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Spredfast Raises $32.5M For The "Third Wave" In Social Marketing
Jan 03, 12:00PM
Social marketing company Spredfast is announcing that it has raised $32.5 million in Series D funding. The round was led by Lead Edge Capital with participation from Austin Ventures, InterWest Partners, and OpenView Partners. The company has now raised more than $60 million.Iconic ZX Spectrum Home Computer Of The '80s To Be Reborn As Retro Gaming Keyboard For iOS
Jan 03, 10:30AM
In the U.K., the iconic 8-bit home computer of the 1980s was the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Few keyboards have surely been pounded as hard as the Spectrum's rubberised complement of grey rectangles.Haloband Lets You Control Your Smartphone With A Tap On Your Wrist
Jan 03, 9:21AM
The rise of mobile has given me so much: 24/7 connections with friends around the world, information exactly when I need it, the ability to track my fitness and health goals. Unfortunately, it's also given me a complex about my giant sausage fingers and their constant inability to navigate the tiny keys on my smartphone's slippery touchscreen. Sometimes I think I should have just bought a BlackBerry.Toy Startup Roam And Wander Receives New Funding, Prepares To Expand Its U.S. Retail Presence
Jan 03, 7:49AM
Roam & Wander, the Hong Kong and Taipei-based children's entertainment startup that we profiled in June, is preparing to expand its retail operations into the U.S. just six months after its first plush toy, TuTu, was successfully funded on Kickstarter.European Trademark Office Says Pinterest Doesn't Own 'Pinterest' – Social News Startup Premium Interest Does
Jan 03, 1:41AM
Pinterest raised a $225 million round in October 2013 to help fuel its international expansion, but a recent ruling in Europe could prove to be a hiccup in that strategy. The U.S.-based social networking site has lost a challenge it made to claim the Pinterest trademark in the region, with a European trademark court ruling in favor of the current owner, a London-based social news aggregation startup called Premium Interest and its founder Alex Hearn.Uber's Denial Of Liability In Girl's Death Raises Accident Accountability Questions
Jan 03, 12:24AM
A six-year old girl named Sophia Liu was tragically killed last night when an SUV driver confirmed to be an Uber-contracted driver struck her in a San Francisco crosswalk. Uber has essentially denied liability, noting in a statement that "this tragedy did not involve a vehicle or provider doing a trip on the Uber system". Uber's insurance does not cover drivers between rides, but the accident raises questions of whether it should.The ACLU Will Appeal Court Decision Declaring The NSA's Phone Metadata Program Legal
Jan 03, 12:09AM
In an expected move, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) today announced that it would appeal the dismissal of its case relating to the National Security Agency’s telephony metadata program. Recently, US District Judge William Pauley III ruled that the program was constitutional. The case in question, ACLU v. Clapper, was set back by Judge Pauley III who invoked past terror attacks as reason for the metadata program’s existence, and argued that protections under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court were stiff enough to protect constitutional rights. The ACLU disagrees, and in a statement claimed that “the NSA’s call-tracking program violates both statutory law and the Constitution.” There have been two legal decisions of note thus far regarding the NSA’s surveillance programs and their relation to the rights of American citizens. The first ruling, Judge Richard Leon indicated that the metadata program was likely unconstitutional. The second, and the one under new appeal by the ACLU, came to the precise opposite conclusion. The Pauley III decision contains a piece of argument that I find, as have hosts of others, particularly troubling. Regarding the statutory arguments, there is another level of absurdity in this case. The ACLU would never have learned about the section 215 order authorizing collection of telephony metadata related to its telephone numbers but for the unauthorized disclosures by Edward Snowden. Congress did not intend that targets of section 215 orders would ever learn of them. And the statutory scheme also makes clear that Congress intended to preclude suits by targets even if they discovered the section 215 orders implicating them. It cannot possibly be that lawbreaking conduct by a government contractor that reveals state secrets – including the means and methods of intelligence gathering – could frustrate Congress’s intent. To hold otherwise would spawn mischief: recipients of orders would be subject to section 215′s secrecy protocol confining challenges to the FISC, while targets could sue in any federal district court. A target’s awareness of section 2015 orders does not alter the Congressional calculus. The ACLU’s statutory claim must therefore be dismissed. The argument that if a party learns of potential government abuse via a leak there should be no legal recourse for them due to the source of the information is unsettling, in my view. This case is therefore more broad in its impact than the fate of a single NSA program. The ACLU hopes that the Second Circuit of Appeals “will set anRobocoin, The Bitcoin ATM, Is Heading To Hong Kong And Taiwan
