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Enterprise Mobile Security Startup Bluebox Raises $18M From Tenaya, A16Z, And Others
Jan 20, 1:00PM
Mobile enterprise security startup Bluebox has raised $18 million in Series B funding from Tenaya Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Sun Microsystems Co-founder Andreas Bechtolsheim, and SV Angel. Brian Melton from Tenaya Capital will join the company's board of directors. This brings the company's total amount raised to $27.5 million. Bluebox previously closed a $9.5 million Series A round in July 2012.Girls Virtual World Stardoll Transfers UK/U.S. Ad Sales Out Of House, Focuses On Managing Shift To Mobile
Jan 20, 12:26PM
Late last year rumours were swirling around that Stockholm-headquartered Stardoll, the fashion-oriented virtual world for "tween" and teenage girls backed by Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital, had shuttered its London and L.A. ad sales offices. Here's what is really going on.Crowdsourced WiFi Network Fon Picks Up $14M Led By Strategic Investor Qualcomm, Adds Facebook Integration
Jan 20, 12:07PM
Fon, a free "crowdsourced" WiFi network that is created out of people sharing a portion of their private WiFi connections, is today announcing another $14 million in funding led by Qualcomm Ventures. It's a strategic investment: sometime in the first half of 2014, Fon will be shipping a new, "social-music" router, called Fonera, based on a chipset from Qualcomm subsidiary Atheros. Qualcomm will also be integrating Fon into other Atheros chipsets, making it available as part of the SDK as Fon gears up to tackle new areas like the U.S. and business users, in earnest.Baidu Translate App Features A Cool Image Recognition Feature
Jan 20, 11:04AM
Baidu, the company best known for making China's top Internet search engine, just made its translation app available for iOS. The descriptions for the iPhone and Android versions are in Chinese (search for "Baidu Translate" in the stores), as are its intro/instruction screens, but don't worry--the app's user interface is mostly in English.Spotify Adds Commission-Free Merchandise Feature As Artist Sweetener
Jan 20, 10:25AM
Spotify has added the ability for artists distributing music via its platform to offer merchandise to fans without taking any commission on sales of t-shirts et al. It was previously running a pilot of the feature with 200+ artists but has now opened it up to all artists using its platform. It’s partnering with Topspin for the merch feature, which also isn’t taken any kind of cut on sales (although artists are required to sign up for a Topspin ArtistLink account to activate the feature). With no direct pie-slicing going on, this looks like a sweetener for artists to give them an incentive to continue streaming their music via Spotify — by helping to foster additional revenue streams, beyond paying to play the music itself. Spotify has, after all, suffered various tongue-lashings at the hands of artists unhappy with its business model (last year Radiohead’s Thom York dubbed it “the last desperate fart of a dying corpse“, in one memorable example of musician streaming music rage). Spotify is clearly hoping to make itself the good-guy with its latest offer. The new merchandise feature doesn’t require artists to change how they sell merch already — rather listings link through to artists’ existing store URLs — albeit they can only list up to three items of merchandise at any one time. So it’s not agreeing to host fully fledged merch stores on its platform, more providing space for a little taster. The merch feature is also only being offered to english-speaking Spotify users in the following countries for now, with plans to expand language support in future (artists in other countries can still list merchandise but it will only appear to users in the following locations): U.S., U.K., Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland. Spotify’s current usage stats stand at more than 24 million monthly active users and over six million paying subscribers (i.e. as opposed to those listening with ads squeezed between tracks) — making its active freemium to paid subs ratio circa 20%. Globally it says it has now licensed more than 20 million songs, with more than 20,000 being added daily. Its platform is available in 55 markets.Qi-Enabled Wireless Charger ARK Lets Mobile Users Cut The Cord
Jan 20, 8:14AM
ARK is one of the latest wireless device chargers for people who are tired of having to tether their smartphone or tablet to an outlet when it runs out of juice. The small, square-shaped base uses Qi, an interoperable standard developed by the Wireless Power Consortium and is currently raising funds on Kickstarter.Index Leads $870K Seed Round For Resource Guru's Cloud-Based Team Scheduling App
Jan 20, 5:00AM
Index Ventures has led a $870,000 seed round into Resource Guru, a London-based startup that wants to disrupt companies' use of spreadsheets to manage staff, equipment and other resources -- and replace them with its cloud-based team scheduling software.Uber And Disruption
Jan 20, 5:00AM
Usually an industry's disruption happens faster than anyone anticipates. Things look like business as usual to the slow moving incumbents, who often have not faced a real market threat for a while. Then the incumbents' business undergoes sudden, cataclysmic collapse. Uber and Lyft are in the midst of causing this pattern to eat away at the taxi industry.The Frustrating, Impossible Beauty Of 'The Perfect Setup'
