitoring solution and a nice twist between new-school photo-sharing and old-school phones. Join us, won't you, as we journey through Startup Pavilion?


Mozilla Opens Its Firefox Social API To Developers

Jun 28, 4:37PM

newfirefox1With the release of the first public beta of Firefox 23, Mozilla didn't just introduce a new logo and kill the <blink> element, it also opened up its Social API for developers. This feature allows them to create new ways for users to interact with their favorite web apps through a persistent sidebar, notifications or toolbar buttons in the browser. With this release, Mozilla also adds a share panel to the mix.

Mozilla first launched this feature in cooperation with Facebook in Firefox 17 last year. Since then, it added a number of new partners, including Cliqz, Mixi (for users in Japan) and msnNOW.




Google Trekker Gets You Off-Limits Access To Exotic Locations Like The Island From Bond's Skyfall

Jun 28, 4:22PM

Screen Shot 2013-06-28 at 12.12.24 PMGoogle Trekker just announced the expansion of its street view hiking map project to outside organizations, and today it's revealing another aspect of the program's broadening: Getting virtual tourists behind velvet ropes at completely unique, remote destinations. On the Google Maps blog today, the team showed off a virtual tour of the island of Hashima, in Japan's Nagasaki Prefecture, which providing the setting for Bond villain Raoul Silva's hideout in Skyfall.


Music App Songza Goes Ad-Free With A New Paid Service, "Club Songza" For $0.99 Per Week

Jun 28, 4:00PM

club songzaSongza, the music streaming and recommendation service that has picked up some 4.8 million monthly active users with its free, ad-based service, is turning on a feature now that it hopes will convert some of its most loyal listeners into more monetizable ones. It is launching "Club Songza," a subscription-based service that is priced at $0.99 per week for users to get an ad-free experience.


Maker Nabs A 3D Model Of Marcus Aurelius With Google Glass

Jun 28, 3:31PM

20130623_114501_496_preview_featuredIn what looks to be a first for the technology, designer and engineer Todd Blatt took 30 pictures of a bust of Marcus Aurelius with Google Glass and created a downloadable 3D model that you can grab and print.


Big Labor's Anti-Immigration Rumor Machine

Jun 28, 3:30PM

vivek1Editor's note: Vivek Wadhwa is a fellow at Stanford Law School, Director of Research at Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University, and VP of Innovation and Research at Singularity University. The passage of immigration reform by the Senate was a big step forward. The bill is far from perfect, but goes a long way towards solving Silicon Valley's talent shortage -- and America's immigrant exodus. But big hurdles lie ahead as anti-immigrant groups regroup. Extreme elements of the right will be fighting to close the borders while their counterparts on the left -- Big Labor in particular -- work to undermine high-skilled immigration.


First Round Capital Debuts Original Content And Knowledge Hub For Startups, Review

Jun 28, 3:00PM

first roundFirst Round Capital has been one of the few firms who started providing compelling services for startups before the agency model became popular. For example, the firm created a Yelp-like database of business providers for its startups, which includes 1,500 ratings and reviews for over 500 service providers, including those in payroll, phones and more. First Round also launched HackPR, a platform for companies and reporters to quickly and efficiently connect on press coverage. Today, the firm is debuting another interesting service for startups, First Round Review.



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Friday, June 28, 2013

This Week On The TechCrunch Gadgets Podcast: Bye Bye BlackBerry And Vanilla Android On The HTC One/GS4




TechCrunch » android





This Week On The TechCrunch Gadgets Podcast: Bye Bye BlackBerry And Vanilla Android On The HTC One/GS4



3OOEDef

BlackBerry is “circling the toilet,” as Chris Velazco puts it so eloquently. Meanwhile, Google is now offering stock Android versions of the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4. We’re also mildly interested in Hyundai’s new infotainment system, Blue Link, (especially given Apple’s foray into the car with iOS 7).


Just as you’d expect on this lovely summer Friday, we discuss all this and more during this week’s TechCrunch Gadgets Podcast.


This week’s conversation features John Biggs, Jordan Crook, Chris Velazco, Natasha Lomas, and a dash of Darrell Etherington.


