Over a month ago, we first reported on Project Spartan, Facebook’s secret plan to bring applications to the mobile web via HTML5. Facebook is working with teams of third-party developers that they call their “Spartans” and hope to unveil the project later this summer. As we noted, the key to all of this is really Credits. Right now, Facebook has no way to make money on any of the mobile platforms out there. With Credits bought and sold through the web browser, they’ll have a way. It’s that simple.
That’s why it’s surprising to see Bloomberg report today that “Facebook May Bring Credits to Mobile Browsers“. Um, of course they will. Not only did we report it last month, in a follow-up story, I included a screenshot of the implementation. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. It’s real. No anonymous sources needed. → Read More
The nuclear crisis in Fukushima has yet to come to an end, and most of the radiation meters out there are expensive and usually sold in special-interest stores only: reason enough for Japan-based chemicals company S.T. Corp decided to bring the so-called Aircounter [JP] to market. → Read More
The Sandy Bridge update to the Air line has been enough to make some feel the lightweight laptop is ready for prime time (I’m convinced, personally), but it’s still not enough for some. MacBook Pro users are accustomed to more storage, more screen real estate, and a greater number of ports. If rumors are to be believed, the best of both worlds might be on its way, with Air-style design making its way to the Pro line.
The sources are obscure, referred to only obliquely (MacRumors “has learned” and TUAW is “hearing”), so take this with a grain of salt. But even sans source, it makes sense, while leaving room for plenty of speculation. What will the compromises be? → Read More
It’s no secret that Amazon is ramping up fulfillment centers across the globe to meet with increasing demand. The e-commerce giant <a href="revealed in April that the company had built nine fulfillment centers in 2011 to meet growing demand in sales across the globe. And in May, Amazon opened two more in Arizons and Indiana.
In today’s Q2 earnings call, Amazon’s CFO Thomas Szkutak revealed that the company has built 15 new fulfillment centers in 2011, already surpassing the 13 centers that were added this year. And the company plans to build ‘a few more’ by the end of this year. → Read More
The Motorola Triumph — a pretty snazzy-lookin’ little beast (especially for a pre-paid device!) if I may say so — seems to have just hit a bit of a hurdle in its first week on the market: a number of new owners are hitting the forums with complaints of a flickering screen. → Read More
Disruption never stops, especially around here. This year we are holding three Disrupt conferences. We descended upon New York City in May (those are special memories). Next up is San Francisco in September (and then we are off to Beijing in October). Buy tickets here.
Who will be there? I’m glad you asked. A few of the key speakers joining us will be Peter Thiel, Ron Conway, Marissa Mayer, Mike McCue, and Vinod Khosla. Thiel, of course, was the first investor in Facebook and more recently a proponent of saving bright kids from college. Conway puts “super” in super angel. Mayer is Google’s product veteran. McCue is turning publishing on its head with Flipboard. And Khosla is one of the most iconic VCs in the Valley. We are ecstatic to have them join us and share their insights with our audience.
Disrupt SF, is going to be no-holds barred, starting with our Hackathon on September 10 and 11, and then three days of the main event September 12-14. In the mornings, we will talk with the top founders and investors in tech, followed by our StartUp Battlefield where two dozen startups will vie for the Disrupt Cup, $50,000 and all the glory that comes with it. If you are a startup who would like to be considered for the Startup Battlefield, please submit your applications today here. Applications will be closed this Sunday, July 31st, at midnight PT. → Read More
Groupon has just filed a Form D for a $10,288,416 offering of equity in connection with its acquisition of Chilean startup Zappedy. We don’t know if there was cash involved in addition to equity in the Zappedy acquisition so it’s not clear what the final price of the transaction was — according to the form it looks like it was at least $10.2 million.
Zappedy offered apps for CRM before it was scooped up by the daily deals giant earlier in the month. → Read More
You could be forgiven (and are) for skipping over the LTE news of the last six months: the roll-out of the new 4G standard has been spotty and few consumers actually have any idea what it means, or whether they have it. But Verizon’s next big investment is starting to show up in more than small-run hot spots and high-end smartphones.
Today was a big day for LTE — the vanguard of really consumer-oriented devices is hitting, and while it’ll be some time before your free-with-contract phone or bargain-bin netbook is tapping into the fourth G, the news is still significant. → Read More
It hardly a fun topic to discuss, but it’s the harsh reality that a lot of people out there have significant outstanding debt — many of whom won’t be able to pay back what they owe on time. In fact, there are so many people out there dealing with these issues that it’s given rise to the multi-billion dollar debt consulting industry, which serves as an intermediary between the banks and their customers.
Now a Y Combinator-funded startup called Debteye is setting out to make that industry largely irrelevant. A tough goal, to be sure, and one that will be difficult given how much trust Debteye will have to gain before people trust it as much as a professional debt consultant. But they’re going for it. → Read More
In the past few years, Apple has been in berzerker mode. Not even 15 years ago, they were on the verge of collapse when Michael Dell famously said that if he were CEO of Apple he would, “shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders”. Apple now has a market cap well over ten times that of Dell’s. And in the past year or so, Apple has even managed to far surpass their old nemesis, Microsoft, in terms of market cap, revenue, and profit.
