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Cooper-Hewitt Adds The First Piece Of Code To Its Design Collection
Aug 28, 4:08AM
Programmers know how beautiful well-written code can be, but most users will never see the source code behind their software. The Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, however, wants to showcase the artistic potential of computer programming. It just acquired iPad app Planetary and its source code, the first time the museum has added a piece of code to its collection.Parallels Launches Access For iPad, A Virtualization App That Gets Windows, Mac Apps To Work Like Native iOS Apps
Aug 28, 1:07AM
Timed to coincide with VMware's conference this week in San Francisco, one of its bigger rivals, Parallels, today is unveiling a new app that takes its own virtualization software to a new screen: the iPad. Over a year in the making, Parallels Access for iPad is not the first tablet-friendly product released by the company -- an existing-but-now-discontinued product, Parallels Mobile, works on both the iPad and iPhone -- but it is the first one dedicated specifically to making software and documents from Windows and Mac machines work in a "native" way on the iPad, by transforming everything into an "app" experience, complete with iOS gestures to control them.StackOverflow Co-Founder Jeff Atwood Builds A $150 Keyboard For Coders (And Others Who Type All Day)
Aug 28, 1:05AM
If anyone knows far too much about their keyboard, it's a programmer. Professional programmers type a lot. A whole lot. So much that a flame war over which text editor/input method is best for coding (Vi! No, Emacs!) has roared on for decades. It makes some sense, then, that a well-known coder has taken to building his own keyboard.Google Dumps Video Responses From YouTube Due To Dismal .0004% Click-Through Rate
Aug 28, 12:29AM
Google is ditching video responses from its video sharing site on September 12, encouraging users to fall back on hashtags and descriptions to surface videos in searches. The cited reason is a minuscule .0004% click-through rate on video responses submitted by users. To illustrate, says the YouTube team, only four out of every 1 million users bothered to click on those little boxes underneath the main video. Efforts will theoretically go into providing new and different tools to increase fan engagement for creators. The notice was posted on YouTube’s Creators blog because that’s really who this affects. Video responses were designed to create a way for big-time YouTubers to foster a conversation and increased interaction with their fans. A video response would appear attached to a video, increasing exposure for the responder and demonstrating that a conversation was happening around the posted video. Now, YouTube says that the best thing to do is to encourage fans to use the video titles, hashtags and descriptions to explicitly associate them with the video that they’re responding to. Then, creators can search for those videos to find them and move them into playlists and channel sections. Current video responses will still be “available and discoverable,” says YouTube, but since they weren’t really being watched in the first place it’s hard to care much. Google is in the final stretches of overhauling YouTube to be the channel-based juggernaut it thinks it can be — a true competitor to television. But if it’s going to do that it’s not just going to need to find a way to duplicate what TV already does well but to enhance the things that it can do without the strictures of the channel structure. In other words, yes, make people comfortable by starting with channels, but utilize the unique network effect of YouTube, which has made it the No. 1 music service for teens and so many other superlatives. Anyhoo, it will be interesting to see where YouTube takes the video-engagement tools from here. Hopefully people will click more when they do.Apple CEO Tim Cook Snags 72k Shares Of Vested Stock, Eddy Cue Sells $12.4M
Aug 27, 11:55PM
Apple executives were granted more than 120k shares of vested stock in transactions that took place last week but were disclosed today. CEO Tim Cook converted 72,877 units of restricted stock that were originally granted on a schedule. SVP Eddy Cue converted 50,000 units out of a grant of 100k that was awarded in September 2011. The remainder of those shares will vest at this time next year. Cue sold 24,500 shares at an average price of $504.18 to net around $12.39 million. Cue withheld 25,420 shares at a price of $501.02 per share for taxes. Cook tucked away 38,028 shares at a current market rate of around $19 million to satisfy taxes and didn’t sell any of his 72,877 vested shares. Cook has another 840k shares scheduled to vest in 2016 and 2021in 100k increments and annual installments of 80k units as of August 2014. This new scheme is a modified bonus that was tweaked to be more performance-based in June of this year. Apple’s return performance will be compared to the S&P 400, and if Apple is in the top third of the group, Cook will get his full annual award of 80k shares. The lower it goes, the more it will be reduced.Developers Are Pissed That Microsoft Won't Give Them Windows 8.1 Until Everyone Else Gets It
Aug 27, 11:50PM
Windows developers are not happy that Microsoft will not provide them with a copy of the newly "completed" Windows 8.1 RTM build. Instead, Microsoft has decided to make the developers who are part of TechNet and the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) wait like the rest of us until the middle of October. The decision isn't sitting well. Developers are accustomed to getting their hands on the RTM build when it's done, so that they can update their apps to work with the final code. It is worth noting that Windows 8.1 has a huge number of new APIs and capabilities that developers need to learn and employ. This time around, they are not being given that opportunity.Courting All Bookworms, Kobo Debuts 3 New Reading-Friendly Arc Tablets, A New Aura E-Reader, And A Plan To Gain An Edge Over Amazon
Aug 27, 11:26PM
Kobo, the e-reader and tablet company owned by Rakuten (aka Japan's answer to Amazon), is today taking the covers off four new devices -- three new Android-based Arc tablets and a new Aura e-reader. And it is using the occasion to kick off a redoubled effort to focus on a specific segment in the market -- die-hard bookworms -- to help itself gain an edge over Amazon and differentiate itself better in the market. Now, in addition to its catalogue of 4 million books, Kobo has built in integrations with Pocket, new reading-focused storefronts (starting with a store for children's books and one for magazines), and two new Android feautures, a launcher Kobo calls "Reading Life" and a new Reading Mode, both designed to put reading front and center on tablets more than it has ever been done on tablets before.HyTrust Raises $18.5M For Security Technology That Protects The Virtual Data Center
