Natasha is a reporter for TechCrunch, joining September 2012, based out of London. She arrives after a stint reviewing smartphones for CNET UK and, prior to that, more than five years covering business technology for silicon.com (now folded into TechRepublic.com). At silicon she focused on mobile and wireless, telecoms and networking, and IT skills issues, and has also freelanced for organisations including the Guardian and the BBC. Natasha studied English at Cambridge University, and also holds an MA from Goldsmiths College, University of London.
Pinterest is ramping up its international strategy by kicking off a localisation effort in the U.K. today, tweaking the site so that it deliberately foregrounds U.K. content to U.K. users and also adding a British English language setting to make Brits feel more at home. The U.K. is the first part in what appears to be a bigger strategy to target more usage, and more users, outside of the U.S. → Read More
Line, a free-at-the-point-of-use messaging app made by NHN Japan Corp which recently passed 150 million users, has announced earnings for Q1 2013 — revealing for the first time how much of its revenue comes from game in-app purchases and how much from its other shtick: stickers. Line uses free social messaging and gaming services as its hook to draw in users, and monetises via paid add-ons. → Read More
Nokia has given its S40-based range of touchscreen Asha smartphones another push to try to keep up with the low end reach of Google’s Android platform today. The mobile maker has announced a new addition to the range — the Asha 501 — which also ushers in a new version of the Asha touch UI that’s designed to be quicker and slicker, and has a strong focus on swiping gestures. → Read More
Online real estate company Trulia has announced it plans to acquire real estate SaaS CRM provider Market Leader for approximately $355 million. The pair said the rational for the merger is to create a “combined platform” that covers both house buyers and real estate agents, with Trulia’s front end listing businesses being complemented by Market Leader’s back-end SaaS CRM. → Read More
As tablet ownership & usage continues its upward trajectory, little surprise that more people are expected to be paying for more stuff on tablets in the coming years. But analyst Juniper has put out a new mobile content revenue forecast predicting that purchases on tablets will be the primary engine for growth — so beating out handsets — in the mobile content market over the next three… → Read More
Nokia is teasing the Lumia 928 — a phone it has not officially announced yet, despite all the leaks, rumours and, er, magazine ads — in a camera comparison video posted on its U.S. website. All this teasing smells like a new strategy for Nokia to try to manufacture a little hype for the forthcoming Windows Phone 8 flagship, which is apparently heading to Verizon. → Read More
In the tangled web of digital social networks that we weave one thing is increasingly absent: a sense of mystery. We are so wrapped up in our digital social graphs there’s rarely room for gaps. The challenge now is about piecing together the endless jumble of data that’s being pushed at us. Instead of dreamers, we’re policemen sifting through a bottomless box of evidence. → Read More
Chef Sleeve has been selling its iPad-protecting plastic sleeves since 2011 to keep kitchen gunk off the iPad you’re using while you cook. They also make a chopping board with a built in iPad stand. But Chef Sleeve’s grand plan is to create a range of connected devices for the kitchen that link up with an iPad app to let people track their nutrition in a highly granular yet low hassle way. → Read More
Meet Lumu: a digital light meter for photographers that plugs into the iPhone’s headphone jack as a smaller and smarter replacement for traditional analogue light meters. It’s used in conjunction with Lumu’s app — being demoed in prototype here at hardware alley at Disrupt NY — to help photographers figure out the best camera settings for their current location. → Read More
Line, a free messaging app made by NHN Japan Corporation that’s competing with the likes of WhatsApp and Viber, has pushed past 150 million registered users globally, up from 100 million in January. Line launched back in summer 2011 in Asia, and is especially popular in Japan, but has been pushing outside its home region, expanding into the U.S., Europe and Latin America. → Read More
Webydo is a cloud-based SaaS for designers who want to be able to sell their website design services without having to get their own hands dirty doing any coding or hire a developer to do it for them. The system offers a custom CMS where designers can build the website. Once they’re happy with the design, Webydo’s software converts it into code for them. The company also hosts the published site. → Read More
Here’s a startup hoping to fill the gap left by the demise of Facebook Questions: French-Belgian startup Poutsch, now based in New York and exhibiting here at TechCrunch Disrupt NY’s Startup Alley, has built a platform for tracking opinion data by crowdsourcing market research, which is incentivised through a free-to-use-and-browse social opinion network. → Read More
What do digital payments companies make of Bitcoin? Here at TechCrunch Disrupt NY, a digital money panel featuring PayPal, Stripe and Gumroad gave its thoughts on the currency that has VCs emptying their bank accounts to invest afresh. → Read More
It’s day two here at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013, and we’ve got another full day of fireside chats, founders stories and startup battlefield pitches for your viewing pleasure. As with yesterday, we’ll be live streaming all the action — expect the live stream to kick off around 8:45am ET and end about 6pm when the last battlefield pitch concludes. One note: we’re not live… → Read More
Finding a parking space next to your favourite café is always a lottery but Park Tag wants to change all that. The startup, which is exhibiting at Disrupt NY’s Startup Alley, wants to make parking social so it’s easier to find your next space. The Park Tag app lets users invite their neighbours and colleagues to form a community of drivers who can help each other out by posting parking spaces. → Read More
