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These iPhone 6 Renders Are Fake, But Also Pretty Great Looking
Feb 13, 2:09PM
Rumors circulated yesterday that the cat was out of the bag on Apple’s next iPhone design: the picture above was one of a series leaked by a Twitter user depicting a supposed redesign of Apple’s redesign. This supposed iPhone 6 had a rounded back more akin to the iPad than the current iPhone, with next to no bezel and a big, edge-to-edge display. But it’s all fake. The photos appear to actually be advanced renders, which at least one Reddit user convincingly argues are the work of Martin Hajek. Hajek is known for his photorealistic device render work, and in fact he created one for an iPhone 6 with a very similar look back in March, 2013. This new image details the inside of the case, showing some ribbons and other components, and adds a Touch ID sensor to the front and a double-flash to the back (both of which weren’t known about at the time of the original renders), but the rest of the industrial design looks borrowed from the earlier concept. The renders may not represent what Apple actually has in the works, but this is a redesign I could get behind. The iPad mini with Retina display is essentially a larger version of this as it is, and it’s nearly handholdable or pocketable. Apple has been using the hard-edged and more angular design of the iPhone 5s for two generations now, but it went with rounded edges for the iPhone 5c, and that has proved popular ergonomically with many reviewers. So would you pony up for this if Apple unveiled something similar come fall? A bigger screen is almost a lock, but ditching the back bevel would also be a nice move in my opinion. Hopefully Hajek proves psychic when we do finally get a real glimpse at what Apple has in store for us next.Affectiva Launches An SDK To Bring Emotion Tracking To Mobile Apps
Feb 13, 2:00PM
Affectiva, an emotion tracking startup with big-name investors, is announcing the launch of its mobile software development kit. The company says it can analyze a user's emotions by tracking their facial expressions, and it uses that technology to measure the effectiveness of ads. With the new SDK, mobile developers will be able to add these capabilities to their apps as well.Haiku Deck Launches An iPhone App For Viewing And Controlling Your Presentations
Feb 13, 2:00PM
Presentation software startup Haiku Deck is finally bringing its software to the iPhone, after a successful run on the iPad. The smaller screen version of the app offers full access to your Haiku Deck library, allowing you to review and play back presentations from your Apple smartphone, as well as providing a remote control mode with access to presenter notes for when you’re showing your stuff at that board meeting or product brainstorming session. The new app offers a piece that was missing from the original Haiku Deck puzzle, and one that users have been asking for according to the startup’s founder and CEO Adam Tratt. The iPhone app is being used as a content consumption and discovery tool, too, thanks to the inclusion of Featured and Popular gallery sections to let you see what kind of presentations others are sharing and enjoying. “Last we spoke, we were launching the beta of the web app, and that was all about giving people the opportunity to create new Haiku Decks outside of the context of the iPad app,” Tratt said in an interview. “And increasingly, what we’re seeing on our own site and globally across the Internet is that a significant amount of traffic related to content consumption is happening on mobile, and Haiku Decks by nature are ideal for mobile consumption.” The new iPhone app offers the ability to remotely control a presentation on an iPad, but also to broadcast from the iPhone to a connected display on its own. What it doesn’t yet offer is the ability to create Haiku Decks, and Tratt says that’s definitely in the works for a later update, but for this first version the focus was on putting out the features that make the most sense for the tight screen real estate afforded by the smaller iOS devices. “With the iPhone app we wanted to give people who are authoring on the iPad app or on the web more ways to share their decks in a way that renders beautifully on the small screen,” Tratt explained. “And then we also wanted to extend the iPad experience to take advantage of what’s awesome about the iPhone.” Haiku Deck is slowly building up features and functionality that make it competitive with established products including Microsoft’s PowerPoint and Apple’s Keynote. That’s impressive with a small team and a relatively modest funding pool to draw from (Haiku Deck’s lastMedia Storage Startup Streamnation Now Hooks Into Instagram, Facebook, Dropbox, And Others
