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.
IBT Media Buys Newsweek From IAC
Aug 03, 10:27PM
I guess today is the day for announcing the sale of struggling media properties: IBT Media just said that it has reached an agreement to acquire Newsweek from IAC. Back in 2010, Newsweek merged with IAC-owned website The Daily Beast. (The magazine subseqeuntly ceased print publication and went digital-only.) However, earlier this year, IAC Chairman Barry Diller said that buying Newsweek was a mistake, one he would correct by selling it off.CrunchWeek: MotoX Says Hello, Ridesharing Regulation Wars, More Google Surveillance Suspicions
Aug 03, 10:00PM
Another seven days have come and gone, July has turned into August, summer is closer to its end than its beginning, and precious time is just as fleeting as ever. The good news is that it's time once again for a new episode of CrunchWeek, the show that brings a few of us TechCrunch writers together to run our mouths about the most interesting tech news stories from the past week. Silver linings!Obama Administration Vetoes Ban On Certain iPhones And iPads
Aug 03, 7:25PM
President Obama's administration has vetoed a decision by the United States International Trade Commission to ban the import and sale of a number of Apple products, including models of the iPhone 4 and iPad 2. The ITC announced the ban in June after finding that those devices had violated a patent held by Samsung.The New York Times Company Sells The Boston Globe (And Related Properties) For $70M
Aug 03, 6:54PM
The New York Times is selling the Boston Globe and the rest of its New England Media Group to John Henry, the billionaire who's principal owner of the Boston Red Sox, for $70 million in cash. The news has prompted some rather depressing comments about the Globe's relative worth. For example, Ken Doctor at the Nieman Journalism Lab noted that the price is $12 million less than the five-year contract that Red Sox pitcher John Lackey signed in 2009. But harshest comparison may with the Globe of 20 years ago, which The Times acquired for $1.1 billion.Gillmor Gang: What's Up Doc
Aug 03, 5:00PM
The Gillmor Gang — Bret Taylor, Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor — gather in real time to try out Bret's new startup, Quip. The last time we saw Bret, he was selling Friendfeed to Facebook and becoming CTO. Now, he's back (sporting Marc Benioff as one of his investors) at the intersection of mobile and collaboration. As if Microsoft didn't already have enough problems...In Mastering Machine Intelligence, Google Rewrites Search Engine Rules
Aug 03, 3:00PM
Google has produced a car that drives itself and an Android operating system that has remarkably good speech recognition. Yes, Google has begun to master machine intelligence. So it should be no surprise that Google has finally started to figure out how to stop bad actors from gaming its crown jewel – the Google search engine.The Business Of Fear
Aug 03, 1:00PM
I spent much of this week at the Black Hat information security conference, after attending the head of the NSA's keynote speech; and I am pleased to report, O my readers, that here in Las Vegas I have finally achieved enlightenment. That being: the fundamental problem with the National Security Agency, which it shares with most "security" companies, is that it's not really in the business of security. It's in the business of fear.A Look Into What The Manning Verdict Means For The Tech Industry
Aug 03, 12:51AM
The long-running trial of Wikileaks whistle-blower Pfc. Bradley Manning came to a key (if preliminary) conclusion this week, with Judge Denise Lind announcing a verdict that contained both good and bad news for Manning: He has been found innocent of the very serious charge of "aiding the enemy," but guilty of 19 other lesser counts. His sentencing for these crimes has yet to be determined. It's a situation that has captured the interest of many people but has especially meaningful implications for the tech industry (and the people who use its products), so it was a big pleasure to have Rainey Reitman stop by the TechCrunch TV studio this week to help elucidate what it all means. As the co-founder and COO of the Freedom of the Press Foundation and a full-time staffer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Reitman has been keeping close tabs on the Manning case since Manning's leaks of classified U.S. military documents first came to light back in 2010 -- in fact, in her spare time she founded the Bradley Manning Support Network to help support Manning in his trial. There are few people more well-versed in all aspects of this subject than she.Verizon Reportedly Provides British Spy Agency Access To Its Undersea Internet Cables
Aug 03, 12:04AM
It became known in June that the GCHQ, Britain’s NSA equivalent, was directly tapping into the fiber optic cables that carry Internet traffic around the world. However, at that time, what telecommunications companies take part in the program was not known. We now know. As reported in the Guardian today, the German newspaper Süddeutsche published the list of companies that take part in the program known as ‘Tempora:’ BT, Vodafone, four small providers, and Verizon. Verizon stands out as a key ISP in the United States, and company that calls the United States home. To have it allow a foreign government to tap into its fiber cables feels slightly different than a domestic firm allowing the same from its home government. Edward Snowden leaked the material that led to the uncovering of the participants of Tempora. According to the leaks, Verizon’s secret name as part of the program was ‘Darcon.’ The article goes on to note that having the participating companies now exposed will lead to “dismay” at the GCHQ, as consumers may be not too pleased to learn that “their private data and intimate emails have been secretly passed to a government spy agency.” The British really do have a knack for understatement. When the GCHQ program first came to light, it was noted for its relative youth – less than two years – and the time that it holds information that it intercepts: 30 days. The NSA is generally thought to retain data for a far longer period. Tempora exists alongside other GCHQ efforts that go by the names ‘Mastering the Internet' and 'Global Telecoms Exploitation.’ Not exactly names that are hard to grok. As a three, they appear to provide the GCHQ with essentially limitless access to the communications information of British citizens – if they desired to run the search, of course – with the Guardian noting in June that “recordings of phone calls, the content of email messages, entries on Facebook and the history of any internet user's access to websites” are collected by the efforts. And now the firms taking part in Tempora are publicly known. It’s now up to the citizens of Britain to stand up and say their piece. Either this sort of activity will be tolerated, or it will not be. The British and American governments are also said to have deep ties when it comes to surveillance, causing some to worryCBS Blocks Time Warner Cable Subscribers From Watching Full Episodes On CBS.com
