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Silent Circle Preemptively Shuts Down Encrypted Email Service To Prevent NSA Spying
Aug 09, 2:25AM
"We knew USG would come after us". That's why Silent Circle CEO Michael Janke tells TechCrunch his company shut down its Silent Mail encrypted email service. It hadn't been told to provide data to the government, but after Lavabit shut down today rather than be "complicit" with NSA spying, Silent Circle told customers it has killed off Silent Mail rather than risk their privacy.Social Ad Startup Shift Hires Former Facebook VP Paul Ollinger As President
Aug 09, 1:12AM
Shift, a company that offers tools for running social advertising campaigns and for collaborating within a marketing team, has hired Paul Ollinger as president. Ollinger was previously vice president of sales for Facebook's west region, joining in 2007 and leaving two years ago. Since then, he has served as an advisor to several startups — including Shift. And now he's joining Shift full-time.Microsoft's Lightweight Windows Phone App Builder Saw 30,000 Projects Started In First 48 Hours
Aug 09, 12:25AM
Today on the Windows Developer Show, on which I was a guest, Microsoft's Bryan Tomlinson announced that the new Windows Phone App Studio had seen usage higher than the company anticipated, with 30,000 applications started in the first 48 hours of the tool's life.Beddit: A Proper Sleep Tracker That Uses An Ultra-Thin Film Sensor In Your Bed
Aug 08, 11:53PM
Beddit, a Finnish company that has long made sleep trackers for medical professionals, is looking to tap into the broad consumer market with a $149 sleep tracker that uses a thin-film sensor on your mattress. The sensor can send data back to a person’s smartphone, that tells them when they’ve been snoring or when they’ve fallen into deep sleep. Beddit says it can measure data as detailed as a person’s heartrate during the night. The startup is launching the new sleep sensor with a campaign on Indiegogo to raise $80,000. Backers get a discount with a $99 price point instead of a $149 one, and Beddit is looking to bring its product to market by November. While the company has been around since 2006, they’ve been considering bringing a cheaper consumer-facing product to market for years, said CEO Lasse Leppäkorpi. But up until recently, the cost of manufacturing and then selling a sleep sensor for a mattress was prohibitive at a 500 euro ($669) end price point. “We had been focused on basic monitoring in hospitals with tracking heartrate and breathing without touching the patient,” Leppäkorpi said. “Now the next piece is to bring this technology in the form of a consumer mobile app to market. We’ve been developing this for a long time.” Beddit is competing against a host of activity tracking devices using accelerometers like the Fitbit or the Jawbone. But Beddit, of course, is just focused on sleep. Beddit says it uses ballistocardiography, with a sensor sensitive enough to measure the mechanical forces from a person’s heartbeat, their breathing patterns and their movement in bed. The sensor is a thin strip of film with adhesive on one side that acts like a sticker on a mattress. There aren’t any batteries required because it needs a low-voltage USB power supply. It connects to a smartphone using Bluetooth, not unlike other activity trackers like the newly-launched Shine from Misfit Wearables. The app shows a timeline of a person’s sleep activity during the night and awards them a quality score. It also can track light and noise during the night from the smartphone to tell if those factors might be affecting a person’s sleep. There’s also a smart alarm clock built into the app that can wake a person up inside a certain time window when they’re sleeping lightly. The app also gives personalized coaching and tips for how toFail Week: When Mark Suster Believed His Own Startup's Hype, And Everything Came Crashing Down
Aug 08, 11:33PM
To very loosely paraphrase Tolstoy, all successes are alike, but each epic failure fails in its own unique way. But here in the tech industry, we don't discuss failure stories nearly as much as success stories -- and that's a shame, because even the biggest winners in the world of entrepreneurship have had their fair share of missteps. So we at TechCrunch created Fail Week, five day long video series that shines some light on the dark days that even the most lucky of entrepreneurs go through.Snowden's Alleged Email Provider Shuts Down, Warns Against Trusting U.S. Companies
Aug 08, 9:03PM
The alleged email provider of National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden has suddenly shut down, leaving just an ominous message its absence. "I wish that I could legally share with you the events that led to my decision," writes Lavabit owner Ladar Levison on the company's front page. "I would _strongly_ recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States."Lyft Hits A Million Completed Rides And Launches Service In Washington, DC