Feb 13, 2:00PM
Media storage startup Streamnation was founded with the idea of making it easy for users to store, view, and share content from the cloud. And now, the startup is making it easier for users to get their content onto its service by connecting with a wide range of other social networks and cloud storage services.Meet Flyfit, The Fitness Tracker You Strap To Your Ankle
Feb 13, 1:38PM
When you think about it, it's odd that wearable tech makers are so obsessed with wristbands. Most wearable tech products currently focus on fitness, and the most popular cardio exercises--biking, running, swimming--are powered by the lower body.Motorola CEO And Google Exec Dennis Woodside To Join Dropbox As COO
Feb 13, 12:46PM
Lenovo may be getting Motorola’s handset business after buying the company from Google for around $3 billion, but it won’t be getting the company’s current CEO Dennis Woodside – the 10 year Google veteran will depart both companies for Dropbox, where he’ll be its new Chief Operating Officer. Woodside joined Google in 2003, and was in charge of the search giant’s ad sales before being shifted to lead the Motorola team when Google acquired that business in 2011. He oversaw the development of the Moto G and Moto X phones during his tenure, and helped the company spearhead some experimental product development, including around Project Ara, a modular smartphone concept design that’s highly user-customizable. Thus far, Motorola has been run by co-founders Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi, as CEO and CTO respectively. The founding executives both come from a technical background, as the WSJ notes, and Woodside could provide them with some much-needed expertise in managing a large workforce to help the company handle its rapid (but declining) pace of growth. There’s a high likelihood that a Dropbox IPO is in the works, and Woodside’s appointment could be part of those efforts, too. The company raised $350 million at a valuation of $10 billion, according to the WSJ, which is $100 million more than originally reported when the round was discovered back in January. Really, it makes a lot of sense that Woodside wouldn’t follow Motorola to its new home – he’s a sales focused executive who was parachuted into the smartphone company to help to try to shape it up after Google acquired the business. Woodside heading to Lenovo doesn’t make much sense, either for the new owners of Motorola, or for Woodside himself. At Dropbox, he has a chance to become part of the origin story of what could become the next big tech giant, if the cloud storage startup can put down the pedal on continued growth.LG Confirms Its G Pro 2 Flagship Phablet, Yet Another Phone That's Mostly Screen
Feb 13, 11:54AM
Say hello to the G Pro 2, LG's new flagship smartphone -- leaked aplenty up to now but officially confirmed today by the mobile maker. The Android 4.4 KitKat powered 4G quad-core device packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 2.26 GHz processor, 3GB of memory and a 13MP rear camera with an optical image stabilization feature to support better snapping.Microsoft Ventures Paris Showcases 9 Startups At Its Demo Day
Feb 13, 11:53AM
Today at the Palais des Congrès, Microsoft held its first demo day in front of investors and journalists. Investors in the room included well-known business angels, such as Xavier Niel, Marc Simoncini and Jacques Antoine Granjon — they took the stage for a short panel and gave advice to the startup teams in the room. Microsoft started working on its startup accelerator in Paris two years ago. Formerly called Bizspark, it was recently renamed to Microsoft Ventures Accelerator. It’s a three-month program to help early-stage startups in various ways with workshops, a co-working space, a demo day in front of investors and more. Here are the startups that presented today. Youmiam Youmiam is an online platform to share recipes, a sort of Soundcloud for recipes. It’s a very visual experience. Youmiam’s take on the recipe website is quite different as many recipe websites bet everything on SEO and content farm strategies. The key differentiating element is that it’s easy to create a recipe, and embed it on a blog. The company plans to localize the product in more languages and work on its recommendation engine next. It recently raised 410,000 (€300,000). More about Youmiam here. TraxAir TraxAir tackles