Facebook Will Soon Open-Source More Of The Core Technology Behind Its Paper App

At its F8 developer conference Facebook today announced that it will soon open-source more of the technology behind its Paper mobile app for iOS. In a few weeks, the company will upload the code for DisplayNode to GitHub. This is the asynchronous user interface technology the company developed for Paper, which allows it to render large amounts of objects on the screen without slowing down the… Read More

Google Takes On Microsoft For Productivity Dominance Of Apple’s Mobile Platform

Earlier today Google released Docs and Sheets, two productivity applications for iOS. The unified apps work across iPhone and iPad devices. The new apps are just picking up their first ratings and ranks. Docs has picked up 23 ratings thus far, securing a four-star rating. Sheets is also rated four stars, with a total of 11 ratings tallied. Docs is slightly more popular than Docs. Read More

Musix Linux: Sweet Strains Jarred by Sour Notes

The Musix Linux distro is a specialty OS with an impressive collection of tools for users with a passion mostly for audio and music production. That same collection of tools should be included for video, given the blending of music and video popular in distributing entertainment on the Internet today. Yet it is missing from Musix. If you have a passion for a well designed, general purpose Linux OS, Musix will leave you tapping a beat for something else. More is neglected in musix that would make this distro more suitable beyond music mania.

Facebook’s Stock Picks Up Momentum After Announcing Its Mobile Ad Network

On the back of an analyst upgrade based on optimism about the future of its ad products, Facebook today picked up nearly 2.5 percent in the public markets. After starting the day at a deficit, Facebook has picked up momentum as its f8 developer conference announced several new products, including the Facebook Audience Network (FAN). Read More

Nod's Ring May Be Smart but Not Precious

Nod Labs on Tuesday jumped into the wearable tech market with a ring device that's designed to serve as a universal controller. Featuring Broadcom Bluetooth Smart and Nexus-Trellis software, Nod's namesake wearable input device is designed to offer touchless interaction with set-top boxes and other connected home devices without the need for remotes or cameras. The device detects spatial motion with more than 0.1mm accuracy and can personalize content based on a user's proximity and identity.

Facebook Audience Network Actually Plays Nice With Twitter’s MoPub

With today’s announcement of Facebook’s mobile ad network, you might assume that this poses a threat to Twitter’s ad efforts, particularly MoPub, the mobile ad company it acquired last year. However, instead of competing, the Facebook Audience Network can actually be hooked into the MoPub ad mediation service to let publishers simultaneously run Facebook Audience Network ads… Read More

White House Opens Heart About Vulnerabilties

Smarting from speculation that the U.S. intelligence community hoarded knowledge about the Heartbleed bug that's placed millions of servers and devices that access the Internet at risk, the White House Tuesday gave the public some insight into how it decides to release information about vulnerabilities in computer software and hardware. "This administration takes seriously its commitment to an open and interoperable, secure and reliable Internet ... ."

Digital Tech Gives Wordsmiths a Whole New World

Lexicographer Erin McKean gave a TED talk in 2007 called "The Joy of Lexicography," in which she pointed out the limitations of print dictionaries. After that talk, she decided to make her vision of a new kind of dictionary a reality. Thus was born Wordnik. "Our mission with Wordnik is to put all the words in the dictionary, and show as much data as we can for any word someone is interested in," said McKean. Wordnik isn't just about definitions -- it provides an entire ecosystem around each word.

Red Hat Buys Ceph Provider Inktank For $175M In Cash To Beef Up Its Cloud Storage Offerings

Red Hat, the open source software provider, has just announced that it is buying Inktank, a developer of open-source storage systems, for $175 million in cash. Red Hat says it will combine Inktank’s primary product, Ceph, with its own GlusterFS-based storage offering. Red Hat says the deal will make it into the largest provider of open software-defined storage across object, block and file… Read More

Praying Mantises Sport the World's Smallest 3D Glasses

What might be the world's smallest 3D glasses have been developed for praying mantises. People, horses, falcons, cats, monkeys and even toads have 3D vision -- but until 1983, everyone thought that invertebrates didn't, because their brains were so small and simple. That year, Samuel Rossel of the University of Zurich in essence said that mantises had 3D vision. Now researchers have launched a five-year program to study mantis 3D vision. They aim to establish whether mantis 3D vision is capable of more than range-finding.

