Sarah Perez
Sarah currently works as a writer for TechCrunch, after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to becoming a professional blogger, Sarah worked in I.T. across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software.
CrunchBase profile →Latest from Sarah Perez
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Sitedrop Turns A Dropbox Folder Into A Visual Workspace Where You Can Collaborate With Others
Getting everyone to use the same project management software is a challenge, but everyone seems to have a Dropbox account. Hoping to build on top of the consumer-friendly service's popularity, a new startup called Sitedrop allows you quickly turn any Dropbox folder into a website where you can visually showcase your work and collaborate with others. Sitedrop users are able to view, comment… Read More
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Secret App Down For Hours, Silicon Valley Goes Back To Work
Secret, the anonymous gossip-sharing app and current Silicon Valley addiction, is currently experiencing a significant outage following yesterday’s update, which introduced a variety of new features, including anonymous invites – a mechanism the company hoped would help grow its userbase, and subsequently, the amount of content shared on the service. (Uh-oh, maybe that new trick… Read More
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ePantry Launches An Online Grocery Offering Sustainable Goods, Automatically Shipped To Your Door
A new online grocery called ePantry, publicly launching today, believes that consumers do care about buying green and sustainable products, but they often choose not to because it’s less convenient. That is, when you run out of dish soap or laundry detergent, for example, you simply head over to your local store and grab whatever’s on the shelf – and it might not be the best… Read More
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Kodak Launches A Photo Book App For iPad, Makes Awful “Selfie” Joke
A newly launched photo book application for iPad is bringing a familiar name to mobile photography: Kodak Alaris is debuting “Kodak Moments for iPad,” an app that lets consumers create and order photo books, prints and enlargements using drag-and-drop on iPad. Competitor Shutterfly should not be too concerned, however. Kodak Alaris, for those unfamiliar, is the personalized and… Read More
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Speech Recognition Pioneer Novauris Bought By Apple, Team Now Works On Siri
Apple quietly acquired an automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology company called Novauris Technologies, which grew out of Dragon Systems R&D U.K. Ltd., the British research subsidiary of Dragon Systems, a well-known voice dictation pioneer. Founded in 2002, the company was currently being managed by Yoon Kim (CEO), Melvyn Hunt (Co-founder) and John Bridle (Co-founder), whose… Read More
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GemShare Brings Simple, Word-Of-Mouth Recommendations To The iPhone
A company called GemShare wants to formalize what's today a somewhat haphazard and frustrating process of getting personal recommendations from friends, with the introduction of a new iPhone app that lets you quickly ask for the best local recommendations for everything from mechanics to doctors to dry cleaners and more. The company has raised $1.2 million in seed funding from Greylock… Read More
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After Five Years Of Bootstrapping, Imgur Raises $40 Million From Andreessen Horowitz & Reddit
Imgur, the image sharing service popular with Reddit users and a regular winner of the "best bootstrapped startup" award at the annual Crunchies event is no longer going it alone. Following acquisition rumors and courting by just about every VC firm in the Valley, the company is today announcing a $40 million investment from Andreessen Horowitz. The round also included a smaller contribution… Read More
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“Castle Clash” Game Developer Claims It’s Not Behind The Tinder Exploit
A quick follow-up to the problem with the bots invading dating app Tinder which are pushing people to download a mobile game called “Castle Clash” using fake profiles and a domain (“Tinderverified.com”) designed to give the scam an air of legitimacy: the company behind the game in question is today claiming they are a victim, too, not the culprit. For background, Tinder… Read More
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Watch Out Netflix, Amazon’s Fire TV Brings Robust Parental Controls To The Living Room
With today’s launch of Amazon’s Fire TV, the e-commerce giant’s first foray into the living room via a small, sleek set-top box offering both streaming media and gaming, the company will also cater to parents looking to better control what kind of programming their children can access and watch on TV. The feature, previously available only on Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablets… Read More
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Emu, A Smarter Messaging App With A Built-In Assistant, Exits Beta
Emu, a new mobile messaging application exiting from beta today, is not just another text messaging alternative - it's a full-fledged mobile assistant, allowing you to schedule appointments, share your location, set reminders, get movie showtimes or buy tickets, reserve a table, and more, thanks to an artificial intelligence engine that understands the context of your messages in order to help… Read More