unpaid royalties to electronic music artists. It identifies music played by DJs and live bands. For example, if a DJ plays a set, the club can use TraxAir’s technology to detect all the songs in the mix and report that to collecting societies. The company plans to release a plug-and-play hardware product to simplify the data collection and help collecting societies to redistribute the correct amount to the correct artists. They are looking for $1.1 million (€800,000) to launch in about seven months. UBQT UBQT is a way to follow events online, stitching together tweets, photos, videos, articles and more. At heart, UBQT’s interface is a feed that works on a computer and on mobile — it mixes up different kinds of content from different platforms (Instagram, Twitter, etc.). Instead of targeting attendees, the company targets people who cannot attend but still want to experience the event. Everything is available on a single platform. Speecheo Speecheo is a tool that creates a smart link between speakers and the audience. When you attend an event, you take notes, record the conference and download the slides. But all this information is separated. Moreover, it’s hard to interact with the speaker. Speecheo records everything, youAfter $300K Kickstarter, Fuel3D Bags Further $2.6M For Its High-Res 3D Scanner & Talks Early IPO
Feb 13, 10:09AM
After raising $300,000 on Kickstarter, the Fuel3D high res scanner has further added to that war chest for developing its tech and getting it to market -- snagging $2.6 million in early stage financing from a syndicate of private investors, led by Ben Gill of London-based Chimera Partners.Infogr.am Secures $1.8M To Scale Its Simple Real-Time Info-Graphics Platform
Feb 13, 9:53AM
Infogr.am, which has built a platform for easily creating info-graphics which can be embedded on sites, has secured a $1.8 million (€1.34 million) investment led by Point Nine Capital with participation from Connect Ventures and HackFwd (the accelerator fund which closed last year but continues as an investment vehicle for former Xing founder Lars Hinrichs). The cash will be used for expansion in the US via a new sales and marketing office. The announcement was made at TechChill, the new startup conference for the Baltics in Riga, Latvia. The funding appears to be the largest to date from a company based out of Latvia.Swisscom Ventures Backs Lemoptix To Put Micro-Projection Tech In Mobile Phones, HUDs And Wearables
Feb 13, 9:30AM
Switzerland-based Lemoptix -- which develops technology that enables micro-projectors to be embedded in mobile phones, automotive heads-up-displays, and low-powered wearable displays -- has raised an undisclosed new round of funding from existing investors and new strategic investor, Swisscom Ventures, the venture arm of the Swiss telco.Gartner: Smartphone Sales Finally Beat Out Dumb Phone Sales Globally In 2013, With 968M Units Sold
Feb 13, 8:12AM
2013 was the year when the inevitable happened: worldwide sales of smartphones surpassed sales of the more basic (and generally cheaper) feature phone devices for the first time, according to Gartner’s latest market estimates – with 968 million smartphone device units sold to end users in 2013 out of a total of 1.8 billion mobiles sold. That overall global mobile device total was up 3.5% on 2012′s figure. The smartphone vs feature phone tipping point was reached in Q2 last year, according to the analyst, when Gartner previously noted smartphones had outstripped dumb phone sales globally for the first time. At that point Android was taking a 79% marketshare. Now, looking at 2013 performance as a whole, Gartner said sales of smartphones accounted for 53.6% of overall mobile phone sales for the year — cementing their majority position vs feature phones. Smartphone sales grew 36% in Q4, taking a 57.6% share of overall mobile phone sales in the fourth quarter, up from 44% year-over-year. That’s slightly lowered growth than smartphones were seeing in Q2 (46.5%) but sales of smarter portable handsets which let users download third party apps still outstripped sales of dumber mobiles throughout the year. Gartner notes that mobile sales in saturated mature regions fell due to weaker demand during 2013, with emerging markets providing the engine for growth. Smartphone growth for the year was led by adoption in Latin America (which had a 96.1% regional growth rate), the Middle East and Africa, Asia/Pacific and Eastern Europe, where Gartner notes sales grew by more than 50% in Q4. The country with the highest individual smartphone sales growth was India, which