Enjoy!



We invite you to enjoy our weekly podcasts every Friday at 3pm Eastern and noon Pacific.


Click here to download an MP3 of this show.

You can subscribe to the show via RSS.

Subscribe in iTunes


Intro Music by Rick Barr.










Jun 28 - New 'TechCrunch' feed email from feed2email.net

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Marc Andreessen: Beijing Should Be Another Silicon Valley, But….

Jun 28, 2:41AM

marc andreessenMarc Andreessen, the Netscape co-founder and namesake behind venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, said that he’s skeptical that efforts globally to recreate the Silicon Valley ecosystem will succeed. Even the most promising city and rival to the U.S.’s Silicon Valley, Beijing, faces lots of potential complications because laws around contracts aren’t as straightforward as they could be, he said. Outside of the U.S., Beijing is one of the cities that is able to consistently produce tech giants like Baidu (although Alibaba’s headquarters are in Hangzhou and Tencent is based in Shenzhen). “China should be another United States from an economic standpoint. Beijing should be another Silicon Valley,” he said in an interview at 500 Startup’s Pre-Money conference today in San Francisco. “I think the early indicators have been promising. There are some amazing stories like Alibaba and Tencent.” Bet he went on, expressing some doubt in the country’s ability to set up a transparent system of contracts and law that make it easy for entrepreneurs to protect their work. “I worry about the system — the ability to sustain the process and have a system. A lot of it has to do with the same frustrations we’re hearing from Chinese entrepreneurs. There are still issues with the rule of law and basic contract law. There are still issues with IP integrity,” he said. “They have the idea that there can be a free economy without free speech, which I think is not true.” It’s a common complaint I’ve heard in the Beijing-based community myself. There isn’t the same practice or habit of ‘acq-hires’ in China. Instead, the major powers like Tencent may go in and directly copy small startups instead of trying to acquire or lure them in first. As controversial as the process of ‘talent acquisitions’ may be in the West, they also form a safety net for talent product managers or engineers to try new ideas. At the same time, the Chinese government has erected a massive ‘Great Firewall’ of surveillance and censorship over online discourse in the country. While Andreessen says this might not be sustainable over the long-term, the effort has actually helped domestic companies so far, with protections enabling products like Baidu’s search engine to succeed at Google’s loss or market share or monitored social networking platforms like Tencent’s WeChat or Sina Weibo to grow while U.S. products like Facebook and Twitter are unable to


As Snapchat Grows Up, It Must Retain Its Youth

Jun 28, 12:46AM

peter-pan-snapchat1It has been quite a week for Snapchat. Now, the founders will try to keep their heads down and out of the spotlight as they work to grow the product and company. Snapchat is all about discovery and quickly and intimately sharing brief moments with friends. Everything the company does moving forward will have to hold true to its mission. But this could evolve from simply one-on-one sharing.


Mark Suster On Being "Upfront," Plans For His New $200M Fund, And High Expectations For The LA Startup Ecosystem

Jun 28, 12:30AM

mark susterMark Suster's venture firm just wrapped up a new $200 million fund, and it also has a brand new name: Upfront Ventures. Today, I got a chance to sit down with him to talk about the firm's new branding, as well as his plans for the new fund and continued support for the L.A. startup ecosystem.


Facebook Launches Related Hashtags And #Mobile Site Support

Jun 28, 12:06AM

Facebook-Hashtag1Facebook's on a quest to get you involved in real-time global conversations. Today it takes the next step towards challenging Twitter by adding hashtag support to its mobile site and launching related hashtags. Starting this evening, when you click or search for a hashtag, the results will page show other hashtags often posted at the same time. Search #equality and you'll see #lgbt and #pride.


Propeller Gets $1.25M From A16z, ffAngel, Everyone Good Basically

Jun 27, 11:25PM

Screen Shot 2013-06-27 at 3.36.33 PMThe app that allows you to create your own native apps, Propeller, has raised $1.25 million from Andreessen Horowitz, ffAngel, Menlo VenturesFoundation CapitalMax LevchinAshton KutcherKeith RaboisScott BanisterJason PortnoyLee LindenRothenberg Ventures and Alfred Mandel.


