After months of testing, today Google News is unveiling “the biggest redesign since the beta launch in 2002,” says director of product management Ben Ling. The main new elements of the page include new navigation by trending topics in the left pane, a personalized news stream in the middle pane, and localized news and weather in the right-hand pane.
The whole idea is to make Google news more personal and relevant. The trending topics, which Google calls topic links, will sit under Top Stories and be tied to keywords related to hot stories of the day. We spotted these trending topics in the wild earlier this year during the beta test period. And yes, that is similar to a very popular discovery feature on Twitter. → Read More
When it comes to mapping applications, Waze is probably the most fun one out there. It turns turn-by-turn navigation into a social experience, and a game (think: Pac-Man). It also happens to be free. And a few new features rolling out in the updated iPhone app today make it even more interesting.
The biggest new feature is the use of geolocated tweets for realtime traffic updates. One of Waze’s core features is the ability to send and get realtime traffic info as you use it in your car on the road. But that obviously requires that people use Waze to send those reports. But with Twitter integration, Waze can scan tweets sent from anywhere to find information about things like bad traffic or accidents on the road. → Read More
Exclusive – SmallRivers, a fledging Internet startup based out of Switzerland that has developed a Web app called Paper.li that basically lets you turn Twitter streams, tags and lists into daily online newspapers, has landed more cash after inking a $1 million seed funding deal back in 2008.
Investing in this new round are a group of unnamed ‘reputed Web 2.0 business angels’ along with German investment and media group Econa and Kima Ventures, the early-stage investment firm started by French entrepreneurs Xavier Niel and Jeremie Berrebi. → Read More
Networking equipment maker Cisco intends to build a sustainable city in Portugal. The company will work with Living PlanIT, a startup focused on developing large-scale sustainable technologies.
What will this city look like? For one thing, it’ll be wired with tens of millions of sensors providing real-time data to help manage common urban issues like traffic and crime. The 11-square-mile city will host 225,000 residents at a site in Paredes near the less sustainable city of Porto. → Read More
Indie fashion site ModCloth has raised $19.8 million in Series B funding in a round led by Accel Partners, with participation from existing investors Floodgate and First Round Capital. As part of the deal Accel’s Theresia Gouw Ranzetta will join ModCloth’s Board, joining Mike Maples (Floodgate) and Josh Kopelman (First Round), along with ModCloth cofounders (and husband-and-wife) Eric and Susan Koger.
I sat down with the Kogers earlier this week to talk about ModCloth. For those that haven’t used the site before, it features a range of vintage clothing from indie designers. ModCloth handles distribution of the clothing itself, and cofounder Susan Koger chooses which clothing is incorporated into ModCloth’s selection. The company has been profitable since 2009. → Read More
You know you want this fan controller. You don’t even knew what it does and you still want it. I’m right there with you, pal. It looks straight out of JJ Abrams’ Starship Enterprise and that’s good enough for me. → Read More
Woot has been acquired by Amazon, as they briefly note on their blog today with a big “woot!” Well, okay, their exact words were “Holy crap!”
This is a great deal for daily online bargin service as, similar to Zappos and Audible, they’ll continue to be run autonomously under the Amazon banner. The company will remain in Texas. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed. → Read More
You’re looking at the possible future of space flight. It’s known as the Supersonic Green Machine, and the rationale behind it is was to create a spacecraft that minimizes the effect of sonic booms. The craft, designed by Lockheed Martin for Nasa, incorporates what amounts to a spoiler. The “inverted V” should improved airflow over the craft, thereby lessening that destructive boom. → Read More
Back around when Windows Phone 7 was announced, Microsoft was eager to demonstrate the 3D gaming prowess of the OS and its intended hardware. We were disappointed at the time that these games wouldn’t be coming to the totally-capable Zune HD, but we also saw a glimmer of hope that there would be some overlap between XBLA and these Live-enabled handsets. Fast forward a few months, and we have confirmation that Microsoft is almost as excited about this possibility as we are. Microsoft’s head of consumer marketing, Oded Ran, had this to say: → Read More
Cisco is launching a new Hosted Collaboration platform today, which allows partners to provide a wide range of Cisco collaboration applications, such as WebEx, an enterprise focused messaging platform, a contact center and more, to their customers via the cloud.
The Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution gives customers the ability to deploy multiple collaboration applications on one server in a virtualized environment and then host those applications for multiple client organizations. → Read More
Tradeshift, which has been described as the “Skype for invoicing”, has announced a raft of new partners in the SaaS accounting space, along with plans to open up its API to enable more third-parties to tie into its free invoicing system.
The launch partners who have had access to a beta version of Tradeshift’s API include: ERPLY (free ERP system), E-conomics (a SaaS accounting solution provider), Workbook (a specialized platform for the media business), Office123 (an open-source ERP system), Continia (bank payments systems), Winfinans (Windows-based desktop accounting), and Ibistic (the leading e-invoicing workflow system in Scandinavia).
