Addicted to Quora? Wish there were a way to search the Q&A site directly from your browser as well as receive notifications about your notifications while surfing the web? Well, this awesome Google Chrome extension created by Andrew Brown is just what your browser ordered.
Now you can be one click away from a Quora fix everywhere you go online (Brown plans on eventually showing you full notifications while you browse). Die hard fans can grab the repo now from Github or download the extension here if you’re already in Chrome. → Read More
Remember a few days ago, when Sprint announced that they’d be firing up their 4G towers around the Bay Area come December 28th? Check those calendars, folks; it’s go time. If you’re in San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco, make sure you’ve got a 4G-enabled handset (like the Evo, or the Epic 4G), check to ensure that the 4G radio is toggled on, and give it a quick reboot for good measure. If you’re in one of the nearby cities, cross your fingers and hope for the best. Lemme know how those speeds are, won’t you? → Read More
Another day, another Net Neutrality story, this time concerning what the people have to think. As if anyone cares what we mere citizens have to say about all of this! A new Rasmussen Reports poll says that 21 percent of “likely U.S. voters” support Net Neutrality. Unfortunately, the poll’s wording makes Net Neutrality seem far more sinister than it actually is. As we all know, Net Neutrality, as it’s currently on the books, is pretty toothless, so I don’t see why “likely U.S. voters” would be so upset about it. → Read More
The Securities and Exchange Commission is asking questions about private stock markets like SecondMarket and SharesPost. The SEC has sent “information requests to several participants in the buying and selling of stock” to a number of companies, reports the New York Times (although private market SecondMarket says they have received no request from the SEC).
Over the past year, trading in shares of still-private companies such as Facebook, Zynga, and LinkedIn has skyrocketed, allowing employees and early investors to sell their shares even without an IPO. About $400 million worth of shares will pass hands this year on SecondMarket, which is the largest of the private exchanges, up from about $100 million in 2009. The lack of liquidity because of the general postponement of IPOs among many Internet startups is fueling this growth. Only qualified institutions and high net-worth individual investors are allowed to participate in these markets, but as more and more shares trade hands the SEC’s 500-shareholder rule could be triggered which would require the companies to report audited financial results just like a publicly-traded company.
Investors are buying shares on these markets with little to no knowledge of the actual financial results of the underlying companies. There are no disclosure requirements because these markets take advantage of employees or early shareholders who want to unload their shares to the highest bidder. Investors see these markets as a chance to get in on hot, pre-IPO, Internet startups. → Read More
During the holiday season, there’s a newsroom tradition to look back at the year’s funny and memorable videos. At TechCrunchTV, we don’t want to disappoint. TechCrunchTV launched this June and since then, we’ve produced around 1,000 videos. We’ve asked tough questions to CEO’s, entrepreneurs, VC’s, and angels. We brought you exclusive interviews with new start-ups and top tech companies. We provided live coverage of Disrupt. And, as you can see in this video, we’ve had our share of funnier moments.
Highlights include a backstage moment with our new AOL boss; Jason Kincaid and MG Siegler turn into their favorite smartphones; John Biggs vs Four Loko; Michael Arrington as a robot; and two famous words from Yahoo’s CEO Carol Bartz. → Read More
We recently wrote about thingd, the ambitious startup that wants to build a “database of every thing in the world.” The startup, which has raised funding from a group of impressive investors, recently rolled out Fancy, a social shopping/blogging platform to list products.
The idea behind Fancy is fairly simple. Via a bookmarklet, you can flag and import pictures of pretty much anything from other websites into your Fancy profile. You can also download pictures and text into your profile as well. Or you can snap a photo of a favorite product from Fancy’s iPhone app. You can tag photos (i.e. shoes, furniture) to make them searchable on the site. → Read More
It looks like Sears wants to get in the online movie market. The retail company, which also owns Kmart, has just announced that it is launching a Netflix-like movie download service, called Alphaline Entertainment.
Powered by Sonic Solutions’ RoxioNow platform (Rovi just bought Sonic Solutions for $720 million), Alphaline allows Sears and Kmart customers to download movies and and TV shows online. The company says that it plans to make the platform available to users on a variety of devices, including mobile. → Read More
Anyone that’s ever done the remove-a-glove-to-use-a-phone dance should appreciate the Quirky Digits. It’s simple, really. These little pins transfer your body’s magically power to use a touchscreen through your gloves to little conductive pads on the other side. $13.99 nets buyers a 4-pack for either totally equipping one set of gloves for multitouch goodness or spreading the love over four pairs. → Read More
Right now there are two versions of the iPad, correct? There’s the WiFi and UMTS version with the latter being the more popular choice. But according to the Internet’s favorite rumor mill posing as a legitimate news site, DigiTimes, there will be three versions in 2011. Yep, a Verizon iPad! → Read More
Union Square Ventures is raising $200 million for a new fund called the Union Square Ventures Opportunity Fund LP. According to an SEC filing, the VC firm already raised $135 million for the fund from 19 investors. The last time Union Square raised money was for its $156 million Union Square Ventures 2008 LP fund.