Vine For Android Gets Updated With Front-Facing Camera Support

Jun 27, 10:56PM

biggsWhen Vine started shipping for Android, there was one, big, near-universal complaint amongst its users: It didn't support front-facing cameras. While the existing iOS port had been supporting front cameras for months, Android users looking to take Vine-selfies (Velfies?) were stuck contorting their wrists like some sort of chump. In an update pushed to the Google Play store just a few minutes ago, Vine for Android finally picked up compatibility that front lens.


Unity Game Engine Announces Xbox One Support, Goes Free For Windows Phone 8 Developers

Jun 27, 10:02PM

unity boxUnity, the cross-platform 3D engine and game development tool that's been on something of a roll lately, has a few more bits of good news today. At Microsoft's Build 2013 conference this morning, Unity announced two new tricks: Xbox One (and Kinect!) support, and completely free support for Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 games.


Case Study Shows Google+ Sign-Ins Are Working, Increased Snapette Sign-Ups By 16%

Jun 27, 9:28PM

sign-in-with-googleOne developer feature Google is really stressing these days is Google+ Sign-in, the company’s recently launched authentication tool for third-party sites and mobile apps. While the company will continue to support its standard Google Sign-in tool as well, it’s pushing hard to get users to switch to its new system. The Google+ version has the advantage (or not, depending on your perspective) of being linked directly to Google’s social network and profiles and can therefore provide sites with easier registration system and more information about their users. A number of large companies have now integrated Google+ Sign-ins, and we are starting to get some data about how things are going. Mind you, these are somewhat self-selected Google partners, but the results are still pretty interesting. Most companies don’t want to go on the record with their numbers, but Google just published a case study with Snapette that’s pretty much in line what we’ve been hearing, too. Snapette Case Study: 44.2% Use Google+ Sign-ins, Registrations Up 16% The latest numbers come from mobile shopping app Snapette, which launched in 2011, and this marks the first time we’re seeing some of these stats for a service that uses Google+ Sign-in. Just over 44 percent of the service’s users now use Google+ to sign in to their accounts. That’s a bit higher than the 40 percent acceptance rate Google itself cited earlier this year. Snapette also says it’s been seeing an uptick in user registrations since integrating this feature. The company says it saw “an increase in registered users of 16% above average growth” since it started using this tool.


Incubator AngelPad Plans To Launch A New York Office, Says Its Startups Have Raised $100M Total

Jun 27, 8:59PM

angelpadStartup incubator AngelPad is looking beyond its current base in San Francisco — founder Thomas Korte just announced that he plans to hold one of his two annual sessions in New York City. That doesn't mean AngelPad is going to be working with more companies or hiring more staff. Instead, the New York class is taking the place of one of the two San Francisco sessions, and Korte said that he and partner Carine Magescas will be running both of them.


Immigration Reform Passes Senate, House Leadership Calls Bill A "Pipe Dream"

Jun 27, 8:54PM

congressional-sealImmigration reform is half-way to its goal: The Senate passed a comprehensive bill this afternoon 68 to 32. The bill is loaded with tech-industry goodies, including more foreign visas, a special visa for startup entrepreneurs, and unlimited space for brainiac inventors and scientists. However, Republican leaders in the House of Representatives have unspecified issues with the bill and say the Senate version is a "pipe dream."


Adobe Acquires Conversational Marketing Platform Neolane For $600M In Cash To Bolster Its Marketing Cloud

