Contextly Expands Its Content Recommendation Platform To Include Videos And For-Sale Products, Too

With the latest expansion of its content recommendation tools, startup Contextly isn’t just pointing visitors to relevant articles, but videos and products, too.

Co-founder and CEO Ryan Singel (a former editor at Wired) told me that this is “doubling down” on the company’s current strategy.

As Singel has said in the past, he’s taking a different approach from content recommendation services like Outbrain and Taboola, which take visitors to other sites. Contextly is all about keeping visitors on the same site — by keeping convincing them to read additional articles, it hopefully turns them into repeat visitors and long-term fans.

With that in mind, the new features seems like a natural move — if you’ve got different types of content on your site, why limit yourself to news articles? Video, after all, is becoming increasingly important to online publishers. And the commerce offering highlights the fact that content is becoming increasingly important to many online stores.

You may, incidentally, be seeing a “related video” widget next to this very post (or below it, if you’re on a smartphone). But one thing that’s different about Contextly’s approach is that it treats all this content similarly, rather than creating separate widgets for articles and video.

The company offered a few more details about the new features in a blog post, saying it’s now using its existing “smart data analysis and recommendation system to provide a far more comprehensive set of recommendations for publishers that make videos and sell items.” To illustrate that, it points to this how-to post on Adafruit about making a Fire Tie, where it makes sense to point readers to a product that’s mentioned in the article and to a demo video.

In an email, Singel elaborated how this represents an increased commitment to oOntextly’s core strategy:

Our focus is on computational journalism, using our tools that identify relevant, trending, evergreen and personalized content to give readers an awesome experience. In an age of drive-by readers and social networks with ever-changing algorithms, the future will belong to publishers that forge real connections with their readers.

Meanwhile nearly all of other companies that use some of the same real estate on publishers’ pages that we use are focussing on how to fill that space with ads. And all too often, these recommendations don’t disclose these are paid ads. We see lip service being given to “engagement” or “content discovery,” but these companies’ focus on traffic arbitrage.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/3ugMhTkDod0/

via IFTTT

This Week On The TC Gadgets Podcast: HP Sprout, New Fitbits, And Other Wrist-Worn Tech

Fitbit announced a few new devices, including the Fitbit Charge and the Fitbit Surge, both of which we’re excited about. Plus, HP is doing all kinds of weird things, not least of which is the announcement of an odd new computer, projector type device called the Sprout.

Plus, we’re still fascinated with the Apple Watch so we’re talking about all things wrist this week.

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

Have a good Friday, everybody!

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 Mendhoan.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/rVUqIhtZTRM/

via IFTTT

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo Has Crashed

This morning, Virgin Galactic tweeted that their SpaceShipTwo spaceplane had experienced an “in-flight anomaly”

We have now confirmed that SpaceShipTwo has crashed during a test flight due to currently unknown causes. A press conference is planned with more details at 2 pm pacific.

WhiteKnightTwo, the craft that carries SpaceShipTwo to altitude before detaching, landed safely.

There were at least two pilots on board the craft before the crash; their status is unknown. We will update as soon as we hear more.

SpaceShipTwo was designed primarily for space tourism, meant to carry passengers high enough to experience near-weightlessness for roughly $200,000 per ticket.

Story developing…

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/GmWD3e5PIOI/

via IFTTT

Mad Genius Radio Feels Like A Smarter Version Of Old-School Radio

Mad Genius Radio is taking a somewhat old-school approach to streaming music.

In a world where most radio services use correlation algorithms to figure out what you want to hear, based on beats per minute and cadence and genre, without really thinking about the right rotation of new and old music. Thus, the stations you end up listening to the most become a bit stale.

But Mad Genius is different.

The newly launched platform offers users up to five presets, just like you’d find on a car radio, each of which can be tailored to the listener’s tastes. The presets offer an infinite playlist, where they can add up to seven different genres. Then, upon listening, users can give more of their rotation to certain genres, as well as rank specific songs and artists, upping the frequency with which that type of music will be played.

But most importantly, the genres are being constantly updated with the best and most interesting music, so that each users presets are constantly changing based on the songs in each genre’s rotation. The user still maintains control of the overall tone of the preset, dictating the value of each genre, artist and song, but the content itself is being updated by the Mad Genius algorithm.

However, users who listen to Time Machine stations for decade-based playlists (Best of the 80’s) will get the same songs in that station every time, with the ability to add in other genres that do update.

Another big differentiator for Mad Genius Radio is that users can always “undo” any of their settings. In most streaming services, like iTunes Radio, Songza, etc., when you delete a song or mark it to not play, you lose it forever. But sometimes you just want to mute some of your favorite songs so you don’t over-listen to them, which Mad Genius Radio allows for.

The company has $2 million in funding from undisclosed investors, and charges $5/month or $48/year. However, an extended free trial is currently underway with a paywall going up next year.

The service launched this week and is available now across iOS, Android and the web.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/PrGai2W62eA/

via IFTTT

Super-Agent Andrew Wylie Calls Amazon An “ISIS-Like Distribution Channel”

Andrew Wylie is a major book agent who many in the milquetoast publishing industry call the “jackal.” His fiery pronouncements are much-read in certain circles and his latest one, in a speech given at Toronto’s International Festival of Authors, is a doozy. Wylie, who sees Amazon as a threat to all that is good and holy in the book industry, called the organization “brutal” and equated it with a terrorist organization.

“I believe with the restored health of the publishing industry and having some sense of where this sort of Isis-like distribution channel, Amazon, is going to be buried and in which plot of sand they will be stuck, [publishers] will be able to raise the author’s digital royalty to 40% or 50%,” he said. “Writers will begin to make enough money to live.”

Wylie, who was specifically backing Hachette in the ongoing battle of the bookselling stars, told writers in March that “If you have a choice between the plague and Amazon, pick the plague!”

The problem here is that authors are already making enough money to survive. Authors who make an effort to survive on their ebooks – be they serial producers like the RealmAndSands or lucky ducks like who converted effort, personality, and good writing into an amazing career – the generally accepted notion that mainstream publishers help writer survive is continuing to crumble. In fact, the primary reason most publishers exist – the ability to pay an advance before the writing of a difficult book – is being threatened. As Matthew Yglesias writes:

The final role of the modern book publisher is as a payer of advances. The way the money end of books work is that the person who wrote a book gets paid a royalty on each copy sold — a sum that is generally much less than half the retail price of the book, and dramatically lower than the 70% that Amazon is willing to pay to authors who bypass the publishing incumbents. In addition to royalties, a publisher will typically pay you an advance. The advance is a special kind of loan. When your book first starts selling copies, the royalties you would be owed are kept by the publisher to repay the advance. If you sell a lot of books, you’ll fully repay your advance and start seeing money. If you sell very few books, you’ll never repay your advance and are under no obligation to do so.

…

My best guess is that this is too pessimistic about the financial logic behind giving advances. It is not, after all, just a loan that you may or may not pay back. An advance is bundled with a royalty agreement in which a majority of the sales revenue is allocated to someone other than the author of the book. In its role as venture capitalist, the publisher is effectively issuing what’s called convertible debt in corporate finance circles — a risky loan that becomes an ownership stake in the project if it succeeds.But what really matters here is that book publishers are not charities. They are for-profit business enterprises. If advances don’t make financial sense, then they will die off regardless of what happens to Amazon. If they do make financial sense, then they will live on as financial products even as the rest of the industry restructures.

Folks like Wylie are important cheerleaders for their industries. The book industry in particular enjoys its firebrands, elevating people who will say goofy stuff to positions of power in order to maintain the confirmation bias necessary to survive in a beleaguered industry. But if Wylie thinks that Amazon is so bad I do encourage him and his cohorts to pull their books. The following will happen: sales will drop, good editors will be laid off, those editors will go entrepreneurial, and a new generation of pro-Amazon writers and readers will fill in the ranks of the fallen. Still, Wylie is willing to go to war.

“The publishing industry, up until now, has cowered and whined and moaned and groaned and given Amazon pretty much everything they want. Now I think that’s going to stop,” he said.

To quote Marco from Tropojë, “Good luck.”