Aug 08, 9:00PM
Ride sharing startup Lyft hit a big milestone yesterday,* reaching its one millionth completed ride about a year after opening up to the public. The company also continues to expand into new markets, launching most recently in Washington, D.C.Record Your Every Waking Moment With Narrato
Aug 08, 8:21PM
Not everyone can be as obsessive about journaling as, say, a lovesick 14-year-old or Samuel Pepys, but that doesn't mean you can't try. That's why Narrato is so interesting. Created by a London-based team of Wayra graduates, Narrato allows you to enter notes, take photos and describe your feelings and mood in an app that is reminiscent of a version of Path that you'd actually use.France's $16M Anti-Piracy Agency Has Sent Two Million Warnings, But Only Fined Two People
Aug 08, 8:15PM
Anti-piracy agency Hadopi just broke a record. In less than three years, it has sent more than 2 million warning emails for copyright infringement. Warning emails are just the first strike in the “three strike” scheme. After that, it sends you registered snail mail, and finally it takes you to court. Yet, only four people were convicted. The most surprising aspect is that the agency is still going strong despite the change of government in 2012. As a reminder, the Hadopi pays a private company to spy on BitTorrent activity regarding popular music, TV shows or French movies. Then, ISPs are supposed to comply with the Hadopi to give the real identity of the person behind an IP address. Offenders don’t receive a warning because they downloaded a movie, but because they failed to put proper security on their Internet connection. It’s a lot more pernicious. While the Hadopi originally wanted to automate the third step and fine everyone who was caught three times, this part of the bill didn’t pass. A court has to decide whether an offender is guilty or not. With a budget of $16M for 2012 alone, the agency managed to fine two persons for a grand total of $1,000. Only 10 percent of the offenders received registered mail (200,000 people). 710 people are supposed to be tried but there aren’t enough resources to bring all of them to court. So far, only four had to defend themselves in front of a court — less than 0.000002 percent of those who received the first warning. The result isn’t a glorious victory for the government, the results of the cases including a discharge, an “exempt from penalty”, a $200 fine (€150) and an $800 fine (€600) with 15 days of Internet blackout. In other words, it’s a failure. With a budget of $16 million (€12 million) for 2012 alone, the agency managed to fine two people for a grand total of $1,000. Some detractors claimed that France created the most expensive newsletter in the world. Back in 2012, then presidential candidate François Hollande was reluctant to say that the Hadopi would end with his presidency. That was one of the reasons why Aurélie Filipetti was named as the Minister of Culture, because she seemed to get along well with right holders. The government doesn’t want to simply kill the Hadopi and leave a void. It would sendAOL To 'Impact' Hundreds Of Patch Employees Friday In A Bid For Hyper Local Profits
Aug 08, 7:42PM
Patch, AOL’s hyper-local news effort, will lose up to 550 employees this Friday, according to a local editor at the group. Hundreds of sites in the network are expected to close in the process. In recent calls with Patch employees, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong avoided the word “layoffs,” and instead stated that hundreds of Patch employees would become what he called “impacts.” (AOL owns TechCrunch.) There will be between 200 and 550 “impacts,” according to sources at AOL, a surprisingly broad range of potential layoffs. It isn’t clear how the company can be so unsure of its plans, but I would interpret the range as indicative of AOL’s hope that it can salvage some of its Patch sites that currently lose money. In its most recent public earnings call, Armstrong noted that certain Patch sites may be able to find local partners. Perhaps if some do, layoffs will be toward the lower end of the stated range. According to TechCrunch’s source, and separate sources that spoke to Jim Romenesko, up to 300 individual Patch sites will be axed in the process. The local editor that spoke to TechCrunch indicated that the layoffs will impact the editorial, sales and management of Patch. In short, Patch is about to get quite smaller. The news is set to drop on a call scheduled for Friday at 9 a.m. The local editor at Patch was blunt about the situation: "If people at Patch didn't see this coming for years, they