Jun 27, 8:44PM

neolanelogoAdobe today announced that it has acquired Neolane, a conversational marketing company with an annual revenue of just under $60 million, in a transaction that’s worth $600 million in cash. Neolane was founded in 2001 and is currently headquartered in Paris, France, with offices around Europe, North America and Asia. The company’s customers include the likes of Accor Hotels, Alcatel-Lucent, IKEA, Samsung, Sony and Dior. For Adobe, which is putting quite a few resources into its Marketing Cloud, this acquisition adds a new piece to its feature lineup. Adobe does offer Adobe Social, which provides a number of social media-tracking and analysis tools. Neolane’s feature lineup, however, is far larger and includes tools like handling leads, marketing resource management, high-volume email marketing campaigns and a real-time offer recommendation engine for personalized, one-to-one messages. Neolane, Adobe says, will become the sixth solution in the Marketing Cloud, joining its existing Analytics, Target, Social, Experience Manager and Media Optimizer offerings. Last year, Neolane raised a $27 million funding round led by Battery Ventures with participation by Auriga Partners and XAnge Private Equity. "The acquisition of Neolane brings critical cross-channel campaign managementcapabilities to the Adobe Marketing Cloud," said Brad Rencher, senior vice presidentand general manager of Adobe's Digital Marketing business in a canned statement today. "Adobe has long been the trusted partner to creative professionals and we are now extending our lead in the digital marketing space with the addition of Neolane. From campaign creation through planning, execution and optimization, Adobe technology is driving the entire marketing process."


Google Looking For Groups To Provide The Next Hikers To Don Trekker Street View Backpack

Jun 27, 8:44PM

IMG_6111Google is trying hard to build out its Street View-style imagery of locales off the beaten path with its Trekker program. The Trekker, a roughly 40-pound backpack that has a camera-ridden sphere poking out over its wearer's head, captures 360-degree fields of view which are then used to build interactive, first-person views of remote places like the Grand Canyon. Google is now looking for applicants to help it continue to expand its Trekker efforts.


New Relic Teams With Microsoft To Offer Performance Monitoring On Windows Azure

Jun 27, 8:34PM

new relic logoNew Relic and Microsoft will offer performance anaytics to gain insight into the performance of native apps and websites running on Windows Azure. The company already provides app performance for the Windows Azure services and solutions. These include Windows Azure Virtual Machines, Windows Azure Cloud Services, Web and Worker Role Instances. They also offer integration with Windows Azure SQL Database, which is available as a plugin to send data to the New Relic Platform.


Rolocule's Motion Tennis App Turns The Apple TV And iPhone Into A Legitimate Gaming System

Jun 27, 8:17PM

V4HttpAssetRepositoryClient-mzl.wozoynbe.jpg-8855642658486555270.320x480-75Just in time for Wimbledon, Rolocule Games is releasing a new tennis game today. It’s not Rolocule’s first foray into virtual racquet sports, but it is the first that turns your iPhone into the controller and Apple TV into a gaming console. The Motion Tennis app, which costs $7.99, uses the iPhone’s gyroscope, magnetometer, and accelerometer to track the phone’s motion, so players can slice and slam shots across the court. All you need is an Apple TV and an iPhone: hook the two up, open the app, and you’re playing tennis. Rolocule is selling rolomotion — its name for the technology that powers Motion Tennis — on a few points, one being that it eliminates the necessity for a console system and lets people play on any Apple TV, anywhere. Rolocule will eventually be releasing Motion Badminton and Squash as well, and they’re working on a shooting game unofficially called “Die Zombies Die!” While Rolocule has only stepped into immediate competition with games like Wii Tennis today, it’s easy to see the implications of developing good console-free gaming. It’s a huge market to cut into, and rolomotion games are light, portable, and relatively cheap, excluding the $99 Apple TV. Rolocule raised an angel round in India last year with Mumbai Angels and Blume Ventures, though Gupta would not disclose how much they raised. He said that they might be looking to raise again, especially if they want to become leaders in this technology. I wouldn’t put it past them. It’s also a look into iPhone games that don’t involve tilting or swiping across the screen, which founder Rohit Gupta said has limited the creative breadth of games. That may be true, but it would seem that the first move for rolomotion would be to replicate every console game possible. Creativity can come after total game domination. Oh, and you might want to invest in one of those iPhone cases with an elastic strap on the back. You know, so you don’t end up ruining your TV and your phone. [Image from Rolocule]


AdTech Star Nanigans Scoops Up Facebook's Retargeted Ads Director Antonio Garcia-Martinez

Jun 27, 8:10PM

Screen shot 2013-06-27 at 12.57.46 PMFacebook's just lost some critical business talent. Today, ads product director Gokul Rajaram was poached by Square, and now Facebook Exchange director Antonio Garcia-Martinez, who left in April, has signed on with one of Facebook's top ad partners, Nanigans. Garcia-Martinez's formal title is "Advisor" and he could help Nanigans keep adapting to Facebook's ever-changing ad platform.