IMAGE BY Flickr USER nseika UNDER cc by 2.0 LICENSE



from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/EpHt-KA_9EM/

via IFTTT

Your Next Passport Could Be On The Blockchain

A blockchain tinkerer named Chris Ellis has created a system to build an actual digital passport that, through use of the Bitcoin blockchain and some encryption, will allow you to identify yourself online and off. Called World Citizenship, the project just launched on Github and shows some definite promise.

“The goal of this project is to learn and layout a simple process for anyone in the world to create their own Private Passport Service that can be used to validate and prove the existence of other persons using nothing but available tools,” wrote Ellis. To build a passport you basically take a photo of yourself and then build a private and public key. This cryptographically signs the document, proving it is legitimate. A number of other aspects, including the state of the bitcoin ledger called the blockchain, further confirm the issuance. Still confused? Read on:

By including the Merkle Root of the latest block we prove we have knowledge of an event that cannot have taken place any time prior the latest block being published.By signing the Passport with a PGP key we bind the state of the document to it’s cryptographic signature preventing us from changing its contents without detection.By stamping the digest of the resulting passport and its signature in to the blockchain following these steps we prove that it existed in this state at no time later than the block in which it was published.By using the venue’s Bitcoin address (preferably one used by their customers) with a public IP address we prove that it exists in this space.

This is because Bitcoin nodes collect IP data in the debug.log file. Additionally since the venue is commercial they have an interest in maintaining their reputation and advertising their location. (Note: GPS data on phones can easily be spoofed).

Basically you are confirming that the document couldn’t have been created by any other person at any other time, an assumption that goes into the production of government passports (the need to go into a post office to confirm your existence for a passport is a low-tech version of this process). Obviously you’re not going to be breezing through security with your new digital passport quite yet but it’s an interesting step in a very interesting direction.

Ellis is essentially creating trust where there was none initially. By doing this – and supplanting the old passport systems with this trust – he is looking toward a fascinating new future. In you have a full hour feel free to watch his video below.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/QRsFs1ZkQtA/

via IFTTT

This Ambulance Drone Can Fly Into Trouble With First Aid

A Dutch engineer has created a flying defibrillator for emergency situations. The drone, called the Ambulance Drone, would be stationed at various points in the city. In an emergency, people on the scene can call it in and it arrives a few seconds later. The built-in defibrillator unit can be used by anyone and it allows doctors to monitor the situation after the shocks are administered.

The drone includes a webcam and loudspeaker and allows remote doctors to walk people on the scene through the process of attaching the electrodes and preparing the defibrillator. The creator, Alec Momont of TU Delft’s Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, said that 20% of people can operate a defibrillator without instruction and the number rises when they have prompts from trained personnel.

‘Some 800,000 people suffer a cardiac arrest in the EU every year, and only 8% survive,’ Momont explains. ‘The main reason for this is the relatively long response time of the emergency services (approx. 10 minutes), while brain death and fatalities occur within 4 to 6 minutes. The ambulance drone can get a defibrillator to a patient inside a 12 km zone within one minute. This response speed increases the chance of survival following a cardiac arrest from 8% to 80%.’

The system is still in prototype stage but there is a good chance it could be launched in five years for about $20,000 each. Drones are still not allowed to fly autonomously so they can’t wing their way around downtown Delft with their helpful payload… yet. It will be interesting to see these robots flying around one day, dropping first aid when needed.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/bHBAto66ANY/

via IFTTT

New Outlook For Mac Now Available, Rest Of Office For Mac Updates Coming In 2015

We’ve seen leaks of a new Office for Mac 2015 suite circulate, but the new version of Outlook for Mac is already here, at least for Office 365 subscribers. The overhauled email client includes a new look and feel, as well as search that extends to archived mail (whether stored online or on corporate servers), better all around performance, push email support and more. Microsoft also took this opportunity to make its Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote for Mac updates official, announcing public beta availability beginning early next year, with a general consumer launch in the second half of 2015.

The new Office apps for Mac will be available to Office 365 subscribers with no additional cost as part of their subscription, once released, while the company also plans to launch a perpetual license for a one-off buy at the same time as Office for Mac becomes available as final shipping software.

The new Outlook has a redesign that makes it look a lot more like its companion apps on other platforms, including Windows, and the web on both desktop and mobile. Using Outlook on a Mac is still mostly inconceivable to me, but then again, I rarely have to deal with a corporate email environment and unlike the bulk of large enterprises out there, we run a mostly Mac shop.

Microsoft’s continued commitment to Mac users is a good thing overall, since it means more platform choice for those who have need of Office software. The company seems even more committed to supporting customers beyond the Windows ecosystem than ever, thanks to the release of surprisingly impressive Office mobile apps for iPad earlier this year. Microsoft says the reason its Mac software is lagging behind its usual update schedule relative to the Windows release this time around is because it chose to focus on those mobile apps mentioned above first this time around.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/ifOkuHGj9rI/

via IFTTT

Microsoft announces an all-new Outlook for Mac, available for Office 365 users

Microsoft has announced an all-new Outlook for Mac, available for Office 365 users. The launch brings the product into line with its versions on other platforms, including mobile and PC.

Alongside its refreshed interface, Microsoft says the new Outlook for Mac app brings better performance and reliability, as well as a handful of other new features.

Microsoft also revealed it’s introducing a new beta version of Office for Mac in the first half of 2015, with the final version due to hit later in the year.

➤ New Outlook for Mac available to Office 365 customers

from The Next Web http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheNextWeb/~3/mNkyI5E1ddk/

via IFTTT

Cook 'Proud to be Gay'; Rubin Leaving Google; Microsoft's $199 Smart Band

From Tim Cook's coming out to Andy Rubin leaving Google, here's what you missed on Thursday.

Topping tech headlines on Thursday, Tim Cook announced that, yes, he is gay.

"While I have never denied my sexuality, I haven't publicly acknowledged it either, until now," he said in an editorial penned for Bloomberg Businessweek. "So let me be clear: I'm proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me." Cook said he has resisted discussing his sexuality publicly because he values his privacy, but said he is willing to give up a little privacy if his declaration helps others who are struggling. For more, see the video below.

In other tech giant news, former Android chief Andy Rubin is leaving Google, less than a year after he was tapped to lead the company's growing robotics unit. The Android co-founder is leaving Google to start "an incubator for startups interested in building technology-hardware products," The Wall Street Journal reported.

Meanwhile, Microsoft unveiled its long-rumored Health platform, complete with a cloud service, mobile app, and smart band. Redmond is now offering its $199 Microsoft Band (in limited quantities) online and at Microsoft Stores around the country. Notably, it connects to iOS, Android, or Windows Phone devices.

Be sure to check out a few other stories making headlines in the links below.

Amazon’s Fire Phone Product Efforts Will Continue Despite Early Stumbles

Amazon is taking the long view on the Fire phone, despite poor early sales, a huge price cut and $83 million in surplus inventory that resulted in a $170 million charge for the excess hardware and supplier costs combined. Amazon’s SVP of Devices David Limp told Fortune the big issue was a miscalculation on pricing, which later resulted in Amazon slashing the price of the device from $199 on contract to just 99 cents.

Limp said that the Fire phone is selling better post-price cut than it had been before, by a significant margin, though as usual Amazon declined to share any actual numbers. The SVP also pointed to software improvements that have addressed a lot of early customer complaints about the device. The plan is to continue to release software improvements for this generation of device, and Limp says they’re looking at the Fire phone as similar in trajectory to the Kindle.

Amazon’s first Kindle had a lot of kinks that left reviewers unimpressed. Compared to the current generation of device’s, it was a largely uninspiring mess that few would’ve pegged for continued survival. The Fire phone, likewise, has analysts and press proclaiming its demise. But Amazon can likely stick out a few generations of Fire phone in the interest of finding a better formula that customers will respond to. This generation was too focused on building a funnel for Amazon’s shopping experiences, and future devices will probably strike a better balance.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/jfn_E-UbkVM/

via IFTTT

Spain orders Google to pay news publishers a tax for search results

The Spanish parliament passed a ruling yesterday to allow news publishers to charge aggregators and search engines like Google each time they display news content in search results.

The law, lobbied for by Spain’s AEDE group of news outlets, goes into effect on January 1, 2015, but it doesn’t yet specify how much aggregators and search engines could be charged. Google’s Spanish division responded saying it was disappointed with the decision, and will work to help news publishers in the country increase income.

