Video: NTT Docomo’s Mobile, Simultaneous Translation System Padfone: Asus Officially Announces Its Android Tablet/Phone Combo (Videos) NVIDIA Releases $99 3D Vision Wired Glasses For Your Friend Video: Smartphone Simulates Sensation Of Buttons On A Touchscreen Tutima’s Fashionable Aviator: The Grand Classic Power Reserve Watch → Read More
Exclusive - Wooga doesn’t get even half the attention that’s been given to its closest rivals in the social games space, namely Zynga and EA. But the European games developer is taking off big time, and it’s no surprise to see venture capitalists jump on the opportunity to invest before everyone starts taking notice.
The Berlin, Germany-based startup has raised a huge Series B round of financing, TechCrunch has learned – $24 million, to be more specific, bringing its total capital raised to a healthy $31.5 million. The round was led by Highland Capital Partners, with Tenaya Capital and previous backers Balderton Capital and HV Holtzbrinck Ventures participating. → Read More
There are literally hundreds of thousands of iPhone, iPad and Android apps to choose from, and yet finding good apps is far from easy. App discovery and recommendations is a fertile niche where a few startups are fighting for mindshare. After being downloaded more than 2 million times, app discovery startup Appsfire closed a $3.6 million series A, led by French VC firm IDinvest. (Appsfire is based in Paris and Tel Aviv, and was co-founded by Ouriel Ohayon, who used to be the editor of TechCrunch France).
Appsfire crossed 1 million downloads in February, and then the 2-million mark in May. Ohayon says its various apps for the iPhone, Android, iPad, and kid’s apps is generating 3 million leads to app developers each month. Appsfire lets you share your favorite apps with your friends via the web, your mobile device, or Facebook. → Read More
If you have a 3D gaming rig, the biggest problem you have is showing it off. You can either run the game wear the glasses and then say “I swear, it’s 3D!” or you give your friend the glasses and show him or her what to do and then you can’t share in the joy. This either ends in violence or sobbing. Your choice. Now, however, your friend can wear these super cheap $99 glasses with a USB cable. All you have to do is plug them in and you can both watch things in 3D at the same time. Bang. No sobbing. You do still require a full 3D Vision set-up including IR dongle. The glasses are available in June. Product Page → Read More
Last week at TechCrunch Disrupt, Google VP of Location and Local Services Marissa Mayer took the stage for an interview with our own Michael Arrington, where they discussed everything from Google’s mobile growth to Mayer’s investment strategy. A few minutes after the interview, I had the chance to ask her a few more questions about Google’s approach to mobile and local. It’s only been a few weeks since I interviewed Mayer about Google’s two pillar approach to local, but I still had plenty of questions.
The first thing I asked: what happens if and when Apple decides to swap out the Google Maps application that ships with every iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad in favor of something that it built in-house (Apple has confirmed that it’s working on an improved traffic database, and has also quietly acquired some mapping-related startups). → Read More
Reuters is reporting that wonder twins, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, could be out at RIM as shareholders continued to watch the company falter in the smartphone and revenue race. The expectation is that an group of activist investors could make a move to control the company and make changes at the top. On investor saw the pair as “taxed for time” and under pressure to perform even as they were left behind. → Read More
We’re hearing from multiple sources that Twitter is in talks to acquire Y Combinator-backed key word bidding platform AdGrok for a deal that is less than $10 million. It’s still unclear where exactly the deal is in the closing process or whether this is a tech acquisition or an acqui-hire.
AdGrok itself automates the process of bidding on contextual keywords on Google AdWords, perhaps Twitter could find some use in this for their own promoted trends? → Read More
A few days ago, Facebook held a tech talk at their headquarters. The topic of the talk was pushing changes — bug fixes, new features, product improvements, etc. Every day, Facebook engineers push hundreds of these; some big, some little. Most of the 600 million-plus users never notice a thing. And apparently, we’re even less likely to notice changes due to a special feature Facebook has. The “Everyone But TechCrunch Can See This” feature.
As Facebook engineer Chuck Rossi details around minute 23:00 in the video, Facebook has a tool they call “Gatekeeper” which allows them to be in control of who can see what code live on the service at any given time. As Rossi points out, right now on Facebook.com there is already the code for every major thing Facebook is going to launch in the next six months and beyond! It’s the Gatekeeper which stops us from seeing it. → Read More
Twitter has been completely emphatic about where developers should stake a claim, with Twitter Platform Lead Ryan Sarver warning the ecosystem to stay away from building “client apps that mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience.”
