Friday, February 28, 2014

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With $500K In The Bank, Credible Launches A Kayak-Style Marketplace To Simplify Student Loan Refinancing

With outstanding student debt now over $1 trillion in the U.S., it’s clear that college grads are struggling mightily to make payments and refinance their debt. Meanwhile, thanks to decades of plummeting borrowing costs, millions upon millions of consumers have been able to refinance mortgages and begin paying down debt.

In some irrational alternate universe, one might expect that lenders would be lining up to take advantage of soaring student loan debt by offering more favorable terms than competitors. Nope, because that’s “crazy.” Even when students happen to find a decent job out of college, make payments on time and improve their credit scores, they remain locked into absurdly high fixed rates.

The majority of the big players in the private loan market appear more than happy to maintain the status quo, and wave off refinancing as a threat to the bottom line. Enter: Credible, a San Francisco-based startup launching today that aims to help graduates extricate themselves from high fixed rates, and make it easy to switch lenders and save on their loan payments.

Taking home the “Best 2.0 Company” Award at this week’s Launch Festival, Credible co-founder Stephen Dash said that, while racked with debt, the truth is that today many students could save a significant amount of money on their loan payments by switching lenders. Yet, the majority of them don’t because they don’t know how, or because the process of switching is so complicated and time-consuming.

So, Credible has developed a platform that makes it easy for students to find out whether or not they’re eligible for lower interest rates and could benefit from switching lenders. The startup’s loan comparison tools enable students to understand their loan profile relative to their peers and get an indication of what similar borrowers are paying for private loans.



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Crowdonomic And Earth Hour Team Up To Support Environmental Projects

Crowdonomic, a Singapore-based crowdfunding platform, has partnered with non-profit Earth Hour to help fund tech-based environmental projects.

Called Earth Hour Blue, the new platform allows users to contribute funds to projects supported by the World Wildlife Fund. Projects seeking money currently include Bancas for the Philippines, which will introduce fiberglass boats to communities that lost fishing equipment in Super Typhoon Haiyan; Stop the Killing!, an effort to combat wildlife smuggling in Southeast Asia; and Restore The Roodeberg, which is raising funds to conserve South Africa’s Table Mountain National Park.

Crowdonomic was launched about a year ago and offers reward- or equity-based crowdfunding for projects based in Asia. The company hopes its partnership with Earth Hour will help boost its profile beyond Singapore and lead the way to working with more startups and businesses around the world.

“This project is a showcase of our new enterprise crowd-powered solutions which allows large institutions to harness the power of crowdfunding at a global scale using Crowdonomic’s expertise and infrastructure,” co-founders Leo Shimada and Nicola Castelnuovo said in an email.

For Earth Hour, which is also based in Singapore, Earth Hour Blue gives the non-profit a chance to support more initiatives around the world. Earth Hour says that its projects have already reached 7,000 cities in 154 countries.



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UPDATED: Mt.Gox Files For Bankruptcy Protection, Says 850,000 Bitcoin Lost

Mt.Gox has filed for bankruptcy protection and has outstanding debt of about $63.6 million, a lawyer for the Bitcoin exchange said today during a press conference at the Tokyo District Court, reports the WSJ.

The company also disclosed that it had lost 850,000 units of Bitcoin, including 750,000 belonging to customers. That amount is worth about $477 million, based on current exchange rates.  

Founder Mark Karpeles later appeared and apologized with a bow, saying in Japanese that the Bitcoin was lost “due to weaknesses in the system.”

On Japanese TV. Subtitles read: “The 750,000 bitcoins we kept for users, (37,000 million yen), almost all gone.” pic.twitter.com/HZcx5lFsVI

— Jonathan Waller (

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Prezi And Adobe Join Obama’s ConnectED Tech Initiative For US Classrooms

Prezi, the cloud-based startup which competes with Microsoft PowerPoint and Apple Keynote, and Adobe are the latest technology companies to join President Obama’s ConnectED Initiative to help the U.S. education system move forward into a more technology-centred world.

Prezi’s commitment will provide $100 million in Edu Pro licenses to hundreds of thousands of high schools and educators. Adobe is making available over $300 million worth of free software to teachers and students, including Photoshop Elements for creative projects; Presenter and Captivate to amplify e-Learning; EchoSign for school workflow; and a range of teacher training resources.

The new commitments bring the total ConnectED investment to more than $1 billion. ConnectED hopes to transform American education by connecting 99% of students to next-generation broadband and wireless technology within five years.

The White House previously announced $750 million in commitments from Apple, Microsoft, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, Autodesk, and O’Reilly Media.

Prezi is the only partner with a significant European presence.



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How Capitaine Train Is Disrupting Train Ticket Booking Through Engineering

French startup Capitaine Train wants to improve the cumbersome process of booking train tickets online and on your phone. It’s not yet another travel agency, it’s an alternative to popular European ticket booking services with an emphasis on efficiency.

“We want our clients to leave the site as soon as possible,” co-founder and CEO Jean-Daniel Guyot told me in an interview. The company is betting everything on customer experience. Booking a train ticket should be faster, simpler and more pleasant — you don’t want to see any ads if you’re already paying for a ticket. But developing this kind of service is not as easy as it sounds. Capitaine Train had to negotiate with very large companies who are not used to talking with young and fearless startups.

From 2002 to 2009, there was an ongoing anticompetitive practice in France. France’s main railway company SNCF was found guilty of disadvantaging online travel agencies in favor of its own solutions, Voyages-SNCF and Expedia. Three days after the sentence, Capitaine Train was born.

But Capitaine Train didn’t want to become a new travel agency, and the SNCF didn’t get that. At first, the startup got a travel agency license. It wanted the same direct access to the ticket reservation system as the SNCF.

Eventually, the SNCF had to grant access to the reservation system — it was a legal obligation. But it dragged on. Guyot told me that the company was calling the SNCF every week to get a meeting. Every time, the railway company found a new excuse to postpone.

In June 2010, Capitaine Train had no choice but to talk to the press about the difficult negotiations. Many media outlets picked up the news. Oddly enough, the SNCF agreed to meet two days after the public outcry. Six weeks after the meeting, Capitaine Train had a deal in place. But it took more than a year to get there.

Slowly but surely, the startup continued its expansion plans. It signed a deal with Deutsche Bahn and other European railway companies. The startup raised $5.4 million (

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Sony To Sell Former Tokyo Headquarters

The sell-off continues. The WSJ is reporting today that Sony is looking to sell its former headquarters in central Tokyo. This comes just weeks after the struggling consumer electronic maker sold its PC division and watched its credit rating cut to junk status by bond credit rating agency Moody’s.

This is the birthplace of the Trinitron TV and Sony Walkman. Clearly nothing is safe from being sold.

In 2013 Sony sold its Madison Avenue U.S. headquarters for $1.1 billion and one of its main Tokyo buildings for another $1.1 billion. The sale of this iconic building will only net the company $146.5 million, though.

Sony moved to this building in 1947, a year after launching the company. While it’s generally viewed as the building where the company developed the Trinitron, Walkman and more, Sony officials stated that this is not where they came up with the idea. That other building is now a museum and not on the chopping block — yet.



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Microsoft Said To Be Considering A Free Version Of Windows 8.1

"http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/windows-8-1-pre-release-start-screen-your-start-screen-gets-more-personalized-with-windows-8-1.png?w

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Save $224 With This 3D-Printed Adapter To Affix Google Glass To Standard Frames

Google is now selling its own Glass-compatible frames for prescription lenses, but they’ll set you back $225 a pair, lenses not included. That’s a bit steep, especially when you’ve already forked over $1,500 for Glass itself. A DIY project from design studio Pixil 3D can modify Glass to work with your existing prescription glasses for under $1 in material costs, provided you already have a 3D printer (or still way under even if you have to get someone else to print it on demand).

The adapter is just a simple plastic clip, but it seems to work well based on the demo video, and again there’s the $224 in savings you’ll net from not buying Google’s official option. In case you’re worried about how hard it is to modify Glass, it really just involves the removal of a single screw. As for the 3D printing portion, that might require visiting a local shop with a 3D printer, but the costs associated with that usually don’t exceed a few bucks.

Project creators Noé and Pedro Ruiz started Pixil 3D in South Florida to design and prototype innovative gadgets with 3D printers. They’ve made some pretty cool stuff, including this 3D animated BMO from Adventure Time with a programmable LED face.

Glass is still a device with a very limited user base, but if it does make its way to the consumer market later this year as is apparently planned, then this handy little gadget could be a useful cost-saver for a much larger group of people.