Aug 27, 10:49PM
HyTrust has raised $18.5 million for its security technology designed for the new reality of the virtualized data center that requires new methods to prevent a systems adminstrator from deleting entire infrastructures with a few custom scripts.For The Conscious Consumer, An Online Retailer Called Zady
Aug 27, 10:44PM
A new ecommerce site called Zady is bringing the conscious consumerism movement to the online retail space by showing shoppers exactly where the goods the carry come from. To that end, the site aims to blend commerce with storytelling in the form of brand profiles and lifestyle articles. Zady — a word that with a slight spelling tweak means “grandfather” in Yiddish and “prosperous” in Arabic — carries a range of artisanal women’s and men’s clothing, along with home and office supplies. The focus is on beautifully made products from smaller-scale makers, like Nashville’s denim brand Imogene + Willie. The company is a joint project between Foodspotting co-founder Soraya Darabi and Maxine Bédat, the founder of The Bootstrap Project, who have been friends since high school. Zady raised a $1.35 seed round in March prior to the site’s launch. While Americans have shown a growing interest in knowing the origins of their food and in buying locally, the mechanisms of clothing production are still relatively opaque. A handful of companies including Nudie Jeans and Nike have exposed their own supply chains through interactive maps, but they are in the vast minority. And clothing is much more complicated than fruit: the cotton for a t-shirt might be grown in one locale, shipped to another for dyeing, and yet another for production. Like other retailers seeking a greater level of transparency, Zady’s site maps each product geographically, dropping a pin on the brand’s headquarters and then extending lines to the source material and manufacturing locations. Although inventory is international, Zady does promote American-made products in particular. “Production has moved so far overseas,” Darabi said. “In our parents generation, JFK allowed 5% of design apparel to be designed overseas, and now it’s 95% plus. For shoes it’s 99%.” Zady will clearly appeal to those Whole Foods-type shoppers looking to use their consumer dollars to have a say in the manufacturing process (either practically or symbolically). The products on the site are good threads, though, and with a price point similar to that of J.Crew, Zady could very well capture a broader audience that’s simply looking for quality, classic designs. The site’s content-commerce model is not unheard-of in the online retail world. AHAlife also tells the stories of the little-known brands it carries and fleshes out the lifestyle side of its label with auxiliary stories that aren’t meant to push product. Zady launched withSyrian Electronic Army Apparently Hacks DNS Records Of Twitter, NYT Through Registrar Melbourne IT
Aug 27, 10:33PM
The Syrian Electronic Army has claimed responsibility for hacking the domain name servers of two of Twitter’s sites, and a third appears to have been redirected to servers hosted by the SEA. In addition, attacks have been made on The New York Times and Huffington Post UK name servers. [Updated with statement by Twitter and confirmation statement from Melbourne IT. Both are at the end of the article.] The New York Times says it was attacked via its registrar, Melbourne IT. Once the Syrian Electronic Army had gained access to registry records, it was able to change both contact details and domain name servers. Now, the SEA is claiming access to a variety of international Twitter domains: After the claimed responsibility for hacking the DNS records of the New York Times, additional issues began being popping up in relation to the hosting of Twitter images. Those issues were followed by a tweet from one of the Twitter accounts attributed to the hacking group, claiming that it had control over the Twitter.com domain. At this time, it appears that the name servers of Twitter have not been changed, only contact information. The SEA then followed up by claiming responsibility for Huffington Post UK and New York Times domain name server changes. Another tweet from the account points to an outage of Twitter.co.uk, whose DNS records have also apparently been altered to refer to the SEA’s servers. The Twimg,com domain, which serves up Twitter images and avatars, also shows changes that point to servers that are apparently SEA-owned. A Twitter representative told TechCrunch that the company was ‘looking into’ the possibility that the SEA had changed DNS records. “The site is down for some, not all and we are working to fix the problem,” said NYT spokesperson Eileen Murphy. “Our initial assessment is that this situation today is most likely the result of a malicious external attack.” Interestingly, both The New York Times and Twitter name servers appear to have been registered through the registrar Melbourne IT. This led some to posit that a breach at the registrar allowed changes to be made, possibly with an administrative account. This would explain why the changes are being made across several companies. The New York Times has now confirmed that this is true. According to a report from The Next Web, Melbourne IT began managing Twitter’s domains in 2009. The firm inherited VeriSign’sTC Cribs: Pinterest, Where Making Beautiful Stuff Is A Way Of Life
Aug 27, 10:08PM
From the outside, Pinterest is known for being one of the Internet's go-to places for beautiful things. But on the inside, the company is also killing it from an engineering perspective -- and tech folks have sometimes been known to neglect decorating their own work spaces to focus on making great products for their customers. So we weren't sure what to expect when we headed over for a TechCrunch TV Cribs tour of the company's headquarters, which is fittingly situated smack in the middle of San Francisco's "Design District." But as it turns out, the crafty ethos that millions of people know and love Pinterest for is alive and well amongst its own employees.Playing Ballmer Bingo, Could Microsoft's Next CEO Come From Google?
