Fring, the Israel-based mobile call and chat application provider, has closed a Series C round of financing on top of the $13 million it has raised since its inception in 2006. The capital comes from its entire list of previous backers: North Bridge Venture Partners, Pitango Venture Capital, Veritas Venture Partners and VenFin Limited all participated in the round.
The actual amount raised was not shared, but we’re told that the third round is pretty much on par with the Series B round the company closed in August 2007 (estimated at $12 million when we reported it, but more in the vicinity of $10 million according to information we received later) and that it’s “most definitely not a downround”. → Read More
Yesterday a phishing scam spread across Facebook in the form of a message form a friend asking you to click on a link which took you to what appeared to be a Facebook login, but was actually at a different URL, http://fbaction.net. It was quickly blocked. But now there seems to be a new one linking to http://fbstarter.com/. It comes in the form of a message from a friend telling you to “Look at this!” When you click on the link, you are taken to what appears to be a Facebook sign-in page. If you go ahead and sign in, the phishers have access to your account and can then send messages to all of your friends.
If you do sign in by mistake, the best thing to do is to change your password as quickly as possible. Make sure you are signed into the real Facebook when you do that, however. → Read More
With AOL’s new CEO Tim Armstrong in place, the game of musical chairs is under way. The first big departure being announced today is AOL’s head of sales Greg Coleman, who only joined in February, 2009 from Yahoo. Replacing him is Jeff Levick, who worked under Armstrong at Google as VP of Industry Development and Marketing in North America. Levick’s new title at AOL will be President, Global Advertising and Strategy, where he wlil be in charge of AOL’s ad network Platform-A.
Coleman was not Armstrong’s hire and obviously he wants his own man in such a key position. Advertising revenues were down 20 percent in the first quarter. Armstrong needs to right the AOL ship before Time Warner can spin it off, which it is planning on doing. → Read More
Apparently there were a few lucky people out there who go their Sidekicks a bit earlier then others, and one of them was kind enough to take some shots of an unboxing and share it on the intarwebs for all to see. → Read More
Facebook is reportedly still in the process of talking to several private equity firms about a significant follow-up investment in the company. According to the New York Post, which tends to be a bit sensationalist at times and is owned by News Corporation, the social networking juggernaut has already held informal exploratory meetings with Providence Equity Partners, General Atlantic, Bain Capital, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and others to date.
The article cites Facebook to be looking for fresh capital at a $5 to $6 billion valuation, with the potential investors only willing to pour more capital in the company in the $2 billion to $3 billion valuation range. This is almost exactly what we reported earlier when we learned that Facebook may have received a term sheet for an investment at a $2 billion valuation from General Atlantic. The New York Post, however, claims no term sheets have been drawn up to date. → Read More
Not content at owning 100% of the world’s brand awareness, Apple is looking into building its own chipset and has even hired a team to work on “multifunction” mobile chips.
In the cellphone world, a chip is a chip. Most of them are ARM-based but there are a few outliers. Most importantly, however, each has a similar power profile. Therefore, by controlling the entire chip themselves, Apple can handle its own graphics, video, and audio output as well optimize for power control – a huge concern with devices like the iPhone. → Read More
Looks like we’ve got a twofer, folks. Just as I predicted, Android adds the special fairy dust to feature phones that will make them appealing to a mass audience and Moto seems to know it. This phone, code-named “Ironman,” looks to be Moto’s latest foray into the world of high performance Android phones. → Read More
Two of the biggest country markets of the world, Japan and China, are on their way to develop a next-generation mobile phone network for the Chinese market that paves the way for Japanese phone makers. The Chinese cell phone infrastructure is still mainly based on 2G (Japan turned 100% 3G just a few weeks ago). → Read More
This one slipped through the cracks, but apparently Brad Bostic, who co-founded mobile Q&A answer service ChaCha together with current CEO Scott Jones back in 2006, has stepped down as President of the company and will not be replaced.
In an interview with the Indianapolis Business Journal, Bostic stresses that he will stay involved with the company as an advisor and strategist, saying ChaCha has matured enough for him no longer to be needed for day-to-day operations.
“I’m doing some evangelism for the company at trade shows, at conferences. [To say I] ‘left’ is not the appropriate characterization,” Bostic said.
I came across some very interesting news today. I was mostly minding my own business, hammering away at our various sources in the hardware industry and trying to dig up some sort of information on exactly when the Palm Pre (pictured right) might be launching, and how many of them will be available. Rumors are flying about both of those issues over the last couple of days.
