The signal du jour? This $195k Lamborghini for sale parked outside the Zynga offices (the Zynga dog eerily reflected in its window), uploaded to Instagram by Airbnb mobile lead Andrew Vilcsak, along with the caption: ”HAVE YOU SEEN $ZNGA LATELY?!” The company is currently trading at a stock price of $2.22, down from its debut IPO price of $10. → Read More
Small businesses may have been even more affected than big companies by Hurricane Sandy, as they don’t have the same resources. When Squarespace sent an email on Monday morning, it looked like they had tried everything to keep the servers alive. They asked for forgiveness in advance. But the unbelievable happened: They kept the service going by bringing fuel buckets to the 17th floor in the dark… → Read More
Japan’s second largest cellular provider KDDI just announced the first U.S. deal for its Open Innovation Fund — a $5 million investment in Fuhu.
The Los Angeles-headquartered startup offers a number of products and services (when Fuhu raised its Series B from Acer, we described it as an “avatar startup”), but the one that attracted KDDI’s interest is the nabi 2, an Androidtablet built… → Read More
You may know GetJar as the largest independent, cross-platform app store, and one of the largest distributors of Android apps outside of the Android Market. With more than 2 billion downloads and some 150K+ applications, the company continues to grow. This is thanks in part to its “open” model, which allows third-party app makers to distribute apps for most of the major mobile platforms. Getting… → Read More
Yelp narrowed its net loss to $2 million for the third quarter after pulling in $36.4 million in net revenue. The company said total reviews went up by 49 percent to 33 million, while the number of local business accounts grew by 82 percent to 35,500. The company changed its guidance for the year, projecting net revenue of $40 million to $40.5 million, with adjusted EBITDA (or earnings before… → Read More
Google France could be ordered to pay $1.3 billion to France’s equivalent of the IRS (Direction générale des finances) due to tax noncompliance in 2011. The agency has been investigating Google’s revenue in France for months. With only 138 million euros of revenue in France in 2011, the company has used tax-optimization strategies, but has always stated that they comply with the law. It denies… → Read More
HyperFair, a startup with a platform for running online trade shows, says it has raised $1.1 million in seed funding.
The idea of a virtual trade show isn’t new, but the practice hasn’t exactly taken off. Perhaps that’s what you’d expect, since it’s hard to imagine an online experience taking the place of a real-world show. → Read More
Despite the efforts of many different organizers over the years software developers have resisted unionization. The relatively high pay and good working conditions of developers, the stereotype of geeks as loners and the general decline of unions in the U.S. are all commonly cited reasons. But maybe unions are failing in tech because they’re not addressing the real issue: giving developers more… → Read More
After a brief hiatus from any official tech role, former Tumblr president John Maloney will be joining the board of custom store platform Storenvy this week. A combination of a custom storefront builder and an eCommerce discovery platform like Wanelo or TheFancy, Storenvy allows sellers to build their own custom marketplaces and scale those marketplaces as part of the Storenvy network, like this… → Read More
As a scientist practicing actual, bona fide science, I have often found myself in need of immediate g-force readings or barometric pressure analyses for my scientific problems. Whereas before I had to use my sextant and trident and thermowhozzit, I can instead use the Node. → Read More
Professional-minded social network LinkedIn once again beat Wall Street analysts’ expectations this afternoon when it announced the financial results for the third quarter of 2012.
LinkedIn announced that it made $252 million in revenue during the third quarter, up 10 percent sequentially from its Q2 revenue of $228.2 million and up 81 percent year-over-year from its Q3 2011 revenues of $140… → Read More
If you don’t live in New York City, you may not have heard of LocalVox. But the startup, which aims to simplify local marketing for small businesses and publishers, is beginning to take off. Headquartered in the Big Apple, the startup initially focused its efforts in its own backyard, but thanks to the $7.5 million series A it closed two weeks ago, it is now setting its sights on a more national… → Read More
Another day, another regulator seeking to shut down Uber. At least that’s what it looks like, this time in Chicago. The Chicago Business Affairs and Consumer Protection department proposed new regulations for limo services that would essentially prohibit car services from using electronic devices to measure time and distance to determine fares when picking up and charging users. → Read More
There’s a company that people have been buzzing about for some time called ToyTalk, which was founded by former Pixar CTO Oren Jacob. He was also previously an EIR at August Capital.
A video was released today showing off what the company is working on and it’s pretty awesome. Basically, it’s a talking teddy bear that uses artificial intelligence and scripted voices. → Read More
We’ve seen a few companies rally behind the victims of Hurricane Sandy, and today Airbnb joins the fold.
