Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES) is the kind of service that Amazon Web Services (AWS) does so well. It automates the manual task of adding email to apps so developers can focus on doing what they do best. → Read More
Jumio, the computer vision startup backed by $32 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Eduardo Saverin and others, is today announcing the first travel application to integrate its Netswipe technology. The app involved is the recently launched Hotel Deals by lastminute.com from Travelocity, which now allows users to hold up their credit card to their phone’s camera in order to pay at… → Read More
So, Facebook launched its “Gifts” product, and I was keen to take it for a whirl. I proceeded to visit my fiancee’s wall and pick something out that she might like. There were a ton of options, including flowers and a bonsai tree. I opted for the bonsai tree. → Read More
I’ve been waiting for this moment all day, so I want to thank Twitter comms for finally giving me the opportunity to write this post. Apparently and unsurprisingly, tonight’s Presidential debate gave a spirited group of passionate Twitter users plenty of fodder to Tweet about, leading to the most Tweeted about political event of all time. Pat yourself on the back, Tweeters. Tonight, you’ve once… → Read More
When you’re managing a collaborative space for your team at work or a group of folks working on a project, you know that security is extremely important. Dropbox knows this, too, and launched its two-step verification process for all users in August. → Read More
Millions of people see the end products put out by DreamWorks Animation, the movie studio co-founded by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen. But the technology that makes those movies happen often remains a bit behind-the-scenes. Today, the studio took a big step toward putting its geeky side more toward the forefront, with the appointment of Lincoln Wallen to serve as its new… → Read More
John Wiley & Sons, the 200-year-old publishing giant best known for its scientific, technical and medical texts and journals geared towards academic and scholarly audiences, appears to be on a mission to beef up its higher education business with a dose of technology. Following on the heels of its partnership with Knewton, the academic publisher has announced that it will acquire Chicago-based… → Read More
Dobango, a startup that allows brands to promote themselves through fan competitions on Pinterest, just announced that it has raised $600,000 in seed funding.
The company is led by Devkumar Gandhi who previously founded mobile advertising startup Nexage. (Dobango’s seed investors include John Ostrem, the original backer of Nexage.) Gandhi served as Nexage’s CEO for more than four years, but… → Read More
Ben Horowitz loves hip-hop, but in an interview with TechCrunch he outlined a deeper vision behind his firm’s $15M investment into Rap Genius. “Knowledge about knowledge over time becomes as important as the knowledge itself”, said Horowitz about the value of the site explaining lyrics, religion and more.
Watch Rap Genius’ founders tell me their roadmap for bringing understanding across the… → Read More
On September 24, French newspapers alerted Facebook that there could be a bug that would display private messages written in 2009 and earlier on users’ timelines. It was then invalidated by Facebook. But the French data protection agency CNIL investigated on its own and delivered the same conclusions as Facebook. There was in fact no bug. → Read More
We heard rumors about Google acquiring the augmented reality and image recognition firm Viewdle earlier this week. Turns out, those rumors were true. Google’s Motorola Mobility unit just announced that it has indeed acquired the company. → Read More
The x86 chip is an Intel crown jewel. It’s the processor for millons of servers around the globe. But now it appears that software has invaded the land of hardware yet again with the news that a group of Russian developers are building an emulation capability to run x86 servers on ARM-based servers. → Read More
LG’s last big (and I mean big) smartphone release around these parts was the Intuition, a funky phablet that many a critic panned. Thankfully, the company’s straight-laced follow-up — the nicely spec’d Optimus G — was revealed earlier this month, and now both AT&T and Sprint have signed on to sell the thing when it launches later this year. → Read More
It’s rare to see the creation of a product from idea to implementation but Blink Steady, a unique, multi-sensor bike light, allowed us to do just that. Created by Benjamin Cohen, Stuart Heys, and Mark Sibenac, the Blink Steady launched in April on Kickstarter and shipped last month. → Read More
The fact is, the majority of tech industry investors are men — that goes from the larger venture capital firms that fund companies in the mid- to late-stages, to the angel investors who help to get seed-stage companies off the ground.