Aug 02, 11:37PM
A dispute between CBS and Time Warner Cable over retransmission fees for its broadcast content has spilled over onto the web, with a blackout of television programming also being extended to CBS' online properties. In the wake of Time Warner Cable dropping the CBS and Showtime signals in most of its markets, the broadcaster has decided to block access to full-episode viewing on CBS.com.University Of California Approves Major Open Access Policy To Make Research Free
Aug 02, 11:14PM
Good news for fans of the scientific method: the largest and most influential university system on the planet will be giving out its research for free. After 6-year-long fight with the for-profit academic publishing industry, the University of California Senate approved open access standards for research on all 10 campuses. The policy is major win for those who want to see academic research made public, rather than behind the pricy paywalls of big publishers. Last year, Harvard Library penned a memo urging the university’s 2,100 faculty to boycott for-profit academic research databases and instead submit articles to lower-cost open access journals. Universities pay millions for access to their colleague’s research, with subscriptions costs up to $40,000 for a single journal. Publishing, too, can cost many times more for more prestigious closed-access journals. Nature reports that it can cost $5,000 to publish in the biology journal, Cell Reports, but only $1,350 for the most popular open-access journal PLoS ONE. "It’s still ludicrous how much it costs to publish research,” said molecular biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, Michael Eisen. The open access movement has friends in high-places. Recently, in response to a WeThePeople petition, the White House pledged a whopping $100 million to promote open access and to require all federally-funded research to be free of charge. There are issues with open access; it costs money to curate high-quality peer-review and market the research. Many academic papers take years to write, and its a risky proposition to leave it in the hands of an experimental publisher. But, speaking as a writer who likes to include academic research in my articles, open access could not come soon enough. Media outlets get inundated with research findings, but often can’t get access to the articles to report on them critically. Open access may not be perfect, but it is the future. The more people use it, the better the journals will become. And, ultimately, there will be little need for closed access at all.Developed By Literacy Experts, Learn With Homer Launches On The iPad To Change How Kids Learn To Read
Aug 02, 11:05PM
Stephanie Hua spent the last ten years pushing for educational reform, first as the CEO of the Fund for Public Schools under former Chancellor of New York’s Department of Education, Joel Klein, and Caroline Kennedy, before becoming senior advisor to David Coleman at Student Achievement Partners (SAP). But as much time as she spent as a reformer on “the inside,” when it came time for Dua’s daughter to learn how to read, she struggled to find any quality materials for parents that could help get their kids started on the right path. With the help of former Google engineer Iris Tang, Dua created Learn With Homer, a business and reading app for the iPad of the same name, which launched on the App Store this week. The idea was to transform how kids age 3 to 6 learn how to read, but not just by creating another eBook or cute little game-ified learning app for the iPad. Instead, Dua and Tang wanted to bring together the latest educational research, learning techniques and teaching practices to create a better learning experience for both kids and parents. And one, importantly, that is aligned with the new standards of the Common Core, so that parents have assurance that their kids will start school (or kindergarten) ahead of the curve. To do so, the app blends a whole mess of custom learning content and stories taken from fairy tales, fables, and various mythologies with some killer, custom illustrations and art to make the content more engaging for young eyeballs. Alongside these stories, Learn with Homer includes a phonics program that aims to teach kids how words not only look, but how they sound and how they’re strung together. The motivation, Dua tells us, is to create a “comprehensive literacy program” for the iPad, where kids are not just memorizing words by sight as their parents read to them at bedtime, for example, but actually learning the sounds of the words as they go. The iPad then offers “field trips” that aim to bring the platform’s lessons into the real world by showing pictures of a fun range of animal characters and allowing kids to hear their own voices and words imitate those characters. Parents can also make recordings of their kids during the process, measuring their progress as they move through Learn With Homer’s 30 (free to download) lessons. Parental units can also addWhat's Asseta, A Marketplace For Used Manufacturing Equipment, Doing In Y Combinator? Um, Making Money
Aug 02, 10:15PM
Thank you, Y Combinator, for not just investing in a million photo-sharing apps. While you might not be personally excited about an online marketplace where you can buy and sell used manufacturing equipment - and, at launch, primarily semiconductor equipment - a new startup called Asseta demonstrates the potential in taking the now familiar concept of a transparent buyer and seller marketplace to a new vertical, which has yet to be flattened by the power of the web and the one-to-one connectivity it allows.AOL Lays Off Members Of AIM, Video Production, And HR Teams
Aug 02, 10:13PM
AOL made another round of cuts today. The news was first reported in Valleywag, which said the layoffs "won't break any records for AOL" (which owns TechCrunch) and that the cuts include some recent hires. A spokesperson for AOL (which owns TechCrunch) declined to comment, but a source with knowledge of the company confirmed that there were layoffs today, and that, as reported, they affected the AIM, video production, and human resources teams. (AOL reportedly laid off 40 members of AIM team last year.) Although my source did not say how many people were affected, they did note that there are other areas of AOL that are still hiring.File Transfer & Syncing Service Pixelpipe Shuts Down – Acquisition In The Works?