Jan 20, 3:00AM
Others with gadget addictions will know these feels: Most of my life is spent questing for the Perfect Setup. That means different things at different times to different people, of course, and especially when it comes to tech, the goal posts keep moving. But it can still happen, and when it does, it can make the whole frustrating journey seem worth it.As Google Shoots For The Moon, Microsoft Praises The Virtues Of Open Research
Jan 20, 2:00AM
A few days ago, Google unveiled its latest moon shot: a contact lens with a built-in glucose sensor. As far as Google[x] projects go, the lens is right up there with flying wind turbines and balloon-powered Internet service (though maybe not quite on the same level as self-driving cars). There is an interesting twist to this whole story, though: the researchers who are working on this project at Google previously collaborated with Microsoft Research. In 2011, Babak Parviz and Brian Otis were still at the University of Washington and published a case study (PDF) with Microsoft Research on how they built a prototype lens that can monitor blood glucose levels. In the paper, Microsoft describes the collaboration as being ‘close’ and going back several years. “At the time I met Babak, he was starting to work on the functional contact lens, putting displays, or LEDs, into the contact itself, to create displays that sat on the surface of the eye,” Desney Tan, who was then a senior researchers at Microsoft Research, wrote at the time. “He was having a slightly hard time selling the idea, both in terms of feasibility, but also in terms of vision. What we added to the equation was basically a set of needs in all computing environments or in our projections of future computing environments that gelled very well with a particular technology.” Tan, it turns out, is still at Microsoft Research, and in a somewhat unusual move, he took to Microsoft’s official blog the day after Google’s announcement to talk about Microsoft’s role in all of this. Clearly, Microsoft wasn’t going to let Google get all the praise for a project that was incubated with its support. Like a good researcher, Tan is quite restrained in his words. He profusely praises the work of Parviz and Otis, but he also notes that Parviz, Otis and the team at Microsoft Research “tackled numerous hard problems around miniaturization, wireless power, wireless communications and biocompatibility.” The really hard questions around this project, he seems to imply, were answered with the help of Microsoft and not at Google[x]. Between the lines, he also sets up the difference between Microsoft’s and Google’s approaches to research in the context of what Google is doing with [x]: ”Our open research and deeply collaborative model allows us to work with the best academic and industrial researchers around the world,” Tan writes, “and we will continue to do so as we certainly believe inFly Or Die: 3D Systems Sense Scanner
Jan 20, 1:00AM
If you followed along with this year’s CES coverage, you know that one trend that emerged over the past couple years is here to stay. If you haven’t made your peace with the 3D printing revolution, you should. One company that’s taking the 3D-printed bull by the horns is 3D Systems, an incumbent in the space. The company revealed the Sense, a hand-held 3D scanner in November that is meant to compete with Makerbot’s Digitizer and Occipital’s Mobile Structure Sensor. The Sense, which is about as big as a staple gun, can scan objects with your help. Unlike other scanners, the Sense is meant to be held and circle the object its scanning. This means that it can be difficult to get a perfectly accurate reading, since human error becomes more of a factor. However, the price point ($399) is pretty amazing for what it does, and when used properly, it’s incredibly accurate. John’s impressed. I’m impressed. What do you guys think?Valve Expects Virtual Reality To Be Awesome Within 2 Years
Jan 20, 12:38AM
Virtual Reality is coming. As in, actual, good, user-friendly virtual reality. The stuff sci-fi has promised us for decades. Don't take my word for it. Valve — easily one of the most revered and admired companies in gaming — has gone deep on virtual reality R&D, and they believe that amazing, consumer-friendly virtual reality is but a couple of years away.Skimlinks Says Its Affiliate Linking Technology Drove $500M+ In E-Commerce Sales Last Year
Jan 19, 11:00PM
Skimlinks, a company that helps online publishers make money through affiliate links, says that it had a record year, driving more than $500 million in e-commerce sales. A spokesperson told me that three quarters of Skimlinks sales go through affiliate networks that report e-commerce sales value, and they reported $402.3 million in sales driven by Skimlinks in 2013. However, since there are other networks that don't report sales value, the company is estimating that it drove more than $500 million total for the year (more specifically, based on historical analysis, the company says the number was probably between $502 million and $536 million). That's about double the sales from last year.Bitcoin's Recent Price Stability Could Point To Growing Maturity
Jan 19, 10:05PM