are total idiots." In the editor’s view, Patch has gone from being free-wheeling to overly controlling with its local editors and then back and forth between the two. Patch’s history can be described in two parts: over-expansion, and a long painful decline. Why the layoffs now? AOL has made a promise: Patch will make money by the end of the year. Revenue isn’t likely to ramp quickly enough to meet that goal. So cuts are needed. Also, a separate source informed TechCrunch earlier that job offers are being yanked, indicating that hiring at Patch is slowing, if not halting, altogether. Patch must hit the black by the end of the year. This is more than a promise to investors that a long-term bet will stop financially harming AOL; instead, Patch is making the rest of AOL’s media properties look bad. The company’s first-quarter earnings makes this point explicitly: “While significantly improved, Brand Group Adjusted OIBDA remains negative reflecting our investment in Patch.” The company listsGoogle Adds 79 Cloud And Big-Data Patents To Its Open Patent Non-Assertion Pledge
Aug 08, 7:24PM
Earlier this year, Google pledged not to sue open-source developers over 10 patents related to MapReduce. Today, the company is expanding this pledge by adding 79 new patents to its Open Patent Non-Assertion Pledge. These patents, Google says, cover software that is "used to efficiently operate data centers, including middleware, distributed storage management, distributed database management, and alarm monitoring."Google's New Maps App Now Showing Local Ads Related To Users' Searches
Aug 08, 7:21PM
Google AdWords customers can now better target mobile device owners via an updated ad experience within the Google Maps app on Android, iPhone, and iPad, Google announced today. This news follows a recent update to the Google Maps app, which previously saw a number of changes and additions, including an updated user interface, integrated traffic reporting, Zagat reviews, changes to how business ratings display, and more. In the updated Google Maps application, advertisers can now target Maps users after they’ve performed a search. Here’s how it works: after a user performs a keyword search in the native app, a box appears at the bottom of the screen which includes a title, text and link to get directions for a relevant business. Users can also tap or swipe up on this box to see more information. In the example Google provided today, a user searches for “gardening shop” and an ad appears below for a gardening supplies store nearby their location. When clicking (err, tapping) on that ad, Maps users will also be able to view the business address, phone, photos, reviews and more – just like a regular business listing would show. However, the listing is preceded by a small purplish icon reading “ad” to indicate that this is, in fact, a paid placement. The icon on the map is also purple, as opposed to the standard red. Some actions a user takes are free, including saving business information for later, sharing a business listing with a friend, or starting navigation, for example. Meanwhile, others are paid. Advertisers who want to enable the initial “get location details” click, the “get directions” option, click-to-call’s, and clicks on the ad headline, have to pay, says Google. Reporting is available for both types of actions, and can be filtered by choosing the “click type” in the reporting screen. To get started, Google advises advertisers to add location extensions to their search campaigns or create an ad with AdWords Express. Ads also have to be configured for mobile devices and on Google search partners in the AdWords settings. Prior to today’s change, Google’s Map apps on iOS and Android had been updated with a new interface where business listings appear at a box a the bottom of the screen. Users can swipe up on these in order to flip through them one-by-one, or they could just tap on the “list” icon next the search box at the topEvergage, The Disrupt Finalist Formerly Known As Apptegic, Launches A Freemium B2B Service For Improving Website Click-Throughs
Aug 08, 7:19PM