This is similar to a row in Germany earlier this October, between Google and a group of German publications who claimed that Google’s inclusion of news content in search results was tantamount to republishing content and caused them loss of revenues. Google Germany responded by removing summaries and image thumbnails from these results, displaying only headline links instead.

It’s yet to be seen what action aggregators take in Spain to deal with the new ruling, but with just two months to go before the law comes into effect, we can expect to hear of developments very soon.

➤Spain OKs ‘Google Tax’ Demanded by News Publishers [The New York Times]

from The Next Web http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheNextWeb/~3/cKzfOdGdu9A/

via IFTTT

October in Africa: All the tech news you shouldn’t miss from the past month

October saw serious developments in the e-commerce, digital music and video on demand (VoD) sectors in Africa, as well as the usual startup activity and new product offerings.

Consolidation and funding in the e-commerce world

Two of South Africa’s largest e-commerce sites, Naspers-owned Kalahari.com and Takealot.com, have agreed a merger, with the two companies to have an equal shareholding in the new united entity. The Competition Commission is still to approve the deal, which the companies said was driven by the fact the two businesses remained loss-making and needed to scale more greatly to compete against brick-and-mortar retailers.

Meanwhile, in Nigeria Konga.com, another e-commerce site with Naspers involvement, raised a funding. round which TechCabal sources estimated to be worth between US$40 million and US$60 million, with Naspers leading the round.

The raise comes only months after Konga raised US$25 million from Naspers and Kinnevik in January, and will be used to fund expansion activities such as expanding Konga’s engineering department, investing in core retail inventory, and building logistics and fulfilment infrastructure.

Digital music, VoD new battlegrounds in Africa

It was a big month for Germany-based global music streaming service Deezer, which beat its rival Spotify to an African entrance by first partnering with South African operator Vodacom to make its catalogue of over 35 million songs available to the company’s customers, before announcing a deal with another telecom, Millicom, to make the latter’s Tigo Music available in more African markets, beginning next month in Ghana.

Another sector with growing activity is the VoD space, which has seen new entrants both big and small. Video streaming mobile app Aflix, which originally launched in Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana in August, has launched in 27 further countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Aflix, which is jointly funded by Nigerian and American investors, said it intends to revolutionise Africa’s VoD space by providing Hollywood content at affordable prices via Android-powered mobile devices and set-top boxes.

Meanwhile, MTN South Africa has joined the likes of MultiChoice and Times Media Group in launching a service, which it says will be available on a subscription basis. Entertainment content distributor Ster-Kinekor has also said it will announce its strategy for online content before the end of the year.

More developments in Africa’s booming startup ecosystem

The continent’s startup ecosystem continues to grow, with a number of accelerator programmes beginning for the first time and startups obtaining funding.

The Nigerian ICT ministry has raised a US$15 million startup venture fund, with government committing US$9m as seed capital to the fund, which will shortly be making its first investment. It has also been suggested the fund will be aimed at not just Nigerian tech startups but other ventures across Africa as well.

Kigali-based technology incubator Think announced the first four companies selected for support. The selected startups will be offered US$15,000 in funding, as well as access to networks, mentoring and business development education. The startups, chosen from over 100 applications, are Egyptian roadside assistance mobile app Beliaa, Nigerian real estate platform Cribpark, Ghanaian research platform PollAfrique, and Rwandan channel management software TorQue.

Lagos-based accelerator 440, a joint venture between 88mph and L5Lab, has also announced its first batch of startups, with four e-commerce ventures amongst them. The companies are Jay Osbie, Ella Matthew, Jara Mall, Young Soul, Taja, Fuel Voucher, Click Right Consult, PrayerBox and Obiwezy.

Meanwhile, Microsoft announced seven new African startups that will receive funding, technical support and mentorship at the Microsoft 4Afrika Advisory Council meeting in Nairobi. This is the second round of grants to be issued under Microsoft’s 4Afrika innovation grant programme, which selected five startups at the beginning of the year.

In startup funding news, Nigerian budget and public data startup BudgIT secured US$400,000 in funding from the Omidyar Network, which it will use for expansion purposes. Five startups will be pitching for funding at the DEMO US after being selected from the 40 startups involved in the DEMO Africa startup conference in Lagos, Nigeria. The startups are Jifunza (Rwanda), Nerve (Nigeria), Paysail (Ghana), Chura (Kenya) and Space Pointe (Nigeria).

Mauritius-based accommodation marketplace SleepOut.com beat 11 competitors to win the 2014 Startup Battle of the Cities (SBOC) award at IdeaLab! – The Founders Conference in Vallendar, Germany. Formed in 2012 in Kenya, SleepOut now has listings from 505 cities in 62 countries.

The first AMPION Venture Bus trip took place this week, departing Lagos, Nigeria, for Abidjan, Ivory Coast, visiting a number of hubs and incubators along the way. The bus full of entrepreneurs and developers visited the iDEA accelerator in Lagos, the American Cultural Center and Etrilabs in Cotonou, Benin, Woelab in Lomé, Togo, iSpace and Hub Accra in Accra, Ghana, and the Cape Coast University and Akendewa in Abidjan.

Image credit: Michael Jung/Shutterstock

from The Next Web http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheNextWeb/~3/ZQJ0cp1Q0NA/

via IFTTT

Hungary shelves internet tax plans following protests

The Hungarian government is shelving its plan to tax internet data transfer by the gigabyte, following protest rallies attended by thousands of concerned citizens in Budapest since last week, reports Reuters.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose ruling Fidesz party proposed the tax be levied to shore up Hungary’s budget in 2015, issued a statement on public radio saying, “This tax in its current form cannot be introduced because the government wanted to extend a telecommunications tax, but the people see an internet tax.

If the people not only dislike something but also consider it unreasonable then it should not be done… The tax code should be modified. This must be withdrawn, and we do not have to deal with this now.”

Orban also said that the Hungarian government will instead look into other ways of taxing money made in the country on the Web next year.

Thumbnail image credit: zdanee / YouTube

➤ Hungary will shelve plans for internet tax for now, PM says [Reuters]

from The Next Web http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheNextWeb/~3/Go0uibEeLNI/

via IFTTT

Mobile Workers Toiling Longer, More Productively

A new survey of U.S. professionals by Evolve IP points to the pluses and pitfalls of technology that tethers employees to the office.

Mobility, working remotely, and the emergence of the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) movement in the workplace have been a blessing and a curse for workers. Many employees feel they are able to be more productive and maintain a better work-life balance thanks to technology, but a new survey from Evolve IP indicates they're also working longer hours than ever before.

The cloud services firm surveyed 566 managers, directors, and executives at U.S. companies in September, with 95 percent of respondents saying that mobile devices "have made them more productive than they were five years ago."

About 60 percent of those polled said their mobile devices give them better access to critical business information and on average, respondents reported working remotely for about 10.5 hours per week, Evolve IP said.

But the flip side of programs that encourage staying connected to work at all times via mobile devices is that those surveyed are working longer than previously. Some 67 percent of respondents said they now work while commuting to work, adding "almost half an hour to their workday," according to Evolve IP.

Interestingly, those polled didn't appear to view being more tethered to work through technology as a negative. Some 80 percent of respondents felt that "the ability to work anytime/anywhere is a positive," Evolve IP said.

"Over the past few years we have seen cloud computing technologies, coupled with improved tablets and larger screen devices, help mobility and BYOD programs turn a corner," Guy Fardone, COO and general manager of Evolve IP, said in a statement. "With this survey showing that managers and executives spend about 10.5 hours per week working remotely, the results clearly demonstrate that not only are employees happily embracing the technologies, the companies deploying them are seeing real gains in productivity."

Here are some more key findings from the survey, per Evolve IP:

Novelty T-Shirt Maker Print Syndicate Raises $4.25M Series A

Print Syndicate, an e-commerce store that sells printed T-shirts and other fashion and home decor goods, has raised $4.25 million in Series A funding led by Data Point Capital.

Other investors include Groupon founders Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell’s Lightbank Capital, and Tech Fund, which was launched by Zappos founder Tony Hsieh, as well as CNF Investments and TechColumbus. The company, which runs retail sites LookHuman.com, ActivateApparel.com, and Mericamade.com, will use the capital to increase its production capacity and make additional senior management hires.