Nod's Ring May Be Smart but Not Precious

Nod Labs on Tuesday jumped into the wearable tech market with a ring device that's designed to serve as a universal controller. Featuring Broadcom Bluetooth Smart and Nexus-Trellis software, Nod's namesake wearable input device is designed to offer touchless interaction with set-top boxes and other connected home devices without the need for remotes or cameras. The device detects spatial motion with more than 0.1mm accuracy and can personalize content based on a user's proximity and identity.

AOL Users Waiting to Exhale

AOL on Monday disclosed that a "significant number" of user accounts had been hacked, confirming rumors swirling around the issue for a week and denying its week-ago statement that users' email accounts were being spoofed. The hackers stole users' email and postal addresses, address book contacts, encrypted passwords and encrypted answers to security questions, and "certain employee information." However, there is no indication so far that users' financial information has been disclosed.

FCC Chairman Promises To Regulate The Internet As A Utility If Needed To Protect Net Neutrality

In a sternly worded blog post today, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler further explained his views on net neutrality, detailing how he plans to implement them. Most important in his comments is a promise to regulate Internet service as a utility if needed. Wheeler is plain: "The proposal before us now turns out to be insufficient or if we observe anyone taking advantage of the rule, I won’t hesitate… Read More

Twitter Grows 5.8% To 255M Monthly Users, And 78% Of Them Are On Mobile

Twitter just released its earnings report for the first quarter of 2014, in which it said that its total monthly active users had grown to 255 million. Will that be enough to avert more awkward questions during today’s analyst conference call? Well … maybe. That’s better than the end of 2013, when Twitter only saw 3.9 percent quarter-over-quarter growth, but it’s worse than… Read More

A Day In The Life Of The ERA Accelerator

As a post-demo day celebration, we’ve decided to start with ERA to launch our “Day In The Life” series, where we visit NY-based accelerators, incubators, and even a few VC firms to make sure that you, as a young first-time founder in the big city, have a resource when you’re looking for the best place to grow your company. The video above goes through a full tour of the… Read More

Brian Warner: Tizen Has Good Bones

The consumer electronics industry has a secret ingredient: the Tizen operating system. It is alive and well and may control a device you now use or the next one you buy. That might surprise some early adopters who watch eagerly for the next bleeding-edge electronics device. Many of those who have heard of Tizen are under the impression that it has no consumer or developer-ready devices in the marketplace. They're wrong. Tizen already is fully developed as an operating system and deployed in numerous product lines.

Cybersquatters Prepare for Mischief

Cybersquatting is a seedy practice that's as old as dot-com, but the upcoming expansion of domain names could be breathing new life into the practice, while offering seamier elements on the Net an invitation for mischief. In the early days of the Internet, nimble squatters would register domain names of brands, then sell them back to the owners for tidy sums. Rules eventually were adopted to squash squatters, but with as many as 1,300 new top-level domains appearing on the Internet in the next three years, squatting may be in vogue once again.

Sprinklr Launches Social Ad Tools And Raises $40M More

Sprinklr, which describes itself as “the largest independent social relationship platform provider,” just announced that it has raised $40 million in Series D funding. It’s also announcing of its first “paid social media solution,” i.e., a product for managing ad campaigns on Facebook and Twitter. With the new product, Sprinklr says its customers can plan, execute,… Read More

Praying Mantises Sport the World's Smallest 3D Glasses

What might be the world's smallest 3D glasses have been developed for praying mantises. People, horses, falcons, cats, monkeys and even toads have 3D vision -- but until 1983, everyone thought that invertebrates didn't, because their brains were so small and simple. That year, Samuel Rossel of the University of Zurich in essence said that mantises had 3D vision. Now researchers have launched a five-year program to study mantis 3D vision. They aim to establish whether mantis 3D vision is capable of more than range-finding.

