URDB — formerly Universal Records Database – is announcing a name change and $1 million in Series A funding, from investors Chris Sacca, VantagePoint Capital and 77 Ventures. Initially conceived of at yes, BurningMan, URDB is now RecordSetter and a million dollars more flush.
The premise behind RecordSetter is that “everyone on earth can be the world’s best at something.” The startup wants to to become the preeminent platform for people to both submit their own unique records and compete against other people’s unique records through the uploading of quirky videos like “Most Kisses In 10 Seconds,”"Longest ‘Shhhhh’” and “Most Graphic Designers Dancing To ‘Thriller’”. You get the picture.
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Today at the China 2.0 conference at Stanford, Alibaba Groups’s Jack Ma replied to a pointed question about buying Yahoo with, “We are very interested in Yahoo. Our Alibaba group is important to Yahoo and Yahoo is important to us … All the serious buyers interested in Yahoo have talked to us.”
Those “serious buyers” most likely include Alibaba Group investor Silver Lake Partners, Microsoft and Andreesen Horowitz, who have all reportedly reached out to Yahoo’s board.
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Back in March, we heard about a breakthrough from MIT: an “artificial leaf” that produces pure oxygen and hydrogen gas, powered entirely by sunlight. The technology was described in yesterday’s edition of Science, and the team has released a video showing one of the devices in action. → Read More
Looking to fill in the blanks on your family tree? A startup called Mocavo might be just what you’re looking for. The service is setting out to become a search engine that’s highly optimized for ancestry-related purposes — type in the name of a relative, and it’ll do its best to surface content from the web’s troves of genealogy data, some of which has been difficult to search through before now.
The startup, which was part of the TechStars Boulder program this past summer, has just raised a $1 million round from David Cohen (through Bullet Time Ventures), Dave McClure (500 Startups), David Bonderman, Walt Winshall, David Calone, Dave Carlson, Troy Henikoff, and other angels.
Founder Cliff Shaw says that Mocavo is setting out to make genealogy “open, social, and automated”. → Read More
We’re back with a new episode of TC Cribs, and it’s featuring one of the most tricked-out offices yet: YouTube.
Yes, the world’s biggest archive of cute cat videos (among other things) invited us to take a stroll through their halls, which are brimming with nifty artifacts, viral video memorabilia, and gnomes. A lot of gnomes.
There’s also a big surprise that comes around two-thirds through the episode that had me hurting for a couple of days. Don’t miss it! → Read More
By now, we all know that the US Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit to block the AT&T/T-Mobile merger. Sprint and C Spire Wireless (formerly known as the Cellular South) have filed suits to that same effect, but AT&T has asked the court to reject those companies’ complaints.
The reason? AT&T believes that Sprint and C Spire are fighting for their own sakes, and not for the public’s best interests. → Read More
Hitwise just published a new study examining how much time people living in different countries spend on Facebook. Singaporeans actually spend the longest on the social network, with an average of 38 minutes and 46 seconds per session, while people living in Brazil spend less than half that with an average of 18 minutes and 19 seconds per Facebook session for August 2011.
Singapore is followed by New Zealand (30 mins 31 sec); Australia (26 mins 27 sec); the UK (25 mins 33 sec); and the US (20 mins 46 sec). Brazil actually has the highest percentage of Internet visits going to social sites (18.9% of Internet usage) with 43% of all social networking visits in Brazil going to Google-owned Orkut. In contrast, the UK has the lowest market share of visits going to social networks with 12.2% of visits. → Read More
Aloha! You know where I wish I were right now? That’s right, Maui! You know who else is in Maui? Some of the Google Social team. Note: I am really jealous of anyone who is a Googler in Maui right now, because it sure beats being someone who has to write about being a Googler in Maui right now.
According to unpaid blogger Michael Arrington, I’m not alone in my jealousy, as some other people who worked on Google+ apparently weren’t included in the Maui offsite, and “wish they were.” Makes sense. → Read More
Oh, Microsoft! You are so cunning. With IE market share plummeting and many users opting for “alternative” web browsers like Firefox and Chrome, your base of power is crumbling. We thought you would succumb to melancholy and accept your fate. But you had a plan all along. Clever girl.
Yes, Microsoft has found a way to stanch the hemorrhaging of its users to other browsers: label them as malware in the built-in Security Essentials suite! → Read More
Around 2004-2005, puzzled non-tech journalists continually asked me why people were using MySpace — this was before social networking was a common phrase, before moms & dads were using social sites, and before Facebook was open to the public. Back then I would answer something like “MySpace is email with pictures, on steroids.” It was the simplest way for me to try and describe the value to an “outsider” who couldn’t understand the growth of a service they didn’t use. The three keys are, of course, 1) communication, 2) photos, and 3) acceleration of communication & of photo sharing (photo sharing itself being another form of communication). Notice I didn’t mention music. Lot’s of people mistakenly think MySpace grew because of music. I’ll explain that some other time.
