Yandex, one of the leading Internet companies in Russia, this morning announced the pricing of its initial public offering of a little under 52.2 million Class A ordinary shares at $25.00 per share.
The shares will begin trading later today on NASDAQ under the symbol “YNDX”.
The company is thus raising a little over $1.3 billion, and has granted its underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 5.2 million shares to cover over-allotments. → Read More
Japan-based Ubiquitous has developed [JP] a power strip with a built-in Wi-Fi module. Dubbed iRemoTap, the strip allows you to do two things: you can track which of the connected devices consumes how much energy on a PC or cell phone in real-time, and you can turn on or off each of these devices remotely. → Read More
This Tape Dispenser Is Likely Not TSA Approved Livescribe Releases Connect, Puts Ink In The Cloud Government-Mandated Black Boxes In Your Cars? Why Not? Fan + Umbrella = Fanbrella (Video) The TechCrunch Disrupt NY Drinking Game: Day One → Read More
Word has been circulating for weeks now that Twitter was soon to be swooping up the popular third-party app, TweetDeck. In early May, Mike Arrington reported that the deal was as good as done, but the two companies were not yet willing to publicly release the numbers. Today, CNN and CNET broke the news that TweetDeck has been acquired by Twitter for $40 million. Twitter has yet to officially confirm, but judging by what we’re hearing from sources close to the deal, it’s done and done.. → Read More
Jeff Jarvis is the creator of Entertainment Weekly, a San Francisco Examiner columnist, the Associate Publisher of The Daily News, and a consultant to new media companies — in other words, a veteran of the old school and a proponent of the new. Jarvis took to the stage today at Disrupt NYC for some banter with TechCrunch Big Kahuna Mike Arrington. The two writers talked about their past, including Jarvis’ history of calling out Arrington publicly for saying the New York Times was in the pocket of a startup, among other things. As such, their conversation was candid and casual, and focused on the fluctuating definition of what a journalist is (and what it should be) in the age of new media. → Read More
Never get into a fight with people who have more expensive lawyers. Lodsys, the patent trolls trying to make people license a dubious feature based on in-app sales, received a letter from Apple’s wolverine-like lawyers asking them to cease and desist asking for developers for money. They write:
Because I believe that your letters are based on a fundamental misapprehension regarding Apple’s license and the way Apple’s products work, I expect that the additional information set out below will be sufficient for you to withdraw your outstanding threats to the App Makers and cease and desist from any further threats to Apple’s customers and partners.
…Therefore, Apple requests that Lodsys immediately withdraw all notice letters sent to Apple App Makers and cease its false assertions that the App Makers’ use of licensed Apple products and services in any way constitute infringement of any Lodsys patent.
I suspect this won’t be the end of the story. However, it is a strong and forceful letter by a traditionally strong and forceful legal team and we can assume that this will convince most developers not to cave when/if they receive a Lodsys letter. → Read More
At first, the idea of a federal-level requirement for electronic “black boxes” for your cars sounds a bit Big Brother-ish. But in fact, many cars already include such devices, and there is confusion resulting from different data recording methods, law enforcement needs, and so on. Some may see a slippery slope ending in dash cameras and GPS logging, but others see the potential for vastly increased safety and standardized legal limits for that kind of data. Wired considers the question in depth here – but whatever the benefits, this is guaranteed to be a controversial subject. → Read More
Just a few days after the BlackBerry PlayBook’s one-month birthday, the nation’s top two carriers are still pretty ambiguous in their adoption of the device. AT&T has yet to approve the BlackBerry Bridge app, which turns the tablet into a portal to any BlackBerry smartphone and allows users to access email, contacts, and calendar apps, three things missing (in native form) on the PlayBook. Meanwhile, Verizon still isn’t convinced it should carry the RIM tablet, at all. → Read More
Symantec, the computer software security giant, has announced that it will be acquiring enterprise-class eDiscovery management platform maker, Clearwell Systems for $390 million.
Symantec is probably best known for its widely proliferated (perhaps even ubiquitous) Norton security products, but of late it has been making a play at eDiscovery platforms, a strategic move, considering Gartner values the market at around $1.7 billion, and is expected to grow at an annual rate of 14 percent. What’s more, Symantec spent $2 billion last year in acquisitions, $1.25+ billion of that coming in its acquisition of VeriSign, Inc. → Read More
Our first batch of Startup Battlefield presentations is available for you to watch. Click on through for the “Disrupting Search and Discovery” range of companies and let them shock you with their brash disregard for search paradigms. The companies in this group are Do@, Rexly, Weotta, Skylines, and Deja.