DigitalOcean Wants To Challenge Amazon, Linode And Co. With Better Prices, Marketing And Focus On Simplicity

Jun 27, 8:00PM

Digital-ocean-logo-4x3DigitalOcean is quickly becoming a household name in the web-hosting world. For $5 a month, the company lets you rent a basic virtual private server (or "droplets," as the company calls them) with 512MB of RAM and a 20GB of SSD-powered hard disk space in one of its three locations (two in the U.S. and one in Amsterdam). The company, as its co-founder and CEO Ben Uretsky told me, believes that its focus on simplicity, speed and keeping prices low will allow it to effectively challenge the incumbents in this space.


Boombot Rex Makes Good On Kickstarter Promises With Durable, Siri-Friendly Bluetooth Speaker

Jun 27, 7:42PM

IMG_9543Sometimes I refer to Kickstarter as the "land of broken dreams," especially when I'm looking through my backer history and noting how few projects actually delivered, and how disappointing were most of the ones that did. The Boombot Rex does not fall into either of those categories, thanks to an experienced team that sent me a review unit of the shipping product a couple of weeks ago.


Ex-Groupon CEO Andrew Mason's Album Of Motivational Music Is Coming Out Next Week

Jun 27, 7:37PM

Hardly_Workin_CoverWe already told you that Andrew Mason, the Groupon founder who was ousted from the CEO role there earlier this year, was dead serious when he said last month that he was planning to release a motivational album about career success called "Hardly Workin'" (Mason is known pretty well for his sense of humor, so many people thought he had to be joking about his foray into music.) Well, for those of us who have been very curious to hear Mason dropping workplace knowledge in musical format, the wait is almost over.


Applifier's FaceCam, Which Records Mobile Gamers' Reactions While They Play, Comes Out Of Beta

Jun 27, 7:00PM

Screen Shot 2013-06-27 at 11.57.10 AMApplifier, which runs a mobile-social gaming network where players can share video playbacks of their virtual feats, is pulling FaceCam, a product using the front-facing camera, out of beta. FaceCam records a person’s gameplay and their facial expressions while they’re playing from the front-facing camera. It sometimes can look a bit awkward (see here) or hilarious, but for some gamers, it’s the most vivid way to share how twitchy a game can be. The Helsinki and San Francisco-based startup incorporated FaceCam into games like NimbleBit’s Nimble Quest and Angry Birds-maker Rovio’s Bad Piggies in the beta. The company says it’s seeing about two minutes of gameplay video shared every minute, with the volume of time growing 750 percent compared to the first quarter of this year. Month-over-month, the company says, the number of minutes shared has grown by more than 25 percent. They didn’t disclose the raw number of videos shared, however. With improvement in data connections, we’re seeing mobile app makers — both in the general consumer space and in gaming — adopt more video features. On the general consumer side, Twitter’s Vine took off on the free charts and accumulated 13 million users as of a few weeks ago, while Instagram launched video last week. In gaming, both the major consoles, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, announced built-in video sharing while Twitch, which stream live match-ups for video gamers, reports 35 million unique viewers a month who watch about 1.5 hours of video play each day on average. Applifier, with its network Everyplay, is looking to replicate that video-sharing experience on mobile platforms. The company has a longstanding network for cross-promoting social games on Facebook, and pivoted (like much of the rest of the industry) to mobile platforms over the last year. Last year, they launched a beta for sharing mobile gaming replays. Then they added front-facing camera options after closing a $4 million second venture round led by Finland’s Lifeline Ventures. They are also backed by MHS Capital, PROfounders Capital, Tekes and Webb Investment Network.


Facebook Opens Signups To Android Beta Program So You Can Help Test And Improve Its Apps

Jun 27, 6:37PM

facebook-android-logoToday Facebook announced it will soon begin taking signups for its new Facebook For Android Beta Program that uses Google Play's new beta system to push pre-release versions of its apps to users so they can help it catch bugs and offer feedback.



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