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Coinbase Adds SMS Commands So You Can Send BTC Via QR On The Q.T.
Aug 16, 2:40AM
Coinbase has added SMS commands to their already user-friendly Bitcoin wallet and purchasing systems. The system, which uses simple commands (qr $100 will make a QR code for a $100 withdrawal from your account) and a trusted phone to make things a bit more easier on BTC lovers.WaPo: NSA Broke Privacy Rules Thousands Of Times, Harms Uncertain
Aug 16, 2:32AM
According to documents obtained by The Washington Post, the National Security Agency broke its own privacy rules thousands of times per year. Many of the violations seem like unintentional infractions, such as a typo while searching telephone area codes, which results in a swath of phone records that shouldn’t have otherwise been scanned. It is unclear whether any of the wrongly obtained information was used for illegal or illicit purposes. While White House officials admitted the validity of the Post’s records, the story itself doesn’t reveal any harms that came from the violations. "We're a human-run agency operating in a complex environment with a number of different regulatory regimes, so at times we find ourselves on the wrong side of the line," said a senior NSA official, speaking with the White House’s permission. The more concerning aspects of the report is that the court charged with NSA oversight, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, seems to have loose control over the spy agency. “In another case, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has authority over some NSA operations, did not learn about a new collection method until it had been in operation for many months. The court ruled it unconstitutional,” explains The Post. In a separate front page story, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton told the Post,”The FISC does not have the capacity to investigate issues of noncompliance, and in that respect the FISC is in the same position as any other court when it comes to enforcing [government] compliance with its orders.” President Obama has promised transparency reforms, but it is unclear whether the new reports to Congress for the yet-to-be formed independent review group will also report on the NSA self-audited privacy violations. Read the full story here.Digital Retox – My Week Using Tech Every Minute
Aug 16, 1:15AM
Can too much information drive you crazy? I'm about to find out. As we struggle to adapt to the mobile age, digital detoxes have become a trend. But I wanted to see what true toxicity feels like. So I've begun what I'm calling a Digital Retox, where I'll be using high-tech devices during my every waking minute for a week straight.Adap.tv Founders Discuss Their $405M Acquisition And The Company's 'Secret Ingredients'
Aug 16, 12:35AM
A week after AOL (which owns TechCrunch) announced that it's acquiring video ad company Adap.tv for $405 million, we drove down to the company's office in San Mateo to speak to co-founders Amir Ashkenazi (the CEO) and Teg Grenager (the chief product officer). Ashkenazi told me that there were "secret ingredients" leading to the company's success — namely, its engineers. That's because the company's goal was to create an ad platform that directly connected buyers and sellers:Vungle Raises $6.5M For A Growing In-App Mobile Video Advertising Business
Aug 15, 11:34PM
As iOS and Android have matured, the mobile ad units on both platforms have had to evolve, becoming richer and more interactive. The tiny banner ads that earlier mobile advertising startups like Google AdMob pioneered are falling to the wayside as mobile video ads and rich interstitials have taken off. One startup, Vungle, has built an entire business around native mobile video ads in high-definition, and they're picking up a $6.5 million Series A round from Crosslink Capital for it. Also participating are Google Ventures, AOL Ventures, 500 Startups, SV Angel, Maynard Webb, Scott McNealy and Tim Draper, bringing Vungle's total funding to $8.5 million.InteraXon Raises $6M Series A Round From Horizon, A-Grade And Others For Its Brainwave-Sensing Headset
Aug 15, 10:08PM
InteraXon, the Toronto, Canada-based company behind the Muse headset for thought-controlled computing, today announced that it has raised a $6 million Series A round from a number of prominent investors, including Horizon Ventures, OMERS Ventures, A-Grade Investments (Ashton Kutcher's investment company), ff Venture Capital, Felicis Ventures, and Bridge Builders. The company, which was founded in 2007, made the announcement at Vancouver's GROW conference.Birchbox Says Its Subscription Model Is Working, With 25% Of Revenues Coming From E-Commerce Store
Aug 15, 10:03PM
Birchbox, a pioneer in the field of subscription e-commerce, said that its model of letting men and women sample personal care products and then up-selling them to buying the full products in an e-commerce store is working. While reaching 400,000 monthly subscribers, the startup helped inspire a wave of copycats with monthly boxes of products for pretty much every demographic and vertical you could possibly think of — fishing, food, kids, crafts, and on and on. However, the thing is that sending boxes every month for as little as $10 is not ultimately that profitable, even if the samples are provided for free or at-cost. In Birchbox’s case, the startup was making a bet that some percentage of the company’s customers would leap to pay for full-size products after trying out the samples. The company’s now sharing stats today that suggest this might be working. Birchbox says its e-commerce sales are on track to triple this year, with more than one-half of Birchbox’s monthly subscribers going on to make purchases from the company’s e-commerce store. “When customers find a product that they love from Birchbox, we try to make it as easy as possible for them to shop and then transact,” said co-founder Katia Beauchamp. Stila, a pretty well-known upscale cosmetics brand, said that they saw an 11.2 percent conversion on sales after shipping a sample eye shadow palette. There are also full-size e-commerce orders that come from non-subscribers. About 15 percent of the company’s orders come from customers who don’t get the monthly box of sample products. Birchbox hasn’t raised any additional funding since the fall of 2011, but a good story about conversions to full-sized product sales would be something they could raise a growth round on. Beauchamp played down that possibility, though. “We don’t have plans to raise,” she said. “We’re excited that we’re able to grow this business aggressively by ourselves.” The company has been around since 2010, when Beauchamp co-founded it with another Harvard Business School alumna Hayley Barna. They were looking for a way to help women discover new cosmetic products and started shipping boxes of samples for about $10 per month. They eventually expanded into men’s products with a slightly more expensive subscription service full of lifestyle goods and grooming products. They also faced down a number of copycats globally in Asia and Europe, and eventually acquired a regional competitor from Paris called JolieBox, which letGif.Me Is A Chrome Extension For Gif Storage… Because GIFS!