Polishing the Rare Gem That Is Linux

"Love is blind," as the old saying goes, and that can be just as true when the object of love is a thing -- an operating system, say -- as a person. Case in point? Linux. Fans of the operating system love it, perhaps even to the point where they can no longer see its -- gasp! -- imperfections. Fortunately, the Linux community includes clear-eyed observers and thinkers such as Ken Starks, who recently penned a piece entitled, "What Would You Do to Improve Linux?"

Microsoft's Makeover: Nadella Confirmed, Ballmer Vindicated

Last week, Microsoft delivered its quarterly report, and it was a big deal. It was CEO Satya Nadella's first real quarter and the Nokia merger was completed. This is just the beginning of the Microsoft makeover, but two things indicate that in the end, Ballmer finally did what was right for Microsoft in prepping the company for Nadella -- and Nadella was validated as the right choice to lead the firm. The interesting part of the Microsoft financials is that most of the news out of the divisions was good news.

Cybersquatters Prepare for Mischief

Cybersquatting is a seedy practice that's as old as dot-com, but the upcoming expansion of domain names could be breathing new life into the practice, while offering seamier elements on the Net an invitation for mischief. In the early days of the Internet, nimble squatters would register domain names of brands, then sell them back to the owners for tidy sums. Rules eventually were adopted to squash squatters, but with as many as 1,300 new top-level domains appearing on the Internet in the next three years, squatting may be in vogue once again.

Fly Or Die: Nokia Lumia Icon

The Nokia Lumia Icon is yet another smartphone out of the Microsoft camp looking to pull you away from either iOS or Android. Where specs and features are concerned, it's prepared to deliver. Read More

littleBits Goes a Long Way

Space fans the world over long have dreamed of exploring the universe for themselves, but a new, 12-module kit from NASA and littleBits aims to give enthusiasts a way to bring the thrill of space exploration closer to home. The new littleBits Space Kit, launched on Thursday, includes an assortment of electronic modules and NASA-designed projects and activities designed to allow anyone to observe and measure the universe, build and remotely control a model Mars Rover, or wirelessly send music to a model of the International Space Station.

Equity Crowd Funding Platform OurCrowd Raises $25M Series B

Funding iPad keyboards on Kickstarter is one thing. But equity crowd funding is pretty hot right now. And today OurCrowd out of Israel has closed a $25 million Series B funding round – a pretty big one for this sector. Terms of who led the investment were – unusually – not disclosed, but we know Investec Bank Australia participated as did Mistral Equity Partners. OurCrowd CEO,… Read More

The Exciting World Of Samsung’s Viral Payola

If you've ever wondered how some videos get popular while others languish in obscurity (or, on the flip side, if you'd like to know how to get some sweet views), look no further than Bacchus PR, a firm Samsung hired to push their video of a little, walking (Samsung-branded) SD card to social. I'll refrain from linking to the video as it's not very exciting. Read More

Polishing the Rare Gem That Is Linux

"Love is blind," as the old saying goes, and that can be just as true when the object of love is a thing -- an operating system, say -- as a person. Case in point? Linux. Fans of the operating system love it, perhaps even to the point where they can no longer see its -- gasp! -- imperfections. Fortunately, the Linux community includes clear-eyed observers and thinkers such as Ken Starks, who recently penned a piece entitled, "What Would You Do to Improve Linux?"

Microsoft's Makeover: Nadella Confirmed, Ballmer Vindicated

Last week, Microsoft delivered its quarterly report, and it was a big deal. It was CEO Satya Nadella's first real quarter and the Nokia merger was completed. This is just the beginning of the Microsoft makeover, but two things indicate that in the end, Ballmer finally did what was right for Microsoft in prepping the company for Nadella -- and Nadella was validated as the right choice to lead the firm. The interesting part of the Microsoft financials is that most of the news out of the divisions was good news.