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Apple Adds New “Designing Great Apps” Micro Site For iOS 7 Developers

Apple has offered up a central location that houses a number of resources around designing software for iOS 7. The collection of videos, documents and whitepapers seems aimed at making it easier for developers to not only accommodate their existing designs for the new, pared down graphical look of iOS 7, but also to help them start thinking about how to push the envelope with the UI of their app to make sure an iOS 7 redesign isn’t just about a visual refresh, but something brand new with the potential to delight users.

The microsite leads with a selection of tutorial and explanatory videos culled from the iOS 7 Tech Talks series that Apple posted in December for developers, as well as some from its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) annual event last June. There are also key documents from the developer resource pool offered up, including the iOS Human Interface Guidelines, UI Design Dos and Dont’s, and the iOS 7 Transition Guide. A sidebar presents the iOS 7 introductory design video, Apple’s “Designed by Apple in California” spot, also from WWDC, and the developer “Making a difference. One app at a time” spot from the same event.

There’s no new material on the site, but it does pull together a key collection of resources in one spot that will help devs refine their products and fully embrace the changed visual language of Apple’s latest mobile OS. Even if you’re not a developer, it’s an interesting look at how Apple views iOS 7 app design, and what kinds of things it chooses to highlight in promoting that view to its third-party software partners.



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Saturday, February 1, 2014

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Should you buy the new, slimmer and pricier PlayStation Vita?

Decisions, decisions, decisions. Saying it three times won't make things any easier, but that's where we come in. Sony's latest iteration of the PlayStation Vita handheld, which we're going to call the Vita Slim from now on (as seems to be the fashion), is coming to the UK, having previously only been available in Asia. It's up for pre-order right now and will launch a week from today -- so, do you want one? The choice is ultimately yours, of course, and it's a delicate one, but if the pressure is too much to bear, then head past the break where we explore how the Slim stacks up against the Vita of old, and whether it's really worth the extra £50 (or roughly $80, in US terms) for a console that delivers essentially the same experience.

HardwareNow, we're not here to tell you that the PS Vita is an essential purchase -- whichever version you're looking at. If you're unfamiliar with the handheld, or perhaps the PlayStation brand as a whole, then it's really a matter of how you like to game on the go. Are you more Killzone than Brain Training, more Need for Speed than Mario Kart, or maybe you're happy killing commute time with a bit of Angry Birds and don't need another device at all? If you're going in blind, then it's probably best to start with a quick browse of the Vita's game catalog, and check out our full reviews of the original and Slim models to get acquainted.

The Vita, in general, is serious and well-built hardware. Dual thumbsticks, a 5-inch touchscreen display, another touch panel on the rear, stereo speakers and two cameras facing forward and back. Most importantly, it delivers the best graphics of any handheld, verging on last-gen console territory.

As the Vita Slim isn't a sequel, you'll find everything mentioned across both iterations, so what's the hook? As you've probably guessed, the Vita Slim is everything the Vita is, but in a smaller package: 20 percent thinner and 15 percent lighter, to be exact. At 15mm thick and weighing 219g, it's still not pocket-sized by any means, but the nip and tuck's welcome nonetheless, alongside a few other minor revisions that make it more comfortable to hold.



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Engadget Eurocast 053 - 1.30.14

The euro crew is back and Dan's got a new haircut. If you listen closely you can hear the improvement it makes. The freshly groomed Mr. Cooper is joined by Jamie and Sharif to discuss Samsung's arrival on high streets across Europe, Sony's super-slim Vita release and Lenovo's acquisition of Motorola's handset business. Other choice bits from this episode: Sharif considers kickstarting Nintendo's Android gaming division, Jamie's mum has a Wii and according to Dan, Norwich is one of England's biggest cities. All the fun is packed into the streaming links below, so open up your ears, your heart and your wallet (if you're so inclined) and enjoy another brash yet beautiful episode of the Engadget Eurocast.

Hosts: Dan Cooper, Jamie Rigg, Sharif Sakr

Producer: Jon Turi

Hear the Podcast:

05:07 - Google Glass gets prescription glasses: four styles, $225 each (video)
14:22 - Lenovo buying Motorola's handset business from Google for nearly $3 billion
24:05 - Sony's slimmer PlayStation Vita coming to the UK for around £180, pre-orders start today
31:08 - Samsung opening 60 more brick-and-mortar stores across Europe
36:57 - Nintendo denies smartphone software rumor, says it has 'no plans' to offer mini-games on rival hardware
05:07 - Nintendo sold fewer Wii Us in a year than Xbox Ones or PS4s sold in two months

Download the podcast

LISTEN (MP3)
LISTEN (AAC)

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The Engadget Podcast is live at 12PM (ish) ET!

This week Ben and Terrence are exploring the brave new old world of audio-only podcasting, starting as close to 12PM ET as humanly possible. (You know, sometimes life just kinda gets in the way.) Joseph is unfortunately indisposed, either off working on the pilot for his show about creeping on celebrities or just enjoying a midday cocktail in the comfort of his warm and spartan Brooklyn apartment. But don't worry, your remaining hosts have plenty to talk about -- we're pretty sure some company bought another company from a third company. Or something like that.

So join us after the break!

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Zoom's H5 brings high-quality audio recording to budget-minded pros

Are you serious about capturing high-quality audio away from a studio, but not so serious that you need a do-everything recorder like Zoom's H6? You'll want to look into the company's newly unveiled H5, then. While it should match the H6's audio quality and can use the same stereo microphone add-ons, it ditches two of the XLR /TLS combo inputs in the name of cost; you'll also find a monochrome display in lieu of the H6's color panel. The H5 has an analog output for backup recordings, and you can add two more XLR/TLS inputs through a module if your ambition ever grows. Launch details aren't available just yet, but we'd expect the new handheld's pricing to slot in between the $299 H4n and the $399 H6.

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Via: Nofilmschool

Source: B&H

Tags: AudioRecorder, h5, HandheldRecorder, recorder, xlr, zoom, zoomh5 Next: The Engadget Podcast is live at 12PM (ish) ET! .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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Canada's Wind Mobile offers unlimited US roaming for $15 extra per month

Canadians frequently have to pay through the nose to use their phones in the US; at best, they'll get a paltry 50MB of data per day. They won't have that problem for long, though, since Wind Mobile is launching an unlimited US roaming plan on February 3rd. For $15 extra per month, subscribers will get to use as much data, text messaging and voice as they like while visiting their American neighbors. This isn't as sweet a deal as T-Mobile USA's free basic data, but it's still a huge bargain for traveling Canucks who'd rather not deal with an outrageous phone bill when they get home.

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Via: Recode

Source: Marketwired

Tags: billshock, canada, cellphone, international, minipost, mobilepostcross, mobilepostmini, roaming, travel, us, windmobile, wireless Next: Zoom's H5 brings high-quality audio recording to budget-minded pros .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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The Engadget Mobile Podcast is live at 2PM ET!

We've got a couple brand new editors to throw to the podcast wolves: Emily Price and Chris Velazco, both of whom have certainly seen their share of the wireless industry over the past few years. We'll be doing a live Hangout on Google

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OUYA's new matte black console offers twice the storage for $130

If you were jonesing for a 16GB OUYA console but didn't snag the limited white edition, we have good news: you just got a second chance at buying your dream Android gaming system. The company plans to launch a standard 16GB model in matte black (aka "anthracite") that throws in a handful of important tweaks. It includes the refined gamepad, with higher-quality buttons and a more responsive Bluetooth connection; it also boasts stronger WiFi performance and more recent firmware. Should the color, capacity and tweaks be enough to seal the deal, you can buy the black variant starting today from Amazon or OUYA for $130.

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Source: OUYA

Tags: android, black, console, controller, gamepad, gaming, ouya, VideoGames Next: The Engadget Mobile Podcast is live at 2PM ET!
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US Cellular offers $50 unlimited plan with throttled data as a catch

You won't have to endure data caps if you want cheap phone service at US Cellular. The carrier has just launched a promo plan that offers unlimited internet access, messaging and voice for $50 per month without a contract. There is a big gotcha, though -- US Cellular will start throttling data speeds after the first 500MB, which rules it out for movie fans and others who need a lot of bandwidth. Still, it's worth a look if you're keen to both lower your bill and avoid those dreaded overage fees.



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This kit lets you build a musical instrument from just about anything

Wish you could easily craft a musical instrument out of whatever you have lying around the house? You'll get that opportunity if Yuri Suzuki's team at Dentaku brings its crowdfunded Ototo kit to market. The synthesizer turns any conductive material into an instrument, changing its sound based on the nature of the object. An eggplant will carry a different tune than tinfoil, for instance. You can take greater control of your performance through optional light-, touch- and even breath-sensitive sensors; the gadget also connects to computers through USB if you'd like to use it as a MIDI controller. It will take a minimum £45 pledge ($74 plus $8 in shipping) to reserve Ototo ahead of its planned launch in June, but it may be worth the expense if you're tired of conventional music-making.