Based in Columbus, Ohio, Print Syndicate claims it will grow 300 percent year-over-year in 2014. While it competes with other online retailers like CafePress and Zazzle, Print Syndicate wants to stand out with what it calls its “Just In Time model.” In other words, its employees keep an eye on social media to spot memes, catchphrases, and other things that can be turned into T-shirt designs and home goods, hopefully before they go viral.

In a statement, Scott Savitz, the founder of Data Point Capital, said “Our firm invests in game changers who leverage and scale on the Internet. Print Syndicate built a pioneering e-commerce business over the last two years that we believe will transform how products are created, marketed and sold in our social media culture. It’s a perfect example of how businesses can offer a better, more relevant buying experience through innovation.”

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/R1s3gftvCt8/

via IFTTT

Meet Samantha, Ethan App’s Sister

First there was Ethan, an app some kid in New York made up that let anyone message him. Then came Ethanifier, an app that let anyone make an app that was just like Ethan. Now there’s Samantha, an app for Ethan’s sister. All you can do with any of these is just message this one person.

Samantha is a girl, living in New York City. She’s old enough to drink and experienced enough to give love advice. But other than that she prefers to keep it anonymous, like Gossip Girl. Our first convo went like this:

Burrito in bed with a dog. Seemed human enough.

Samantha may be a real person, but the app version isn’t necessarily. Sam says she’s Ethan’s sister on the App Store. However, when I pressed her about it in a text within the app she admitted that, “as far as my relationship with Ethan – we know each other in real life, just as a brother and sister.” And according to Ethan Gliechtenstein, originator of the Ethan app, Samantha forked Ethan and hence inherits most of her features from the original Ethan app. But think about this for a minute. Wouldn’t that actually make Samantha Ethan’s daughter?

Weird family secrets aside, Samantha is just like the simple Ethan messaging app and then adds posts about herself. For example, Samantha will let you know when it’s her birthday or when she’s sleeping. But don’t be offended if you don’t hear back right away. Samantha told me she was handling about 100 texts at any given moment.

For those hoping to create a virtual girlfriend scenario, Samantha is not meant to be a “Her” situation. Rule #1 of Samantha is “don’t fall in love with Samantha.”

Other rules for Samantha:

0. Samantha is a girl. Be nice.

1. Don’t fall in love with Samantha

2. Don’t just say hi

3. Keep your mind out of the gutter, we’re all friends here (no dick pics please)

4. Sam’s too shy for selfies

5. Don’t ask Samantha to do your work

6. Don’t ask emergency questions

7. Don’t ask Samantha if she’s real

8. Don’t ask Samantha if she’s hooked up with Ethan (they’re siblings)

Gliechtenstein believes Samantha shows us all just how easy it is to get on this with our own, personal app. “Both Ethan app and Samantha app are pilot projects for the upcoming Ethan platform, which will be a website where people can come and build these Ethan/Samantha type apps in minutes,” says Gliechtenstein.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/2PgCkkAunek/

via IFTTT

GoPro Shares Spike As It Handily Beats Street Estimates

GoPro’s earnings for the third quarter were pretty as a picture for the company’s investors, with earnings coming in above analysts’ expectations

For the quarter, GoPro racked up sales of $280 million, up 45.7 percent from the $192.1 million reported in the third quarter of 2013. Adjusting for generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), profits were $14.6 million, or 10 cents per share, compared to a $1.1 million, or 1 cent per-share, loss in the third quarter of 2013.

Analysts had predicted revenue of $265.6 million and earnings of 8 cents per share.

On a non-GAAP basis, GoPro earned $0.12 per share, putting its normally accounted for profit, and its adjusted profit in reasonable harmony. Companies like Twitter that have higher share-based compensation costs have larger negative deltas between their GAAP and non-GAAP profit margins.

The company, which has seen its stock price tumble from the peaks it reached in the first months after its public offering, was buoyed by a strong showing for its new line of cameras, which the company called the most successful launch in its history.

Shares were up over $5 or more than 7 percent in after-hours trading on the Nasdaq, as investors responded favorably to all the good news.

Here’s the chart:

“The global scale and execution of our HERO4 launch made this the most successful roll out in GoPro’s history,” said GoPro founder and chief executive, Nicholas Woodman., who also touted advancements in the company’s desktop and mobile content management applications aimed at making it easier for GoPro owners to create and share content.

With the earnings, GoPro is sitting fairly pretty as it heads into the holiday season. As part of the bigger muscles the strong public offering afforded the company, Best Buy customers around the country can expect to see more of an in-store presence from the camera maker.

GoPro went public for $24 per share. It closed regular trading at $68.25, and is up past $72 in after-hours trading. Nascent media business or not, investors are happy with what they see. The company is worth around $9 billion.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/R7EataAeuHU/

via IFTTT

Autodesk Invests $100 Million Toward The First 3D Printing Fund

Autodesk is opening up a first of it’s kind $100 million 3D printing fund and new partners 3D Hubs, Authentise, and MatterFab. The idea for the new Spark Investment Fund is to give money to startups and designers in the 3D printing space.

The company is now encouraging those interested in developing hardware, software, materials, marketplaces and maker spaces to apply to participate in the Spark Investment Fund’s investment portfolio.

Autodesk announced its Ember open source 3D printer and the Spark platform back in May. The platform is not on the market just yet, but it can work with many different types of 3D printers and materials to create specially designed objects. The design software firm is hoping those in the 3D printing community can help collaborate and improve the platform as well as its associated Ember 3D printer and materials.

Autodesk is looking for some of the best up-and-coming 3D printing companies to invest in. Those who receive investment from the Spark fund will become part of the Autodesk’s Spark partner program and will have access to marketing and other developer services available to Spark partners.

“Numerous industries recognize the value of tapping into entrepreneurs or startups with better ideas and approaches, and 3D printing is no exception,” says Autodesk’s VP of consumer products and 3D printing, Samir Hanna.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/bTdyq1Mt4LE/

via IFTTT

University Beyond Raises $300K Seed To Hook Up Brands And College Kids

Plenty of companies are looking to give brands and recruiters a way to connect with the ultra-valuable, soon-to-be-working, super influential college demographic, and University Beyond has just raised $300,000 in seed funding to do just that.

The round was led by Innovation Garden, with participation from two unnamed angel investors.

The idea behind University Beyond is to first connect brands with students who are interested in being in brand ambassador programs, and then facilitate that relationship through an online dashboard.

The first step is accomplished with a simple nationwide job board, but the back-end dashboard allows brands to assign and monitor student tasks, live chat through an inbox or videoconference, and handle payments through the system.

On the other side, obviously, students also have access to jobs as brand ambassadors and an easy online portal to see assignments and get paid. In fact, students can even download an auto-generated resume and certificate of completion for their college work as a brand ambassador.

“University Beyond is changing the landscape of ambassador programs through an educational focus,” said cofounder Doug Messer. “We are working to provide students not only internship opportunities for completing their ambassador program, but actual credit toward graduation.”

The project comes by way of cofounders Doug Messer and Brendan Weinstein, who first sharpened their entrepreneurial chops with a watch company called DBFLY. The watches sold well, and it led the guys to start an entertainment and events brand around DBFLY. As the company grew, Messer and Weinstein looked to infiltrate college campuses, but struggled finding good brand ambassadors and communicating with them.

And so, University Beyond was born.

The platform is free to use for students and brands until 2014, at which point brands will owe a flat monthly fee. The team has not disclosed how much that will be, but it is a different business model from other similar services who charge per posting, per university, etc.

The service is launching at a time when the space is hot, as competitive services like CampusLive are also starting to make a push.

To learn more about University Beyond, check out the website here.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/WtPYXP8vM1U/

via IFTTT

Instagram Video Ads Go Live Because Everything Good Must Come To An End

Instagram has at long last debuted video advertisements after rigorous testing and hands-on work with brands. And because they are advertisements, none of that rigorous work really matters because we simply hate advertisements.

With video ads, the potential for high levels of suckage is high, as brands have a total of 15 seconds to capture you, as opposed to the half-second glance they get with a photo. The same is true for regular users, which is why I never thought video was a good idea for Instagram.

But, as it often goes with incumbents, Facebook-owned Instagram seemed to become more reactive, launching video after Twitter-owned Vine made waves in the space.

Today, Instagram continues to work on the video side of its product, with the launch of a standalone app called Hyperlapse, that speeds up and stabilizes your mobile video.