MyHeritage Passes 5 Billion Historical Records, Adds 5 Million Daily

MyHeritage, the popular family history network for genealogy buffs with offices in Tel Aviv, Israel and Lehu, Utah, today announced that its digital library of historical records has now passed the 5 billion milestone. In total, MyHeritage now features 5.18 billion records. For genealogy-related startups, these kind of historical records are the lifeblood of their business. If you start looking… Read More

Apple's Story: Passion, Patience and Pressure

True, market-changing, life-changing innovation comes from three key elements: passion, patience and pressure. Apple is the poster child for this view of innovation. Especially now. Especially when Apple is simply selling millions of profitable iPhones and MacBooks and iPads, quarter after quarter -- after quarter -- with few truly "new" products to show off. To create something groundbreaking and new, like a touchscreen-only smartphone, you need passion.

My Weekly TechCrunch Habit Ends

Over the past three years, every weekend, I sit down with my laptop and write something that eventually becomes a blog post on TechCrunch. Every Sunday, 10am PST. It started back when Mike was writing here, as was MG, and Erick was the editor (thanks for giving me the opportunity). It continued during the Eldon regime. Today, this is my last column, my 207th post on TechCrunch, all coming to an… Read More

RadiumOne Confirms That It Has Fired CEO Gurbaksh Chahal

RadiumOne just announced that its board of directors terminated CEO and Chairman Gurbaksh Chahal on Saturday night. Chief Operating Officer Bill Lonergan will be taking over the CEO role, the company said in a statement. Chahal’s firing was first reported in Re/code. Here’s the full statement: At a board meeting yesterday evening, RadiumOne’s board of directors voted to terminate… Read More

The Exploitation of OpenSSL

The Web has been abuzz with discussion of the HeartBleed flaw. Security vendors and experts have been falling all over themselves to offer advice on detecting or mitigating the flaw; consultants have been offering businesses advice on how to deal with the problem; businesses with websites have been fretting about how to respond; the NSA has been accused of having known about -- and exploited -- the vulnerability; and the Obama administration has said that the NSA should disclose vulnerabilities like this unless they impinge upon national security.

A Letter To The Board Members Of RadiumOne

Dear RadiumOne Board Members, In covering the day-to-day launches, funding announcements, and feature additions of tech startups and companies, I rarely think about the founder or CEO of a company’s personal life. Sure, when it’s a serial entrepreneur, I take note. Or if the founder happens to be a friend, I’ll ask about their kids and families, and trade banter over the usual… Read More

Google Brings Its Hotel And Restaurant Search To Android

Google is adding a deeper integration of its hotel and restaurant search to Google Search on Android. This is a pretty straightforward integration that allows you to type or speak queries like "show me hotels in San Francisco," and the search results page will indeed return a list of hotels. Read More

littleBits Goes a Long Way

Space fans the world over long have dreamed of exploring the universe for themselves, but a new, 12-module kit from NASA and littleBits aims to give enthusiasts a way to bring the thrill of space exploration closer to home. The new littleBits Space Kit, launched on Thursday, includes an assortment of electronic modules and NASA-designed projects and activities designed to allow anyone to observe and measure the universe, build and remotely control a model Mars Rover, or wirelessly send music to a model of the International Space Station.

France Mulls Banning GPS-Enabled Driver-Finding Apps

The French government is considering a ban on GPS-enabled apps that allow would-be passengers to track down nearby drivers. The issue is being fueled by irked taxi unions that increasingly are frustrated with -- and helpless against -- ride-sharing apps. Thus has the government drafted recommendations that include banning services that display maps showing available cars. The recommendations, it should be noted, would allow taxi drivers to use the precise type of apps that would be off limits for private companies.

How Cloud Films Wants To Keep Movies Authentic In The Age Of The Selfie

The innovative film maker Tiffany Shlain isn't a great fan of selfies. They are mostly two dimensional, she told me at a FutureCast salon at the AT&T Foundry in Palo Alto. Read More

Apple's Story: Passion, Patience and Pressure

True, market-changing, life-changing innovation comes from three key elements: passion, patience and pressure. Apple is the poster child for this view of innovation. Especially now. Especially when Apple is simply selling millions of profitable iPhones and MacBooks and iPads, quarter after quarter -- after quarter -- with few truly "new" products to show off. To create something groundbreaking and new, like a touchscreen-only smartphone, you need passion.