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Source: Kickstarter

Tags: crowdfunding, dentaku, instrument, midi, music, MusicalInstruments, ototo, Synthesizer, video, YuriSuzuki Next: US Cellular offers $50 unlimited plan with throttled data as a catch .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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Tablet deals of the week: 1.31.14

Been considering a slate-style purchase? Well, today may be the time to make the leap. While Microsoft's Surface Pro (no, not the deuce) gets a massive discount, and may very well be the most attractive tablet/hybrid buy of the week, we've nabbed a few other options too. Take a look at the other side of the break for discounts on the rest of the lot.

Just window shopping? No worries. Join us and add the gadgets you're shopping for to your "Want" list; every time there's a price cut in the future, you'll get an email alert!

Microsoft Surface Pro

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Aereo stops taking new customers in New York

Aereo launched in New York in early 2012 to let people watch over-the-air TV on their gadgets, but a recent hiccup means denizens of the Big Apple can no longer sign up for the service. The culprit? Aereo says it all comes down to capacity, or lack thereof. The service has hit a bottleneck, so it can't take on more customers until it's beefed up its network of tiny antennas and the infrastructure that binds everything together. Word of the situation started making the rounds early this morning, and it wasn't long before Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia took to Twitter to confirm the bad news, though he remained awfully mum on when New Yorkers could start signing up again.

This isn't far from the first headache that Aereo has dealt with since it launched two years ago. It's been sued a by slew of networks that aren't keen on the startup's video-streaming mission, and the Supreme Court is getting close to passing a ruling on the matter. At least this time Aereo is a victim of its own success instead of just being a courtroom punching bag.

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Via: Ars Technica

Source: DSLReports, Twitter

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Huawei's new high-resolution tablet may give the Nexus 7 a run for its money

There isn't much choice among 7-inch Android tablets with high-resolution screens -- the Nexus 7 is frequently the only practical option. However, it's about to get a proper challenger. China's TENAA has certified the Huawei MediaPad X1 7.0, a small slate with a 1,920 x 1,200 display. It's not clear that the X1's 1.6GHz quad-core Hisilicon processor will outperform the Snapdragon S4 Pro inside the Nexus, but the device will be a featherweight at just 8.4 ounces and 0.3 inch thick. There's also 3G inside. About the only clear setback is the use of Android 4.2 -- where's KitKat, Huawei? The company hasn't said when it might reveal the new MediaPad, but certification raises the possibility of an announcement in the near future.

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Via: The Droid Guy, Android Community

Source: TENAA (translated)

Tags: 7d-501, android, china, hisilicon, huawei, mediapad, mediapadx1, tablet, tenaa Next: Aereo stops taking new customers in New York .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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Engadget Podcast 382 - 1.31.14

We're breaking it down to the bare essentials this week, with Terrence and Ben getting laser focused on the recent Lenovo / Motorola deal and Nintendo's state of financial affairs. With just those two topics on the table, every stone is upturned and every tech nook explored. Ben delves into the world of poultry puns and even explains the Pokemon portmanteau situation, while Terrence eyes him from across the room, fiercely ready to fight for Sonic the Hedgehog's dignity. We're even reaching out to you, the listener, for your input on the future of the podcast, so please join the conversation. As for the podcast itself, it's ready and waiting for you at the streaming links below. Enjoy!

Hosts: Terrence O'Brien, Ben Gilbert

Producer: Jon Turi

Hear the podcast:

07:39 - Lenovo buying Motorola's handset business from Google for nearly $3 billion
13:17 - Lenovo gets Motorola, but Google gets to keep its skunkworks
14:49 - Nintendo sold fewer Wii Us in a year than Xbox Ones or PS4s sold in two months
19:31 - Nintendo bosses take big pay cuts in penance for Wii U failure
25:56 - Nintendo denies smartphone software rumor, says it has 'no plans' to offer mini-games on rival hardware
38:46 - What would you change about the Engadget Podcast?

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Apple's iWatch and iOS 8 are reportedly fitness-focused

We still don't know exactly what Apple's long-rumored smart watch is, or what it's called -- yes, iWatch is probably right -- but a report today from 9to5Mac posits a whole heap of new information. First, the wearable works in concert with "Healthbook," a new internal app intended to track various fitness (steps, distance, etc.) and health metrics (blood pressure, heart rate, etc.). Second, it looks like Healthbook -- at least currently -- is a crucial part of iOS 8, and when paired with iWatch (or whatever it's called) the two are "able to monitor several other pieces of health and fitness data." It's unclear exactly what that means. Like it's name, Healthbook is apparently pretty similar to Passbook, and you'll be able to swipe through various "cards" with health information.

Of course, none of this should come as a tremendous shock (though it's all still firmly in the rumor bin) -- word of Apple working on a wearable has been floating for quite some time, and it's past the point of coincidence. Between Apple hiring wearable electronics engineers (notable ones!), meeting with FDA regulators about "mobile medical applications," and the competition already staking a firm claim in the nascent smart watch market, no one following the tech news beast should be shocked. That's to say nothing of the dedicated chip inside Apple's latest iPhone (seen above). Regardless, with nothing officially announced just yet, we've reached out to Apple for more.

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Source: 9to5Mac

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Could this licensing deal help keep BlackBerry afloat?

Apparently BlackBerrys are in season in Canada. Meanwhile, another fruit is dominating the US market.

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Via: Mobilesyrup

Source: Toronto Maple Leafs (Twitter)

Tags: blackberry, canada, donut, donuts, TimHortons Next: Apple's iWatch and iOS 8 are reportedly fitness-focused .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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'Twitter Commerce' leak puts a buy button next to retweet and favorite

Your Twitter feed is probably already overflowing with breaking news, sponsored ads and play-by-play reactions of the latest Game of Thrones, but a new element may soon grace your timeline: a buy button. Documents found on Fancy.com's website propose a method of selling goods directly to Twitter followers by embedding miniature product pages directly in Tweets. The images, uncovered by Re/Code, show expandable, sponsored tweets that feature a sales blurb and product image underlined by a price tag and "Buy with Fancy" button. The mockup also demonstrates that purchases and package tracking could be handled completely within Twitter's own app.

Fancy's images call the setup 'Twitter Commerce,' but it's unclear if the documents are merely a proposal to the microblogging service or something that's actually in production. A Re/Code source, however, claims that Twitter is actively working with several companies to build a working commerce solution. We'd crack a joke about Facebook Gifts, but let's wait until we hear something official, shall we?

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Source: Re/Code

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Engadget Mobile Podcast 199 - 1.31.14

With a couple big mobile news items dropping this week, it's no surprise that Brad makes a beeline for those topics, and he enlists Engadget newcomers Chris Velazco and Emily Price to join him. With Lenovo's recent acquisition of Motorola's handset division and Google's renewed bipartisanship with Samsung, there's certainly a lot to discuss. Along with the regular mobile fare, we treat you to one car chase, more Ashton Kutcher than you'd probably like and a tale of rare, yet spam-inducing social monikers. Please join us at the streaming links below for episode 199 of the Engadget Mobile Podcast.

Hosts: Brad Molen

Guest: Chris Velazco, Emily Price

Producer: Jon Turi

Music: Tycho - Coastal Brake (Ghostly International)

Hear the podcast:

02:38 - Lenovo buying Motorola's handset business from Google for nearly $3 billion
23:07 - Reported Google deal could see Samsung deliver cleaner Android, less bloat
34:23 - Lenovo gets Motorola, but Google gets to keep its skunkworks

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Daily Roundup: Super Bowl XLVIII survival guide, iWatch rumors and more!

You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.



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VC Lip Reading Video Is The Best VC Video You’ll See Today

Next StoryPurr Pebble Smartwatch App Vibrates Your Life Away In 5 Minute Chunks

If you’re familiar with the ‘Bad Lip Reading of The NFL’ videos on YouTube, you might get a charge out of this hilarious mashup created by startup MeetBall. It puts the same spin on a collection of clips of VCs and founders, and was created on a challenge from ex-Googler and Homebrew investor Hunter Walk. If you’re interested in seeing some of the most well-known investors, founders and VCs in the industry say things like ‘I want to smell your gum’ then this is for you.

I think this wins the internet today. Thanks MeetBall.



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To Counter Investor Signaling, YC Partners Can No Longer Be The First Money Into The Incubator’s Startups

Y Combinator has long allowed its partners to invest their own personal money in the incubator’s startups — often times partners put money into these startups before institutional investors and angels have a look. Unfortunately, whether a partner (or partners) put money into a YC company started to become a signal to outside investors of the good bets in the incubator.