exhibited a 166.8% increase in Q4. China also contributed significantly to global smartphone sales with a rise of 86.3% in sales during 2013. Gartner pegged the still growing Android OS’s 2013 global marketshare at 78.4%; vs 15.6% for a continuing to shrink in marketshare iOS; and just 3.2% for Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform (although the ‘third ecosystem’ grew its global share). BlackBerry shrank to a marginal 1.9%. The analyst said it expects sales of Android phones alone in 2014 to approach the billion mark. In terms of the top smartphone vendors in Q4, Samsung still leads — taking a 29.5% share in the quarter, although that’s down on the year on year quarter when it bagged 31.1%. Apple’s second placed share — of 17.8% for Q4 — is also down on Q4Comcast Makes Bid To Acquire Time Warner Cable For $45 Billion
Feb 13, 3:44AM
Just a few months after it was first reported that the second-largest cable firm in the nation was looking to be acquired, Comcast, the number one cable provider, has made an offer of $45.2 billion for the company.White House Unveils Cybersecurity Plan For Big Firms, Looks To Silicon Valley Next
Feb 13, 2:15AM
The Obama administration unveiled Wednesday a long-awaited plan for bolstering the cybersecurity of critical-infrastructure providers -- including big information technology and communications companies -- and is gearing up to try to enlist smaller Silicon Valley shops in its battle against hackers.Uber Beefs Up Its Background Checking System
Feb 13, 1:35AM
Uber said today that it has expanded its system for conducting background checks on the drivers in its on-demand ride service network. In a post published this afternoon on the company’s official blog, Uber said it will now perform federal and county background checks on all new drivers in all American markets. The company will also run federal and county checks on all its existing rideshare partners who have not already cleared them. These new checks will be performed in addition to the background check system that Uber has used in the past. Up until now, Uber has relied on the background checks already performed by state and local authorities as part of the commercial licensing required for Uber’s black car, taxi and SUV services. Drivers on the ridesharing Uberx service have been screened by Hirease, a third party background check service that uses something called the “Multi-State Criminal Database.” The changes are key, because Uber’s existing system relying on the Multi-State Criminal Database has not been foolproof. Last month, Pando.com reported that an UberX driver in San Francisco who had allegedly physically and verbally assaulted a customer had passed Uber’s background check system, despite having a criminal record that includes felony and misdemeanor charges and prison time. In its blog post today, Uber explained the flaws in relying solely on the Multi-State Criminal Database thusly: “While many counties regularly provide their records to state authorities (who in turn make them available to the Multi-State Criminal Database), some counties do not participate in this reporting the way we and our users expect they should. Similarly, a check relying on the Multi-State Criminal Database may miss records that only exist in the federal database. In our experience, records appearing in one database but not showing up in another is a rare occurrence, but we consider this situation unacceptable all the same.” Uber has raised $307 million in funding, including a whopping $258 million Series C round led by Google Ventures, since it was founded back in 2009. With this kind of big money comes big responsibility, so it is important to see Uber iterate on its safety processes.Marc Andreessen: Tech Is Still Recovering From A Depression
Feb 13, 12:18AM
Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale and Goldman Sachs COO Gary Cohn sat down today at the Goldman Sachs conference in San Francisco, to talk about the thing investors always talk about: Tech. The Netscape founder, taking the same stance he’s had for years, was ever the ebullient optimist. (Because what else are VCs paid to do?) He argued that advances in mobile and chip-making technology signaled exponential expansion of the market. He said tech isn’t overhyped and could have “decades” of growth ahead of it. Echoing economist Carlota Perez’s research, he said world-changing technologies like the web usually settle into a more mature deployment phase after an initial period of hype and investor frenzy. Andreessen was hopeful about how the Internet of Things