Now a few days ago, serial entrepreneur and generally (from what I can tell), all-around-interesting guy Phil Kaplan (@pud) sent me a tweet: → Read More
Location-based service Loopt has been allowed its first patent, and it could be a big one.
The patent, as described, seems relevant to numerous existing products, including Google’s Latitude. In layman’s terms, it describes using your location to display relevant ads and offers on top of a map, as an interstitial, or as a text ad — another claim also discusses displaying where your friends are on the same map. The patent was first filed in 2007, with Loopt founder Sam Altman listed as the primary inventor (Loopt got its start long before the likes of Foursquare and Google Latitude).
The patent, which is listed as Application Number 11/931,113 by the US Patent and Trademark Office, still hasn’t technically been granted. But it has been “allowed,” which is a precursor to being granted. At this point, it could still be a few months before the patent is granted, assuming that Loopt pays all the proper fees and files the proper paperwork.
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Last week we ran a giveaway for one whole week, giving away a DROID Bionic. A huge congratulations to Scott Leither for winning last week’s DROID Bionic! Since the giveaway was so popular, we wanted to give all of you another shot. Thanks again to Verizon, we are giving one more DROID Bionic away to one lucky reader. Just like before, the giveaway will run for one full week and we will choose the winner next Friday. → Read More
The Gillmor Gang – Robert Scoble, John Taschek, Kevin Marks, Danny Sullivan and Steve Gillmor – are recording live at 1pm PST. Recording over at 2:25PM PST. → Read More
The AT&T Galaxy S II is a lot of things. It’s fast. It’s thin. It’s pretty damn nice to look at. But secure? Yeah, not really.
In what seems to be an almost inexcusable oversight, it appears that the pattern lock (the thing that keeps prying eyes from prying) on AT&T’s version of the Samsung Galaxy S II is… pretty much useless. → Read More
I’m sure all of you remember BigDog, the utterly terrifying biomimetic robot platform that dances over rough terrain on weird legs and makes a sound like it’s full of angry bees. You didn’t think they were going to give up on it, did you? No, it’s been a rousing success apparently, so much so that they decided to build one that outdoes the original in every way.
The AlphaDog, as they’re calling it, was created to be basically the practical version of BigDog, which, while compelling and scary, was too loud and couldn’t carry enough stuff. AlphaDog, on the other hand, can carry 400 pounds of gear for 20 miles in a day, without needing to be refueled. → Read More
Remember Connectify? The downloadable software that turns PCs into Wi-Fi hotspots in just a few minutes? It looks like the company now has a new investor: In-Q-Tel (IQT), which just so happens to be the strategic investment firm that seeks out new technologies for the U.S. Intelligence Community, including the CIA.
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The social beer fanatics at Untappd are at it again. Their web app has been letting users share their brews of choice since 2010, but the company has just announced that they have released a pair of native apps for iOS and Android in time for the weekend.
According to the company’s blog, they’re big fans of the mobile web, but “there does come a time when you reach the limitations of the mobile web and have to move to a native platform.” Understandable. Though functional, the web app only lets you work with certain parts of the Untappd service, like checking in your brew and searching for similar beers. → Read More
In March, we wrote about Stripe, a new payments startup cofounded by brothers Patrick Collison and John Collison. The stealthy company was tackling online business to business and business to consumer payments, and had already received $2 million in backing from a number of all-star investors including PayPal founders Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, as well as Sequoia Capital, Andreesen Horowitz and SV Angel
This week, Stripe actually launched to the public and we now have more details on how the startup plans to disrupt a space dominated by PayPal and others. Stripe, which has been in private beta, is a more developer friendly, easy to use payments platform. The platform supports Ruby, PHP, Python, you don’t need a merchant account or gateway and Stripe will handle everything, including with storing cards, subscriptions, and direct payouts to a bank account. → Read More
Watch out for falling tablet prices! No, seriously, don’t get burned by price cuts. The HTC Flyer is the latest tablet to see a major price reduction. Starting tomorrow, October 1st, Best Buy will lower the price of the 7-inch Android 2.3 tablet from $499 to $299. This follows the PlayBook, Xoom, and most notable, the TouchPad.
The Flyer is nearing its 6 month birthday and hasn’t fared very well in the marketplace. This is mainly because it attempted to compete directly with the iPad while offering a smaller screen and dated OS. However, had it launched at $299, the Flyer might have won over more fans because it is a capable tablet with several fun tricks including an active digitizer stylus. → Read More
Oops. A new promotional poster made an appearance in a store at T-Mobile’s German headquarters, where it confirmed the existence of a Nokia Windows Phone with a 3.7-inch display and Nokia’s Drive navigation service.
The poster was up only briefly, but a quick-thinking tipster snapped a few shots and fired them off to WinRumors. After running it through a quick and dirty Google translation, the poster’s copy mentions that Nokia Drive for WP includes a 3D navigation display like its MeeGo cousin, and support for voice control.
Thrilling, no? → Read More
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