Alex Wilhelm
Alex Wilhelm is a writer for TechCrunch. In the past, he helped grow The Next Web into a leading publication. Alex also worked for midVentures in Chicago, where he attended school, and co-founded Contenture, a startup focused on micropayments and the monetization of digital content.
Alex lives in San Francisco.
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Latest from Alex Wilhelm
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Etsy Officially Files To Go Public, Aims To Raise $100M
Word started going around back in January that Etsy, the online market for handmade goods, was planning to go public. Sure enough, they’ve just filed the forms to get the ball rolling. Read More
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Microsoft Turns To Software To Move Hardware
Microsoft announced two new phones yesterday, the Lumia 640 and the Lumia 640 XL. The inexpensive devices are designed to handle global communications, built with dual-SIM slots and the like. They also included something curious: Free Office 365 for a year. The company currently offers a Surface bundle that includes Office 365, and a cheap HP laptop recently shipped with the same. I confirmed… Read More
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Apple Will Hire Its Contract Security Staff On A Full-Time Basis
Apple will hire its contract security staff on a full-time basis, a decision that continues a nascent trend of technology giants reducing their use of external labor for non-technical roles. Google made a similar move with its security staff late last year. According to a media report, Apple will bring “the majority” of its contractual security staffers in-house. Read More
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Physical Keyboards Are Awesome
If you visit the main TechCrunch office, you’ll note an open office filled with nerds, about half wearing headphones. Everyone is typing on Apple laptops, either by themselves, plugged into one monitor or several, or essentially ‘docked,’ with the user employing a standalone keyboard and touchpad to interact with the machine. Missing from that mix? Anyone using a fucking iPad… Read More
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Hello Again, NASDAQ 5,000
Update: The NASDAQ closed at 5,008.10, up 0.9 percent on the day. That the index closed over the 5,000 mark is even more interesting that it managed to break the level during intraday trading. The NASDAQ Composite index, a barometer of sorts of the technology industry, traded north of the 5,000 mark today. It was the first time the Composite had traded at that level since the late 90s… Read More
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Two Semiconductor Companies You Haven’t Heard Of Are Merging In A $40B Deal
What is worth $40 billion, and isn’t Uber? The union of NXP Semiconductors, and Freescale Semiconductor. The two companies announced a “definitive agreement” today that will see Freescale shareholders pick up 0.3521 NXP shares and $6.26 in cash for each of their current shares. Freescale is known for its work in embedded chips, its website noting a focus on the Internet… Read More
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White House Drops ‘Consumer Privacy Bill Of Rights Act’ Draft
In a late-Friday release, the White House published a draft of its proposed Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights. You can read the full text here. The bill sets out to, in its own words, “establish baseline protections for individual privacy in the commercial arena and to foster timely, flexible implementations of these protections through enforceable codes of conduct developed by diverse… Read More
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NSA Bulk Telephony Metadata Program Reupped Until Parts Of The Patriot Act Potentially Sunset
In a post on its official Tumblr, the United States’ Office of the Director of National Intelligence noted that it sought and received a reauthorization of its telephony metadata program, authorized under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. The reauthorization lasts until June 1, 2015. Read More
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CrunchWeek: Net Neutrality Passes, Pebble Time, Growing Potrepreneurship
It’s the end of another week in tech and what a week it’s been! The FCC passed new net neutrality regulations and then the Internet exploded. First it was about the net neutrality news, then we quickly turned our attention to some llamas, and soon after that everyone divided over the color of a dress (do we even deserve net neutrality?). In any case, this week, Sarah Buhr, Alex… Read More
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Come And Get Your Net Neutrality Hot Takes
It is hot take season today on the net neutrality front, and TechCrunch would be remiss if we didn’t bring you the best, worst, banal, and asinine of the virulent anger and relieved happiness that is currently bouncing around the nation. What we’ve done is put our ears to several groaning inboxes, and have selected a number of letters, responses, quotes, and oral comments from the… Read More
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Who Wins The Battle of The Disrupted Tech Giants: HP Or IBM?