The Incredible Shrinking Technology

We are constantly moving. From a morning meeting to a lunch date to an afternoon conference call, we are always on the go and so are our technology devices. They are with us every step of the way, acting as our personal assistants, communicators and life-savers. We are progressing closer to a world where HUVr boards aren't a hoax and technology no longer fits in the palm of your hand but on a node in your brain. We are shifting from using static, desktop devices to portable devices in order to accommodate our lightspeed lifestyle.

Ubuntu Trusty Tahr: More Yawns, More Polish

A new Ubuntu Linux desktop line -- Ubuntu 14.04, known as "Trusty Tahr" -- lacks much in the way of new features or eye-popping special effects. You will find, however, a fresh batch of improvements in what is already a solid distro family of desktop and server implementations. Canonical continues its record of consistency with its latest version of Ubuntu, released this month. Consistency is usually a good thing, but after the last few Ubuntu releases, the repetitious ho-hum pattern of not much new on the outside is becoming a bit boring.

Facebook Dips a Toe Into the News Biz

Facebook on Thursday announced FB Newswire, a site aggregating content from posts users put up on their pages that it will offer as a resource to journalists and newsrooms. The content will be curated by Irish firm Storyful, which News Corp., at the heart of a cellphone hacking scandal in the UK, purchased in December. Journalists and media organizations "have become an integral part of Facebook," and referral traffic from Facebook to media sites quadrupled in 2013, Facebook said.

Google Rolls Out Time-Traveling Maps

Google has launched a new feature on Street View that enables users to browse through images dating back as far as 2007, as well as images from different seasons and at night. Street View users have long pined for the ability to look at shots from the past, according to Google Maps Street View Director of Engineering Luc Vincent. How neighborhoods used to look. How natural disasters affected scenes on the ground. Google denotes the ability to tinker with time with a small hourglass in the upper left-hand corner of a Street View panorama.

Reading Into the Red Hat CentOS Deal

There was a somewhat quiet, cost-free acquisition of sorts in the Linux world earlier this year when Red Hat announced it was joining forces with Red Hat Enterprise Linux community clone CentOS. The move, which effectively brings organization, governance, backing and technology of CentOS under Red Hat's brim, is interesting for a few reasons. First, it illustrates the continued presence and power of unpaid community Linux distributions like CentOS. Second, it's part of the changing Linux market, which is being driven by cloud computing and new types of uses on the rise.

OnePlus Unveils One 'Flagship Killer' Smartphone

OnePlus, a China-based smartphone maker founded by Pete Lau, a former VP at Guangzhou-based Oppo, on Wednesday announced its OnePlus One phablet. The device is being marketed as a "flagship killer," but whether it is remains to be seen. Factors in its favor are its price -- $300 for a device being placed head to head with the more expensive Samsung Galaxy S5 and the iPhone 5s -- as well as the company's clever marketing campaign and the buzz it has generated so far.

Maker Studios Nabs FailArmy And Other Viral Channels From Jukin Media

YouTube network Maker Studios is taking over management and monetization of a whole bunch of viral video channels that are managed by Jukin Media. The portfolio of content includes Fail Army‘s collection of fails, as well as 30 other viral video channels such as Bad Ads, The Come Up, and FunnyVideosArchive. Together, those channels get more than 400 million monthly views. Read More

Duolingo Launches In Asia, Updates Its iOS App

Duolingo, the popular language learning service, launched the latest update of its iOS app today. Version 4.0 includes a number of new features, but maybe most importantly, this update marks Duolingo's entry into Asia. Read More

Internet Glue Service IFTTT Launches On Android With Deeper Integration Than iOS

The Internet connection and automation service IFTTT is launching on Android today, and it offers a deeper set of integrations with the OS than their iOS offering. This, of course, is due to Android’s more laissez faire attitude when it comes to allowing apps to extend their tentacles into core OS functions. The arrival of IFTTT on Android comes after a longish period of waiting, with the… Read More

The Incredible Shrinking Technology

We are constantly moving. From a morning meeting to a lunch date to an afternoon conference call, we are always on the go and so are our technology devices. They are with us every step of the way, acting as our personal assistants, communicators and life-savers. We are progressing closer to a world where HUVr boards aren't a hoax and technology no longer fits in the palm of your hand but on a node in your brain. We are shifting from using static, desktop devices to portable devices in order to accommodate our lightspeed lifestyle.

