September 6, 2012
A New $150M Fund Underscores The Bigger Ambitions of Kushner’s Thrive Capital
Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital just became yet another of several upstart venture firms that have been able to raise progressively larger funds this year. The New York-based fund just quickly…
Best Email Ever: How One Soldier Stationed In Afghanistan Got His Amazon News Today
It’s only my third official day on the job at TechCrunch, but it’s been a pretty awesome time thus far. We saw an email come through the wires that stopped…
TechCrunch’s Picks: The Top 5 Companies From StartX’s Summer 2012 Demo Day
18 companies presented at the StartX summer demo day today. The summer 2012 class is StartX’s seventh and largest class; the accelerator, started in 2010, has graduated more than 90 companies…
Barack Obama’s Record-Setting Speech: 52,757 Tweets Per Minute, 9M Total DNC Tweets
The President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, spoke at the Democratic National Convention tonight and broke some Twitter records while he was at it, according to the…
Contour+2 Action Camera Packs HD Video, Live Streaming Into $400 Package
A year later and one hundred dollars cheaper than its predecessor, Seattle-based Contour announced its Contour+2 action camera this week and will be available later this month. The latest improves…
The Last Big Independent Social Marketer Syncapse Pimps Itself For Acquisition With Analytics Suite
Syncapse wants to get bought. All it’s well funded competitors — Buddy Media, Vitrue, Involver, Wildfire — already have. So today it releases a new analytics suite, making it a…
The First Third-Party Games Go Live On Zynga.com
Zynga first announced its Zynga Platform for social games back in March. Since then, Zynga’s own games have gone live at Zynga.com, and the company has been revealing more details and…
Hackathon Hardware Hackers: Here’s One More Chance To Hack On A Raspberry Pi This Weekened
If you are attending this weekend’s Hackathon – that is if you have tickets and are raring to go – I have some fun news. As we mentioned before, Makerbot…
Stanford’s StartX Incubator Says It’s Number 2 In Funding Per Startup, With $80M Raised Over 2 Years
This evening at the StartX demo day, the Stanford-based incubator provided a few metrics as a validation of its model. Among other things, StartX announced companies that have gone through…
StartX, The Startup Accelerator For Stanford Students, Kicks Off Its Summer 2012 Demo Day
StartX, the startup accelerator for companies founded by Stanford students, just kicked off Demo Day for its Summer 2012 startup class at AOL’s Silicon Valley headquarters in Palo Alto this…
Quirky Lands $68M From Andreessen, Kleiner To Build An Online Community For Inventors
Much like it is for entrepreneurs, being an inventor isn’t easy. From the moment that magic light bulb appears, product developers have to navigate a bumpy road of financing, engineering,…
Welcome To The Game: Amazon’s Working With Activision On In-App Offers
During today’s Amazon Kindle Extravaganza, one of the slides that was popped up during the event got the attention of quite a few of us. It was a slide showing…
Rumored: Development To Cease For Twitter’s Mac Client
Here’s a piece of Twitter news that would really make me sad. According to former TechCrunch full-time writer guy, MG Siegler, Twitter will cease to support and develop Twitter for…
Giftly’s New App Lets You Send Any Gift To Friends, Family Straight From Your iPhone
Giftly, a San Francisco-based startup that lets you send any kind of gift to a friend or family member, has just come out with a native mobile app that makes…
The Logitech Ultrathin iPad Keyboard Case Is Now Available In White
When it comes to finding a good iPad keyboard case, two accessories come out of the pack, the Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard and the Belkin YourType Folio. The Logitech one was…
MasterCard Buys Loyalty Rewards And Personalized Offers Company Truaxis (Formerly BillShrink)
MasterCard has acquired acquisition of Truaxis (formerly BillShrink). Financial terms were not disclosed. The company had raised $9 million in funding from Trinity Ventures and Bessemer. BillShrink originally launched as…
Quora, DropBox, Others Made $30M in Job Offers To Engineers In First 2 Weeks Of DeveloperAuction
DeveloperAuction has built what they call the “first transparent marketplace for recruitment,” allowing engineers to put their talent up for auction from startups that need talent. In the company’s first…
Amazon Announces First Kindle Fire Tablets Outside Of The U.S., Starting At £129 In UK, €159 In France
Along with Amazon’s big tablet announcements earlier today, it’s finally also unveiled the first markets to get the Kindle Fire tablets — both the new Kindle Fire and the HD…
Amazon’s Writing Is On The Wall For Physical Books
… Literally, like on the presentation wall of what seemed like the longest Amazon Press Event in Amazon Press Event history. For those keeping track at home, Amazon CEO Jeff…
Twitter Launches Reporting And Promoted Tweets Self-Service Features
Twitter is moving the bus forward on monetizing itself and allowing brands to handle all of their advertising on the site. Today, the company announced two new self-service features that…
Kindle Pre-Orders Now Live For Fire, Fire HD and Paperwhite
The all-new Amazon Kindles are all now available for pre-ordering from Amazon’s website. The Kindle Paperwhite retails for $119, or $179 for a version with built-in, free 3G connectivity, and…
Hands-On With The 7″ Kindle Fire HD: Excellent Display, Super Snappy, But New WiFi Is A Question Mark
Amazon just announced the Kindle Fire HD, and we heard all kinds of magical promises: a beautiful display, super duper fast WiFi, and a host of new features. On almost…
eBay Acquires Style-Focused, Social, Curated Shopping Site Svpply
eBay has just announced the acquisition of Svpply, a New York-based startup that aims to replicate the feeling of window-shopping online with a social, curated and personalized experience. The acquisition,…
A User’s Guide To Disrupt SF 2012
So, Disrupt is right around the corner. And, we’ve put a few things together with our partners and sponsors that we think will help make your conference experience great! Our…
Couples App Avocado Adds Photos To Its Lists, So You Never Bring The Wrong Toothpaste Home Again
Oh, couples. A wife sends her husband to the grocery store, and there’s always some thing that he forgets to bring back, or worse, he messes up and brings home…
“In the Studio,” LinkedIn’s Pete Skomoroch Discusses The Voltron Of Data Science
“In the Studio” kicks off the fall season by hosting a data scientist who, originally trained in mathematics and physics, worked his way through the Valley through a variety of…
Amazon Introduces 8.9-inch, 32GB, LTE Kindle Fire HD for $499
Amazon introduced one last Kindle Fire today, the HD version with LTE capability and 32GB of storage for $499. That’s a much better deal than the competition is offering, at…
New Kindle Fire Software: Multiple Profiles, New Email, Custom Facebook And Skype Apps
Amazon in its ongoing press conference has hinted at some improvements to the Kindle Fire software. It seems to be a completely new interface with great improvements to existing apps…
Say Hello To Amazon’s New Kindle Fire Family: $159 Upgraded Original, $199 7-inch and $299 8.9-inch HD
Amazon just introduced new Kindle Fire tablets, including a revamped old version that costs $159, and is both faster and has longer battery life, as well as two Kindle Fire…
Old Kindle Gets A New Name (And A New Price): The $69 Kindle With Better Page Turns, More Fonts
At Amazon’s press conference today in Santa Monica, the company is unveiling new devices, but to help sales along through the range, it’s also dropping the price of the old…