It makes sense. These partners are often integrally involved in helping build these companies inside of Y Combinator. So they would know which startups have the legs to be successful, and potentially have insider knowledge into which startups have the potential for going the distance. To mitigate this signaling effect, Y Combinator is implementing a new policy whereby YC partners can’t be the first money into a startup from the incubator.

Specifically, YC partners can’t be in the first $500,000 a company raises unless it’s three weeks past Demo Day.

As YC co-founder Paul Graham explains to us, the danger of letting the partners at an incubator invest in the startups is that it makes it harder for the ones the partners don’t invest in to raise money. In the early years of YC, this wasn’t as much of an issue because Graham was the only one investing, and he wasn’t systematic about it. But in the last few batches, investors started treating the companies that had investments by YC partners as an indication of what YC thought of the startups.

Currently YC has about a dozen partners involved, including Paul Buchheit, Garry Tan, and Geoff Ralston. What’s also of interest is that any funds that YC partners operate will also fall into this rule as well. So the new fund started by Tan, now part-time partner Harj Taggar, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, will not be able to be the first money into a startup.

This is clearly a founder-friendly move, and evens the playing field in some ways for startups to raise money from outside investors. It’s no secret that Y Combinator’s class sizes have steadily risen, and in the effort to save time and optimize their money, investors look for signals on which startups to invest in. Of course, YC partners investing in a startup is just one of many signals investors are looking at when evaluating a startup at the seed stage.

YC also recently debuted a new, easier convertible equity model for founders.

Photo Credit/Flickr



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Investor Reaction To Microsoft’s Rumored CEO Choice: We’re Fine With That

Yesterday in after-hours trading, Microsoft picked up a minor gain. The trading period was interesting as news that Microsoft’s board was tipped to select its own Satya Nadella as its next CEO had broken.

This morning, the company’s stock has risen more than 2 percent in a generally down market day. Investors appear at least blasé with the CEO choice.

If Microsoft had fallen sharply, or risen dramatically directly following the news, that would have been a different sort of signal.

Is it negative that Microsoft’s stock didn’t spike following the Nadella news, perhaps indicating that the company could have done better in its choice? You could read it that way, but I think two things can force us — for now — to not be too negative. Primarily, Microsoft has not announced the news itself, so we’re still discussing probabilities and potentialities, no matter how strong the sourcing is.

And secondly, I doubt that the street is too familiar with Nadella. Uncertainty is usually a sell, sure, but Nadella’s coverage has generally mentioned his strengths, perhaps providing some mental insurance to the trading classes.

The caveat, naturally, is Nadella’s weaknesses — such as they are. I’ll be digging into this later today, but the simple summation is while he is tops at technical work and enterprise-facing efforts, he lacks commensurate experience with consumer products and hardware, and could therefore lack the leadership and vision he needs to drive Microsoft forward in those key areas.

For now, however, the market is telling Microsoft it is fine with its supposed choice.

Top Image Credit:  Dan Taylor/Heisenberg Media 



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Ouya Updates Hardware With $129 16GB Console, 8GB Edition Remains At $99

Ouya’s original hardware featured just 8GB of storage onboard, but a temporary Limited Edition all-white version launched during the holidays doubled that to 16GB. Now, the game console startup is making that a permanent feature of its newest hardware, an Ouya console with a solid matte black finish that also offers better Wi-Fi connectivity and a “refined” controller design.

The new 16GB version adds $30 to the MSRP of the original, coming in at a total of $129 for the console and one controller. It goes on sale at Ouya.tv, as well as Amazon and Amazon.ca starting immediately, and the original 8GB model will continue to be sold as well at its original $99 price point (which is discounted to $69.99 currently on Amazon.ca)

As for what’s been improved about the controller, Ouya says that the joysticks and buttons are “better” and that the controller has less lag time overall. We’ve asked for more specifics around the improved Wi-Fi, but have yet to hear back with any details. The new console also ships with the latest Ouya firmware, which is said to improve all-around performance for the Android-powered hardware.

Ouya has faced some challenges lately, including the departure of one of its key founding team members, VP of Product Muffi Ghadiali. The company has not released any sales data recently, so there’s no telling how it’s performing, but the introduction of a new SKU seems a little unusual given the relatively modest nature of the tweaks.

Developers on the platform recently shared some numbers regarding their software sales on the console with Gamespot, which could be an indicator of hardware sales strength. Feedback was mixed, but overall the impression given was that sales by no means represent runaway success. Ouya has raised $23.6 million in funding to date, including its initial crowdfunding campaign and a Series A round led by Kleiner Perkins.



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Twine Canvas Is Like Tinder But Based On Personality, Not Sex Appeal

Don’t judge a book by its cover. Beauty is only skin deep. It’s what’s on the inside that counts.

These are the mantras of millions of young singles scouring the internet for someone with which to have intercourse, or potentially procreate. But mobile app developer Sourcebits has released a new dating app, called Twine Canvas (??), that may be just the ticket.

The app, which just went live yesterday, asks users to browse and create “personality canvases,” which is just another term for a digital collage of your interests. If both sides of the connection “like” each others personalities (as displayed in pictorial form), then profile photos are revealed.

Because nothing turns on potential suitors like scrapbooking talent. Or ugly people with awesome personalities.

After downloading the app, you have free reign to browse through the personality canvases of others. If you sign in with Facebook, you can adjust the parameters of your such, including filters for age, location, and gender.

Once you’ve created your own canvas, which isn’t nearly as seamless as it should be, you’re allowed to go through and like other canvases by swiping down. Tinder users, practiced in the art of swiping left to throw away and right to like, will have to be mindful of the new up/down structure.

When mutual attraction is confirmed, users are able to see profile photos and open up a chat conversation.

The idea behind the app isn’t half bad.

Tinder asks you to like people based solely on their appearance. Physical attraction is certainly important, but does not a relationship make. On the other side of the same coin, compatible personalities are crucial to a lasting relationship, but can’t compensate for a lack of physical chemistry. By forcing users to focus on one side of the relationship (either emotional or physical connection), it shrinks the act of partner hunting into mobile, bite-sized form.

My main complaint with this app is that it’s difficult to quickly create a Canvas. Users must add photos, that don’t show their faces, from the camera roll or Facebook albums. I’d much prefer to be able to add really awesome photos through search on Google images or something similar.

Still, the app is worth checking out for those of us into the online dating thing.

Here’s the App Store link.

Happy hunting, everyone.



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Aereo Sells Out Of Capacity In NYC

Aereo, a TV streaming service looking to change the way we consume media, has just sold out of capacity in New York City.

Founder and CEO Chet Kanojia confirmed the news via Twitter.

The company launched in 2011 with NYC as a pilot market, and has since expanded to 11 markets total. The service, much to the chagrin of major network broadcasters, acts as a remote, mini antenna, letting subscribers pull OTA TV signals out of the air and stream them live across any internet-connected device.

And if that wasn’t enough, users have the option to use Aereo as a remote DVR service for as low as $8 month.

That said, Aereo has worked tirelessly to ensure that this type of business is actually legal. In much the same way that it’s legal for an individual to use rabbit ears to access broadcast television, it’s legal for an Aereo user to rent out an individual Aereo antenna and access, or record, TV content.

However, a single antenna that sends a signal to multiple, separate users is illegal. In other words, Aereo needs one antenna available for every active user of the service, and at this point, there’s simply not any room left for new users in NYC.

Some have misreported that this is a product of power issues, though recent conversations I’ve had with founder Chet Kanojia suggest that Aereo has been trying to build out more capacity to keep up with subscriber growth.

For a startup, it’s not a bad problem to have. Though, if the company wants to foster growth in its first, and likely strongest, market, it will need to offer extended capacity as quickly as possible.

Broadcasters must be equally displeased by this news, considering that they’ve been bullying Aereo in the courtroom since the service launched. It started with a lawsuit in NY, which migrated to Boston, and again to Utah, until most recently the Supreme Court decided to hear the case and make a final, federal ruling.

Based on the track record, I predict Aereo will win in court and will lead the revolution as a stepping stone from bundled TV packages and middle men to an on-demand, TV consumption structure.

Here’s Aereo’s official statement on the matter:

We’re fortunate that Aereo continues to experience strong growth across all our markets. Our team has been working overtime to add more capacity in our existing markets. As soon as additional capacity is added, new consumers will be notified that they can sign up and create an Aereo account.



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Previous TechCrunch Battlefield Contestants Have Raised $2.4 Billion. Ready To Apply?

TechCrunch’s Battlefield is a proven springboard for startups destined for great things. Fact. We ran the data and we’ll take you through it below. But before we get to that, we’re announcing that it’s time to apply for the next Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt NY, May 5-7. The application deadline is February 20, 2014.

