Panasonic announced [JP, PDF] a new electric bike for the Japanese market yesterday, the so-called Lithium Bibi F BE-ENSF63. And while the bicycle looks rather bland, it has own distinct selling point: at just 19.9kg, it’s the lightest e-bike out there, according to Panasonic (among those that come with a shopping basket, at least). → Read More
They have dropped the Xacti brand name, but the three new camcorders Panasonic (which bought Xacti maker Sanyo in 2009) announced [JP] today are essentially Xactis. All models feature full HD resolution and will be released in Japan on June 25. → Read More
Tech blog and research startup Giga Omni Media (GigaOm) has raised another $6 million in venture capital, on top of the $8.33 million previously raised. New investor Reed Elsevier Ventures led the round, with participation from previous investors True Ventures and Alloy Ventures.
The rumored valuation of the company, we’ve heard from sources, was over $40 million. They aren’t commenting on valuation. → Read More
Andreessen Horowitz-backed mobile gaming company TinyCo is launching a new $5 million investment fund, called the TinyFund, to help support mobile game developers.
TinyCo, which just raised $18 million in new funding, has created a number of popular, casual iOS games including hits Tiny Chef, Tiny Zoo and Tap Resort, which have all appeared on the Top 10 free games charts in the App Store. In total, TinyCo’s games have over 20 million downloads. → Read More
BuzzLogic says it is no longer an online monitoring company, and that it has pivoted to an “online media company that improves brand metrics and ROI through its media index and analytics platform”. I’m not quite sure what that means, but investors seem to believe in it.
BuzzLogic this morning announced that it has secured $7.8 million in a Series C round of funding led by Bridgescale Partners and joined by Adams Capital Management, investment banker Bob Colman, Bridge Bank and others. → Read More
You may remember TechCrunch Disrupt winner Soluto, which helps bring an end to PC user frustration from printing problems, annoying add-ons, apps that crash, resource hogs, and those frustrating applications that randomly cause your mouse to become useless for a few seconds at a time. As we’ve written in the past, the advantage to using Soluto (which is focused purely for the PC) is that the SaaS records which applications were running at the time of the hiccup, and analyzes low-level events to track things users aren’t even aware of, like which applications are competing for memory. Today, the company is launching an iteration of its software, which includes a browser product and application crashing product, that makes its even more powerful. → Read More
Well-known tech executive turned high-profile investor Peter Thiel, former PayPal CEO and an early backer of Facebook, this morning announced the appointment of the first 24 Thiel Fellows.
These are remarkable young entrepreneurs and creative minds that, as inaugural members of the 20 Under 20 Thiel Fellowship, will pursue “innovative scientific and technical projects, learn entrepreneurship, and begin to build the technology companies of tomorrow”. → Read More
A Watch Created In 1969 Could Sense Heart Attacks… But Wait, There’s More Amazon, Please Do Not Make The Kindle Touchscreen B&N Unleashes A New Nook: Touchscreen E-Ink, 2 Month Battery, $139 Kobo Touch Vs. New Nook In Specs iRemoTap: Power Strip with Built-In Wi-Fi (Video) → Read More
Exclusive - In a conversation with TechCrunch writer Jason Kincaid after his panel on scaling fast-growing Internet businesses, Tumblr CEO David Karp talks not only about his lazy dog but also some new product developments that should be going live right about now.
In short, Tumblr has given Directory, where people looking for great content on the network have had the chance to find their fix for years now, a decent upgrade. → Read More
Exclusive - Open Ocean, a recently established venture capital firm co-founded by the investors who closed the $1 billion sale of MySQL to Sun Microsystems, has just finalized its Fund Three with approximately $60 million (40 million euros) in capital in the first closing, TechCrunch has learned.