Union Square Ventures is the leading early stage VC firm in New York City led by Fred Wilson, Brad Burnham, and Albert Wenger. Its portfolio includes Twitter, Foursquare, Zynga, Tumblr, Boxee, Disqus, Etsy, Clickable, and Indeed. → Read More
CES 2011 is next week. Next week! This year’s show is sure to be filled with a ton of craptablets and iPad knock-offs, but Asus is one of those companies that should be able to out a lasting and quality tablet. The pic above is a little tease of what’s coming — and surprise surprise, they actually shows off a good deal. → Read More
Phone management system Ifbyphone has raised $8 million in Series B funding from the company’s CEO Irv Shapiro, Apex Venture Partners, Origin Ventures, Spring Mill Ventures, i2A Fund and Second Century Ventures (the National Association of Realtors’ investment fund). This brings the Chicago-based company’s total funding to $16 million.
Ifbyphone’s Web-based management applications allow businesses to track, route, and automate phone calls to. Users can use the company’s software to manage call flow, set up virtual call centers, measure advertising, and to automate manual clerical tasks. → Read More
2011 might be the “Astro” year for Cartier. Last year’s Cartier Rotonde Astrotourbillon was such a hit that 2011 will have at least two new “Astro” watches. One will be the Calibre Astrotourbillon (with the Rotonde’s existing movement), while this one is something totally different. The “Astroregulateur” (Astroregulator) has an escapement that is connected to the automatic rotor – that is mounted on the front of the dial. → Read More
Sony is making a big bet on smartphones and digital cameras: the company yesterday confirmed earlier reports that it plans to double image sensor production in the near future. Through March 2012, big S is ready to invest a whopping $1.2 billion to expand production facilities for CMOS sensors in Japan. → Read More
It looks like Sears wants to get in the online movie market. The retail company, which also owns Kmart, has just announced that it is launching a Netflix-like movie download service, called Alphaline Entertainment.
Powered by Sonic Solutions’ RoxioNow platform (Rovi just bought Sonic Solutions for $720 million), Alphaline allows Sears and Kmart customers to download movies and and TV shows online. The company says that it plans to make the platform available to users on a variety of devices, including mobile. → Read More
Intel acquired McAfee has just released its forecast for the top targets for cyber criminals in 2011, and a number of popular platforms have made the list. The antivirus and security software company’s labs group, McAfee Labs, says that Google’s Android, Apple’s iPhone, Foursquare, Google TV and the Mac OS X platform, are all expected to be targets in the New Year.
McAfee Labs says that URL-shortening services, which create more than 3,000 URLs per minute, will be a significant target for cyber criminals in 2011. Because social media sites are already riddles with cyber criminals, these links are going to be used for spam, scamming and other malicious purposes, says the company. Interestingly, McAfee recently launched its own URL shortener, McAf.ee → Read More
There’s no doubt in my mind that 2011 will be a big year for location and context-aware applications, and thus also for the companies that enable developers and publishers to build or enhance software that takes advantages of information on users’ whereabouts, such as SimpleGeo and Twitter (which acquired GeoAPI maker Mixer Labs about a year ago).
Enter Zumigo, a company that offers a suite of fully hosted applications and services that feature advanced mobile messaging and location-based services. The startup hasn’t made any noise to date, but an SEC filing reveals that they’ve just raised $420,000 in funding. → Read More
We’ve spent quite a few posts on Sony’s Playstation Phone in the last few months, and today the Asahi Shimbun (one of Japan’s biggest newspapers) is reporting [JP] that the device will be released in spring next year. Not a big surprise, but what’s interesting is that it will hit Europe and the US first, if the report is to be believed. → Read More
Dashwire, which offers a mobile services platform for carriers, handset manufacturers and retailers, has raised $1 million in debt financing, according to this SEC filing.
Dashwire’s Dashworks platform (PDF) is a “mobile-plus-web app” solution that helps people setup their phones, migrate from one device to another, backup everything on the phone, keep it in sync online and share photos and videos with others through social networking services. → Read More
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