Aug 02, 10:06PM
San Francisco-based startup Pixelpipe, which previously offered services for uploading photos to a variety of online destinations, before moving to support a wider variety of file types under a cloud-to-cloud rebranding known as Pi.pe, shut down today. The company says it will now be "joining a much larger organization," but the details are not yet finalized.EAT Club Suspends Food Bus Operations In SF After Getting A Cease And Desist From The City
Aug 02, 9:52PM
Lunch goers in San Francisco startup neighborhoods like SOMA and the FiDi have lost one of their better food options today, as the EAT Club food bus has suspended operations after receiving a cease and desist from the city. The shutdown of its San Francisco service follows a disagreement over how to classify the EAT Club vehicle under city food codes.Ask A VC: Greylock's Josh Elman On SoLoMo, Growth Hacking And More
Aug 02, 9:35PM
On this week's episode of Ask A VC, we hosted Greylock's newest partner, Josh Elman, in the studio to answer reader questions on his views on local marketplaces and more.YouTube Expands Live Streaming To Channels With Just 100 Subscribers, Opens Custom Thumbnails & Merchandise Links To All
Aug 02, 9:12PM
Google today announced a number of updates to YouTube that will allow more video producers to use YouTube for live streaming. All channels in good standing with at least 100 subscribers will be able to live stream from their accounts within the next few weeks.Travel Startup WeHostels Goes Big On Mobile With An App For Booking Hostels On The iPad
Aug 02, 8:50PM
Over the past year WeHostels has bet on mobile in a big way by releasing apps for the iPhone and Android devices. Today, it released a new version of the app just for the iPad, taking advantage of the device's larger screen to give users more information about the places they're looking to stay at.The FBI May Be Working To Install Surveillance Taps On Major US Telecom Carriers
Aug 02, 8:46PM
According to a report in CNET today, the FBI wants to follow the NSA into broad surveillance of Internet data by forcing large telecommunications carriers to put in place what is described in the story as “eavesdropping technology.” Once installed, the technology would grant the FBI sweeping new powers to collect metadata on the Internet activities of American citizens. At work here are so-called ‘pen register,’ and ‘trap and trace’ orders, under the legal authority of which metadata can be collected in real-time. And in large amounts. Getting one of the orders, according to CNET, is exceptionally easy. Trap and trace authority allows for the collection of metadata – but not content – of incoming communication, according to the U.S. Code of Laws. Pen register allows for the collection of phone numbers called from a particular line. If CNET is correct, and the authority given by the pen and track orders can be used to collect Internet metadata, we are seeing law intended for telephonic information bent to vacuum up different digital information. This is misuse of law. Thus the two points fit together: The FBI forces the telecommunications companies to install the technology that it wants to use to track metadata, and then uses the pen register or trap and trace authority to collect as it pleases. The metadata scope of what the FBI could collect under that connection of installed tech and legal authority could, in CNET’s view, include “IP addresses, e-mail addresses, identities of Facebook correspondents, Web sites visited, and possibly Internet search terms as well.” CNET claims that carriers are fighting the installation of the FBI’s technology. This is to be encouraged. However, it is worth noting that there is strong precedent for their cooperation, perhaps the prime example of which is the infamous NSA room at the AT&T building in San Francisco. From that location, the NSA is widely believed to have full access to the fiber optic cables through which Internet traffic flows. The report that the FBI is working to expand what I would call real-time collection of metadata from telecommunications companies is troubling in that it underscores how intent the various arms of the United States government are in their pursuance of more and more information concerning the private lives of its citizens. At the same time, the revelation, if borne out, is not a surprise. In this case, however, we lack aIf 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