TechCrunch writers and editors will read each and every one of those applications and select approximately 30 of the most innovative, under-the-radar applicants to appear onstage at Disrupt in New York City.

The entrepreneurs will pitch world-class judges from the venture and entrepreneurial worlds. The winner will take home the Disrupt Cup and a check for $50,000. Along the way, the final 30 contestants receive world-class coaching on their pitches, exhibition space at Disrupt, feedback from some of the biggest names in tech, and invites to awesome parties.

When they take the stage to make their pitches, they will do so before a rapt audience of 1,500 people in the auditorium and tens of thousands more watching the live stream. There is no platform like Battlefield to showcase a startup.

But what happens to these companies after launching at the Battlefield? With a little help from our friends at CrunchBase, we’ve pulled the data from 2007-2013 across all of our TC-40, TC-50 and Disrupt competitions. (Note, our Hardware Battlefield this month at CES is not included in this analysis.)

Since 2007, 350 companies have participated in the Battlefield, or its precursors, TC-40 and TC-50. On average, these companies were just under a year old at the time they entered the competition and had taken on just over $2.4 million in funding. Recently, we’ve trended toward accepting earlier stage companies, with less funding in the bank. In 2007, the average raise for a company prior to participating in the Battlefield was $4.9 million, compared with just over $1 million raised in 2013.

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Vector Capital Makes Controlling Investment In CollabNet Developer Platform

CollabNet is one of the leading agile development platforms in the enterprise and the company behind the Subversion version control software. It has millions of users on its platform, which launched back in 1999. Today, Vector Capital is making a controlling investment in the company as part of a concurrent equity round that includes another, undisclosed investor.

The company did not disclose the size of the round, but Vector Capital currently manages over $2 billion in equity capital and typically invests from $100 million to $300 million in each of its portfolio companies.

Vector Capital may not be a household name, but the company has previously invested in companies like Corel, LANDesk, RealNetworks, Register.com and WinZip. The firm says it usually invests in companies with at least $100 million in revenue.

As Vector Capital partner Rob Amen told me, CollabNet is exactly the kind of company the firm likes to invest in. “CollabNet is a gem,” he told me. “It is rare, as a technology investor, to get an opportunity like this. It’s A

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Obama Says Intelligence Director Who Fibbed To Congress “Should Have Been More Careful”

President Obama diplomatically defended embattled Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who is accused of lying to Congress about the existence of the National Security Agency’s spying program.

“I think that Jim Clapper himself would acknowledge, and has acknowledged, that he should have been more careful about how he responded,” the president told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “His concern was that he had a classified program that he couldn’t talk about and he was in an open hearing in which he was asked, he was prompted to disclose a program, and so he felt that he was caught between a rock and a hard place.”

Clapper flat-out denied to Senator Ron Wyden, during congressional testimony, that the NSA collected “any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.”

Clapper later apologized, but that hasn’t stopped critics like Senator Rand Paul from calling for Clapper’s resignation and potential prosecution.

“I find really that Clapper lying to Congress is probably more injurious to our intelligence capabilities than anything Snowden did, because Clapper has damaged the credibility of the entire intelligence apparatus, and I’m not sure what to believe anymore when they come to Congress,” Paul told CNN.

Support for prosecuting Clapper is mixed, which means that in the current Congressional environment any sanctions would be difficult to pass.

It certainly doesn’t send a good message to future intelligence officials, though, that they can essentially say whatever they want in public and don’t have to suffer anything harsher than a slap on the wrist.



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This Week On The TC Gadgets Podcast: Facebook Paper, Lenovo-Moto, Carbon 3D Printing, And Coffee!

Looking for a way to get through Friday? Here you go.

Facebook launched a news reader app called Paper. (Teens will love it.) And Google sold Motorola to Lenovo for $3 billion, which made earnings week interesting. And, in the land of startups, we explore a new Carbon 3D Printer and a Keurig Coffee machine. So you can print yourself a cup-holder, which will store your fresh cup of coffee, as you drive to work on this blessed Friday.

We discuss all this and more on this week’s episode of the TC Gadgets Podcast, featuring John Biggs, Matt Burns, Jordan Crook, Darrell Etherington, and Romain Dillet.

The Superbowl is in two days, and the work week is almost over. We’re almost there.

We invite you to enjoy our weekly podcasts every Friday at 3 p.m. Eastern and noon Pacific. And feel free to check out the TechCrunch Gadgets Flipboard magazine right here.

Click here to download an MP3 of this show.
You can subscribe to the show via RSS.
Subscribe in iTunes

Intro Music by Rick Barr.



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BrightFunnel Raises Funding To Build Smarter Marketing Predictions

Marketing startup BrightFunnel is announcing that it has raised a small “advisory round” of slightly less than $1 million from some big-name investors.

Co-founder and CEO Nadim Hossain served most recently as the vice president of marketing at PowerReviews (which was acquired by Bazaarvoice). In that role, and in other jobs as a marketing executive, Hossain said that with his background in economics and econometrics he expected to be “swimming in CMO insights,” but that turned out not to be the case.

Instead, Hossain said he found “production tools” with limited analytics, at least on the level of what a CMO would want to know.

“I remember being at a board meeting in May of 2011, and they asked me questions where I didn’t know the answers,” he said. ” My self identity is as someone who can get at the numbers and get at the truth, and I had to make guesses. It just made me feel not authentic and wonder, why don’t I have the answers? These are knowable questions.”

So at BrightFunnel, he’s trying to build tools that will given him the answers that he was looking for. The eventual goal, Hossain said, is to create “the Google self-driving car for marketers.” In other words, customers should be able to identify how much money they want to spend on a campaign and what their revenue targets are, and with BrightFunnel’s recommendations, the marketing plan should basically run itself.

The company isn’t quite there yet. Instead, Hossain said, it’s more like navigation app Waze. Its current features include identifying the marketing “levers” that can lead to increased revenue, as well as analyzing performance trends by campaign and channel. BrightFunnel also integrates with marketing automation systems including Marketo, Eloqua, Pardot, Act-On, and Hubspot.

And yes, it offers predictions about the revenue impact of marketing campaigns. Hossain estimated that those projections are within 10 to 20 percent accuracy — not just on the conversion rate but also how long it will take to close the sale, which is particularly important for the business-to-business marketers that BrightFunnel is targeting.

One of Hossain goals is to improve that accuracy, which he said is “blows

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Gillmor Gang Live 01.31.14 (TCTV)

Got a tip? Let us know.MenuSearchNewsChannelsStartupsMobileGadgetsEnterpriseSocialEuropeAsiaCrunchGovCrunchUTrendingYahooAppleFacebookTwitterGoogleMicrosoftNSATCTVShowsTCTV NewsAsk A VCCrunchWeekFly Or DieFoundationFounder StoriesTechCrunch GadgetsGillmor GangKeen OnTC CribsTechCrunch MakersAll ShowsAll VideosEventsTechCrunch EventsDisruptCrunchiesMeetupsInternational City EventsHackathonHardware BattlefieldNews AboutSXSWCESE3All EventsSearch TechCrunchSearch TechCrunchSearchCrunchBaseFollow UsFacebookTwitterGoogle

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Coupons.com Files For $100M IPO On The NYSE, Trading As Coup

The march of the 2014 initial public offerings commences, with the latest one of the oldest brands on the internet. Coupons.com has just filed S-1 papers with the SEC for an IPO on the NYSE, trading under the name COUP, and raising $100 million.

Goldman, Sachs & Co., Allen & Company LLC, BofA Merrill Lynch and RBC Capital Markets are listed as the underwriters on the filing.

The news comes a day after Box reportedly filed a “secret” IPO. Coupons.com may elect to use a similar route to keep from disclosing certain aspects of its business, it notes. “We are an ‘emerging growth company’ as defined under the federal securities laws and, as such, may elect to comply with certain reduced public company reporting requirements for future filings,” it notes.

Coupons.com’s IPO filing was long anticipated, most recently with Paul Sloan jumping from his position as editor-in-chief at CNET to take up head of communications to lead the effort.

As one of the earlier movers in the online coupons space, Coupons.com is also one of the biggest. It notes in the IPO that in the first nine months of 2013, its sales were generated from some 940 million transactions on its site. Those included customers picking up digital coupons and also redeeming codes over its platform. That figure is up 49% over a year ago.

Coupons.com says that today its platform includes more than 700 consumer packaged goods companies, representing over 2,000 brands, and retailers covering some 58,000 physical stores in North America. It had 17 million monthly unique visitors on average across Coupons.com and affiliated sites over 2013 and visited the sites of its CPGs, retailers and publishers. Its mobile apps have been downloaded some 7 million times.

