posted yesterday

Google Introduces Portable Native Client, Makes It Easier For Developers To Add C And C++ Code To Their Web Apps

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Native Client – a technology that allows developers to run native compiled C and C++ code as part of their web apps – has long been a part of Google Chrome. Even though other browser vendors haven’t adopted it yet, Google is clearly putting quite a few resources behind this technology and at I/O this year, it announced Portable Native Client (or PNaCl, which Google says we should pronounce as… → Read More

posted yesterday

Wisconsin Gov. Promises To Use Internet Sales Tax To Lower Income Tax

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It sounds like a nice idea, if you don’t own a calculator. The governor of Wisconsin wants to give his residents a tax break, using the revenue from a proposed Internet Sales tax to lower the state’s income tax. “I want to make clear, should federal Marketplace legislation become law, my intention would be for any resulting additional revenue be used to provide individual income… → Read More

posted yesterday

Backupify Is Phasing Out Free Consumer Products; Drops Support For Facebook Personal Profiles, Blogger, Picassa And Flickr

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Earlier this week we reported on how Backupify was closing down TweetBackup, a free service to back up your Twitter account that it acquired in 2010; now we have confirmed that, as we’d heard, this is part of a bigger plan at the company to phase out consumer services altogether, as Backupify focuses its efforts on paid services for enterprise customers. From today, it will stop accepting new… → Read More

posted yesterday

Social Trip Planning App Tripshare Converts Travel Inspiration To Bookings

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Tripshare, an iPad application for travel planning, is joining a crowded space. But its CEO knows a little something about the industry – Bob Dana was the former employee No. 1 and first CFO of Virgin America. He once wrote the business plan and feasibility study for Sir Richard Branson in 2003. And now he’s doing a travel startup. Dana tells us the inspiration for Tripshare was based… → Read More

posted yesterday

Now Netflix Is Promoting “Arrested Development” On Seamless.com

Bluth_s Original Frozen Banana

How do you market a hot new TV show without the benefit of commercial space that you can fill with network promos? Just ask Netflix. The company has come up with a number of clever marketing stunts to get the word out about the upcoming premiere of Arrested Development ranging from Easter eggs on Netflix.com to this month’s live frozen banana stand in New York, which was visited by hundreds. It… → Read More

posted yesterday

Michigan Tech Sponsors A 3D Printers For Peace Contest

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Now that Defense Distributed is on the defensive, it’s time to think a bit harder about what 3D printing really means. To that end, Michigan Tech is sponsoring a Printers For Peace contest that is encouraging designers and engineers to make amazing stuff using a 3D printer that can change the world for the better. “Unfortunately, the only thing many people know about 3D printing is that it can be… → Read More

posted yesterday

Google’s Street View Trekker Backpack Co-Creator Talks Unmanned Hikes, Pack Animal Street View

Google impressed a lot of people when it debuted its Grand Canyon Street View imagery in October. The Trekker backpack used to capture that imagery, which is essentially a backpack-mounted version of the same all-seeing eye that sits atop the Google Street View car. → Read More

posted yesterday

Big Data Analytics Specialist Tableau Software Raises $254M In IPO, Shares Close 64% Up; Marketo’s First Day Up 78% To $23.10

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One year to the day of the troubled Facebook IPO, the climate for tech IPOs in the public markets is significantly less stormy, especially for companies in the enterprise space. Today, not one but two, Tableau Software and Marketo, are debuting on New York stock exchanges. Business intelligence provider Tableau Software, trading as “DATA”, is one of the more highly anticipated tech IPOs of the… → Read More

posted yesterday

Vevo Dostępne Po Polsku

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Vevo, popularny serwis muzycznych teledysków, ogłosił oficjalną dostępność w Polsce. Usługa, wcześniej niedostępna w tym regionie geograficznym, będzie zawierać video-clipy najpopularniejszych polskich gwiazd jak Brodka, Pezet, a może i nawet David Hasselhoff. → Read More

posted yesterday

Major Union Calls Tech Industry “Greedy” For Wanting To End Hiring Wait Period For Immigrants

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“The tech industry is, frankly, being greedy. They are going back and asking for changes to language they helped write and blatantly trying to roll back requirements that give high-skilled American workers a fair shot at getting a job,” said AFL-CIO legislative Representative Andrea Zuniga DiBitetto about new proposals to ease the hiring of high-skilled foreign workers. Facebook founder… → Read More

posted yesterday

DODOcase Releases DODOnotes, A Little Notebook For Your iPhone

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I like little notebooks. I need a place for my introspective musings. Moleskine notebooks are fine. But now there’s DODOnotes, a clever little notebook *slash* iPhone holder that could soon earn a place in my pocket.