The fund kicks off the first widespread outreach from the former MySQL and Nokia team members to founders and startups primarily based in Europe; the focus of the new fund will be squarely on community and open source software ventures. → Read More
Today, at Disrupt NYC, CEO & Co-founder of Hunch Chris Dixon, Ron Conway of SV Angel, CEO of Betaworks John Borthwick, Managing Partner of High Line Ventures Shana Fisher , and former CEO of The Huffington Post Eric Hippeau took to the stage to discuss the current entrepreneurial landscape in New York and how it’s changed in recent years. → Read More
Amazon is now offering the Kindle 3G, originally $190, for $164 with “offers.” This new version integrates 3G wireless alongside Wi-Fi, something the new Nook pointedly does not have. This new version will also include offers aka advertisements, allowing you to see a bit of flimflammery with your regularly scheduled ebook.
The Kindle Wi-Fi with offers costs $114, twenty dollars less than the Wi-Fi Nook. Both are available now.
Thirty new startups have battled it out in front of a live audience and judges over two days at TechCrunch Disrupt: New York. Tomorrow at 3:30 EST six of those startups will show their stuff again in front of a new set of judges. One of them will take home the Disrupt Cup and $50,000 in cash.
These are the finalists, in alphabetical order, based on judges’ scoring: → Read More
We’ll soon have both of these new e-reader devices for review, but a quick comparison seems in order since they’re so similar on paper. Both are going to be available in early June, and both promise a frills-free touchable reading experience. How do they differ? Let’s run down the specs and see what happens. → Read More
I’m a few hours late to this party thanks to Disrupt, but damn, the Dell XPS 15z is a blatant MacBook Pro ripoff. I’m all for companies taking notes on competitor’s products but it seems like Dell failed to do anything but simply copy almost every notable design cue of the MBP. It had to be deliberate. The MacBook Pro is an iconic design and save the contoured design of the the XPS 15z, I can’t find anything worthwhile that’s different. It’s like Dell looked over Apple’s shoulder and copied everything, then changed a few answers so it would be so obvious. They even copied one of Apple’s wrong answers. → Read More
Carnegie Mellon student and a future Google intern Sohail Prasad built a working torrent streamer at this weekend’s TC Hackaton and demoed it to us today after tweaking a few things. The product will be available soon at Nowstrea.am and Sohail is trying to figure out a more, shall we say “legal,” use case for the product. → Read More
BlablabLab and 3D Systems (along with some help from Sonos) set up an amazing exhibit at Techcrunch Disrupt. Essentially, it’s a 3D scanner/printer that grabs a 3D copy of your body and then prints it out into a 3-inch high figurine. It is, in short, magical. → Read More
Today at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York, the winner of the audience award was CodeGuard. The idea can be summed up simply: “We are a time machine for your website,” notes their founders.
Essentially, they allow you to automatically and simply backup your FTP data so that if you need to revert your website to some earlier version. CodeGuard does this by taking a snapshot of your FTP data over and over again. Then if you need to go back, you easily can. → Read More
I’m a big fan of my Kindle DX. It’s literally my favorite gadget. I love the form factor, the large screen, the relatively good battery life and the keyboard. Amazon could eliminate any of those items and my love would still be just as strong. The Kindle DX is perfect in my eyes. It’s so perfect that just the thought of Amazon ditching the buttons in favor of a touchscreen pains me as deeply as The Road.
That’s the trend now: touchscreen e-ink screens. Within the last 24 hours, Kobo and Barnes & Noble introduced models with new touchscreen e-ink displays. It’s a fantastic step in low-power consuming displays with really quick page refreshes and battery life. The new Nook has a 2-month battery. All good. Even the touchscreen is great technology with good-enough sensitivity. But I don’t want it in my next Kindle. → Read More
Of all the things written about the heavily funded Color, there is no denying that it’s confusing to a lot of people, at least at first. Updates have helped this a bit, but the app relies so much on technology in the background, that it almost seems as if you’re doing something wrong when you’re using it. Tracks, a new app launching today at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York, offers similar photo clusters done on the fly. But it’s much, much easier to understand.
The examples the team gives for uses range from a pub crawl with friends to a family vacation. You and the people with you (who have to be explicitly invited into a group, rather than Color’s automatic method) create picture albums on the fly. These are called Tracks. And these tracks are then viewable both in the app and on the web in a beautiful, optimized experience. → Read More