This, says the company, in which early Skype investor Morten Lund is an adviser, puts it on track to bring “directly integrated electronic invoicing” to more than 100,000 small European businesses over the next 6 months. → Read More
Back in October, we covered a new sharing service called NeighborGoods. When you see the term “sharing” associated with a startup, your eyes may glaze over at this point — but NeighborGoods is a bit different because it’s all about actually sharing stuff. Like, in the real world. Sadly, the site was previously only open to users in Southern California. But today brings its nationwide roll-out.
As a refresher on the idea behind it, say you have something sort of expensive you bought but don’t use all that often. For example, a vacuum cleaner. Most of the time it just sits there, unused. But what if you could let someone else around you borrow it, or even rent it for a day? That’s what NeighborGoods facilitates. → Read More
We first heard of WhaleShark Media in March when MySpace VP Mobile John Faith jumped ship to join the secretive new startup. Now we have all the details.
The company is led by former BankRate COO Cotter Cuningham, and has raised over $30 million in funding from Austin Ventures and a number of undisclosed angels. Their strategy is to roll up the top deals and coupons sites on the Internet. It’s not the sexiest business in the world, but it sure is profitable, apparently.
They’ve acquired four sites already – deals2buy, coupon7, couponshare and my personal favorite, cheapstingybargains.com. The company isn’t saying the terms, other than both cash and stock is involved. more deals are closing soon, they say. → Read More
The Remote Auxiliary Power System makes finding free electricity a snap. It was designed by the U.S. Air Force at the behest of military personnel. What you do is throw the device on top of a standard power cable (you know, those big cables that crisscross the land), then a tiny blade cuts into the cable. The medal blade completes the circuit, diverting a handy flow of electrons down the RAPS cable and into your, I don’t know, GPS device. Well, after converted from DC to AC. → Read More
Jeff Bezos wants Kindle books to become ubiquitous and the standard in digital reading. “Buy once, read everywhere,” is his motto. He already has the various flavors of the Kindle e-reader, as well as an iPhone app, an even better iPad app, a Blackberry app, a new Android app, and desktop readers for the Mac and PC. But what about the plain old Web?
Amazon is inching in that direction with a soon-to-be-released “Kindle Previewer for HTML5.” When you buy a Kindle device or download the software, you can sample a free chapter for any book in the Kindle store. With the new previewer, those free samples will be available on the Web as well, with the option to buy the Kindle edition. → Read More
Not unlike Mark Zuckerberg a few years ago, a couple of British Oxford university students realised there had to be a better way to network online – but they took a rather different approach. After studying how their college’s clubs and societies worked – and running a few themselves – David Langer and Andy Young came up with GroupSpaces in 2007. Three years later they’ve expanded beyond university campuses to hit 500,000 group memberships and are now set to go international with the injection of $1.3m investment. The round comes from Index Ventures and leading angel investors including Dave McClure, Chris Sacca, Simon Levene, Meagan Marks, Ariel Poler and Quincy Smith of CODE Advisors.
This is the first investment announced from the new Index Seed Fund and as such Index partner, Mike Volpi, will take a board seat. Existing investors Stephen Bullock and Simon and Michael Blakey of Avonmore Developments also participated in the round. That line-up attests to the interest this startup is creating – it’s extremely rare for this many high-profile Silicon Valley angel investors to invest in a UK startup. The cash will be used to expand their engineering and marketing teams in both the UK and US. → Read More
Walking past Transformers: War for Cybertron at E3, I literally said to myself, doing my best impression of Jeremy Clarkson, “What’s this tosh?” Apparently I’m out of touch with the common man, since DLC codes for the game are now selling on eBay for hundreds of dollars. That’s real dollars, too, not fake Monopoly dollars. It seems people really want to play as Demolisher! → Read More
The iPhone 4 hasn’t even been out a week yet. But that apparently isn’t stopping rivals from pivoting ad campaigns to play to its weaknesses as quickly as possible.
Today, Motorola ran a full page ad in the New York TImes to show off its new Droid X device which is launching this Summer on Verizon’s network. Check out the full ad below touting its features, but be sure to read the copy below. Here’s the key part: → Read More
Such is the case for Motorola right now. They’re just about the only manufacturer willing to put up a public timeline for their upcoming Android updates — and that just came back to bite them on the arse.
Step one: Dig out your old Livestrong bracelet (or any other silicone bracelet) from your junk drawer. It’s probably right next to your old WWJD bracelet. Step two: Curse Apple’s name. Step three: Stretch the bracelet around the iPhone 4′s fancy bezel. Step four: Curse Apple’s name. Step five: Finally place a call while holding your iPhone 4 anyway you please. [The iPhone Guru via Lifehacker] → Read More