Stitch Raises $3.25M From Google Ventures And Others To Help Salespeople Close More Deals

Stitch, a new startup that wants to help salespeople close more deals via a mobile, productivity platform, has raised $3.25 million in seed funding from Google Ventures, SoftTech, Freestyle Capital, Foundation Capital, ENIAC Ventures and angels such as Brad Garlinghouse, Tom Conrad, and Eric Hahn. Read More

Fandango Confirms That It Has Acquired Movieclips From Zefr

Ticketing service Fandango just announced that it has acquired Movieclips from online video company Zefr. TechCrunch’s Ryan Lawler reported earlier this month that a deal was in the works. Zefr launched in 2009 under the Movieclips name, and it did pretty much what the name suggests — it licensed movie clips from studios and posted them on YouTube. In the years since, its focus has… Read More

Flash Fashion Site SecretSales Raises £4.5M, Led By Partech

Flash fashion sales site SecretSales.com, a significant UK player, has raised £4.5 million – its third round of funding – from Partech Ventures’ new Partech VI fund and French private equity firm 123Venture, as well as existing investors Pentech and Doughty Hanson. The co-founders and key managers also participated. The cash will be used on product and customer acquisition. The… Read More

Reading Into the Red Hat CentOS Deal

There was a somewhat quiet, cost-free acquisition of sorts in the Linux world earlier this year when Red Hat announced it was joining forces with Red Hat Enterprise Linux community clone CentOS. The move, which effectively brings organization, governance, backing and technology of CentOS under Red Hat's brim, is interesting for a few reasons. First, it illustrates the continued presence and power of unpaid community Linux distributions like CentOS. Second, it's part of the changing Linux market, which is being driven by cloud computing and new types of uses on the rise.

OnePlus Unveils One 'Flagship Killer' Smartphone

OnePlus, a China-based smartphone maker founded by Pete Lau, a former VP at Guangzhou-based Oppo, on Wednesday announced its OnePlus One phablet. The device is being marketed as a "flagship killer," but whether it is remains to be seen. Factors in its favor are its price -- $300 for a device being placed head to head with the more expensive Samsung Galaxy S5 and the iPhone 5s -- as well as the company's clever marketing campaign and the buzz it has generated so far.

Apple Announces 7 For 1 Stock Split, Boosts Its Dividend 8%, Adds $30B To Its Buyback Program

As part of its earnings cycle today, Apple announced that it will increase its dividend 8 percent, add $30 billion to its share buyback program current to a total of $90 billion, and split its stock 7 for 1 in June. The company's dividend will also now rise yearly. Apple is incredibly cash-rich, and has been under pressure to utilize its vast financial resources to reward its investors.… Read More

Lytro's New Shoot Now, Focus Later Camera Targets Prosumers

The folks who introduced the masses to ex post facto focusing upped their game Tuesday with the introduction of a new camera aimed at shooters who take their photography seriously. The Illum, by Lytro, contains an updated version of the company's innovative Light Field engine, which allows the focus in a photo to be manipulated after it's shot. Unlike Lytro's previous offerings -- rectangular tubes that resemble slide viewers -- the Illum looks like a conventional digital SLR camera.

Founder of Russian Social Media Says He Got the Boot

Pavel Durov, the founder of Russia's most popular social network site, claims he has been ousted by allies of President Vladimir Putin -- who went ahead and took over the site while they were at it. Durov, who ran the mega-popular VKontakte, had reportedly run afoul of the Russian government for refusing to heed requests to censor posts on the site. For its part, the company claims that Durov resigned, but he said he only learned of his ouster from the press.