Jan 02, 11:48PM
The first shipping bitcoin ATM, Robocoin, is landing in Hong Kong and Taiwan as the company expands its reach this January. They are planning further releases in Europe, Canada, and the US but, given Asia's clout in the BTC markets, this is definitely an interesting development. The first Robocoin landed in Vancouver where it's been a big hit and we wanted to see how things have been going for the company since launch in October.Snapchat Says It's Improving Its App, Service To Prevent Future User Data Leaks
Jan 02, 11:21PM
Snapchat has released an official post about the recent leak of 4.6M usernames and phone numbers from its servers. The post blames what it says was ‘abuse’ of its API on the leak, but acknowledges that the way that it stores the information made it possible for a database of numbers to be used to sniff out usernames and match them up. Changes will be made to both Snapchat’s apps and the service in order to prevent future leaks including being able to opt out of the Find Friends feature that uses phone numbers. Snapchat says that it was notified of the possible security risk (publicly) in August and took some steps to correct it including limiting the speed at which its API could be queried. In what is one of the most cringe-worthy security moves in recent memory, Snapchat posted a response late last month to claims of risk that outlined just how a hacker might be able to match usernames to phone numbers. In the post, they said “Theoretically, if someone were able to upload a huge set of phone numbers, like every number in an area code, or every possible number in the U.S., they could create a database of the results and match usernames to phone numbers that way.” That is exactly what the group behind the leaked SnapchatDB.info database says that they did. The result was a trove of 4.6M Snapchat accounts matched up with usernames and phone numbers. Despite partially redacted phone numbers and usernames, matched conveniently in an online repository, Snapchat says that “no other information, including Snaps, was leaked or accessed in these attacks.” Notably, Snapchat’s public response to this hacking does not include an apology of any sort to its users who have had their user names or phone numbers publicly exposed. Perhaps its an effort to avoid an admission of guilt, but it still feels like a bad effort. The person(s) responsible for releasing the names and numbers told Techcrunch that “raise the public awareness around the issue, and also put public pressure on Snapchat to get this exploit fixed. It is understandable that tech startups have limited resources but security and privacy should not be a secondary goal. Security matters as much as user experience does.” The group says that they were following the research of Gibson Security, who gave a detailed account of how such an exploit could be accomplishedReport: NSA Trying To Build A Quantum Computer To Crack Encryption
Jan 02, 11:08PM
The National Security Agency wants to build a futuristic super computer that can break most types of encryption, according to documents obtained from Edward Snowden by the Washington Post. No reason to worry yet, however, as the Agency is not even close to figuring out how to build the space-age technology necessary to crack most security procedures. According to the documents, the computer project is part of a $79.7 million research program, “Penetrating Hard Targets”, suspected to be under classified contracts in a lab in College Park, Maryland. Encryption, has, since at least the Ancient Greeks, been a method of scrambling information with the noise of arbitrary character strings; only someone with a rubric could determine what is the noise and what is the message. The more noise, or bits, the more difficult it is to crack the code by trial and error. A 1,024-bit encryption could take years (or much longer) to decode. Quantum mechanics exploits the rather unintuitive concept that matter can exist in multiple states. Quantum computers could calculate problems where bits are both a 1 and 0, or multiple 1s and 0s, potentially increasing the speed of calculations exponentially. Potentially then, the NSA could build a computer that could decode the most advanced encryption much faster. Generally speaking, allowing even one organization to have the capability to break encryption is potentially threatening to all security on the web. Though, advances in quantum computing could also have benefits to science and health. So, at this point, the benefits and harms are pretty theoretical. Either way, according to The Washington Post, such computers are extremely fragile and the NSA is close to only a few of the basic building blocks. “That’s a great step, but it’s a pretty small step on the road to building a large-scale quantum computer,” explained MIT mechanical engineer, Lloyd Seth. This is why the NSA is also pressuring and paying security experts to create backdoors and exploits. Read The Post’s full story here. [Image Credit: Flickr User elsamuko]Groupon's $260M Acquisition Of Ticket Monster From LivingSocial Has Closed