Whether or not you agree with me about video on Instagram, it’s hard to disagree with me when I say that social networks are often marred by advertisements.

It’s not necessarily the ads themselves that are the problem. In fact, Facebook worked them in so well that for a long time I never noticed the change. Obviously, advertisements pay for the services we enjoy (for now) and are tolerable enough for users of platforms like Twitter and Facebook and Instagram (and now Snapchat) to bear.

But ads are a simple reminder that the social connections and interactions you’re having are actually the main source of income for a global corporation. For some reason, it just feels a bit less special.

And Instagram was special to me. And so I mourn the launch of Instagram video advertisements, because it feels like the end of an era. But… all good things come to an end.

If you want to check out Instagram’s first video ads, I’ve included them below or you can read AdWeek’s full piece on the launch.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/ayvVDFLvxVw/

via IFTTT

Alphaworks, The Equity Crowdfunding Platform From Betaworks, Brings On Erin Glenn As CEO

Today the folks at Alphaworks, the equity crowd-funding platform branched out of betaworks, are announcing leadership changes, with Erin Glenn taking the lead as CEO.

Nick Chirls, cofounder and former CEO of Alphaworks, is moving on to pursue another new project.

Glenn comes from four years in a CFO position at KIXEYE, where she helped scale the company into nine digit revenues. Before that, she was working in investment banking with UBS and Morgan Stanley, making her an optimal candidate to take the reins at Alphaworks.

Alphaworks launched back in February of this year with the goal to help community-based startups offer equity and raise funds from their own users and community, people who are already, in some way, truly invested.

Thus far, Alphaworks has helped a number of startups tack on an extra 100k to a round, or close up a smaller seed, including Quibb and betaworks’ own Giphy.

In addition to the appointment of Erin Glenn, Alphaworks is also announcing that Vayner RSE, Crunchfund, Box.net and Whitestar are joining SV Angel and Lerer Hippeau Ventures as founding sponsors on the Alphaworks platform. These are the firms that are bringing deals to the platform.

You can learn more about Alphaworks here.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/1Hk4vqPzO_U/

via IFTTT

LG’s Crazy New Smartphone Screen Has Almost No Bezel

Tired of looking at all that extra space around your smartphone screen?

Let’s ignore for a second that that space serves a rather important function (giving you somewhere to put your thumb/fingers that isn’t on the screen) and just marvel at this thing.

Built by LG, that 5.3″, 1080p display up top has a bezel that comes in at just 0.7 millimeters.

That’s just crazy. It looks like something out of one of those fan-made “next iPhone” mockups that always tend to pop up before each new iPhone’s release, with their endless wish lists of mostly impossible features.

Best part? It sounds like LG actually intends to mass-produce these rather than just using it as a demo to show off their tech prowess. Alas, all of us stateside might have to wait a while; LG specifically notes that these screens will head to smartphones in China first.

Now, to figure out how anyone is actually supposed to hold that thing…

Of course, you can really only cut down the top and bottom bezel so much without ditching things like the front-facing camera, a home button, and that pesky earpiece speaker that lets you, you know, use the phone as a phone. The photo below better displays what a handset with this screen would look like with those things in the mix.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/S1UyU553Hac/

via IFTTT

Instagram video ads are rolling out today, watch 4 of them here

Instagram has been serving up ads for a while already in some markets, but now it’s officially rolling out video ads too as expected.

As AdWeek reports, the Facebook-owned platform has inked deals to display 15-second skits from a number of big brands, including Disney and Banana Republic. The ads will be appearing from today, and will be rolling out to everyone in the next few weeks.

Here’s a peek at what four of the ads look like.

Banana Republic

Disney

CW

Call of Duty

from The Next Web http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheNextWeb/~3/0oZ8RttzQXY/

via IFTTT

uBeam Nabs $10 Million In Funding From Upfront Ventures To Make Wireless Charging A Reality

Wireless power seems like one of those things everyone always dreams about. I mean, how great would it be to have your phone just charge while it’s sitting in your pocket, with no need to plug it in? That’s the premise uBeam is setting out to deliver on, and to do so, it’s raised $10 million in Series A funding led Upfront Ventures.

The investment brings total capital raised to about $12 million, with other investors that include Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, Crunchfund*, Ludlow Ventures, Marissa Mayer, Zappos co-founder Tony Hsieh, Troy Carter, Shawn Fanning, and Mark Cuban. With the new funding, Upfront managing partner Mark Suster will join the uBeam board.

uBeam is just one among a large number of companies we’ve seen over the years that have sought to solve the problem of charging your devices without having to plug them in. So far most seem to have been focused on magnetic resonance charging, which still requires devices to be close to the charger.

By contrast uBeam wants to enable users to charge their phones without plugging in, and they’re looking to do that through the use of ultrasonic sound waves. Those waves can’t be heard by human ears, but can be converted to energy through the technology that uBeam has developed.

To start, the company is looking to offer up a consumer-facing product that would resemble any protective phone case but have the side benefit of being able to charge a device while in range of a uBeam transmitter. Unlike Mophie battery packs, uBeam wants to make its product as light and unobtrusive as possible — there will be no big battery sitting on the back of its case.

It’s filed a number of patents related to its technology, and founder and CEO Meredith Perry — seen above with a VERY early prototype — says uBeam has a working prototype of the product and hopes to have product in customers’ hands within the next two years. That might seem like a long time, especially for technology that the company has already been working on for a while.

The funding should help accelerate things, as the company has hired 11 new employees recently and is getting ready to actually move into production. The startup graveyard is littered with wireless charging companies, however as the technology always sounds great but takes a good deal to get going.

With so much capital raised, hopefully uBeam won’t the same fate as those that came before it, because yeah, I’d like to just charge my phone while in my pocket, too.

==

* Of course CrunchFund invested. But I wrote about this because I really just want wireless charging in my life.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/gD4Y3y4s5-M/

via IFTTT

Ezra’s Craft Liquor Marketplace Helps You Understand All The Subtle Notes Of Your Drink

At some point in most everyone’s life, alcohol consumption goes from a sport wherein players try to get pounded in the most efficient way possible to an activity all in itself, where people actually enjoy the taste, the flavors, and the experience of drinking a fine liqueur.

But going from ordering a “Jack and Coke” or tequila shots to buying top-shelf spirits can be a difficult leap to make.

That’s where Ezra’s comes in. It’s a curated marketplace for craft distilleries to sell their vodka, gin, tequila, rum, or whiskey, with complete and educational information about what to expect out of every bottle. Users can browse based on what’s popular, search for particular liquors or brands, shop by what’s new, or look at Ezra’s curated picks.

But Ezra’s goes beyond a simple marketplace, offering distillers the chance to post videos, recipes, and tips to connect directly with their customers. Usually, craft distillers work directly with wholesale buyers and liquor stores, never really connecting with the folks who are buying their product. Plus, Ezra’s truly opens up distribution for most craft distillers who, based on regulations in most states, are only allowed to sell online in states where they are sold by retailers.

With Ezra’s every distiller can sell to up to 40 different states.

With today’s launch, Ezra’s is opening up shop with a portfolio of over 125 different liquors, along with ingredients needed to make the original recipes found on the site.

The best part of Ezra’s is that it takes education around the products seriously. You could visit Ezra’s without a cent to your name and walk away more confident for your next trip to the bar.

Additionally, Ezra’s is launching a brick-and-mortar flagship store today in Chicago.

The whole thing is funded and conceived by twins Adam and Parker Newman and their childhood friend Scott Reich. The Newmans come from a private equity background, and have put up their own money to get Ezra’s up and running.

If you want to check out Ezra’s for yourself, click here.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/bkfg_TwZWJ4/

via IFTTT

58% off 1 year of SpiderOak Pro: 200 GB of cloud storage for the security-obsessed

When it comes to storing data, it’s important to choose a solution that’s easy to use, secure and private.

You need to be able to back up your files, access them when you want to, share them with friends, family and colleagues, and rest assured that no one will be able to snoop around to steal or copy them.

SpiderOak’s premium backup service checks all those boxes, and more. Even Edward Snowden endorsed SpiderOak, encouraging people to switch over from Dropbox.