First established as a site for newspaper coupons, more recently the company has been trying to convert its brand recognition into a business fit for a more social and mobile age. In December Coupons.com acquired Yub for $30 million to add loyalty networks to its service and position itself as a better bridge between offline and online commerce. In March 2013, it acquired KitchMe, a Pinterest-like recipe service.

Founded in 1998, Coupons.com has raised some $277 million in venture funding but it is a loss-making business. During the nine months ended September 30, 2013, the company says, it generated revenues of $115.3 million, growing 51% compared to the same period in 2012 but at a net loss of $12.8 million. That net loss was a decrease of 75% over the same period in 2012, the company says.

The full-year figures for the year before show that Coupons.com is improving its structure. In 2012, sales were $112.1 million, 23% up versus 2011, but with a net loss of $59.2 million, up 158% (!) over 2011.

Sill, coupons are big business, potentially. Coupons.com says that in 2012, 305 billion total coupons were distributed, “representing an aggregate discount value of $467 billion, with 2.9 billion redeemed representing an aggregate discount value of $3.7 billion,” citing stats from NCH Marketing Services.

Photo: Flickr



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Keen On… Hacking Gender: How Women In Silicon Valley Can Become Jane Bond

Next StoryCoupons.com Files For $100M IPO On The NYSE, Trading As CoupFacebookTwitterLinkedInWomen in Silicon Valley With Nilofer Merchant

Despite incremental improvements, the gender bias issue in Silicon Valley remains an important one. Last month, in response to the furor over an interview about female hackers, Paul Graham announced a conference dedicated to female founders. But I beat Graham to it, producing a sold-out event last week at the San Francisco office of BloombergBETA entitled Hacking Gender.

One my panelists was the very successful writer, social media guru and public speaker Nilofer Merchant whose email signature line says: “Sent. By. Bond. Jane Bond, that is”. So I asked Merchant how all women in the Valley can, like her, become Jane Bond and overcome bias.

“Have grit,” she advises. And “perseverance”. What women (and men) need to understand, she says, is that “bias exists.” It’s ingrained in Silicon Valley and results in women not being seen by men. And so they don’t get jobs or investments or leadership roles.

But Merchant does see things improving. While she thinks that Graham needs to admit he’s biased, she is much more positive about Marc Andreessen’s recent confession on Twitter that only 11% of his followers are women. That’s how you hack gender, Merchant says, by acknowledging the problem, talking about it publicly and then trying to fix it.



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Euro Secondhand Marketplace Vinted Raises $27M To Take On The Salvation Army

The clothes may be cheap, but prices for tech companies launching mobile and web-based marketplaces to sell secondhand and consignment clothing keep going up. 

The latest company trying to get people to pop their tags virtually is Vinted, which raised $27 million in its second institutional financing – one of the largest rounds ever for a Baltic-based startup.

Fresh financing from Accel Partners and Insight Venture Partners for the Vilnius-based startup comes after Accel invested $6.6 million into the company just over a year ago to port it from a web-based application to a service primarily for mobile devices… and bring its service to the U.S.

Vinted launched in the U.S. in September 2013, after five years spent expanding in Europe, and will use its new cash hoard to develop its business here and add to its 110 employees both in San Francisco and in its Lithuanian headquarters.

“We started the company as a project five years ago that was really a hobby project,” said Vinted chief executive Justas Janauskas, in an interview. Initially it was designed to be a website where girls in Vilnius could swap or sell mid-priced clothes from brands like Zara and H&M. But with an early angel investment from Lithuanian serial entrepreneur Mantas Mikuckas, who joined as chief operating officer, the company professionalized and grew its European presence.

Vinted operates three different brands internationally:  manodrabuziai.lt in Lithuania; kleiderkreisel.de in Germany; and  votocvohoz.cz in the Czech Republic, but going forward will consolidate everything under the Vinted label.

In the U.S., Vinted is entering a very crowded market. Companies like Twice, which raised $18.5 million earlier this month from Andreessen Horowitz and a host of others; or Poshmark, which raised $12 million in a round led by Menlo Ventures; and thredUP, backed by Highland Capital Partners, Redpoint Ventures, and Trinity Ventures, are also competing in the category.

Unlike Twice, which operates as a virtual storefront for used clothes, housing them at its own facilities and shipping them to buyers, Vinted is more of a peer to peer marketplace and social network, according to its CEO.

Globally, online consignment and secondhand stores have raised at least $109.2 million in financing, according to data from CrunchBase.

So far, the company has 3 million members around the world and has had 14 million listings managed from offices in San Francisco, Paris, Munich, Warsaw, Prague, and Vilnius, on an app available on both iOS and Android.

The move to mobile proved to be a good one for the company, Janauskas said. “The customer retention is better; the user experience is way better than on the desktop. So naturally the company converted from desktop to mobile,” he said. 

For Accel, the company’s value was clear from the moment the partners first heard about the site, said Michiel Kotting, a partner working in Accel’s London office. “

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Apple Said To Be Focusing On Health With iOS 8 And iWatch, Following Exec Meeting With FDA

Apple’s plans for iOS 8 focus on redefining health tracking via mobile devices, according to a new report from 9to5Mac, which has a terrific track record when it comes to rumors it has sourced itself. The report details a new marquee application coming in iOS 8 called “Healthbook” that monitors all aspects of health, fitness and workout information, including vitals monitored via the new iWatch, which is said to pack a bevy of sensors and to be “well into development” according to 9to5Mac’s sources.

The health monitoring app called “Healthbook” will come pre-installed on iOS 8, which, if true, would be a huge blow to third-party apps including those made by Fitbit, Nike, Runkeeper and Withings just to name a few. It would track and report steps, calories burned, distance walked and more, including weight fluctuations, and blood pressure, hydration levels, heart rate and more.

Apple’s focus on health in iOS 8 is given credence by a number of new reports from this week, including the news from the New York Times earlier today that Apple execs met with the FDA late last year to discuss mobile medical applications. Apple also reportedly hired Michael O’Reilly, M.D. away from a position as Chief Medical Officer of Masimo Corporation in July 2013. O’Reilly is an expert in pulse oximetry among other things, which is used to non-invasively take key vitals from a user via optical sensors.

9to5Mac’s report details functionality of the proposed “Healthbook” app, which, as its name suggests, takes a lot of cues from Passbook. It’ll offer swipeable cards for each vital stat it tracks, letting users page through their medical and health information. The report cautions that this functionality could be taken out prior to the final release of iOS 8: With the FDA’s involvement, one concern might be getting the necessary approvals to market the software as a potential medical aid.

As for the iWatch, the new report doesn’t add much in terms of firm details, but it does suggest we could see a release before year’s end, and offers that it could feature sensors that provide data to Healthbook. That app could also use existing third-party monitors and devices designed for iOS to source data, however. One more tidbit about the iWatch suggests that maps will be a central feature of the device, and navigation on the wrist is actually a prime potential advantage of smartwatch devices that has yet to be properly explored.

We’ve reached out to Apple for comment on these developments, and will update if we learn anything more.



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Airbnb Is Testing Out An Affordable Cleaning Service For Hosts In San Francisco

Peer-to-peer lodgings marketplace Airbnb has been focused on finding ways that it can help its hosts improve the quality of experience for guests that stay in their homes. As part of this effort, the company is trialing a low-cost cleaning service for some hosts on the platform.

According to an email sent to a host in the San Francisco Bay Area that was forwarded to TechCrunch, Airbnb is piloting a program that will make cleaning services available to some people who make their homes available on the platform. The email claims those services will be “affordable, easy to schedule, and can be tailored to include amenities such as linen service and gift baskets.”

In a statement from an Airbnb spokesperson, the company confirmed the trial, saying: “We’re always testing ways to make the experience on Airbnb better. This is a test we’re looking at in one market.”

Airbnb is working on a number of ways in which it can better support the people who list their homes on the platform. It recently brought on a new head of hospitality, Chip Conley, and created a Hospitality Innovation Lab in Dublin aimed at determining best practices for hosts.

It’s also introduced a new suite of mobile apps that are aimed at making the listing process easier. At the same event in which those apps were unveiled, Airbnb announced that it would relaunch Airbnb Groups to enable hosts to communicate and share tips with each other, and even toyed with the idea of offering up smartphones to hosts as a way to improve response times to guests and boost overall bookings.

But chief among the ways that Airbnb hosts can improve the quality of stay for their guests is through cleanliness of the spaces that they list. Those who frequently have Airbnb guests already know this, and many so-called “super hosts” already schedule regular cleaning sessions between stays.