This contraption is from DODOcase, the same San Francisco-based startup that created the make-a-tablet-look-like-a-book craze. DODOnotes costs $13.95 and is available for both the… → Read More

posted yesterday

NVIDIA’s Shield May Be A Tough Sell, But Now You Can Pre-Order It From GameStop And Newegg Anyway

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If you were among the select few that signed up for NVIDIA’s Shield newsletter then you’ve been able to pre-order the company’s curious handset for a few days now. The remainder of the gaming masses originally had to wait until Monday for their own turn, but that’s no longer the case — NVIDIA’s retail partners have jumped on the pre-order bandwagon too so you can now stake your claim on a Shield… → Read More

May 16th, 2013

Yahoo Wants To Buy Everyone, Tumblr Edition

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The first rule of being cool is not telling people you want to be cool. Yahoo is not following this rule, with its M&A team in full pray-and-spray acquisition mode post-Marissa Mayer hire, hitting on everything that walks, or at least has traction.

Deals I have heard rumors Yahoo was trying to get into over the past couple of months: Foursquare (at an $800 million asking price). Path (at… → Read More

May 16th, 2013

Sina Narrows Its 1Q Loss As It Counts On Weibo-Alibaba Deal To Bolster Ad Revenue

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Despite rising costs and increasing competition from rivals like Tencent, Chinese Internet giant Sina narrowed its first-quarter net loss to $13.2 million from $13.7 million a year earlier, the company reported today. Sina’s net revenue increased 19 percent year-over-year to $126 million, strengthened by stronger-than-expected non-advertising revenue. → Read More

May 16th, 2013

Life-Tracking App Expereal Is Your Personal Weapon Against Cognitive Biases

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Emotions play tricks on our memories, making our recollections of events much happier or heart-wrenching than they actually were. Smartphone app Expereal seeks to cut through those cognitive traps by allowing you to rate your day on a 10-point scale and organizing that data into easy-to-read charts. → Read More

May 16th, 2013

MessageMe Raises A $10M Series A Led By Greylock As It Gears Up For Money And Premium Services In Its Rich Messaging App

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MessageMe — a messaging app that launched in March with a little Facebook controversy thrown in — has raised another $10 million, according to an SEC filing earlier today. The Series A round was led by Greylock Partners; and as part of it, John Lilly, the ex-CEO of Mozilla who is now a partner at Greylock, will be joining the board of LittleInc Labs, makers of MessageMe. → Read More

May 16th, 2013

Experience A Google Maps Free Fall With Instrument’s Maps Dive At Google I/O

One of the most interesting product demos on display at Google I/O this year was a virtual sky-diving simulation built using eight separate computers running Chrome, along with a Kinect-like motion sensor made by ASUS called the Xtion Pro. The Maps Dive experiment was created by Portland-based independent digital agency Instrument. → Read More

May 16th, 2013

CrowdOptic Raises Another $1M To Build Experiences Based On Where Your Phone Is Pointing

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CrowdOptic, a startup with technology for identifying where people are pointing their smartphone cameras, has raised another $1 million in funding.

When I’ve spoken to the team in the past, they’ve emphasized the ways this could be used to create new types of social interactions — if people are attending a live event and pointing their cameras at the same thing, they can start chatting and… → Read More

May 16th, 2013

NVIDIA’s Shield Mobile Gaming System Feels Like The Way Android Games Should Be Played

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NVIDIA brought its new Shield handheld gaming system to Google I/O this year and showed off a near-production device. The Shield made its debut at CES this year, surprising most since it’s a consumer handheld device from a company that generally makes internal components. But it has some neat tricks up its sleeve, including a Tegra 4 chipset, 2GB of RAM, a 5-inch 720p display and 16GB of internal… → Read More

May 16th, 2013

Tableau Software To Open Trading On The NYSE At $31 Per Share With Market Symbol “DATA”

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Data visualization software company Tableau Software, going by the symbol “DATA,” will start trading tomorrow on the New York Stock Exchange at $31 per share, up from earlier today when the company said it would trade in the $28 to $30 range.