The peer-to-peer home sharing startup has decided to waive all of its fees for both hosts and guests in Sandy-affected areas. They are also encouraging hosts to lower prices and take in refugees who may be without power, water, or a home at all. → Read More
Hello, Great White North! We are officially out of tickets for the Northern Meet-ups, our flights and hotels are booked, and we’re raring to meet all of you in Toronto, Detroit, and Chicago. For more information head over to the individual event pages (Detroit, Chicago, and Toronto) if you’ve signed up be sure to show up early because we’re expecting a packed house at each one. → Read More
“In the Studio” this week hosts a first-time founder and entrepreneur who began his career as an engineering student at two of the country’s finest universities and played baseball for his college team, after which he worked at one of the country’s largest technology research and product companies before enrolling in and dropping out of business school to work on building a company in Silicon… → Read More
Microsoft has made a deal with China to offer Windows Azure in the country. The deal is ballyhooed as a landmark agreement but, at its core, represents something that only the Chinese government can love. → Read More
Facebook added a search box to its App Center today, but what it might do next is more interesting. Facebook could soon let developers pay to buy search keyword ads in the App Center search typeahead, similar to the specific name ads in its site-wide search typeahead. And if App Center goes beyond the typeahead and launches a search results page, it could host full-blown AdWords-style search… → Read More
Apple’s share of mobile web traffic rose 5.96 percent between September and October, thanks no doubt to the introduction of the iPhone 5, and likely also helped by the shipping of the 4th generation iPod touch. Apple controlled 65.38 percent of the traffic advertising network and research firm Chitika saw across the millions of devices, and Samsung gave up the most ground. → Read More
It’s that time of year again when we start taking nominations for the sixth annual Crunchies Awards, the Oscars of startups and technology. Once again we are co-hosting the awards with GigaOm and VentureBeat and we will return to the beautiful Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. → Read More
Google is today announcing mobile support for its Google Wallet checkout service, which expanded to include micropayments for web content earlier this month. At that time, Google said it would allow online shoppers to purchase premium digital content, ideally priced under $1.00, which also included a 30-minute money-back refund. Today, Google is expanding its service yet again to an area that… → Read More
The story sounded far-fetched: OLPC researchers, working with a team of technicians in Ethiopia, created a special “hut” covered in solar panels where the children of a few distant towns could go to recharge some toys they were given. The toys were boxed Motorola Xoom tablets and every child between the age of four and eight got one. The researchers were expecting the children to play with the… → Read More
Since its launch in 2009, Inkling has been on a mission to reinvent publishing for the mobile, digital era by building engaging, interactive learning content from the ground up for the iPad. Initially focused on higher ed, this year Inkling has been expanding its scope, moving into consumer-facing titles and continuing education, along with making its content available on other platforms, like the… → Read More
We first met Summly, an application that summarizes news stories algorithmically, and its “boy genius” founder Nick D’Aloisio back in mid-2011. At that time, the London-based D’Aloisio was 15 years old — just barely old enough to legally have a Facebook account — and Summly, then called Trimit, was something he’d hacked together in his spare time. → Read More
iOS 6.0.1 arrives today ahead of the iPad mini, and it features some bug fixes that resolve issues around the famous horizontal lines appearing on the software keyboard bug, a camera flash issue, and improved Wi-Fi connectivity reliability. This is the first minor point upgrade for iOS 6, and should solve some of the update’s growing pains. But for iPhone 5 owners hoping to download it OTA, you’ll… → Read More
The U.S. Government will now be looking into solutions for provisioning iOS and Android devices in addition to those featuring RIM’s BlackBerry OS, according to a new report from Reuters. That means RIM will no longer have the exclusive contract for smartphone devices at the U.S. Defense Department, though it will remain another option. → Read More
Facebook Gifts launched with the ability for you to buy something meaningful for a friend or family member on the social network. I’ve tinkered with it a bit and have bought a few gifts, including a bonsai tree and Starbucks gift cards. My mind immediately jumped to “wouldn’t it be cool if I could donate money to a charity on behalf of my friend for their birthday?”, and well, that happened today… → Read More
55Social, a Sao Paulo, Brazil-based startup that makes a social media marketing platform, has raised a new round of funding from Redpoint e.ventures that brings its total investment to more than $10 million, the company tells TechCrunch. → Read More
Coaster’s iPhone app lets you skip the line at the bar. Instead, you just place an order from your phone, sit back, and wait for your drinks to be made. When they’re ready, you get a push notification telling you to pick them up, as well as a unique identifying code to make sure that you’re the person who gets those drinks. → Read More
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