Doing so can be expensive, however, and can eat into the money that hosts make — especially those who rely on income from Airbnb to help them pay their rents. At $55 for a three-hour cleaning, the price is slightly below what you might get from a service like Homejoy, which generally charges $20 an hour (in San Francisco, at least). Individual cleaners can run even higher, depending on the size of the home or how much cleaning is needed.

Offering hosts a somewhat discount price is a nice perk, especially for those who regularly rent out their homes to other members of Airbnb. It also improves the overall quality of their stays, could lead to better reviews, and overall increase the likelihood that hosts will have future guests.

Full text of the email sent to our host contact below:

Hi

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Ask A VC: Manatt’s Peter Csathy On The New Golden Age Of Content

Next StoryAirbnb Is Testing Out An Affordable Cleaning Service For Hosts In San FranciscoFacebookTwitterLinkedInEntertainment Law To Digital Media Investor With Peter Csathy

In this week’s episode of Ask A VC, Manatt Digital Media Ventures’ Peter Csathy joined us in the studio to talk about the return of content, his firm’s investment strategy and more.

One of the topics Csathy and I talked about was the renaissance moment for content, whether that be video, long-form, or social content. Csathy himself previously was the CEO of Sorenson Media, which provides encoding tools and a platform for video distribution for media companies and online publishers and also was the CEO of digital video startup SightSpeed, which was acquired by Logitech.

Why is content back? And what are the distinct properties that are driving viral content? Csathy answers those questions and more in the video above.



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Sunrise Calendar Stops Sending iCloud Credentials Back To Their Servers

Next StoryAsk A VC: Manatt’s Peter Csathy On The New Golden Age Of Content

The increasingly popular Sunrise calendar app faced a bit of a brouhaha last week, after a couple of well-respected developers (namely, Neven Mrgan and Instapaper creator Marco Arment) pointed out that the application asked the user to punch in their iCloud credentials with little indication of what happened to them next.

Given the amount of sensitive data that tends to be transmitted over iCloud (iMessages, backed up photos, email, etc.), such a request was iffy, at best. It’s certainly not the sort of thing you want to become the norm.

Making things worse, the company was in turn taking those credentials and transmitting back them to their server (though they note that they were not storing them.) They were sending the credentials in a secure way — but still: if it’s at all avoidable, sending important credentials back to the mothership isn’t good practice.

This morning, Sunrise pushed out a patch that makes things a little better. They’ll still need you to punch in your credentials, which is a bummer — but now, at least, they’re handling authentication within the app itself. Instead of sending your username and password back to their servers, they send a unique token that allows them to access your iCloud data without ever sending your actual username/password off of the device. And if you decide that you don’t want Sunrise to be able to access your data? Just change your password, which renders the token useless.

It’s not a perfect solution, as it does still require the users to trust a third-party with some pretty precious data. In this case, since Sunrise is now being quite transparent about how they handle the data, that’s fine. But it’s still not something that apps should be getting users comfortable with doing. Until/unless Apple builds in some sort of iCloud permissions dialog that allows for the user to grant a service like Sunrise access to data (sort of like the way Facebook handles Facebook logins within apps), however, this is the safest route they’ve got apart from.. you know, not existing.

It’s been just 9 days since concerns about Sunrise’s methodology were raised; good on them for moving quick.



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Yahoo Could Do Search Because It Needs The Money

Yahoo could be getting back into the search game. Its long-suffering deal with Microsoft has underperformed, making recent revelations that the company is working on building new search products hardly surprising.

If the projects are serious — meaning they are more than experiments or attempts at leverage for the coming discussion it will have with Microsoft on per-search revenue — Yahoo could be working to create a product that will replace nearly one-third of its current revenue.

In its calendar third quarter of last year, Yahoo earned 31 percent of its total revenue from the search deal with Microsoft.

As a percentage of its revenue, the Bing search deal is of growing importance to Yahoo. For the nine months ending last September 30, 30 percent of the company’s revenue came from the deal, or slightly less over the nine-quarter period than the last quarter reported.

More dramatically, its 2012 third quarter — comparable to the 31 percent number — saw 27 percent of its revenue come from the Microsoft deal. And in the nine-month period ending with the third quarter of 2012, Yahoo earned a more modest 24 percent of its top line from Microsoft.

So, 24 to 27 to 30 to 31 percent. That’s a steady progression.

What is driving that momentum, given that Yahoo is consistently losing search market share? I’d estimate that its other revenues, which are declining, are doing so more quickly than income from the Microsoft deal. Recall that Microsoft last year re-upped its revenue guarantee with Yahoo in regards to its search agreement for the U.S.

Financially, therefore, the Microsoft deal is something of a boon for Yahoo, providing revenue stability in a time of transition for the latter company.

That’s the nice way to put it. In reality, Yahoo needs that firehose of Redmond dollars to cover for it as it uses future Alibaba money to (hopefully) buy revenue momentum. So far that isn’t working, as we recently saw.

And Yahoo may be working to cut this income flow and forge a new path for itself. You could call that bold. But there is a fine line between boldness and overzealousness (leadership, you could argue, lies in between).

Microsoft and Yahoo both declined to comment for this story.

While that may be the case, it’s worth keeping in mind that Yahoo has old search chops, Mayer is brilliant, and the company is on a decent personnel footing. It could pull off a transition back to search. And, perhaps, Yahoo could deploy enough of that Alibaba cash to snag a few Googlers to pull the operation together.

Yahoo was said to complain last year that revenue per search was actually worse with Microsoft under the agreement than it had been when the company used its own technology. That’s a point in favor of Yahoo trying again. The company may be able to opt out of the deal in mid 2015.

But search, as the saying goes, is hard. Microsoft, a company with a few good heads in it, has spent years — and billions — building Bing. 

And despite that work and treasure, Bing has yet to mature to the point in which Yahoo and Microsoft didn’t need the search revenue guarantee. That means that Bing was monetizing at below the set threshold, forcing Microsoft to fork over more cash to keep Sunnyvale on board.

So, after billions and years, Microsoft’s search technology still isn’t so good at making money.

For Yahoo, that’s the mission at the moment. It needs to grow its revenue. And, at this precise moment, it appears that the company is moving instead to replace a stable, and likely renewable revenue stream.

Top Image Credit: Flickr (Image cropped)



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Most Americans Are Unaware Of [Insert Issue Here]

Let’s face it: a disturbingly large portion of the American electorate are not-so-knowledgable about their world. As of 2008, 30% still maintain that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and 18% think the sun revolves around the earth. So, when our friends in the press ran headlines about how most Americans had heard “nothing at all” about President Obama’s recent surveillance reforms, I would have been surprised by exactly the opposite.

Let’s take a trip down the rabbit hole of America’s civic knowledge and whether it matters to a functioning democratic state.

Most Americans Haven’t Heard Of

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Dash’s Smart Driving App – A “Fitbit For Cars” – Arrives On Android

Dash, a Techstars New York-backed startup that wants to be like a Fitbit for your car, has now launched. The product includes a combination of a hardware device and smartphone application which offers real-time feedback on your driving, trip logs, access to vehicle diagnostics (that pesky “check engine” light, and who can fix it!), a map showing where the cheapest gas is nearby, and even social features.

Like several of the “connected car” products on the market, Dash’s hardware involves an OBD device you can purchase from either within the Dash mobile application or the Dash homepage. The Dash software will also work with any Bluetooth-enabled OBD device, if you happen to already have one, or you can choose from two types of devices Dash’s homepage points to: generic devices found on Amazon for $10 and up, or a premium OBD LINK LX which is a steeper $69.



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Gillmor Gang Live 01.25.14 (TCTV)

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Achievement Unlocked: The SF Class War Reaches Godwin’s Law

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TechCrunch Giveaway: 20 Anki DRIVE Starter Kits And Free Ticket to The Crunchies

The team over at Anki is so thrilled about being a Crunchie Award finalist for “Best New Startup of 2013″ that they’ve decided to show their appreciation to our readers by spreading the Anki love and giving away Anki Drive starter kits (each valued at $199.95) to 20 lucky people. One very lucky person will also receive a free ticket to the Crunchies (valued at $120). This is your chance to take home an Anki Drive and then share your racing experience with the tech industry’s best and brightest at the Crunchies on February 10th.

Anki Drive has been described as “Mario Kart” that comes to life on your living room floor. Did you hear that? Mario Kart! For a hands-on look at Anki Drive, check out Greg’s review below.

To enter the giveaway, all you have to do is follow the steps below. We will be choosing 10 from each step, and you may do both to double your chances:

1) Comment below telling us what you like about driving/racing

2) Tweet this article with the #Crunchies hashtag

The giveaway will start now and end Wednesday, January 29th, at 7:30pm. Please note the Crunchies ticket is for one ticket only, and does not include airfare or hotel. Also, voting closes tomorrow at 11:59pm PT. Don’t forget to vote for your favorite Crunchies finalists here.