Jan 02, 11:00PM
Today Groupon announced that its purchase of the Korean ticket and ecommerce company Ticket Monster has closed. A document filed with the SEC states that on “January 2, 2014, the Company and Groupon Trailblazer completed its previously reported acquisition of LS Korea.” As the same filing notes, LS Korea, or LivingSocial Korea, was the holding company for Ticket Monster. The purchase, worth $260 million, helps Groupon’s international expansion, and could assist it in bolstering its flagging revenue growth rates. In the most recent quarter, Groupon had revenue of $595.1 million, and earnings per share of $0.02. Ticket Monster could quickly accelerate Groupon’s top line: The business had gross billings on an annual basis of $800 million at the time the acquisition was announced, and 4 million active customers. As a company, Ticket Monster has seen quick revenue growth, elusive profits, and comes to Groupon with cash and equivalents of a mere $15.1 million. That could explain why LivingSocial was willing to let the business out the door: Given LivingSocial’s own losses, it could be that it lacked the resources to continue to fund the enterprise. Groupon, on the other hand, is on the cusp of profitability, but has had lackluster revenue growth since its initial public offering. Provided that Ticket Monster’s tangible earnings are not too negative to Groupon’s aggregate non-GAAP income, the fresh revenue could help bring back some of the new parent company’s shine. Groupon was for a time touted as the fastest growing company of all time. It went public, and watched its stock price fall as profits were scarce, and its famed growth curve flattened. LivingSocial, a key rival to Groupon, has raised a somewhat incredible $924 million to date. Its struggles in the global market once caused shareholder Amazon to record a $169 million charge. As it appears to constrict its expenses to find profits, its enemy Groupon appears to be a willing assistant, kicking it likely much-needed cash. Groupon’s cash and equivalents are comfortably over the billion dollar mark, and so it can well afford the purchase. Investors might not like the dilution that 13.8 million new shares the deal will bring to the company, but if Groupon can begin to grow again like it once did, the naysayers will likely come around. Top Image Credit: FlickrSighES
Jan 02, 10:35PM
Here we go. Another year, another CES. And, as I said before, this is going to be a weird one. Nothing - and I mean nothing - has leaked out of the deep mountain hordes of Sony, LG, and Samsung and there is no overarching concept or topic that everyone is pushing. It's as if the big guys are now just going through the motions. And they are.Integral Ad Science Raises $30M, August Capital-Led Round To Find High Quality Ad Impressions
Jan 02, 10:13PM
Integral Ad Science, a company that evaluates the quality of ad placements, has raised $30 million in Series D funding. The funding was first disclosed in a regulatory filing and has been confirmed by CEO Scott Knoll, who said the round was led by August Capital (with existing investors participating). August's Eric Carlborg is joining the Integral board.CBS Will Live Stream The AFC's Playoff Games
Jan 02, 9:52PM
Today CBS announced that it will live stream its coverage of the American Football Conference’s playoffs online. If you are a football fan without a television, this is good news. According to CBS, the championship game for the conference, two “divisional round games” and a wildcard game will be streamed. The content will be centered, unsurprisingly, at CBS Sports’ website. Broadcast rights for large sports leagues are expensive, leaving rights holders in a constant revenue maximization trap. To have decided to expand its live streaming of games, CBS appears to be betting that larger audiences are the path to more revenue, regardless of what platform they choose to view the games on. If you were curious, the American Football Conference’s sixteen teams are half of the NFL. The National Football Conference contains the other sixteen. Each league has its own playoffs and championship. The Super Bowl is the competition between the winner of each league. CBS also streamed the last Super Bowl online. Given that it is expanding those efforts, the Super Bowl experiment was presumably a success. If current trends hold for the next few seasons, we might see full seasons streamed online before the end of the decade. Top Image Credit: FlickrShopify Revamps Its iOS App With A Focus On Payments And Store Management
