Co-founder of AOL Steve Case (who will be up on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt this morning – live stream here) has invested an undisclosed sum in online wine marketplace Vinfolio.
The funding comes from Case’s investment company Revolution – partners David Golden and Philippe Bourguignon will join the startup’s board of directors.
The deal terms were not disclosed. → Read More
If you’re watching our livestream of Techcrunch Disrupt, you’re getting every minute of every keynote, panel and Startup Battlefield presentation, but you’re missing out on the dozens of companies in Startup Alley. We’re trying to fix that. Yesterday, we did a quick tour of the Alley during lunch, for day 2 we plan to do the same but take it up a notch. Instead of a random path, we would like you guys to tell us where to go— we’ll be livestreaming this at 1pm.. Vote in the comments or send a tweet to @EvelynRusli, and we’ll go to the startups with the most votes. If you want me to ask a specific question, include that as well. List of today’s Startup Alley companies ahead. → Read More
It seems that all it takes is a class-action lawsuit to get some companies to start treating their customers right.
As a settlement of said lawsuit, today it was announced that AT&T will provide customers with a free unlock code for their device after only 90 days of service. Now, now, don’t get too excited yet: it’s not quite as clear-cut as it may seem. → Read More
On stage today at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York City, Facebook’s vice president of product Chris Cox announced that starting tomorrow, Facebook will be rolling out “drastically simplified” and improved privacy controls. He didn’t give any details, but did suggest that they should alleviate some of the recent privacy problems Facebook has faced.
Ever since the recent wave of privacy backlash began following Facebook’s f8 conference, Facebook has been saying they were listening to feedback and would respond. No less than CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been talking about the issues very publicly. He has said they “missed the mark” and “made a bunch of mistakes.” He also has said they are working on a “simpler way to control your information.” → Read More
Today at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York City, Michael is on stage to talk about the future of mobile with Facebook’s Chris Cox, Google’s Vic Gundotra, and Foursquare’s Dennis Crowley.
Below find my live notes (paraphrased): → Read More
Digital photography company Phase One, which offers in open-platform based medium format camera systems and solutions, is taking over Microsoft’s Expression Media product.
The acquisition of the product is an extension of a partnership between the Copenhagen-based company and Microsoft, inked in 2007.
Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. → Read More
We reported recently that online document sharing site Scribd will start to ditch Flash across its tens of millions of uploaded documents and convert them all to native HTML5 Web pages, another win for Apple in its battle against Flash. Today, at TechCrunch Disrupt, Scribd CEO and co-founder Jared Friedman, is announcing that the startup has moved much of its content, including tens of millions of books, magazines, newspapers, presentations, research and more, to the HTML5 format.
Friedman has told us that he believes HTML5 improves the reading experience, by allowing any document to become a Web page. “The possibilities are endless,” Friedman said in a statement. And the HTML5 format is able to bring the richness of fonts and graphics from documents to native Web pages. A new bookmark feature will help you keep your place in especially long documents. Scribd’s documents will be especially iPad friendly. Instead of downloading a book from Apple’s iBooks store or Amazon’s Kindle app, you can see if an electronic version is on Scribd and read it in your browser. → Read More
Would ya looky here! Looks like someone over at Innovative Singapore has posted a video that shows what it would be like to turn on a WinPho 7 phone for the very first time.
The device shown in the video (and right here) is the LG Panther, which has been making its way around the webs for a little while now.
It seems that LG will ditch the “Panther” monicker for a much more memorable “GW910″, which is an issue I’ll be taking up with their marketers directly. → Read More
If you like to trade stocks, chances are you do your research on sites like Yahoo Finance, Google Finance, or even StockTwits to find ideas, and then you go log into your brokerage account to execute a trade. Or maybe you get distracted by a dancing bear on YouTube and never buy or sell that stock.
Online discount brokerage Zecco wants to make sure you can trade anywhere on the Web, whenever the feeling hits you. Today, it is releasing Zap Trade with StockTwits, and as a Firefox add-on. On StockTwits, there will now be a Z button which will launch a Zecco trading widget. The widget allows customers to place stock trades without going back to Zecco. Trade, Tweet, Repeat. → Read More
BroadVision has publicly launched Clearvale, a “networks of networks” for the social enterprise. In beta for the past 10 months, Clearvale provides businesses with the tools, and infrastructure to instantly create enterprise social networks, while also being able to connect with other social networks on the platform.