Built with privacy in mind, SpiderOak lets you securely back up all your files — including your photo library, business documents and personal projects — from any Mac, Windows or Linux desktop. You can then safely access them on any of your computers or iOS/Android devices, thanks to SpiderOak’s Zero-Knowledge Privacy that ensures that the only person who knows the contents of your data is you.

That’s not all — SpiderOak has clever features to help you quickly restore your files, recover deleted files and even access multiple versions of your files. If you’re looking for peace of mind, you’ve come to the right place.

Get one year of SpiderOak’s Pro plan for just $99 with 200GB of storage space, and back up and sync your files across unlimited devices and desktops. Order now from TNW Deals, and leave your data storage worries behind.

Here are some of SpiderOak’s notable features:

• ‘Zero-Knowldge’ Privacy: No one but you sees your data. Ever.


• Access Anywhere: View your data from any device, anywhere.


• Unlimited devices: Have tons of devices? No problem, sync across them all.


• Restore everything: Back everything up, and rest assured that itís always available.


• Trash recovery: Even if you delete a file, SpiderOak keeps a copy.


• Always working: Always runs in the background to ensure your data stays safe 24/7.


• Keep every version: Access any version of a file ñ from creation to final.

➤ Get this deal now

from The Next Web http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheNextWeb/~3/uwBI6BnVMYU/

via IFTTT

About.Me Launches App That Aims To Replace The Business Card

Founder of about.me, Tony Conrad, says it’s time to disrupt the business card. He’s released a new app today called Intro to do just that.

“You don’t always have a business card with you, but you always have your phone,” Conrad explained over the phone. “This takes what we have with About.me and makes it a digital business card for mobile,” Conrad said over the phone.

Intro is pretty simple. It gathers the info you have on your personal about.me page such as your picture and contact info and puts it front and center on the app. You then can share that information with others you meet at a conference or other possible business setting.

You choose what information you give out to others on the app. One person might be privy to the whole shebang – your cell, office and email. Another person maybe just gets your hotmail from nine years ago. Once you have selected what information you’d like to share, Intro sends it to your new contact via email or text message. “It solves the problem business cards have today. You maybe don’t want to give everything out,” Conrad tells me. He says he’s been carrying three different cards around with him to every conference and hands out the right information on each card, according to the person he’s been speaking with.

Some of you may remember about.me tried to reinvent the business card a little while back with a partnership it had with Moo cards. But those were still physical cards. This is a whole new way to share info, via your smartphone.

Intro solves another problem, putting a face to a name. “It seems a little weird to put your picture on a business card,” says Conrad. “But I started doing that and now I’m used to it.” Now the same thing is available on a digital about.me contact via Intro. It can help you remember what the person who gave you their contact actually looks like. That’s definitely a critical change. How many conferences go by with contact info exchanged only to totally forget who a bunch of people were and what they looked like?

This could potentially take on LinkedIn as a business reference rival. LinkedIn currently has a slew of standalone apps for news, sales, and recruiting. One, aptly called Connected, is clearly intended for contact exchange. “We’re not a competitor to LinkedIn,” Conrad tells me. He would like to believe there is not a true competitor to his new app, but admits the resume portion in Intro comes close to what LinkedIn offers.

All of the information you send or receive is also stored within the app and organized into ‘My Shares’ and ‘Shared With Me’ for easy reference. “We created Intro so that the first time you meet someone – the most critical part of building a new relationship you can leave an impression that actually communicates your identity and is remembered long after that first exchange,” Conrad explains.

Intro is available for download in the App Store, starting today.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/7lNKUPz-cW8/

via IFTTT

Google Play Books Updated To Make It A Better eReader For Students And Chefs

Most eReader apps tend to be built for reading something from start to finish — which makes sense, given that that’s how about 99% of fiction works are meant to be read.

But what about non-fiction stuff? The research documents, the text books, and the cook books of the world? In books of that sort, the reader often needs to flip back and forth between opposite ends of the book almost endlessly.

With those folks in mind, Google has just updated its Google Play Books eReader application with a focus on efficient reading.

Since the spirit of this update is efficiency, we’ll keep this one light. Here’s whats new:

• “Skim” mode allows you to zoom between pages in an endless stream, rather than forcing you to flip through page by page.


• “Quick Bookmarks” let you set multiple saved spots in the book and quickly jump back and forth betwen them — perfect for when you’re required to refer to some referrence table 200 pages away from what you’re trying to read.


• You can now view all of your notes and highlights on one page, and quickly jump to the correlating passages. The study benefits there are pretty obvious.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/oHVVazRH4C0/

via IFTTT

Elimi Turns Dating Into Truth Or Dare

Hey, are you interested in ladies or men? Do you like to flirt with a capital F? Then Elimi is for you (or perhaps not if you prefer to meet potential partners at the church, club, or local rendering plant). Created by Adam Labedzki and Sebastian Brzuzek, the app allows allows you to enter into a sort of flirtatious version of truth or dare without the dare part.

It’s a cute idea. Users create questions – “Did you ever kiss a visiting Prussian oligarch on a massive yacht?” or “Do you like chocolate?” – and potential mates answer them. The banter goes on until one person is disgusted by the other or a match is made. Think of it as a sort of Turing Test for love that is completely controlled by the instigating party. It connects to your Facebook account and you’re notified when you have new questions via push notifications.

Labedzki says that the entire game gives the person asking the first question far more power. They can ask the first question and control to whom they want to speak. “People can easily express themselves,” he said. “It’s real time, so there’s no fake content prepared for weeks in advance.”

The company raised $135,000 in seed investment from local Polish angels. They’ve hit about about 1,000 users and have hosted 2,000 games so far.

The product is, arguably, a bit goofy and the lads miss a few cultural cues, but as a first effort it’s pretty cool. Sadly, many of the interactions are currently in Polish but if you’re looking to meet someone in Central Europe, it might be the way to go.

The app is available now and chatters are, it seems, standing by.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/cES6_BaM9SE/

via IFTTT

Mixify’s Clubcast Service To Live Stream DJs Goes Global With Indian Launch

Mixify, the live streaming service connecting big-ticket DJs to clubs around the world, is seeing its Clubcast service take off with DJs like Steve Aoki, Laidback Luke, and Q-Tip from Tribe Called Quest joining the platform.

It’s the low-end theory writ large, with the company’s Clubcast service now also breaking beats for dancers from Miami Beach to Mumbai with the launch of the company’s services in India, where Mixify hopes it can tap the more than 225 million electronic dance music fans currently living on the subcontinent.

Dropping the needle on the company’s first shows, Mixify is bringing in the big (at least for EDM) guns — Steve Aoki and Cosmic Gate are performing exclusively for the company’s inaugural showcase in the country.

The New York-based company is a way for fans to hear exclusive sets that are streamed from an artist’s location anywhere in the world through a two-way high-definition video and audio feed. Think of it (if you must) like a private room for beats.

When it launched earlier this year, Mixify was running two-to-four streamed club shows a month. Now, that number is on track to hit multiple shows in 40 venues across Canada, Grenada, Argentina, the Cayman Islands, Australia and the U.S.

Backed by ace investors like the Australian based CMB Capital, Tim McGee and Richard Mergler of Ministry of Sound Australia and Tommy Trash, DJ and Grammy Award nominated producer, Mixify asserts that the company’s business is expanding at the right time. Attendees to electronic music festivals hit a record 3.4 million ticket buyers in 2013, up from 1.9 million in 2009. Using Mixify allows the company to expand beyond that base and reach fans who wouldn’t have access to big festivals or concerts in their own cities.

“With the growing demand worldwide, it’s becoming more of a challenge to catch your favorite DJ live, especially if you live in an area that doesn’t draw a lot of touring DJs. We’re out to get fans from all over the world better access to their favorite artists, while maintaining the personalized experience between those artists and their fans,” said David Moricca, founder and CEO of Mixify, in a statement.

Going forward, expect to see the company spending more time in emerging markets. “We’re especially interested in markets that artists tour less frequently or have higher barriers to entry, like India and East Asia. The most recent total market worth for Electronic dance music is $6 billion, per a new report issued at the International Music Summit in Ibiza, Spain Wednesday (May 21),” Moricca wrote in an email.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/kJBA129sQOs/

via IFTTT

GoCardless Launches Enterprise Direct Debits, Secures The Guardian

GoCardless Debit Payments

GoCardless is a Y-Combinator alum which created a simple way for online businesses to set up and accept direct debit payments. Why is this important, I hear you ask? Well, out there in the rest of the world, recurring payments are almost always driven by direct debit transactions from bank accounts, a market which is not well developed in the US, but happens to be highly developed elsewhere, especially in Europe. If you wanted a comparison, closest equivalent in the US might be Dwolla.