Today, Apple’s stock closed above $400 a share for the first time. This has pushed their market cap up to roughly $375 billion, making my prediction that they have a shot at catching Exxon to become the most valuable public company in the world this fall, look pretty good (they’re now “just” $45 billion away).
But what’s next? What other mountain can Apple scale? Well, there’s still a pretty big one in the tech sphere. → Read More
Personal search engine Greplin is announcing the launch of its Wikipedia Search Design Contest today, with the ultimate objective of conceptualizing a better way to search Wikipedia.
E-commerce giant Amazon just reported second quarter results, posting sales of $9.9 billion, an increase of 51 percent from the same quarter in 2010. Net income decreased 8% to $191 million in the second quarter, or $0.41 per diluted share, compared with net income of $207 million, or $0.45 per diluted share, in second quarter 2010. Analysts expected strong sales of $9.37 billion but earnings were expected to drop to $0.35 cents per share for net income.
The Kindle 3G with advertising is now the company’s bestselling Kindle, says Amazon. Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement: “Low prices, expanding selection, fast delivery and innovation are driving the fastest growth we’ve seen in over a decade…Kindle 3G with Special Offers has quickly become our bestselling Kindle at only $139. Customers love the convenience of a 3G reader — no hunting for or paying for Wi-Fi hotspots. Amazon picks up the tab for the 3G wireless, so you have no monthly payments or annual contracts.”
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Nodeable, a startup building a cloud-based social platform for systems data, announced today that it has raised $2 million in series A financing, led by True Ventures. The startup will use this infusion of capital to ramp up hiring efforts and continue building its platform, as it moves into private beta.
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Invoicing company Taulia has raised $8.5 million in Series B funding led by DAG Ventures with Matrix Partners and Trinity Ventures participating. This brings Taulia’s total funding to over $12 million. → Read More
Battlefield 3 is perhaps one of the most anticipated games of 2011. It arrives in October and will likely see hundreds of thousands of sales on day one. As a AAA title, it behooves BF3 to debut on the 360, PS3, and Windows at the same time. But the last several years have seen troubling compromises in PC versions, obviously being made because of console restraints. Just recently I panned Dungeon Siege 3, a major production if I’ve ever seen one, for this exact problem. But it looks like the shoe is on the other foot with BF3: maps are going to be more “compact” and player counts reduced to from 64 on the PC version to 24 on console.
As a PC gamer myself, I believe I have a valid right to be smug here. The shoddy console ports we’ve seen have been so blatant that for years we’ve wondered why they bother at all. And here we have (as they promised) a game actually made for the PC and then scaled down for the consoles. → Read More
Read It Later, the popular service that lets you bookmark a webpage and access it later from any smartphone, computer, or tablet, has raised a $2.5 million funding round. The round marks the company’s first external funding, and includes investments from Foundation Capital (which led the round), Baseline Ventures, Google Ventures, Founder Collective, and several angel investors.
RIL founder Nathan Weiner originally started the company back in August 2007, and he was the only person working on it up until early this year — during which time he built out the web product, multiple mobile applications, and a userbase of millions. As the service took off Weiner moved out to Silicon Valley, where he received multiple acquisition offers, but decided to keep the company independent. He’s also started growing the team, which is up to five.
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There is a lot of mobile ad inventory out there and sometimes brands can’t be sure where their ads will appear. Just like on the Web, automated ad placements can sometimes turn up in the darndest places. Take a look at the Pampers ad at the bottom of this screenshot for a popular app called 300+ Sex Positions.
It is an ad cross-promoting Pamper’s own Hello Baby app. The copy reads: “Discover the wonders of babys development with Pamper’s Hello Baby app.” Hello Baby, indeed.
The Pampers app appropriately enough is a pregnancy calendar that might come in handy if you try some of the sex positions in the first app. → Read More
It’s looking like Sprint has signed off on death warrants for a few of its handsets, including our nation’s first-ever 4G smartphone, the Evo 4G. According to a leaked screenshot of this internal Sprint document (discovered by SprintFeed), at least 10 phones are getting the ax. → Read More
Meet the upcoming Sony Walkman A series. This little guy appeared on a major UK retailer’s website sporting digs noticeable different from the current generation. It’s actually, dare I say, sexy. → Read More
T-Mobile G2X owners have really gotten the short end of the stick. Granted, dual-core processing and top-notch cameras probably comfort this disgruntled hoard on long, lonely nights, but a 1080p video does nothing to stop the phone from randomly rebooting for… no reason at all. Plus, the phone shipped with Froyo in an increasingly Gingerbread world, which kind of peeves the living daylight out of anyone who truly hearts Android.
Anyways, the rant stops now because Gingerbread is on its way. → Read More
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