Check out all the videos inside, with handy executive summaries and links to the original posts with more info and the judge panel’s Q&A. → Read More
The TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Alley audience choice winner today is Happy Toy Machine, which allows you to design and create plush toys online.
The site allows adults and children to customize their plush toys by colors, size, body parts, shape, type, build and more. When you are satisfied with your design, you can actually have your creation built and sent you. It’s sort of like the Build-A-Bear on steroids. → Read More
My Mom meticulously scans every credit card, cable or cell phone bill to ensure that no errors have been made or hidden fees have been issued. I, on the other hand, don’t have the time or the patience to do this. And I’m sure along the line, I’ve been overcharged or scammed in some way. BillGuard, a startup launching to the public today at TechCrunch Disrupt, aims to alert users of unwanted charges such as hidden fees, billing errors, scams and fraud on credit card bills.
The essentially crowdsources scams by alerting you when a charge on your bill is flagged by anyone else using BillGuard or posting scams on online forums. The startup will also take into account its own analysis (which the company has been working on for the past year) and monitor the web for any complaints about credit card scams. → Read More
Wandering around here at TechCrunch Disrupt New York, we came across a particularly interesting iPhone 4 add-on from Kogeto, in collaboration with Kickstarter. It’s called Dot, and it will totally change your perspective on mobile video, literally. The Kogeto Dot is a panoramic lens that captures 360-degree video, without sacrificing style or portability. This add-on from Kogeto comes in a number of pastel colors and is small enough to tuck away in a purse, or even keep in a pocket. → Read More
Sticking to a budget can be a challenge no matter how big or small your income is. While Mint.com gives you access into where your money is going, it doesn’t incentivize or motivate you to stick to a budget. Enter Spenz, a startup launching at TechCrunch Disrupt today, is launching a proactive way for a younger generation to track where they spend all of their money and provides incentives and rewards for users to budget.
People can input their expenses via mobile and web apps. The idea behind a mobile app is to allow users to input something they’ve spent money on quickly and on the fly. It aims to track both your big purchases and spending (i.e. car payments and rent) and discretionary spending (i.e. coffee at Starbucks, lunch). Spenz will categorize spending into categories like activities, entertainment, food etc. → Read More
Finding a new hair stylist in a city is a challenging and very important task. For me, I happen to be very particular about how I like my hair cut, styled and highlighted. While Yelp provides a database of reviews for some hair salons and spas, Yelp’s salon pages don’t allow me to book an appointment, see pricing, or access more information about the stylists themselves. Enter StyleSeat, a startup launching today at TechCrunch Disrupt. Essentially the site aims to be a destination where the beauty and wellness industry can build consumer-facing sites that include all the information and functionality I mentioned above. It’s sort of like an OpenTable for hair salons and spas.
For salon and spa owners, StyleSeat offers a platform where they can create a site that includes location of the salon, stylists and their bios, pictures of haircuts and hair styles from stylists, recommendations from customers, and more. The site also allows consumers to book appointments, and StyleSeat will provide salons with daily schedules of customers appointments. → Read More
When it rains, it pours. Sony, in the midst of repeated hacks and still staggering from the earthquake in Japan, has subtracted some deferred tax assets from the bottom line, leading to a massive ~$4 billion downward revision of its yearly income through March.
It’s important to note that this isn’t all, or even mostly, attributed to the highly publicized PSN hacks. The great majority of the loss comes from a Japanese tax-related re-valuation that has ended up landing some new tax liabilities on their laps. But it couldn’t have come at a worse time, as this normal cost (having to do with other losses and obscure tax code things) is hitting Sony at a low water mark for income. → Read More
Pitchero, the UK startup that makes it easy for amateur and semi professional sports clubs to build their own web presence with social networking features, has seen a major revamp and with it is announcing a milestone of 1 million monthly unique visitors.
In addition, the network, which aggregates and links those club websites and user profiles via sport, location and competition, houses 4,000 sites overall, while in total 250,000 individual users have signed up to the service. In terms of where Pitchero is bedding down, it claims to cover 46% of all UK amateur rugby club websites and says it’s poised to cash in on this year’s Rugby World Cup (yawn) with advertising partnerships “already signed”. Other core markets are football, cricket and hockey. → Read More
Twitter just sent out a Tweet notifying users that starting today, the startup is “rolling out an email notification that lets you know if someone you follow retweets or favorites one of your Tweets.”
Users currently receive email notifications when they receive a new followers and when they are sent direct messages. Emails notifying you of retweets and favorites, while convenient, seems like it could cause an email overload for some power users. → Read More
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