It’s been a rough several years for the once-mighty technology behemoths, HP and IBM, and while each has the cash and resources to chug along for years to come, both companies have struggled to find a foothold in a fast-changing market. HP once represented the archetypal Silicon Valley company, a pillar of the computer world, a place where a teenage Steve Jobs worked one summer and cut… Read More
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House Republicans Threaten To Curb The FCC’s “Ability To Regulate The Internet”
Following a landmark vote to put in place strict net neutrality regulations, a group of 21 Republican House members sent a nastygram to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, upbraiding him from policy to procedure, and threatening more than just words. The GOP coterie, after repeating prior complaints, said the following: Finally, to the extent that a public record supports further action, we will… Read More
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This Week On The TechCrunch Bitcoin Podcast: Blockchain Or Bitcoin?
Hello and welcome back to another edition of TCBTC, TechCrunch’s very own bitcoin podcast hosted by your humble servant and John Biggs. This week week we chewed over the importance of both bitcoin and the blockchain, and how they are more linked than some people seem to wish. You can’t mine for free after all. Read More
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FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations On 3-2 Vote
As expected, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) passed new net neutrality regulations today on a vote of 3-2, with the Commission’s two Democratic appointees joining Chairman Tom Wheeler in voting yes. The Commission’s two Republican-appointed members both voted no. Notably, the FCC’s plan is now known to have undergone a last-minute revision to remove a… Read More
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Salesforce Shares Spike To All-Time High After Meeting Street’s Profit Estimate, Boosting Its Full-Year Guidance
Sometimes when a company reports in-line earnings, its stock price takes a knuckle to the temple. Other times, if a firm meets market expectations, it gets a nice pop in value. Enter Salesforce the Latter. Today after the bell, Salesforce reported $1.44 billion in fourth quarter revenue, and adjusted earnings per share of $0.14. Both were dead in-line with market expectations. The… Read More
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Congress Snipes And Gripes On Eve Of Net Neutrality Vote
It’s net neutrality eve, putting both Washington and Silicon Valley on collective edge. To some extent. In service to you, I awoke early this morning so that I could tune into a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the issue of net neutrality. However, the discourse was so dull, containing as far as I could tell the precise same talking points that have become rote through… Read More
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As The Net Neutrality Vote Nears, Both Sides Make Final Arguments
It’s Tuesday. The FCC will vote on its net neutrality plan on Thursday. Given that the FCC is in its sunlight period, you might presume that things have slowed down. They haven’t really. The best thing bouncing around at the moment is a letter of disappointment,* sent to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, for declining to appear before the House Oversight Committee on the eve of the… Read More
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Hortonworks Misses On Revenue And Profit In Lackluster Q4
Let’s talk about money! Hortonworks reported its earnings today, the first time it has as a public company! :) Revenues for its fourth quarter totaled $12.7 million, up 55 percent on year-over-year basis. :) But investors had expected the company to report revenue of $13.42 million. :( The company lost money in the quarter, $90.6 million using normal accounting methods (GAAP). Read More
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Windows 10 Pops Up As A “Green Shoot” Among Microsoft’s Slipping Mobile Market Share
For Microsoft’s mobile strategy, the only direction available is up. Today, IDC reported that Android and iOS controlled 96.3 percent of the mobile market in 2014. That means that Microsoft’s Windows 10 strategy, which will see a single operating system stretch from the smallest to the largest screens, is starting in many ways from scratch. Interestingly, Microsoft actually grew… Read More
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Snowden Does Reddit
Edward Snowden, who you might have heard of by now, took to Reddit today along with journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. Poitras won an Oscar last night for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Poitras’ winning film, CITIZENFOUR, covers when Greenwald, the filmmaker, and Snowden were together in Hong Kong, right before the documents were leaked and the world changed. Read More