The nearly boozy Bitcoin rallies and crashes of 2013 led to endless media coverage, rising mass market knowledge of its existence, and piece by piece, the growing maturity of its underlying network. No asset that regularly loses or gains 50% in a day can be treated as anything more than a speculative tool, and an incredibly risky one at that. However, in the new year, as the media firestorm has mostly abated around Bitcoin and its network of buyers and sellers has continued to improve and expand, something interesting has happened: Bitcoin has found and stuck to a trading range. Now, compared to more traditional currencies, Bitcoin still moves around too much for the good digestion of those close to it. At the same time, over the past nearly two weeks, it has shown remarkable flatness, meaning that those wishing to use and accept it for commerce have had a period in which they could trust their sales and purchases to not swing to wild profit or loss by whim of the market. The Bitcoin D1 chart remains as humorous as ever (in this case, D1 means that every chart point represents one day’s trading): But taking a look at an H4 chart of the recent history, and you will note that following the imposed vertical white axis, Bitcoin has essentially behaved itself. That marks shown is the 7th of January, past which Bitcoin has managed a real interval of lucidity: Compare the preceding and following sections of that chart — it almost feels like we are looking at two difference substances. Price stability has been a Bitcoin bugaboo for as long as you can recall because the rise in the currency’s value was often correlated to news stories regaling its surges. Upward momentum and all of that. But instead if Bitcoin was to become a medium of exchange more so than a store of speculative hype, it needed to calm down. This, as you have seen has, lead to a denouement of media coverage of Bitcoin, even from your humble servant. If you’ll allow the indulgent self quote, this is what we are talking about: Bitcoin needs a more stable price, which can only come to fruition after its network becomes large enough to have validated the price of Bitcoin at a certain level. And for that it needs to attract more retailers, which are kept out by itsWhat Games Are: Sports And Video Games
Jan 19, 10:00PM
This weekend's big game between the Seahawks and 49ers makes me think of the rise of video game broadcasting (through services like Twitch.tv) and its potential. At what point will video games cross over the mass-popularity threshold that sports have, and become the new tribal entertainment?Blinkx Founder Chandratillake Becomes Balderton Capital Partner, As Maloney Steps Back
Jan 19, 9:00PM
The London VC community has been buzzing with rumors since the end of last year about one particular firm and its next moves. That firm is Balderton Capital, considered one of the few, large VC firms in Europe, with more than $1.9 billion of committed capital. Balderton was one of the main beneficiaries of the $850 million exit of Bebo to AOL, and now counts firms such as Tictail, Qubit and Vestiaire Collective in its wide portfolio. Balderton's last fund — Fund IV — closed in 2009 at just over $480 million. In its VC peer group, Accel Europe raised €359m in 2013 and has €1.5bn funds under management, while Index Ventures has €2.5bn under management and last raised its €350m fund in 2012. These funds are playing up and down the spectrum, from early to late stage. The question was, what was Balderton's next play? Well, tonight it confirmed the rumors: one partner is taking a step back, another joins and the firm is now 'doubling down' to become a 'mainly Series A' VC in Europe - an equity gap which badly needs filling.Revisiting Mobile Identity, TouchID And Beyond
Jan 19, 6:00PM
About three years ago, Rebekah Cox, an early product designer at Facebook and Quora, tweeted: "The first company to fully execute on embedding your identity into your phone (making a truly first class experience) wins the next decade." The tweet was widely-circulated, and given Cox's experience, provoked thought. A day later, she expanded on her tweet by writing a longer post on Quora, titled "Mobile Identity." It's an excellent post and worth reading, as she explores the intersection of mobile, identity, and permissions to interrupt -- it's deeper than what I'll write about here today (I'll focus on iOS), because for now, the building blocks for mobile identity remain to be seen.
CrunchWeek: Google's Nest Buy, Yahoo Management Changes, And The Threats To Net Neutrality
Jan 19, 5:00PM
It's that time of week for an episode of CrunchWeek, the show that brings a few TechCrunch writers together to chat about the most fascinating stories of the past seven days in tech.
How To Get An MBA From Eminem
Jan 19, 7:00AM
In 2002 I was driving to a hedge fund manager's house to hopefully raise money from him. I was two hours late. This was pre-GPS and I had no cell phone. I was totally lost. I kept playing over and over again "Lose Yourself" by Eminem. I was afraid this was my one shot and I was blowing it. I was even crying in my car. I was going broke and I felt this was my one chance. What a loser.Investors Drop Big Money On Dropbox So It Can Beat Box
Jan 19, 1:35AM
Dropbox is raising between $250 million to $400 million at a $10 billion valuation according to the Wall Street Journal and Re/Code. Why? Because Dropbox has spent the last year rebuilding its product for businesses, and now it's time to sell it. How? Because a source says Dropbox has been doing well and felt it had the buzz behind it to take advantage of an easy fundraising market.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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