Today GoCardless has launched a brand new enterprise product, GoCardless Pro. This is specifically designed for larger businesses, to allow them to take recurring payments. The Guardian has signed up as an early user of the service, as has fellow fin tech startup Funding Circle.

It’s a significant move for the company, which took a $7 million Series B round led by new investor Balderton, with existing investors Accel Partners and Passion Capital also participating. So far the company has raised just under $12 million.

We caught up with CEO Hiroki Takeuchi for TechCrunch TV, who says the clunky software of old requires swaths of staff to manage these direct collections. GoCardless Pro allows businesses to automate these operations using the GoCardless API.

He says this move will put them directly into competition with traditional bureaus like Bottomline Technologies, a big global company which has acquired 50% of the UK Direct Debit market by buying up other legacy competitors. In the US, GoCardless might go against PayPal as well.

Kind’ve like a ‘Stripe for direct debit’, using a few lines of code via its API, GoCardless can let any business take recurring payments for things such as subscriptions from consumer or regular services from other businesses. The product is a something of a ‘no-brainer’ for SMEs because it costs 60% less than credit card based solutions.

Although it sounds simple enough this is disrupting the financial sector bureau, because in practice, processing direct debits can be horribly complicated.

Launched two years ago, GoCardless so far collected half a billion pounds per year from over 5000 SMEs with 600% year-on-year growth. In other words it’s take payments from over 1% of the UK’s 64 million population. Not too shabby.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/B8O9R1qYd8s/

via IFTTT

Eco-Conscious Water Filter Company Soma Goes Back To The Well For $2.2 Million

Since the close of its $3.7 million seed round last July, business has been flowing smoothly for the Warby Parker of water filtration, Soma.

The company will be selling its sleek, environmentally friendly water carafes and filters in Williams Sonoma, and has raised another $2.2 million in financing as it rolls out across the U.S.

The round was led by Crosscut Ventures and included all of the company’s previous investors Baseline Ventures and Forerunner Ventures along with Lerer Ventures, Collaborative Fund, Cowboy Ventures, Vast Ventures, Mindful Investors, The 4-Hour Workweek’s Tim Ferriss, Coca-Cola’s Rohan Oza, and Sukhinder Singh Cassidy of JOYUS.

Interestingly, Soma also decided to give back to the crowdfunding community that launched it on Kickstarter it by turning to the crowd-financing platform CircleUp, for a $400,000 piece of the latest financing.

“We wanted to do something around crowdfunding, ended up doing $400,000, and had to turn it off,” says Soma chief executive Mike Del Ponte. “I didn’t know how successful CircleUp was going to be and, to be honest, we could have raised half the round from CircleUp.”

Equity crowdfunding platforms for accredited investors are springing up all over the world. From OurCrowd in Israel, to AngelList in Silicon Valley, and new sites like the New York-based Ingress Capital.

Del Ponte advocates that using the new equity crowdfunding platforms can be a way to push investors who may be on the fence about making a commitment to take the initial plunge. “One of the conversations I’ve been having with a lot of founders is that many investors say ‘Go find a lead and then come back and talk to me.’ But you get so much traction on CircleUp that it pushes them to make a commitment.”

That logic didn’t apply to Soma, which was already floating on clear waters with a clutch of marquee early stage investment names from both New York and the Bay Area, and already had significant traction and press in the wake of its Kickstarter campaign and nice-sized seed round.

Del Ponte says the money will go towards new product development. “We feel like we’ve proven ourselves. We’re the only water filter built entirely with plant-based filters, which is a safer, more natural way to filter water.”

The company has changed its prices since its initial launch. The San Francisco-based company, which targets the eco-design set with glass carafes that can look as good on the table as in the fridge, initially charged $87 for a carafe and starter filter and $14.99 for replacement filters. Now, it charges $59 for its standard white carafe with one filer and each additional filter costs $12.99 customers can pre-pay for a slight discount.

One aspect of the company’s business that hasn’t changed is that Soma still donates money to charity: water, which funds clean water projects, with each filter purchase. Buying a special canary yellow filtered carafe will give the charity an additional $14.50.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/NjaMOCl1ZWA/

via IFTTT

The Weird But Cool HP Sprout; IBM, Twitter Partner; No Nudity on Twitch

From IBM's partnership with Twitter to Twitch's policy on nudity, here's what you missed on Wednesday.

Topping tech headlines on Wednesday was the launch of the bizarre but intriguing HP Sprout.

The Sprout combines an all-in-one desktop PC with Intel's RealSense technology, plus a combination scanner and projector, and a touch-sensitive projection surface that brings all sorts of new possibilities to the PC. Is it the future of desktop computing? We went hands on with the Sprout to find out.

In other news, Twitter and IBM have partnered to provide businesses with data about what people are saying about their companies, and how they can use social chatter to improve their bottom line. Using Twitter data and its famous supercomputer, Watson, IBM can help customers answer questions like "What do people like best about my products?" or "Why are we growing quickly in Brazil?"

Meanwhile, video game streaming service Twitch updated its rules of conduct to remind users not to broadcast in the nude. Setting up shop in your birthday suit, or otherwise sexually suggestive clothing, will almost certainly ensure your suspension from the site. Even fully exposed torsos—man or woman—are not allowed. Disobey any of the guidelines, and you'll find yourself temporarily kicked off Twitch.

This week also saw the launch of Google Fit; find out what it's all about in the video, and be sure to check out a few other stories making headlines in the links below.

Crowdsourced Design Marketplace Minted Raises $38M To Go After The Textile Market

E-commerce design startup Minted has big ambitions for its crowdsourced marketplace of designs, with plans to launch in a whole new product category as well as giving its artists a platform for creating new storefronts. To realize that goal, the company has raised an additional $38 million in Series D funding led by Norwest Venture Partners.

The new capital comes about one year after the company raised its last round, which came in the form of a $41 million investment led by Technology Crossover Ventures. That firm also participated in the latest raise, which will bring Norwest managing director Jeff Crowe onto Minted’s board of directors.

Altogether, Minted has raised nearly $90 million in funding. However, the company operated for nearly seven years before raising its final $79 million over the last 12 months. Founder and CEO Mariam Naficy says that is due to the growth the company has seen over recent years, as well as its plans to invest and expand its manufacturing capabilities.

Over the years, Minted has established itself as a place where customers could find interesting designs from a wide range of artists. The company got its start as an e-commerce site for selling holiday cards and other stationery products to users. A few years ago, it expanded to also include limited-edition art prints customers could hang on their walls. And now Minted is entering another product category and will begin selling fabric and home decor products.

Minted is able to offer up so many designs because it takes a somewhat unique approach to sourcing its designs. Rather than create the designs itself or commission others to do so, Minted crowdsources art from its creative community through a series of design competitions.

After artists and creative types submit their entries, the company narrows down the field through voting by its community and its own analytics, and it picks the best designs to print and make available to customers. Artists get an upfront reward when they win, as well as a commission for each item sold through its platform. Meanwhile, Minted handles all the sales, manufacturing, and fulfillment of orders that come in from customers.

According to Naficy, Minted sees a small bit of overlap between designers who submit their pieces for use in its stationary and those who have participated in competitions for its wall art. Sometimes a stationery designer will try out for its art marketplace, while more traditional artists may occasionally decide to try their hand at greeting cards and other designs.

In the same way, Minted hopes to recruit talent for its new line of textile offerings and offer them a new creative outlet and medium to work with. Already the company has curated fabric and home decor prints out of more than 1,400 submissions from artists around the world.

Along with the new vertical, Minted is also trying its hand at a new way for artists to sell their goods on its platform. Previously, Minted only sold designs that had been submitted and won its design competitions. But now, the company will allow those artists to make other art or designs they’ve created for sale as well.

Minted is providing winning artists with the ability to set up their own storefronts, which will enable thousands of artists a new opportunity to make their goods available. It’s able to do so because all goods are printed on order, so it runs a lean operation without inventory or having to worry about bulk printing.

