Among many other things I like about this Breguet watch are the applied hour indicators. These are most certainly ranked among the best hour markers I have ever seen. They are done in a brushed metal (likely titanium to match the case) and are applied to the dial. The finish on them is very smooth and they appear luxurious as well as being very clear to the eye. What exactly makes them look so good? The trick is that the surface isn’t flat. Each numeral is rounded, just a bit. Trust me, they look better in person than in pictures. It also helps that they are designed in that typical, beautiful, Breguet Transatlantique style. I love this font. → Read More
Tumblr founder David Karp and Instagram founder Kevin Systrom took the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt to talk about the hockey stick growth of their respective companies. Tumblr in particular is showing insane growth numbers; On May 16th, 2011 Tumblr did 250 million pageviews, more pageviews than they had in all of July 2009. That record was then surpassed six days later, at 275 million pageviews on Sunday May 22th. There were also 34.3 million posts on that Sunday, also a Tumblr record. → Read More
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by (@msuster) Mark Suster, a 2x entrepreneur, now VC at GRP Partners. Read more about Suster at Bothsidesofthetable
There is an old management adage that says, “Hire slowly, fire fast.” The idea has become conventional wisdom. It says that you need to take due care in selecting team members. It also says that you need to act quickly when your instinct says somebody isn’t working out.
Only half of this adage is accurate for startups. Here’s why … → Read More
It was almost exactly a year ago that Diaspora started raising money on Kickstarter. A few weeks later, they had raised $200,000 from nearly 6,500 backers. Why so much excitement? Because Diaspora was aiming to be a Facebook alternative. That hasn’t exactly worked out. At least not yet. But now another startup is about to give it a go, Altly.
So why will this one be any different than Diasopra? Well, for one thing, it’s being started by a pretty well-known entrepreneur. Dmitry Shapiro, the founder of Veoh, is also the one behind Altly. While Veoh didn’t end so well (a firesale acquisition after raising nearly $70 million), they were once a very hot property in the online video space. → Read More
We’re here at Google’s NFC payments announcement, where the search giant has announced a new, important product called Google Wallet (see our comprehensive post on the announcement here). Google Wallet will be launching this summer — it’s currently in field testing — allowing users to tap their phones against NFC-enabled terminals to pay for goods, redeem offers, and use their loyalty cards in a single tap.
Of course, the vast majority of phones out there do not support NFC (the Nexus S is currently the only Android phone on the market that has the technology). Google and its partners reiterated that NFC will be surging in popularity over the next couple of years, and for the time being this is really a first step. But Google also has a plan to enable older devices to use a more limited version of the app: stickers that you can put on the back of your phone. → Read More
Pioneer has been working on “Floating Vision” displays for quite a while, and now the company has shown the technology used in embedded systems. The naked-eye 3D display Pioneer recently showed at an exhibition in Tokyo lets users view images or videos “floating” in space – embedded in a prototype car navigation system. → Read More
Exclusively.In, a members-only niche flash sales site for fashion, jewelry and home decor from Indian artisans and designers, has raised $16 million in new funding led by Tiger Global Management, with participation from Accel Partners India and Helion Venture Partners. This brings the company’s total funding to $18.6 million.
As we’ve written in the past, the site features high-end traditional Indian apparel as well as scarves, jewelry, handbags, crafts, paintings, photography and other home goods made by Indian designers. And Exclusively.in also recently launched travel and wedding verticals. → Read More
Candence, watches made famous for their unique “4-bit” numerals, has just announced a chrono version of their well-known 4-bit watch. The 42mm watch has a Miyota quartz movement, UTC display (basically a second time-zone), and a chronograph movement. → Read More
Today, during their Google Wallet/Offers unveiling at the NYC headquarters, Google touted the openness of their new system. Naturally, someone asked a question about what this meant for other, non-Android phone?
“In terms of iPhone, RIM, Microsoft — we will partner with everyone,” Google VP of Commerce Stephanie Tilenius said. Of course, that depends on two things: 1) the inclusion of NFC chips in their phones. 2) the willingness to work with Google on this system. → Read More
The G2x is a mighty fine phone, and one we’d almost always whole heartedly recommend to our friends looking to jump into the Android world. Alas, there’s a fairly decent chance that recommendation might result in some of our friends hating us. Here’s the problem: while it’s generally a mighty fine phone, there seems to be a batch or two out there floating around with some rather nasty issues — namely, it reboots itself just about whenever the heck it sees fit. Said issues have lead to talks of a recall — something which, according to a statement from T-Mobile to PC Mag, just isn’t in the cards right now. → Read More
Nokia has been positioning itself for a rapid-fire release strategy after the launch of the world’s first Windows Phone-powered Nokia handset, according to Jo Harlow, Nokia’s executive vice president of smart devices. Despite the fact that Nokia and Microsoft finalized their partnership back in March, we consumers will continue waiting for a Mango-flavored Nokia phone until Fall rolls around. → Read More
Exclusive - Fotomoto, which offers a fairly innovative way for photographers, artists and content publishers to sell images and other products meant to print simply by adding a line of javascript code to any site, has raised a Series A round of funding to the tune of $1.2 million from Adams Capital.