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WhatsApp Experiences Second Major Outage Following Facebook Acquisition
Panic! Despair! Switch to Facebook Messenger!...Ah, I see what you did there, Facebook. Mobile messaging application WhatsApp is this morning experiencing its second major outage since Facebook bought the company in February for $19 billion. According to TechCrunch tipsters, reports on Twitter and DownDetector.com, the service has been experiencing issues for roughly an hour, at least in some… Read More
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Fantastical 2, The Best iPhone Calendar App, Is Now Available On iPad
There are only a few companies whose mobile apps are so well done or engaging that they actually earn one of the precious few spots on your iPhone's homescreen. Flexibits, the makers of Fantastical 2, one of the best mobile calendaring apps for iPhone, is among them. And today, the company will have a shot at claiming a spot on the iPad's homescreen as well, with the long-awaited release of… Read More
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TaskRabbit For Business Service Portal Quietly Disappears
TaskRabbit for Business, the errands marketplace’s business-focused web portal announced at the beginning of last year, has quietly disappeared. Links to this particular service, which was aimed at companies looking for temp workers, have been instead redirecting users to the main TaskRabbit sign-up form instead. However, TaskRabbit claims that the business offering was not shut down… Read More
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Tinder Exploited By Bots Promoting “Castle Clash” Game
A number of users on dating app Tinder report being matched with fake profiles of women, who are actually automated bots promoting a mobile game called "Castle Clash." The bots are sharing a link to the game on the URL "Tinderverified.com," making it appear that Tinder is the URL's owner or is somehow involved with this scheme, which it is not. Read More
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Mobile App Usage Increases In 2014, As Mobile Web Surfing Declines
New data from app analytics provider Flurry released today states that native app usage on smartphones is continuing to grow at the expense of the mobile web. The company claims that users are now spending 2 hours and 42 minutes per day on mobile devices as of March 2014, up from 2 hours, 38 minutes as of a year ago. Meanwhile, mobile app usage accounts for 2 hours and 19 minutes of that time… Read More
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Video Chat Marketplace LiveNinja Raises Additional $500K, Launches Tools For Online Businesses
Video chat marketplace LiveNinja, a former TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Alley participant, has raised an additional $500,000 in new funding, the company is announcing today. The news, which is being announced onstage at The Atlantic’s Startup City Miami event this afternoon, arrives alongside the official launch of the company’s business marketplace, called Katana. The funding comes… Read More
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AppRedeem Launches Smug Messenger, A WhatsApp Alternative That Rewards You For Getting Friends To Join
AppRedeem, the maker of AppTrailers, a service that allowed users to watch teaser videos about mobile applications in the hopes of boosting downloads, is shifting its focus away from app promotion - well, kind of. Today, the company is introducing a new mobile messaging app, Smug Messenger, that's designed to work on any mobile device, including those without a phone number attached, like a… Read More
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Amazon Greenlights Six More Original Shows, Renews “Alpha House”
Confirming and expanding on news scooped by Variety earlier this month, Amazon this morning officially announced its plans to greenlight six more of its Amazon Studios’ pilot shows, which are now being given full seasons. The new shows, which include The After, Bosch, Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street, Mozart in the Jungle, Transparent and Wishenpoof!, will come to… Read More
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Mobile Q&A App Jelly Now Lets You Ask Location-Based Questions Routed To Nearby Users
While the shine and novelty quickly wore off Twitter co-founder Biz Stone's mobile Q&A app Jelly, the company has continued to iterate on its product - the picture-based search service that lets you ask your friends and extended network the kind of questions where the injection of a personal opinion is valued more than a list of links to click, as on Google. Today, the company has rolled… Read More
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Voxer’s Push-To-Talk Messenger Debuts A Redesigned, Speedier Version 3.0
Voxer, makers of a push-to-talk mobile messaging service, is rolling out a significant upgrade today of its iOS application (version 3.0) with the introduction of a redesigned user interface, speed and battery life improvements, plus new features, including read receipts and unlimited data storage. The company, for background, has long stood out among competing mobile messengers because of its… Read More