Apple Shoots for 'Better'

In honor of this year's Earth Day, celebrated Tuesday, Apple is showcasing its efforts to lessen its carbon footprint and become more environmentally sustainable as part of its 'Better' Campaign. The company released new promotional material, including a video narrated by Tim Cook, that outlines its commitment to increasing energy efficiency in an effort to reduce its impact on climate change. Apple wants to leave the world "better than we found it," says Cook.

Quibb, The News Reader For Professionals, Taps Alphaworks To Close A $750k Seed Round

Quibb, a service that helps industry professional share and discuss relevant news items, is looking to finish up its seed round on Alphaworks, the crowdsourced equity exchange platform recently unveiled by betaworks. Quibb represents one of the first companies to use the platform. The company has secured $650k from investors and is looking to close on another $100k through Alphaworks. Quibb is a… Read More

Stealthy Assassin Series Hitman GO Makes a Luscious Board Game

I can safely say that I never would have imagined turning the Hitman video game series into a luscious dioramic board game for iOS. Lucky for us, that's what Square Enix did with last week's Hitman GO release. Apple featured the game in the App Store, and for good reason: The graphical representation of the boards you play on is a visual feast, showing well-lit 3D-like cutaways of rooms, mansions, tennis courts, swimming pools and the like. You play as the cloned assassin, Agent 47, who is a plastic figurine able to move in straight lines one spot at time.

Codasip Secures $2.8M Funding Led By Credo Ventures

Codasip is an ‘application specific processor design tool’ and IP provider. Today it’s closed its first round of public funding totalling $2.8 million to push its technology product forward. The funding is being led by Credo Ventures, a VC based in the Czech Republic, and includes additional funds from multiple private investors. In case you’re wondering, an… Read More

Wearables Just Don't Do It for Nike

Nike appears to be retreating from its vanguard position in the computer wearables market. The company reportedly has begun slashing the engineering team working on its FuelBand product, a fitness computer that can be worn on a wrist, laying off as many as 55 of the 70-person team working on FuelBand. However, Nike subsequently insisted the FuelBand was still an important part of its business, saying it would continue to improve the product, offer it in new colors, and sell and support it for the foreseeable future.

Apple Shoots for 'Better'

In honor of this year's Earth Day, celebrated Tuesday, Apple is showcasing its efforts to lessen its carbon footprint and become more environmentally sustainable as part of its 'Better' Campaign. The company released new promotional material, including a video narrated by Tim Cook, that outlines its commitment to increasing energy efficiency in an effort to reduce its impact on climate change. Apple wants to leave the world "better than we found it," says Cook.

Website-Building Platform Weebly Raises $35M More

Weebly, which offers easy-to-use tools for building websites, announced today that it has raised $35 million in Series C funding. The money comes from previous investor Sequoia Capital and from Chinese company Tencent. Weebly CEO David Rusenko told the Wall Street Journal that the round valued his company at $455 million. Read More

Popular UK Sports File-Sharing Site Shuttered

The Sports Torrent Network, a brazenly named file-sharing site, shut down after UK police threatened to put its operators behind bars for up to 10 years. TSTN was a hotbed for illicit broadcasts of European soccer, the National Hockey League, Formula 1 races and more. The site reportedly had about 20,000 members, making it "possibly the largest site of its type." TSTN did not itself host pirated content but instead facilitated users' quests to find said content on peer-to-peer networks.

Data Center Fire Fries Samsung's Un-Backed-Up Servers

A fire that erupted at the data center of Samsung SDS in Gwacheon, South Korea, reportedly took out services to Samsung smartphones, tablets and smart TVs for several hours. The company reportedly stopped all services offered through its website and smartphone apps, and said consumers could not use its online payment services or receive text message confirmations of payments made. The size of payments made by Korean consumers abroad using cards affiliated with other partners, including American Express, apparently also was restricted.