Aug 27, 9:44PM
There are whispers bouncing around Silicon Valley that a Google executive might be selected as Microsoft's next CEO. The concept isn't out of the question, especially following Marissa Mayer's move to Yahoo. That transition has gone, by most accounts, well. To become the next CEO of Microsoft, a number of traits are required: Experience leading teams at scale; experience working with and inside large technology companies; technical competence; and an X factor that we'll simply dub "swagger" to annoy the pedants.Yahoo's Redesign Isn't Over Yet, More Sites & Ad Formats To Come
Aug 27, 9:43PM
Yahoo rolled out a major redesign to several of its web properties today - a move that's part of a project apparently code-named "Grand Slam." At least that's how it was recently described in a Vogue profile of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, which said Grand Slam is "an effort to bring a more coherent look and identity to Yahoo's pages."NYT Resorts To Bypassing DNS Servers Amid Potential Hacking, WSJ Drops Its Paywall To Capitalize
Aug 27, 9:02PM
According to statements from a spokesperson, the New York Times may have been hacked, resulting in the loss of access for many customers. Specifically, it appears that the attack has resulted in the redirection of its domain name servers, which has caused the Times to resort to some interesting methods to deliver the news. The hacking has been attributed to a group of hackers called the Syrian Electronic Army, as some DNS lookup results point to servers in control of the sites. Amid the outage, the Wall Street Journal has temporarily dropped its paywall, allowing readers full access to its articles without a subscription. This is the second NYT outage this month, and the second time that the WSJ has moved to capitalize on the outage by removing its paywall. The top breaking news item on the WSJ homepage at the time of publish was the NYT outage. While its name servers, which translate the plain language ‘Nytimes.com’ domain into a target IP address, are down, the Times has resorted to tweeting out the addresses to stories with the direct IP of its servers in place of its domain name. This allows access to the sites articles via shared links, and users can browse the Times via the http://170.149.168.130/ address on mobile and desktop devices. If you still have access to the Times, it may be because changes to servers propagate across the ‘net slowly. Some users may continue to see the homepage for some time. “The site is down for some, not all and we are working to fix the problem,” said NYT spokesperson Eileen Murphy. “Our initial assessment is that this situation today is most likely the result of a malicious external attack.”Comcast Ventures' Adit Singh Heads To Foundation Capital To Focus On Enterprise Investments
Aug 27, 8:55PM
After raising $282 million for its seventh fund, Foundation Capital is adding a new partner to its ranks -- Adit Singh, a former investor and senior associate with Comcast Ventures, will be an investment partner at the firm. We're told that in his new role, Singh will focus on identifying and investing in startups specializing in enterprise IT infrastructure, systems, software and services. Enterprise and IT makes up a around 60 percent of Foundation's investments, says Singh. In particular, he's focused on digging deep on the next evolution of data center, including startups disrupting virtualized storage networks and the software defined data center.10gen Is Now MongoDB To Reflect Focus On NoSQL Database
Aug 27, 8:30PM
10gen is changing its name to MongoDB, the NoSQL technology that it developed and supports. The company said in an announcement of the news that the name unifies the open-source database project with the company behind it. The change is effective immediately.Assessing Zuckerberg's Idea That Facebook Could Help Citizens Re-Make Their Government
Aug 27, 8:25PM
Mark Zuckerberg has a grand vision that Facebook will help citizens in developing countries decide their own governments. It’s a lofty and partially attainable goal. While Egypt probably won’t let citizens vote for their next president with a Like, it is theoretically possible to use Facebook to crowdsource expertise. Governments around the world are experimenting with radical online direct democracy, but it doesn’t always work out. Very briefly, Zuckerberg laid out his broad vision for e-government to Wired’s Steven Levy, while defending Internet.org, a new consortium to bring broadband to the developing world. “People often talk about how big a change social media had been for our culture here in the U.S. But imagine how much bigger a change it will be when a developing country comes online for the first time ever. We use things like Facebook to share news and keep in touch with our friends, but in those countries, they'll use this for deciding what kind of government they want to have. Getting access to health care information for the first time ever.” When he references “deciding … government,” Zuckerberg