could transform the way people live, and credited Moore’s law with the potential to put a chip in everything: “What if we chipped every kid? What if we chipped every dog?” Both Andreessen and Lonsdale said this Cambrian explosion of software and hardware companies like Anki and Oculus VR (both A16z investments) is a boon for big data and security startups. Andreessen was basically repeating his famous argument that “software is eating the world.” So Cohn took a moment to remind him that the financial-services industry was the only thing that Andreessen said software couldn’t eat. Cohn asked if Andreessen has reevaluated his stance, because the investor’s new pet technology is Bitcoin. Cohn said the crypto-currency was like “a pure attempt for software to eat the financial-services industry.” Andreessen is famously bullish on Bitcoin. “I would not encourage your grandmother to put her life savings in it,” he said. “[But] every single smart computer science person I’ve had look into it has reached the same conclusion — it’s a fundamental breakthrough in technology.” He gushed: “For the first 20 years of the Internet, you couldn’t do this … Bitcoin is the first Internet-native approach of dealing with money. He said that corrupt governments and flimsy central banking systems would be Bitcoin’s true test. “The prospect of a new technology is a big deal once you get out of the West,” he said. Lonsdale used Bitcoin as an example of “how industries work” and “how they should work” and views healthcare and education as some of the biggest targets for reform. “It’s very clear that all these systems were built back in the 70s and 80s. You’re seeing these giantMt. Gox's Original Creator Is At Work On A Secret Bitcoin Project
Feb 12, 11:31PM
In what should be one of the greatest and weirdest pivots of all time, Jed McCaleb transformed Mt. Gox (short for Magic: The Gathering Online Exchange) from a card-trading platform into what became the world’s one-time leading Bitcoin exchange. Not wanting the legal hassle of operating a crypto-currency exchange, McCaleb sold Mt. Gox to a few Tokyo-based French entrepreneurs he had never met before in 2011. They presided over Mt. Gox as it went on to dominate Bitcoin trading for more than a year by volume. However, over the past six months, the platform has seen a fall from grace as users have had trouble withdrawing their funds. New troubles emerged in the last couple days again, as Mt. Gox said it was halting withdrawals. The company said it was having problems finalizing transactions because of a perceived flaw in the Bitcoin protocol around “transaction malleability.” Other exchanges also halted withdrawals as the Bitcoin Foundation said it was working on a solution to the problem. In any case, McCaleb has been free of Mt. Gox’s troubles for years. Now he’s back at work on a new project. And here it is at the mysterious address of secretbitcoinproject.com. It has just this short message: When I sold Mt. Gox a few years ago, Bitcoin was trading at less than a dollar. Today Bitcoin exists in a new environment. Mt. Gox is struggling to keep up. Now, I am building something that will be better for Bitcoin and better for you. I’m looking for alpha testers. -Jed We also hear from a source that he’s raised some funding solely through some instant messages and Skype. (McCaleb is a bit reclusive.)Keen On… The Hippies: How The Counterculture Ruined The Internet
Feb 12, 11:05PM
The Internet has been getting a lot of criticism lately. But there are few people better able to coherently explain what's gone wrong than the Stanford University associate professor of communication, Fred Turner.Creators Of 'Super Hexagon' and 'Canabalt' Build Fantastic Tributes To Flappy Bird
Feb 12, 10:50PM
I told myself I was done writing about Flappy Bird. Really. I'm sort of sick of hearing about it too. But this… this is something special. The creators of Canabalt and Super Hexagon — two games that helped pioneer the whole "simple yet absurdly difficult" category that Flappy Bird exploded — have created new games in tribute to Flappy Bird. These aren't clones — these are homages.Please Come Pick Up Your Award, Edward
Feb 12, 10:25PM
We gave Edward Snowden an award and he can't even give us the courtesy to show up and accept it. Sure, he'd be jailed upon entering US soil and set on a pretty much pre-determined course for life in prison. But, still, it's a tiny statue of a monkey smashing a TV. We question his priorities.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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