MallWeGo is launching at the Disrupt NY 2013 Startup Alley today with a social, gaming shopping experience for web and mobile. The company has built a virtual world for socialising with friends in avatar form, which looks like a simplified Second Life or The Sims, but the kicker is it’s built for ecommerce, with a virtual mall where people can buy real-world products. → Read More
Bidzy, a new platform for connecting local services businesses with customers who need the service they offer in the next few hours, is launching at Disrupt NY 2013 today. Like the best ideas, Bidzy’s premise is simple: allow the customer to specify exactly what they want and the amount they are willing to pay and then let the individual businesses decide if they’re happy to take the job on. → Read More
Another simple but neat Evernote hack that came out of the 24-hour Disrupt NY Hackathon earlier today was Squirrel. Created by coder duo Zainab Ebrahimi and Jabari Bell, the hack turns articles Evernote readers have saved for reading later into a personalised newsletter. So, unlike the average email newsletter, Squirrel is populated with content the user actually wants to read. → Read More
Jared Zoneraich and Nick Joseph are two high school students who’ve spent the night here at the Disrupt NY 2013 Hackathon coding an in-car app for learner drivers using GM’s API. The pair got a great reception on stage during their presentation for Learn to Drive — not least for the in-car dashboard app’s killer feature: a voice warning that booms out when a learner is going too fast. → Read More
The Disrupt NY 2013 Hackathon has kicked off and here’s one of the new hack team pairings hoping to claim tomorrow’s prize after a long night of coding. Michal Shaffer, left, from New York and Peter Ma, right from San Francisco — met at the event and are now collaborating on a proximity art app that will be using Samsung’s API and the Galaxy Note plus S Pen to power random collaborative doodling. → Read More
SumUp, one of the many European mobile card reader startups targeting small businesses — and taking advantage of Square’s continued absence to acquire users and build out a business — has taken another step designed to expand its reach by announcing a partnership with Revel Systems, a maker of iPad POS software. → Read More
The Tech City high tech cluster in London’s East End is getting an extra helping of high speed mobile connectivity from June. Carrier EE, which owns and operates the U.K.’s first and still only LTE/4G network, has announced it is partnering with the Tech City Investment Organisation to install a network of 4G hotspots in “key locations” for businesses in the area to use. → Read More
Games app downloads to smartphones and tablets are set to grow significantly over the next four years, according to a new report by analyst Juniper Research which projects there will be 64.1BN such downloads in 2017 — more than three times the 21 billion downloaded in 2012. Key drivers powering this high rate of growth include free-to-play releases, more sophisticated devices & smartphone… → Read More
Don’t write off Microsoft’s chances in mobile just yet. It may still be struggling to make itself count in the smartphone space but early signs are more promising for Windows plus tablets. Microsoft has gone from having no share of the global tablet OS market in Q1 last year to taking 7.4% one year later, with 3M Windows 8 tablets shipped in Q1 2013, according to Strategy Analytics. → Read More
New keyboard layout KALQ is designed to speed up thumb typing on tablets and phablets. Its creators, from the University of St Andrews, the Max Planck Institute for Informatics and Montana Tech, claim that once users have accustomed themselves to the unfamiliar non-Qwerty layout typing performance can become about a third (34%) more efficient than thumb typing on split screen Qwerty layouts. → Read More
The U.K.’s BBC has launched an Android version of its iPlayer Radio app which lets U.K. users listen to BBC radio stations live or catch up on scheduled programmes they missed. Confirming that the app is now available for download on Google’s Play Store in a tweet this morning, the corporation added that it would also be available on Amazon’s app store for its Kindle Fire tablets “very soon”. → Read More
Nokia has announced another handset in its S40-based Asha portfolio of low end mobiles which compete with the budget end of Android and cheap BlackBerrys. The 2G-plus-Wi-Fi Asha 210, due to ship before the end of Q2 costing $72 (before taxes), has a dedicated hardware key on the front that short-cuts to messaging app Whatsapp. A second variant, intended for separate markets, has a Facebook key. → Read More
Nokia looks like it’s hoping to turn up the volume of its Windows Phone-based Lumia smartphones in the US by signing another carrier to its cause. Bloomberg is reporting that Nokia and Verizon have struck a deal that will see the carrier offer the Lumia 928 starting from next month. The deal has not yet been made public but Bloomberg said two people familiar with the situation confirmed the plan. → Read More
New research released by the U.K.’s telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has flagged up significant growth in social networking among older Internet users — which is helping to offset lower rates of growth in younger age groups. The report indicates that more than a third (35%) of 55 to 64 year-old Internet users created a social networking profile last year — up by half in just one year (24% in 2011). → Read More
EE, the U.K.’s first and still only 4G network operator, has broken out 4G-specific customer numbers for the first time — confirming that after five months of 4G trading it has hit a total of 318,000 4G-specific customers. The carrier has previously reported total postpaid 3G and 4G additions for its Q4 quarter, when it said it saw 201,000 net gains in the quarter. → Read More
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
San Francisco, CA
Berlin, Germany