Jan 02, 9:29PM
Ottawa-based ecommerce player Shopify introduced a totally redesigned version of its iOS mobile app today, with a new core concept that focuses on helping merchants do more to manage and run their stores from their devices. And in keeping with their new strategy post-gigantic raise, the company is looking to help both online and offline retailers in one package with the new app.Apple's New Mac Pro Uses 74% Less Aluminum, 68% Less Power And 84% Lighter Packaging
Jan 02, 9:15PM
Apple has today released its environmental report for its new Mac Pro machine, which details some fairly large savings on power and raw materials. The new device also earns a gold rating from the EPEAT, but that isn’t too surprising as Apple has ‘helped’ the organization rethink how it evaluates products. Despite that retooling, however, the new Mac Pro still puts up some impressive gains in efficiency. For one, it uses 68% less power than the previous generation Mac Pro when at idle. We looked up last year’s model and the idle consumption rates were up around 133.7w on 100v, with the new unit coming in at just 43w. It also uses less materials over all, which isn’t too surprising given that it’s a ton smaller. The new Mac Pro uses 74% less aluminum than the previous version and the packaging consumes 82% less volume and weighs 84% less than the older version. Apple says that this lets 3x more units fit in one airline shipping container. Our own Darrell Etherington reviewed Apple’s new machine late last month and found it an impressive and powerful beast. The full report is here (PDF).Gillmor Gang Live 01.02.14 (TCTV)
Jan 02, 9:12PM
Gillmor Gang - Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor. Live recording session has concluded.find our realtime live chat here http://friendfeed.com/realtime-network/47b84c58/gillmor-gang-recording-live-today-1pm-pt. "Like" us on Facebook at Facebook.com/GillmorGangScience Finds Novice Drivers And Handhelds Don't Mix On The Road
Jan 02, 7:51PM
We basically all knew this, but science just confirmed that novice drivers are easily distracted by cellphones on the road which leads, almost inevitably, to accidents. The study, conducted by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute and the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development, watched drivers as they texted, tweeted, and got into accidents. They found that as young drivers spent a few more months behind the wheel their initial skittishness turns into confidence, multi-tasking, and crashes.Developer Spams Google Play With Ripoffs Of Well-Known Apps…Again
Jan 02, 7:39PM
It's not uncommon to search the Google Play app store and find a number of knock-off or "fake" apps aiming to trick unsuspecting searchers into downloading them over the real thing - especially when the app in question isn't yet available on Android. But one developer really went out of his or her way over New Year's to fill the Android app marketplace with a number of rip-offs of big-name startups and other tech companies, including IFTTT, Slideshare, Snapguide, Wolfram Alpha, Fiverr, Upworthy, MySpace, and moreBlackBerry Executive Culling Continues As Alicia Keys Hits The Chopping Block
Jan 02, 7:18PM
BlackBerry continues to tighten its purse strings, and even top executives and global recording stars aren’t safe – and if you’re both, you’re screwed. Alicia Keys will depart her role as “global creative director” for the smartphone, software and services provider as of January 30th, CTV News reports. New CEO (who has dropped the “interim” from his title) John Chen has been cleaning house at BlackBerry since taking the reins, likely getting rid of executives who were too aligned with the vision of Thorsten Heins and his predecessors. Keys was a noteworthy Heins hire, and as such was probably too close to the throne to escape with her job intact. It might also just be that Chen and the company’s new management realize that a thinly veiled PR arrangement with a celebrity whose fame arguably peaked a while ago isn’t the best use of company resources. Keys has obviously been little more than a highly paid spokesperson for the company, despite the seemingly meaty title, and coming off a quarter where it posted a $4.4 billion loss, even perceived waste isn’t something they want kicking around. BlackBerry’s share price is up 2.91 percent in trading today, as of the time of this writing. She’s just a girl and she’s on fire.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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