The Clearvale gives businesses a DIY model for building a highly customized, private social network. And with Clearvale, businesses can connect with others outside their own ecosystems. BroadVision also plans to launch a developer community as well asan “app store” for enterprise social networking. Additionally, BroadVision will be opening the Clearvale API. → Read More
Los Angeles-based digital advertising company The Rubicon Project this morning announced that it has acquired SiteScout, a four-year-old security technology company based in Seattle.
SiteScout essentially helps online publishers protect their Web sites from malicious advertising (malvertising), and The Rubicon Project can use their technology to ramp up the security layer of its REVV for publishers platform.
A purchase price was not disclosed. → Read More
New footage of LittleDog found: Run away! Run away! Here’s a waterproof flashlight/video camera iLuv has three new speaker systems for your enjoyment 2010: The year instant messaging finally died? A concept ambidextrous mouse, for your perusal → Read More
Anyone who was in the room today for the first day of TechCrunch Disrupt won’t need me to tell them that the event was a huge success. From Charlie Rose and John Doer first thing in the morning, to David Carr and Eric Hippeau last thing in the afternoon – via the first two rounds of the start-up battlefield, plus the already-infamous Arrington vs Bartz interview – it was a hell of a day. And there are still two more to go.
Another thing that was a huge success was our live streaming of the event. We’ve just received the day’s stats from broadcast partners, Livestream: over the course of the day we streamed over 1 million viewer minutes of video, a total of 87,873 visits by 31,033 unique viewers. Or to put it another way, for every person in the room, 21 were watching online. → Read More
Yahoo has had a busy day. Not only did they announce a new cross-branding deal with Nokia, and struck a partnership with Match.com, and had their CEO spar onstage with Mike, but they apparently made an acquisition too. It’s a location-based service. No, not that one. It’s called Koprol. Basically, it’s the Asian Foursquare.
Koprol, based in Jakarta, Indonesia focuses on the “intersection of location, community expertise and mobile experiences.” With it, people share photos and reviews of locations using their mobile phones. And yes, it allows you to “check-in” to a location → Read More
Last week at Google I/O, we got our first glimpse of Google TV, a new product due to launch this fall that combines the best of the web with television. Thing is, as anyone who has set up an HTPC can probably attest to, the web isn’t exactly tailored for the so-called 10 foot experience — it’s hard to use an Internet browser when you’re sitting on the other site of the room. So how does Google plan to work around that when Google TV launches?
I asked that question during a press conference held immediately after Google TV was first unveiled. The answer, which primarily came from Google Senior Product Manager Rishi Chandra, is that we’ll probably see something akin to what happened with mobile sites, where websites create versions that are optimized for Google TV and similar products. → Read More
There’s a campaign brewing on Twitter that really ought to be highlighted, if only because it shows the power (well, potential power) of the site. Dave McDonald, a producer on the Ron and Fez show on Sirius XM (and part-time inventor), needs a raise. He needs a raise because he has a growing family to support. But let’s not even bring up personal reasons. The man deserves a raise because he’s a fantastic asset to the Ron and Fez show and to Sirius XM as a whole. Without a raise, Dave will have to leave the show, which is incredibly disappointing. He’s a producer of the highest caliber—competent producers don’t grow on trees, otherwise terrestrial radio might not be as dead as it is today—and yet he earns little more than an intern. If this were 20 years ago we might see picket lines forming outside the Sirius XM studios in New York, but because this is 2010, fans have turned to Twitter to send Sirius XM management a very clear message: Save Dave, Pay The Man. → Read More
A gaming retailer’s promotion brochure may have just outed the Playstation Move release date — or at least narrowed it down. Its release was previously pegged at September 1st, but this just-after-E3 date might make more sense. Strike while the iron is hot — assuming a near-exact copy of the Wiimote heats the iron to begin with. → Read More
I’m not sure if this device is really a waterproof flashlight with a video camera or a video camera with a bright light. Either way, it records video at VGA quality on a 4GB internal drive and sports a 1W LED flashlight. There’s a USB port, rechargeable battery, and everything else that’s supposed to be in a camera. But then it’s shaped like a flashlight so I’m still not sure. All I know is with a price tag of $192.99, I really don’t care. Click through for a video demo. → Read More
This young lady is eight years old and produces something she calls Sylvia’s Super-Awesome Maker Show. Today she made a Drawdio, a pencil that plays music when you draw things. Mark at BoingBoing found her at Maker Faire and she seems to really enjoy what she’s doing and she has great production values, which is a big plus in videoblogging. → Read More