could be talking about voting, sharing ideas, or crafting a constitution. We decided to assess the possibilities of them all. Picking A Constitution/Government: Internet Failed So Far For citizens in the exciting/terrifying position to construct a brand-new government, American-style democracy is one of many options. Britain, for instance, has a parliamentary system and has no constitution. In other cases, a government may want to heed political scientists’ advice and develop a “consensus democracy,” where more than two political parties are incentivized to work collaboratively with citizens, business, and different branches of government to craft laws. At least once, choosing a new style of democracy has been attempted through the Internet. After the global financial meltdown wrecked Iceland’s economy, the happy citizens of the grass-covered country decided to redo their government and solicit suggestions from the public (950 Icelanders chosen by lottery and general calls for ideas through social networks). After much press about Iceland’s “crowdsourced” constitution, it crashed miserably after most of the elected leaders rejected it. Crafting law, especially a constitution, is legally complex; unless there is a systematic way to translate haphazard citizen suggestions into legalese, the results are disastrous. “Collaborative drafting, at large scale, at low costs, and that is inclusive, is something that we still don’t know how to do,” says Tiago Peixoto,Keen On… Promoting Yourself: How Social Media Won't Help You Get A Job
Aug 27, 7:00PM
If you want to learn how to promote yourself, read Dan Schwabel's CrunchBase entry. Alternatively, you could read Schwabel's new book (out next week), entitled, appropriately enough, Promote Yourself: The New Rules for Career Success. The 28 year-old Schwabel - the Managing Partner of the consulting and marketing firm Millennial Branding - has made a successful land grab at becoming the Millennial authority on the work habits and fashions of his fellow Gen Y'ers.FeeX Raises $3 Million To Help You Avoid Paying Hidden Retirement Fees
Aug 27, 7:00PM
FeeX, which helps users save on hidden retirement fees, has raised $3 million in Series A funding from Blumberg Capital. Co-founded by Uri Levine from Google-acquired Waze, the startup aims to raise awareness of excessive fees through its crowdsourcing platform. The funding will go towards the company’s U.S. launch in early 2014. Retirement fees in America could add up to anywhere from $30 billion to $60 billion total per year, but according to a 2011 AARP study, seven in 10 Americans are not aware of the fees charged to maintain their 401(k) accounts. Many workers also lack a frame of reference to find other options. FeeX co-founder and CEO Yoav Zurel tells me that by accumulating retirement fee information with FeeX, users can compare what they are paying to others with comparable accounts. FeeX shows you the real accounts of others with similar financial characteristics. For example, it might show you users in similar employment or who have invested the same amount in their 401(k) plans. After linking up your own account, the platform places you on a “Sucker Meter” based on how much you pay in extra fees. After seeing the comparison, users can either confront their current companies about lowering fees or switch to a different company. In order to use FeeX, users have to connect their personal retirement accounts, which may be a deterrent for potential users. To protect privacy, Zurel tells me, all online accounts are completely anonymous. Others can only view how much each account is paying, without viewing names, social security numbers or other sensitive information. With more than 6,500 users in Israel, Zurel says privacy has not been an issue for most people. There are already several online tools that help manage 401(k) plans, such as Personal Capital and FutureAdvisor. FeeX works by drawing information through crowd sourcing, which users find more trustworthy, Zurel tells me. He also says FeeX differs from many financial advisors and aggregators by being objective, because the service doesn’t take cuts from financial institutions. “Most of the platforms use a lead generation business model, which basically means you move from one financial institution to another and the platform will get a sales fee. So immediately when someone uses this kind of model, it is not objective,” Zurel tells me. “We have no financial relationship with any financial institution.” FeeX is free right now, but Zurel says the company is looking toHeap Raises $2M For Their "Capture Everything" Analytics Tool
Aug 27, 6:56PM
Heap, a company looking to battle the likes of Google and KissMetrics in the analytics space, has raised a seed round of $2M from some of the bigger names in the Valley. As I've written before, Heap's approach to analytics is somewhat backwards from what many developers might be used to.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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