Over 12,000 sellers use the company’s on-demand ecommerce system today, which makes for a catalog 2.5 million photos big. Customers range from high-end art photogs to illustrators, Fotomoto CEO Ahmad Kiarostami tells me. → Read More
We’re here at Google’s massive HQ in New York City (they own an entire block) for what Google was calling a “partner event” but everyone knew was really an “NFC event”. Sure enough, Stephanie Tilenius, Google’s VP of Commerce, has taken the stage to announce Google Wallet and Google Offers. → Read More
We’re here at Google’s massive New York City HQ (they own an entire block) for what Google was calling a “partner event” but everyone knew was really an “NFC event”. Sure enough, Stephanie Tilenius, Google’s VP of Commerce, has taken the stage to announce Google Wallet and Google Offers.
Right off the bat, Tilenius wanted to make it clear that this would be an open platform. She invited “payment networks, carriers, and banks to join us in creating tomorrow’s shopping experience”. And some of those partners are already on board. Citi, Mastercard, FirstData, and Sprint are the initial partners. → Read More
Earlier this week we gave you a little sneak peek at the new Livescribe Connect service but we also looked a bit more closely at the T-Mobile G-Slate, Big Fuchsia’s wild 3D tablet. Erick was generally nonplussed with both products but this is the year of the Android tablet and this is one of the most unique devices we’ve seen this year.
We ran a review of the G-Slate a few weeks ago and talked about the Connect announcement on Monday. → Read More
Say you really like Angry Birds. Like really. And you want to play it at home on a big screen. How would you go about doing that? Putting your phone in a projector? Dropping your phone in a fish tank to refract the screen? Or getting one of these decidedly odd consoles that run Android natively and include full joysticks and A/V out? The Evo 2 console has a Samsung processor, “Nvidia graphics,” Wi-Fi, and a joystick remote. Plans are in the works for motion controllers and the device supports optical audio and HDMI. It costs $149 for the dev-kit or you can pre-order this bit of vaporware for $15. Like many famous consoles of yore, however, I think this thing will end up being more a Phantom than an Android-Style XBox. Product Page → Read More
Ad network Reply has acquired online marketing network for small business owners MerchantCircle for $60 million in cash and stock. The transaction is expected to be completed in Q3 2011.
Merchant Circle provides a business directory for merchants in smaller towns and currently lists over a million small businesses. MerchantCircle has long targeted merchants in small locales versus catering towards the consumers, as sites like Yelp and CitySearch do. MerchantCircle has local business members in 95% of the 24,600 U.S. cities and towns with populations over 200. The company also acquired Bloglines from IAC late last year. → Read More
There are a lot of companies out there trying to leverage the social graph to make discovering new products, services, or tools — whatever the case may be — easier and more personalized. But, when it comes to games, few do it better than Raptr.
For those unfamiliar with the company, Raptr is a social network that revolves around gaming, which allows users to keep tabs on what their friends are doing throughout the gaming world, offering recommendations for games to play, accomplishment updates, and a host of other features. One of Raptr’s coolest features is its multi-protocol chat client that allows gamers to see what games their friends are playing in realtime, whether they’re on PS3, Xbox 360, or PC (including casual Flash games, Steam and Xfire) — even if they don’t have Raptr accounts. If one of your friends is online and playing a game, for example, you can send messages to them from the Raptr client regardless of which platform they’re on. → Read More
WePay, a Y Combinator backed startup that aims to take the hassle out of group paying, is unveiling a new ticketing feature that allows users to sell tickets online for events. As we’ve written in our previous coverage of WePay, the service is a dead simple way to collect, manage and spend money for groups.
On WePay, you can create a unique, FDIC insured account for each group. While the account is still associated with your name, but you can keep each group account totally separate from your personal transactions. Group money can essentially be kept separate from any individual accounts you may have. You can also designate specific individuals to have control over accounts. → Read More
Yesterday at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC, Marissa Mayer, Google’s location boss, projected that Google Maps would be accessed more by mobile than PC by 2012, so it’s no surprise that the search giant has enhanced its Maps app for Android, with an update to version 5.5. → Read More