But an organization called the Pipeline Fellowship is working to deliberately change that, by putting on angel investing “bootcamps” for women. → Read More
YouTube today announced that it is making some important changes to its appeals process for users who think their videos were falsely flagged for copyright infringements by YouTube’s Content ID system. Previously, when users filed an appeal and the copyright owner rejected this appeal, the user was generally left without any recourse for certain types of Content ID claims. Starting today… → Read More
Apple posted multiple job ads today, and one in particular is interesting given the company’s recent decisions. The posting is seeking an “SoC Modelling Architect / Lead,” or in the words of the job description, an individual who will be “at the center of a chip design effort interfacing with all disciplines, with a critical impact on getting functional products to millions of customers quickly.” → Read More
Bombay-based security software company Seclore has developed a way for your email to self-destruct. This may be just the way for companies to get past the paradox that collaboration poses. → Read More
Flinja wants to create a peer-to-peer jobs marketplace based on student and alumni networks within various universities around the country. It seeks to differentiate itself from other marketplace startups — the Taskrabbits and the Zaarlys of the world — by tying user participation to their college affiliation. Like Facebook once upon a time, all users are required to log in with their .edu email… → Read More
In July of last year, Jon Bischke and John McGrath co-founded Entelo to help companies large and small identify and recruit technical talent. Since then, the startup has been in limited beta, providing only brief glimpses into what they were building, but that officially ended this morning. → Read More
Facebook says that today 220 million people are visiting its App Center every month, with 40% likely to return the day after they use it for more. But with thousands of apps available, and visitors looking for guidance on what apps to use, recommendation is a huge part of the equation both for consumers, and for developers hoping their apps are the ones to hit the big time. Today, Facebook took a… → Read More
Amazon apparently underestimated the success of its newest e-reader. The company just updated its shipping estimate, pushing back the delivery date to four to six weeks after ordering. Both models, with or without 3G, are experiencing the same delay. And it’s no surprise — the device is more than an incremental improvement. → Read More
App.net, the Dalton Caldwell startup that pivoted from being essentially an About.me for apps, and towards being a paid Twitter alternative, today got a boost on the software side thanks to the introduction of Netbot by Tapbots. Netbot, as any Tapbots fan will likely immediately recognize, is essentially a modified version of Tweetbot for iPhone and iPad, but one that works with App.net instead. → Read More
I love foursquare, I check in from pretty much everywhere I go. However, I would say that the Curiosity Rover on Mars is seeing cooler scenery than I ever have. Today, foursquare reported that the craft has checked in on foursquare for the first time. → Read More
Photographers and designers often have to face problems mortal men do not. More precisely, they need to share huge files – up to 2GB – with each other in order to send around high resolution photos and layouts for clients. That’s what KeenFiles.com is for. It’s a place for these gods among humankind to share those things that are largest on their hard drives.
The service is simple: you paste… → Read More
Watch out below! HP’s stock is tumbling to new lows as the company lays out its 5-year recovery program. Wall Street clearly doesn’t like what it’s hearing either.
HP’s stock opened at $17.35 and maintained this price throughout the day until it suddenly, nearly violently, crashed to where it sits now at 10% down for the day at $15.50, a 9-year low. → Read More
Amazon has quietly started to add closed captioning services to its Instant Video library, following a September 30 deadline from the Federal Communications Commission that required online media companies to begin incorporating these subtitles for the hard of hearing into their video content.
This regulation — an implementation of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of… → Read More
As the U.S. real estate market is slowly starting to gather some steam again, real estate portals like Redfin, Trulia and Zillow are again competing as important tools for prospective buyers who want to get an edge in competitive markets. According to a new study commissioned by real estate portal Redfin and real estate company Windermere, the quality of the listings on these different sites isn’t… → Read More
Hewlett-Packard was once the king of Silicon Valley. Not anymore. After years of executive turnover, the company has lost its soul although the money keeps pouring in. Meg Whitman intends to right the massive HP ship and just outlined an ambitious five-year plan that promises new products by financial year 2014 and finally growth by 2015. So three years from now. Gah.
Whitman took over for… → Read More
One of my favorite unconferences is the European edition of Stream, the WPP/Yossi Vardi hosted extravaganza held annually just outside Athens. Last year, I interviewed Sir Martin Sorrell, WPP’s ebullient CEO, about the global advertising economy. And this year, I had the good fortune to sit down with Mark Read, the CEO of WPP Digital, to talk more specifically about the company’s digital strategy. → Read More
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