And then, wham! A whole new rabbit hole to jump down. One of our better sources indicated to us that Palm is “very far along” on a second Pre-like device and currently has plans to put it on the market in the late part of 2009, possibly as early as the Fall.
This is too soon for a second generation device (Apple releases new generation iPhones yearly). and Palm won’t be expecting people to upgrade their Palm Pre to this new device just a few months after buying a Pre. It’s addressing a different part of the market. → Read More
Great idea, great execution. One store of Japanese electronics chain Biccamera (think RadioShack in Japan) has one of the coolest facades I have ever seen: A giant hand holding a cell phone whose “buttons” show pedestrians what they can find on each floor when they enter the store. → Read More
Apparently there were a few lucky people out there who go their Sidekicks a bit earlier then others, and one of them was kind enough to take some shots of an unboxing and share it on the intarwebs for all to see. → Read More
It’s a little late to be announcing anything, since the things are already at Best Buy, but I guess Flip had better at least acknowledge that the Flip UltraHD and SD exist. We guessed that it was 720p and had 8GB of built-in storage when we saw the leaked pictures, and that’s pretty much what the news is. The price is lower than we expected, though, so that’s good news for all you on-a-budget video lovers out there. → Read More
Zynga, the online gaming publisher, is making a ton of money. Just how much? Well, earlier reports put revenue at something around $50 million, but some new numbers obtained by Sarah Lacy suggests that it’s closer to $100 million. And clearly, it’s accelerating. We’re hearing that the run rate for 2009 may even be well above that.
So in case it wasn’t already clear, there looks to be a bright future in the online gaming sphere and specifically around micro-transactions. That’s how Zynga makes most of its money. With some of its leading games on MySpace and Facebook, it charges users for playing time or for things like chips in poker. These small purchases which usually amount to only a few dollars at a time, start to add up quick. And that’s only with a small percentage of overall players opting to buy them. → Read More
HP is really taking the Windows Home Server thing seriously, eh? The company first launched WHS systems over a year and a half ago and we are already on the second generation. This time around though, HP is launching the MediaSmart LX195, which comes in at a lower price, but does sacrifice a bit to get there. That’s fine with me though.
Leaked info about this server appeared a few weeks ago and everything seems right one. What we have here is a single 640GB HDD, encased in a non-expandable case. The LX195 maintains Gigabit Ethernet and four rear panel USB ports just like its big brothers, but the CPU drops down from a 2.0GHz 64-bit Celeron to a 1.6GHz Atom. Plus, it only sports 1GB of RAM. But the unit comes in at $390 and runs Windows Home Server. → Read More
Oh man. The picture quality on this video is crap, but it still rocks. The story goes that this video was shot by a dedicated fan today at the trailer’s premiere and we hear many Bothans died to bring us this information. Seriously, watch it. → Read More
Over the last few days, the TechCrunch tips box has been flooded with pitches from companies looking to capitalize on ‘Swine Flu’, the potentially pandemic disease that is currently freaking out a significant portion of Earth’s inhabitants. Now that everyone is stressing about it, what better time to make a buck, right?
First, there’s Flu Shirts, an online T-Shirt marketplace brought to you by some of the people behind Groopvine. The store has a variety of shirts mocking the current hysteria, emblazoned with taglines like “Maybe the Muslims were right about pigs” and “My dad went to Mexico and all he got me was swine flu”.
Then there’s Swine Fighter a Flash game from the guys who brought you HeyZap. Gameplay consists of clicking on diseased pigs to inject them with something and make them say, “Oink!” → Read More
You’ve likely already seen it, but it’s still a little unbelievable to me that Gmail included feces as one of its emoticons. If you haven’t seen it, go ahead, check it out, it’s there (the very last one on the bottom row). And now, we’re getting more emoticons — a whole hell of a lot more.
A new feature in Gmail Labs, Extra Emoji, adds dozens of these different colorful icons as possibilities to send via Gmail. Emoji is the Japanese term used for emoticons, which are hugely popular in that country. So much so that support for them was added to only the Japanese version of the iPhone. And it’s the Japanese who actually made this Gmail Labs feature as well. Specifically, “all of these extra emoticons are straight from the secret underground labs of some of the top Japanese mobile carriers, used with permission,” Google writes on its blog. → Read More