Evergage, the start-up that launched at TechCrunch Disrupt New York in 2012 under the name Apptegic, has been quietly building its business for a year and is now launching a freemium model to help companies improve the click-through rates on their websites without the need for hiring a developer. Though the name has changed, in part because people associated it too closely with mobile apps, Evergage co-founder and CEO Karl Wirth said that the product is fundamentally the same. Evergage looks at behavioral click-through data to identify which website features a customer is focusing on, and which aren’t getting many hits. Using that data, marketing teams can then use a visual editor to build floating messages on top of the site to draw users’ attention to a particular feature. And depending on who the visitor is, they might be shown different pop-ups. “We’re rolling out predictive analytics,” Wirth said. “We make suggestions to the market about what they could be doing. We’re able to say, we’ve seen people who have done these actions, you’ve shown them this message, and they’re converting to the goal at a higher rate. We suggest that you target people like them.” If, for instance, a company wants their users to click through a particular promotion, they might have a call-out message open on top of it when the user is about to close the website tab. Another common and effective message is a membership sign-up box that pops up when the user enters the site. The freemium product, called Evergage Lite, allows users to create up to three message boxes, which Wirth said is all some companies need. Letting businesses prove Evergage for themselves with the free basics seems like it will be a good way for Evergage to drive its own conversions to upgrades. For those who want to up the ante to 40 or 50 boxes, pricing is based on the site’s traffic. Especially on websites that use log-ins, it’s crucial to not show a user the same information twice, Wirth said. If you have a banner asking visitors to sign up for a webinar, that banner should go away after they’ve signed up. And yet some sites keep it up, wasting the opportunity to push further conversions in a return visit from the user. Adobe offers similar products with Adobe Digital Marketing Suite and Adobe Target, but Wirth said that their levelAndroid And Chrome OS Could Reap Big Windfalls From Slowing Worldwide PC Economy
Aug 08, 7:13PM
The global PC market is shrinking, and continues to trend downward according to recent numbers, which means there are a lot of concerned device-makers looking around for what to do next. Acer is one of those companies, and the firm is looking to pin the blame on Windows and find a better option, according to the WSJ. That might be a very popular tune in the next few years from other OEMs like Acer, and that's great news for Google.The TC Meetup + Pitch-Off Is Invading San Diego On August 22
Aug 08, 6:41PM
Baseball season is in full swing and football is around the corner, but there's one other competitive sport that's heating up. The TechCrunch Meetup + Pitch-Off is invading San Diego on Tuesday, August 22. That's right, folks. It's game time!The NSA Searches US Citizens' Cross-Border Email That Mentions Foreign Targets
Aug 08, 6:02PM
It's difficult to keep track of what the NSA does and doesn't do, and today, the New York Times piled on. Citing "senior intelligence officials," the paper is reporting that, under a broad interpretation of the FISA Amendments Act, the NSA intercepts communications of U.S. citizens whose communications cross borders and mention foreign targets. You don't have to communicate with someone being targeted directly to potentially have the NSA collect and search your email.Mozilla's Persona Login System Now Supports All Gmail Addresses Out Of The Box
Aug 08, 6:01PM
One of Mozilla's lesser-known projects is Persona, a login system that aims to eliminate site-specific passwords so you can log in with your existing email accounts without having to type in a password. Its aim is somewhat similar to what Google, Facebook and others are doing with their login systems, though Mozilla's philosophy is obviously quite different.Rdio Hops On The Radio Bandwagon With Pandora-Style Stations Based On Your Friends
Aug 08, 5:58PM
Mainstream music fans don't want to constantly choose what to listen to, so streaming services are embracing radio. The latest is Rdio, whose new Friend FM turns friends' listening activity and connections into non-stop streams. It's also added a traditional Pandora-style You FM station thanks to data from The Echo Nest. Together they could let you productively leave Rdio on in the background.Dragon Innovation Raises $2.3 Million To Help Build Hardware Startups
Aug 08, 5:49PM
Prepare yourself for an onslaught of small, clever, software driven hardware projects because former members of the iRobot team have just started Dragon Innovation, a manufacturing services and crowdfunding firm that will help small makers go from garage to factory.Snapchat CEO And Co-Founder To Disrupt SF, Then Disappear 20 Minutes Later
Aug 08, 5:00PM
In less than a month, Snapchat CEO and co-founder Evan Spiegel will appear on the TechCrunch stage, talk about what it's like to make one of the most popular photo apps in the world, and then disappear without a trace twenty minutes later. But boy! It's going to be a really interesting twenty minutes.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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