And while today the company doesn’t do any of its own printing, it could look to change that. Naficy told me Minted is exploring the possibility of operating some of its own facilities, which would give it more quality control on certain products, as well as the ability to experiment in a way that some suppliers either won’t… or can’t.

The funding is also being positioned to help bring some senior management on board over the coming months. In addition to boosting its overall engineering headcount, Minted is looking to hire for roles that include a CFO, head of operations and head of analytics. Once those roles are filled, Minted should be well on its way to scaling up and potentially adding even more verticals.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/5hFJ_xPOsxg/

via IFTTT

Nintendo Building Bedside Fatigue- And Sleep-Tracking Device

Nintendo might be on the verge of reinventing itself once again: The Japanese company is currently best known as a gaming giant, but in its storied history (which dates back to 1889), it has run taxis, sold instant rice and more. Now, Nintendo is aiming to build out its health division, adding more details to a plan announced back in January for a so-called “Quality of Life” platform with the revelation that it’s building a sleep and fatigue tracking system to encourage healthy rest habits for users.

The device was announced by Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata on Thursday, and will be created in partnership with U.S. company ResMed, a specialist manufacturer of sleep disorder treatment products. The product will be unrelated to gaming specifically, and will be roughly the size of a hand and designed for use on a bedside table, where it will use microwave sensors to monitor sleep data throughout the night, and then interpret said data to provide tips on how to get a better night’s rest.

Nintendo’s efforts here aren’t about gaming in this instance: this is the first device of a newly developed healthcare division within the company. Iwata didn’t discuss sales expectations or further plans for the division, saying only that Nintendo will “only start something new if we think we will be able to create a big market,” according to Reuters.

The product may be made available on a subscription basis, rather than as a singular sale, which means that Nintendo is planning to make its health division a source of recurring revenue via the Quality of Life platform. And while it’s separate from the gaming business, that doesn’t mean it’s not bringing its unique experience to the healthcare side: Iwata said their gaming pedigree means Nintendo can “create something fun” out of sleep and fatigue analysis.

Nintendo will be entering the health tracking and analysis market at a time when users are provided with lots of options on that front, including from Apple and Google. But Nintendo has a lot of experience in this market, having created pedometer devices for its mobile game consoles for years now, before even the popularity of wearable fitness trackers like the Jawbone UP. It also created the Wii Fit to encourage healthy video game play, and continues to produce health-related gaming devices.

It’s early days to say whether or not this shift by Nintendo is a wise move – and the company’s most recent earnings results suggest things in the gaming department may not be entirely grim, but diversification will help it protect its long-term interests. Now, how about bringing a REAL Pokémon game to iOS and Android?

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/ueVo5UCpcSA/

via IFTTT

Sketchfab Becomes A 3D Printing Repository By Letting You Download 3D Objects

Sketchfab is launching a much needed feature — a download button. As a reminder, Sketchfab is a sort of YouTube for 3D models, where everyone can upload and browse 3D models directly from your browser.

But until now, there wasn’t a lot you could do except showcase your 3D models and embed them. Now, you can download the original 3D file if the license allows it. After that, you can 3D print these objects, or re-use them in a video game.

In other words, Sketchfab is now a repository for 3D objects as well, just like Thingiverse. You can find a dedicated Formlabs gallery for example. But it could be useful to build a quick video game prototype as well.

Sketchfab supports many different 3D formats. Chances are that you will find the right format for the software you use. As a creator, you can export 3D files directly from Photoshop, Modo and Blender.

The British Museum is one of the first and most interesting partners to bring downloadable 3D models to Sketchfab. Microsoft and HTC are also releasing downloadable models.

Earlier this year, Sketchfab released the second version of its platform. The team focused on making the experience more social. You can follow, comment and browse categories.

Back in April, the company announced 100,000 models available on the platform. It now hosts more than 200,000 models. It will be interesting to see whether the 3D printing community will move to Sketchfab and adopt it.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/cvQ6MucHYT0/

via IFTTT

Netflix will be offered as part of a subscription bundle with UK telecoms and TV giant BT

In a move partly designed to cure subscription fatigue, UK telecoms giant BT has revealed it will offer Netflix bundled in alongside its other products.

This move was rumored already, but the official reveal was quietly slipped in alongside its Q2 results earlier today. The company says:

“We added 38,000 TV customers in the quarter. We continue to focus on strengthening our TV proposition and are excited to announce we have entered into a partnership with Netflix that will allow our customers to sign up for Netflix alongside our other products and services, with the added convenience of paying on one bill directly through BT.”

In effect, this means that not only will you be able to have your telephone, broadband and TV bundled conveniently into a single bill, but your Netflix subscription too will be added. And, of course, you’ll be able to watch directly through BT’s set-top box.

Netflix is also rumored to be in talks with BT rival TalkTalk, though there is no official word on that yet.

from The Next Web http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheNextWeb/~3/c5zKZV9W8Ow/

via IFTTT

Spotify brings its new dark look to iPad

Spotify unveiled a new darker look earlier this year, alongside a handful of refreshes, such as a revamped ‘Your Music’ feature which gives you a “frictionless way” to save, organize and browse music. Today, this update has arrived for iPad users too.

This basically brings Spotify’s iPad app into line with its other platforms for a more consistent look, and you’ll note there is refreshed typography and rounded iconography too.

You can read all about the redesign from our original post back in April.

➤ Spotify [iOS]

from The Next Web http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheNextWeb/~3/Yd_deM_U2MA/

via IFTTT

Tim Cook: “I’m Proud To Be Gay,” And Helping Others Is Worth Trading Personal Privacy

Apple CEO Tim Cook took to Businessweek with an essay he penned himself acknowledging that he is gay, saying that despite valuing personal privacy, he has decided to openly state his sexual preference in order to hopefully help others who might be struggling with their own identity, or with discrimination based on their sexual orientation.

I don’t consider myself an activist, but I realize how much I’ve benefited from the sacrifice of others. So if hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy.

Cook’s sexuality is no one’s business but his own, and whether or not he is gay isn’t newsworthy in and of itself. But his decision to take a very public stance and articulate his thoughts on the matter his own on the record definitely is, as it reflects his continued commitment to social justice, and a strength of character that is truly inspiring.

Read the full post over at Businessweek, and hopefully start your morning inspired.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/pAxP8T9D1XM/

via IFTTT

Homejoy Officially Moves Beyond Cleaning With Launch Of Handyman Services In The Bay Area

In its first big move beyond home cleaning, Homejoy is adding carpet cleaning and general handyman services to its offerings in the Bay Area.

Co-founder and CEO Adora Cheung (pictured above with her brother and co-founder Aaron) has been hinting at this for the past year, including last week at Disrupt Europe. Over the summer, Homejoy invited customers to beta test a number of different home services — not just the ones that it’s officially launching today, but also landscaping, electrical work, and pest control.

COO Xiao Wei Chen told me that Homejoy will continue testing and “working out some kinks” with those other services. On the other hand, he said that carpet cleaning and handyman services are “ready for primetime.” (Those handyman services include air conditioner installation and repair, moving and storage, furniture assembly, interior painting, and TV mounting.)

So people who use Homejoy’s website or mobile app to schedule home cleanings can now use the same interface to set up other services too. This initial launch covers San Francisco and San Jose, with carpet cleaning costing $50 an hour, while handyman services cost $60 an hour. And yes, Chen said there are plans to launch in more markets soon.

When I asked how Homejoy’s experience in cleaning has influenced its approach to new services, Chen said the big challenge has always been “improving the customer experience.” That, he added, is why the company has been “so diligent in rolling out these services one-by-one.”

More specifically, Chen noted that while Homejoy had to recruit a new group of handymen (handypeople?), it was able to tap into its existing pool of home cleaners to do carpets, too.

I also pointed out that while Homejoy recently changed its pricing to encourage regular cleanings, the recurring model makes less sense with the new services. Chen replied that the goal is to be seen as “the one-stop shop for all home services.”

“If we mount your TV, it’s not that we’ll come mount it again six months later,” he added. “But if we mount your TV, we want to stay top of mind if you want to mount some shelving or mount some pictures.”

Homejoy’s expansion could also create more competition with Handy, which offers both home cleanings and handyman services.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/ZcTh7iXtOy0/

via IFTTT