Aug 15, 9:28PM
Gif.me is a new Chrome extension that allows users to store and share gifs they find on the internet with nothing more than a right click. It's wonderful.Zumper Goes National And Releases An iPhone App To Help You Find Your Next Apartment
Aug 15, 8:30PM
About one year after launching and becoming a TechCrunch Disrupt finalist, apartment rental startup Zumper is expanding beyond just New York City, San Francisco, and Chicago to open up nationally. Along with all the new places where users will be able to find listings, it's also launching an iPhone app that is designed to help renters find their next apartment.CareCloud Raises A New $9M In Oversubscribed Round For Physician Care SaaS Platform
Aug 15, 8:08PM
CareCloud has followed up the $20 million that it received in June with a new $9 million investment from Adams Street Partners. The new investment brings its total funding to $55 million. The oversubscribed $20 million Series B round was led by Tenaya Capital and included existing investor Intel Capital and Norwest Venture partners. Adams Street, a private equity firm, was added to the Series B round to fill out the over-subscription.Microsoft Calls Foul After Google Yanks YouTube Access In New Windows Phone App
Aug 15, 7:56PM
This morning Google admitted that it had yanked access to YouTube from Microsoft's brand new Windows Phone application. This came fewer than 50 hours after the launch of the application. Windows Phone users were predictably disappointed. What happened? In the intervening hours I've learned enough to piece together the situation. Let's go.Mobile Ad Startup Apsalar Raises $9M For International Growth
Aug 15, 7:50PM
Apsalar, which offers mobile ad buying and targeting tools, has raised $9 million in Series B funding. The company launched in 2010, and CEO and co-founder Michael Oiknine told me it started out by offering free analytics for mobile app developers. Apsalar then used that data to create anonymized user profiles, of which there are now 800 million. Those profiles, in turn, are used for ad targeting through Apsalar's demand-side platform (namely, a platform for buying ads on multiple networks and exchanges).After Initially Locking Down Funds, PayPal Relents And Gives GlassUp Access To Indiegogo Cash
Aug 15, 7:42PM
The GlassUp, an ambitious Indiegogo project that wanted to take the concept of Glass and make it more about passive consumption of content than about privacy-treading recording, video and photography, was in danger of losing a full third of its funding earlier today due to a PayPal rule, but is now on track again after the payments giant reversed its initial decision.Parrot Announces The A.R. Drone 2.0 Power Edition
Aug 15, 7:01PM
It was hovering. Just sitting there. The livery was different. A black body with different color blades. Something was clearly different about this Parrot A.R. Drone 2.0. It wasn't as colorful as the ones he had seen before. He sat there for a lot longer. This drone was clearly hiding something under the piano-black shell. Eight minutes passed. 16 minutes passed. Then, just before the 36 minute mark, the drone, nearly silently, returned over the trees.Perch Launches Video "Portal" Service For Distributed Teams
Aug 15, 7:00PM
Perch for iOS wants to help businesses build a persistent video portal between their offices to help teams work together more effectively. The service originally started out as an asynchronous video chat tool for families, but as the company's CEO Danny Robinson told me yesterday, the team quickly realized that businesses would be the ideal market for this technology. Robinson officially unveiled the new version of Perch at Vancouver's increasingly popular GROW conference today.Dropbox Alternative Lima (Née Plug) Works With Chromecast, Breaks Into Kickstarter Tech Top 10
Aug 15, 6:45PM
It's been a crazy 36 days since Plug started its Kickstarter campaign. First, Plug is now called Lima due to some trademark issues. But everything else stays the same. The $69 adapter will seamlessly transform your USB drives into a personal Dropbox for all your devices. And now it will support Chromecast.Gigwalk Expects Its Mobile Workforce To Double With Debut Of Android App
Aug 15, 6:35PM
Gigwalk, until now an iPhone-only service, has launched an Android version of its app, which posts crowdsourced jobs for the mobile workforce marketplace. Now the 400,000 Android users who had signed up in anticipation can now go out and get some work. The app comes as the company continues on its tear, growing 300 percent in the last year with 320,000 iPhone users already in its workforce. Gigwalk expects the new Android app to double this number by the end of September.
New App MyFab5 Wants To Offer Better Restaurant Recommendations By Nixing Reviews And Ratings
Aug 15, 6:30PM
Restaurant discovery apps have become increasingly simple, all the better to cater to diners rendered indecisive by low blood sugar. UrbanSpoon's signature gimmick is serving up new listings with a shake, while Dish.fm's newest version focuses on specific dishes. The freshly launched MyFab5, however, may be the most streamlined. The Web site and iOS app only lists the current top 5 restaurants in each category as picked by users (or, as its motto puts it, "discover the best, forget about the rest").Apple Acquired Matcha Because It Got The Recommendation Recipe Right
Aug 15, 6:27PM
News broke that Apple had acquired Matcha, a video programming recommendation site, earlier this week. It's not surprising, despite the company's relative unknown status and small amount of total funding: Apple makes a number of smaller, strategic acquisitions and we don't find out about some until well after the fact. With Matcha, however, there's a very good reason Apple came calling, and that has to do not with talent but with product.Trsst Is A Secure Twitter For The Post-Snowden Internet
Aug 15, 6:00PM
In a world where tweeting is the new texting, there are some folks out there who want to broadcast their thoughts - but with an acceptable level of security. That's where Trsst comes in. It is, in short, an encrypted messaging platform that turns your short messages into a p2p style collaboration system.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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