Tableau will offer 8.2 million shares of its Class A common stock, up from the 7.2 million it previously said it would offer. That puts the offering at… → Read More

May 16th, 2013

For Real, Ex-Groupon CEO Andrew Mason Is Releasing An Album Of Motivational Music

ANDREW MASON HARDLY WORKIN

Andrew Mason must be some kind of spirit animal of optimism. We assumed he was kidding when today he wrote that he had recorded “a seven song album of motivational business music”. Just three months ago the founder and CEO got booted from Groupon. But we’ve just confirmed with him that his album “Hardly Workin’” is for real. Hold on to your ear holes, startup people. → Read More

May 16th, 2013

Why CrunchGov Is Endorsing Eric Garcetti For Mayor Of LA

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“Los Angeles is an underachieving city,” wrote the Los Angeles Times in its 2013 mayoral endorsement. ”The candidate with the most potential to rise to the occasion and lead Los Angeles out of its current malaise and into a more sustainable and confident future is Eric Garcetti.” An overwhelming number of startup founders seem to agree that Garcetti is the best candidate… → Read More

May 16th, 2013

Google Says All 2,000 Glass Explorers Have Been Invited To Pick Up Their Device

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Today, Steve Lee of the Google X and Glass Team, announced that as of last week, all 2,000 developers who signed up for the Glass Explorer program at last year’s I/O conference have now been invited to pick up their devices from Google’s offices in Mountain View, New York City or Los Angeles. → Read More

May 16th, 2013

Now With More Than 1.5B Page Views A Month, Secret Sharing App Whisper Launches On Android

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Secret sharing app Whisper has seen tremendous growth since launching last fall. But until recently, it’s only been available on iOS. With a launch on Android’s Google Play store this week, Whisper is going to be available to a whole bunch of new users, particularly in its key demographic of young adults aged 18-24. → Read More

May 16th, 2013

Leap Motion Talks New Beta, We Go Hands On With Motion-Controlled Google Earth

Leap Motion was showing off its still unreleased gesture motion controller for computers at Google I/O 2013. The demo unit allowed you to use the controller to navigate Google Earth, and the functionality felt ready for prime time to me, as this was the first time I’d ever used the Leap Motion. The controls seemed intuitive, and within a few minutes I was flying around the globe pretty handily… → Read More

May 16th, 2013

How Google Took Street View For A Dive

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Google’s underwater Street View launched last September, but Google’s Ocean program actually started six years ago when one of the founders of Keyhole (which, after being acquired by Google, later became Google Earth), was inspired to also look into mapping the ocean. For several years now Google has been mapping the oceans, but bringing Street View underwater is still very challenging. → Read More

May 16th, 2013

Here Are The Commands You Need To Gain Root Access To Your Google Glass

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There has been a lot of talk about rooting your Glass device, or if it’s even possible. Well, it is. During a Hacking Google Glass session today, the team shared the steps to go through to gain root access for your Glass device. Only the Fastboot tool for UNIX works, but there have been issues with using the OS X one. An official native dev kit will be available, too, which was announced… → Read More

May 16th, 2013

Y Combinator Adds Four Part-Time Partners, Including Groupon’s Andrew Mason (Who’s Also Starting A New Company)

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Y Combinator’s Paul Graham revealed a bunch of personnel news in a just-published blog post.

Let’s see if I’ve got everything: The incubator has added one full-time partner (Wufoo’s Kevin Hale) and four part-time partners (Socialcam’s Michel Seibel, Hipmunk’s Steve Huffman, imeem and App.net’s Dalton Caldwell and Groupon’s Andrew Mason). Current partner Harj Taggar, meanwhile, is leaving “to… → Read More

May 16th, 2013

Jen Lamere, The 18-Year-Old Developer Trying To Save Us From TV Spoilers On Twitter, Scores An Internship There

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Participating in hackathons is nothing new in certain parts of the world, especially Silicon Valley. Once in a blue moon, a small team of people creates something exciting that generates buzz, potentially selling to a larger company.

One developer took on 80 competitors at a hackathon called “TVnext” and won with a solution to save you from reading spoilers on Twitter with an app called… → Read More

May 16th, 2013

Check Out Facebook’s Nerdy Library Of Its Research Papers

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If subjects like “XORing Elephants: Novel Erasure Codes for Big Data” get you all worked up, you’ll dig the “Research Publications At Facebook” site, which collects scientific papers written by Facebook employees and researchers. Ranging from hardcore engineering to the sociology of social networks, the library puts Facebook’s open-sourced knowledge all in one place. → Read More