Good luck!

FacebookTwitterLinkedInHands-On With The New Anki Drive

Our sponsors help make the Crunchies happen. If you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities, please contact our sponsorship team here: sponsors

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Overseeding Will Be Key To Strong Venture Returns

Editor’s note: Mike Jones, formerly CEO of Myspace, is the CEO of Science, Inc., a Los Angeles-based technology studio that nurtures successful digital businesses by bringing together the best ideas, talent, resources and financing through a centralized platform. Follow him on Twitter

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App.net Launches Backer, A Bitcoin-Friendly Crowdfunding Engine For Individual Software Features

As the popularity of crowdfunding grows ever larger, an interesting new trend has started popping up: developers, curious if a new feature is worth adding to their products, are asking interested customers to chip in to cover the costs of development. In other words: if you really want a feature, put your money where your mouth is.

Balanced, a payment service, recently used crowdfunding to support adding a new money sending feature. App.net, a subscription-based/ad-free Twitter alternative which as a whole was born out of a $803,000 crowdfunding campaign, is currently using it to determine if they’ll accept Bitcoin payments on their site.

This morning, App.net announced that they’re opening up the engine they built for their Bitcoin campaign, allowing other companies to use the platform to raise money for individual features. They’re calling the new platform Backer.



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CrunchWeek: Netflix Earnings, Stripe’s Big Raise, And Snowden’s Live Q&A

Next StoryApp.net Launches Backer, A Bitcoin-Friendly Crowdfunding Engine For Individual Software FeaturesFacebookTwitterLinkedInNetflix Earnings, Stripes Big Raise, and Snowden’s AMA & NSA News

It’s that time of week for an episode of CrunchWeek, the show that brings a few TechCrunch writers together to chat about the most fascinating stories of the past seven days in tech.

In this week’s episode, Ryan Lawler, Alex Wilhelm and I talked about Netflix’s stronger than expected earnings and the company’s stance on net neutrality, payments company Stripe’s new funding round and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s Q&A (and the recent news around the RNC denouncing the NSA’s surveillance tactics).

Check out the video above for more!



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The Secrets To Snapchat’s Success: Connectivity, Easy Media Creation, And Ephemerality

Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel has been known to be pretty surreptitious when it comes to sharing secrets about how the company works, but today he provided a little more transparency around its mission and how it thinks about the communications that users send through the app.

At the AXS Partner Summit, he gave a fascinating keynote speech (which you can read here), breaking down the things that make Snapchat work, most notably how the concepts of Internet everywhere, fast and easy media creation, and ephemerality combine to power the app. The speech was presented to media execs perhaps as a way to help them understand Snapchat’s appeal, and the new ways that people are using it to communicate with each other.

To start, Spiegel noted that he thought it was strange that people refer to this period as the “post-PC era.” If anything, he argues, the proliferation of smart phones that began with the launch of the iPhone means that we’ve entered an age in which our computing devices are more personal than ever before.

And so he believes we’re in the age of the “More-Personal Computer.”

So what can we do with that? Pervasive connectivity, the ability to quickly create media, and an increased interest in ephemerality, combined together is, in a sense, what makes Snapchat Snapchat. But the combination of those elements also means that today’s users are sharing and communicating in different ways than they ever have before.

Take the concept of “Internet Everywhere,” for instance. Once upon a time, people who shared photos or videos of themselves or places that they’ve been ended up taking a whole lot of media, sorting through it to determine what they’d want others to see, and then having to upload it later to the social networks, blogs, and other places that they’d share.

“Internet Everywhere means that our old conception of the world separated into an online and an offline space is no longer relevant. Traditional social media required that we live experiences in the offline world, record those experiences, and then post them online to recreate the experience and talk about it,” Spiegel said.

But constant connectivity means there’s no longer a disconnect between when media is taken and when it could be shared. Or, as Spiegel said, “We no longer have to capture the “real world” and recreate it online – we simply live and communicate at the same time.”

That also has enables its users to more immediately share self-portraits, which Spiegel calls “arguably the most popular form of self-expression.” Centuries ago, those self-portraits required untold hours and brush strokes, but in today’s day and age of fast and easy media creation, people can communicate through media, instead of around it.

“The selfie makes sense as the fundamental unit of communication on Snapchat because it marks the transition between digital media as self-expression and digital media as communication,” he said.

With that in place, the final piece — ephemerality — works to focus on the feeling that content brings to the user, not what it looks like. For Snapchat, that more closely resembles the way that conversations happen in real life, the way that people actually communicate with each other.

“That’s what Snapchat is all about. Talking through content not around it. With friends, not strangers. Identity tied to now, today. Room for growth, emotional risk, expression, mistakes, room for you,” he said.

The embrace of the Ephmeralnet comes in stark contrast to the previous generation of social networks, in which what people shared was forever tied to their online identities. Those communications are happening anonymously, or they happen in real-time and disappear.

For now, Snapchat is the most successful app in this new environment of pervasive connectivity and real-time communication. But we’ll no doubt continue to see more social networking and messaging apps use the same concepts.

You can check out the full text of the speech below:



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Data As A Company’s Secret Weapon

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Funny, I Don’t Feel All That Fatigued With Twitter

In a recent piece in The New York Times, Jenna Wortham says she’s becoming fatigued with Twitter. Basically, she uses all the Twitter discussion around Justin Bieber’s arrest as a springboard for a broader argument about how the service has become less about finding useful, relevant information and more about competing for attention.

As you’d expect, the piece saw its share of praise and criticism. The most common critique seems to be some variant of, “Dude, just unfollow people who are annoying” but as Wortham and others have noted, that’s easier said than done, because it can be embarrassing or awkward to unfollow someone, even if you’re really tired of their tweets.

There’s another reason why the “just unfollow” argument falls a little flat for me. Wortham is, I think, careful to use the word “we”, particularly in the article’s best passage:

It feels as if we’re all trying to be a cheeky guest on a late-night show, a reality show contestant or a toddler with a tiara on Twitter — delivering the performance of a lifetime, via a hot, rapid-fire string of commentary, GIFs or responses that help us stand out from the crowd. We’re sold on the idea that if we’re good enough, it could be our ticket to success, landing us a fleeting spot in a round-up on BuzzFeed or The Huffington Post, or at best, a writing gig. But more often than not, it translates to standing on a collective soapbox, elbowing each other for room, in the hopes of being credited with delivering the cleverest one-liner or reaction. Much of that ensues in hilarity. Perhaps an equal amount ensues in exhaustion.

In the ensuing discussion, “we” seemed to get transformed into “other people” — sure, Jenna, other people can be annoying on Twitter, so why don’t you unfollow them? The default assumption that it must be other people who are Doing It Wrong on Twitter is … interesting.

Personally, I found the article valuable because I immediately recognized the behavior that Wortham was talking about, and not just in other people, but in myself. I suspect that my default mode on seeing a broader conversation on Twitter is, “How can I say something funny so that everyone will talk about meeeeeee?” (Note also that Wortham isn’t condemning this behavior outright — she admits that it can be entertaining, but also exhausting.)

So as a description of personal experience, I found Wortham’s words to be a valuable reminder to try, at least, to be less self-promotional and less self-absorbed.

On the other hand, as a broader description of “Twitter’s Achilles’ heel” I found the article to be less convincing. As others have noted, Wortham is a reporter who follows nearly 4,000 people and has more than 500,000 followers, so her experience is almost certainly atypical. She actually addresses this in the article itself, arguing, “I think the number of followers you have is often irrelevant,” but I’m dubious. With my own much smaller Twitter following, the dynamics changed as my audience grew, even if the change wasn’t quite as dramatic as I’d expected, and ditto the amount of noise as I started follow more people.

Yes, Wortham is absolutely making some very interesting anecdotal points, but her piece suffers in my eyes from trying to transform those points into a Big Idea. Has Twitter become less informative and more self-promotional? In my experience, it has always been a mix, and I’m not sure that mix has changed all that significantly. But again, we’re just mashing random pieces of personal experience together and pretending it means something about the company as a whole. That way lies madness. (And by “madness” I mean “asking teenagers what they think about Facebook“.)

But hey, since we’re sharing about anecdotal evidence, I will offer this: Where did I first hear about Wortham’s article? And where did I first see most of the ideas, pro and con, expressed in this post? On Twitter, of course.



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Enterprise Mobility: Devices, Security, Design, And Distribution

Editor’s Note: Semil Shah works on product for Swell, is a TechCrunch columnist, and an investor. He blogs at Haywire, and you can follow him on Twitter at 

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