Well if Sarver stays true to his word the Twitpics and Yfrogs of the world can just give it up now. According to multiple sources, Twitter is on the verge of announcing its own built in Twitpic competitor. Like tomorrow, if things go according to plan (naturally this post might change that). → Read More
This story is about as shaky as they come, but we figured we’d pass along the details for anyone out there lookin’ to get a quick fix of Memorial Day mobile news. → Read More
Pew Internet, a think tank that regularly publishes research reports about technology, has released a new study today showing the steady growth in using VoIP and phone services online. According to the organization’s report, a quarter of American adult internet users (24 percent) have placed phone calls online. That amounts to 19 percent of all American adults. On any given day 5 percent of internet users are going online to place phone calls, says Pew.
And Pew says that usage has grown significantly from a few years ago. For example, Pew found in February 2007 that 8 percent of internet users (6 percent of all adults) had placed calls online and 2% of internet users were making calls on any given day. At various points during the 2000s, Pew held similar surveys and found that at most about a tenth of internet users had ever used the internet to place calls and the daily figure never rose above 1 percent of internet users. → Read More
It is a good time to be Tutima. The recent announcement of their new movement manufacture launched with the Hommage Minute Repeater watch signals a bright future for the German brand. A brand that already has a reputation for making quality timepieces and finely regulating the movements contained within them, Tutima watches tend to fall in three categories at this time. First are their more formal watches, their military and dive watches, and then their classic pilot watch range. Of course these categories blend a bit with the Grand Classic Power Reserve being a fine example. → Read More
As Samsung’s Galaxy Tabs 8.9 and 10.1 wait to launch onto the market, Samsung mobile boss J.K. Shin is already filling us in on forthcoming tablets from the South-Korea based company. In an interview with Dow Jones Newswires, Shin spilled that the company plans to release a 4G LTE-capable version of the Galaxy Tab later this year. In other words, you’re yet-to-be purchased Galaxy Tab 8.9 or 10.1 will be old news later this year, so patience will certainly be a virtue when it comes to slate shopping. → Read More
It sure looks a lot like the HTC Trophy (really — pretty much identical), but given the little mention of a 12 megapixel photo option (the Trophy tops out at 5) in the picture behind the jump, this is definitely looking like something new. → Read More
According to several sources Airbnb is in the process of closing a whopper of a funding round: $100 million or more at a $1 billion-plus valuation. The round is being lead by Andreessen Horowitz, and includes participation from DST, say our sources.
That’s a big increase from the company’s last funding round of $7.2 million, which included Sequoia Capital, Greylock, SV Angel, Ashton Kutcher and Youniversity Ventures (Kutcher broke the news that he’s an investor in AirBnB at TechCrunch Disrupt last week). The company, which launched via Y Combinator, has raised just $7.8 million to date.
No surprise, it was a hotly contested deal. The service has exploded, growing more than 800% last year and booking 1.6 million night stays in other people’s homes to date. On any given night in New York there are more people staying in homes via Airbnb than there are rooms in the biggest hotel in Manhattan. → Read More
If you’re in the United States, you’re probably tired of hearing about Spotify, the on-demand music service that lets you to listen to any of 13 million tracks as often as you’d like on both your PC and mobile phone. The service still hasn’t managed to close deals with the major music labels over here, but it has developed quite a following in Europe, with over 10 million users and 1 million paid subscribers. And when it finally does come stateside it might turn into an even bigger hit.
And it all started with one main business idea: make a music service that’s more convenient than piracy.
That’s one of the highlights from a presentation given by Spotify engineer Gunnar Kreitz at KTH Royal Institute of Technology last month (many of Spotify’s engineers came from KTH). Unfortunately I’m not seeing a recording of the presentation anywhere online, but Kreitz has posted the slides to his website, which you can find embedded below. The slides outline some of the key technical attributes that make Spotify what it is, many of which revolve around one key factor: speed. → Read More
Ashton Kutcher started dabbling in tech startups a few years ago, but he is no longer a dabbler, as his his Disrupt interview with Charlie Rose last week made clear. Kutcher is an investor in a dozen tech companies, including Skype, Foursquare, Path, and Kevin Rose’s Milk. In this backstage interview with Sarah Lacy, he reveals that he is also an investor in Airbnb (whose CEO Brian Chesky was also at Disrupt) and why he thinks the company is different.
Kutcher talks about his approach to investing in startups. At first it was very much a leraning process for him. “I became an apprentice” to other tech investors, he says, because “I don’t like to fail.” → Read More
IAC-owned Match.com has set its sights on Europe’s largest dating site, Meetic.com. Match Match.com has put in a public tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Meetic for €15.00 per outstanding share in cash (that’s $21.42 in U.S. dollars). That’s a 11.6 percent increase in value from the closing price of Meetic shares on May 27, 2011 (€13.44) and values the company at nearly $500 million.
Match.com actually already owns approximately 27% of the outstanding shares of Meetic, which it obtained when it combined its European businesses with Meetic in 2009. Back then, IAC sold 100 percent of the stock of Match Europe – the entity that houses Match.com’s European operations – for an approximate 27 percent stake in Meetic, plus a 5 million euro note. → Read More