Facebook Now Powers More Than Half Of All Social Logins

Social logins are a convenient way to sign in to services without having to go through lengthy sign-up procedures and setting up yet another password. According to the latest data from social login service Gigya, Facebook remains the absolute market leader here and now powers more than 51 percent of all social logins in North America. Google+ is the second most popular service, but at 31 percent… Read More

Runtastic Signs Deal With Universal For BPM-Oriented Compilations

Seed-funded Runtastic, which has produced a number of apps and services for health and exercise tracking, is going into the music business. Sorta. It’s has signed a new deal with Universal Music Group to create a fitness-focused music compilation featuring recordings from artists such as Swedish House Mafia, Bastille and others. The idea is to offer users the ideal BPM for working out. The… Read More

Wearables Just Don't Do It for Nike

Nike appears to be retreating from its vanguard position in the computer wearables market. The company reportedly has begun slashing the engineering team working on its FuelBand product, a fitness computer that can be worn on a wrist, laying off as many as 55 of the 70-person team working on FuelBand. However, Nike subsequently insisted the FuelBand was still an important part of its business, saying it would continue to improve the product, offer it in new colors, and sell and support it for the foreseeable future.

Cloud Sound Platform Audiboo Preps London AIM Float To Raise £4M

Audiboo, the British cloud audio platform which once competed with Soundcloud but has found a niche working with media companies, has confirmed its plans for a small public listing on the London Stock Exchange’s Aim market. It’s achieving this via a reverse takeover of the cash shell company One Delta (which has lain dormant for some time). The news comes after floated media company… Read More

Electric Cloud Closes $12M Series E Round For Its Continuous Delivery Service

Electric Cloud, a company that offers continuous delivery products, services and support to businesses that want to adapt this software design practice, today announced that it has closed a $12 million Series E round with participation from Siemens' Venture Capital, US Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund, RRE Ventures and Rembrandt Venture Partners. The company previously disclosed this as an $8… Read More

Heartbleed and Heartache in FOSS Town

Well it's been a wild few weeks here in the Linux blogosphere, thanks not just to XP's demise but also the long-overdue discovery of the all-pervasive Heartbleed bug. That the bug is "catastrophic" appears to be beyond dispute; in fact, "some might argue that it is the worst vulnerability found ... since commercial traffic began to flow on the Internet," as at least one commentator suggested. The fact that the flaw exists in OpenSSL, of course, is what's made the topic particularly pertinent to those of us in the FOSS world.

Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia Explains The Broadcaster Battle In His Own Words

In the past year, Aereo has fought legal battles in three different states with broadcasters looking to get the streaming TV service kicked off the air, if you catch my drift. Tomorrow, the case goes to the main stage in front of the Supreme Court, where lawyers from both sides will make oral arguments before the SCOTUS. Read More

Data Center Fire Fries Samsung's Un-Backed-Up Servers

A fire that erupted at the data center of Samsung SDS in Gwacheon, South Korea, reportedly took out services to Samsung smartphones, tablets and smart TVs for several hours. The company reportedly stopped all services offered through its website and smartphone apps, and said consumers could not use its online payment services or receive text message confirmations of payments made. The size of payments made by Korean consumers abroad using cards affiliated with other partners, including American Express, apparently also was restricted.

Banking Trojan Enters Mobiles via Facebook

Purveyors of a notorious mobile banking Trojan have started targeting Facebook users to infect Android smartphones. The Net predators use a desktop Trojan to leverage a Facebook socializer to install banking malware on their phone, ESET malware researcher Jean-Ian Boutin discovered last week. The desktop bad app, Win32/Qadars, waits for an infected machine to open a Facebook page. When it does, it injects code into the page asking a user to participate in a new safety program that requires a mobile phone number.

NASA and Google Do the Tango

Google's Project Tango smartphone, which is jam-packed with sensors, soon will be used in the International Space Station. The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration will swap out the smartphones it has used on two volleyball-sized free-flying satellites since 2011 with the Tango devices. NASA, which announced the Tango tie-in back in February, has flown modified Tango phones several times on an aircraft that can simulate microgravity by taking a parabolic flight path.

Google This: Yahoo Wants Apple's Search Business

Google has dominated the world of search for years, so much so that "Google" is not only synonymous with searching -- it's a verb, too. Who hasn't told someone to google something? That's awesome mindshare, and its power is translated to billions of dollars of ad-related revenue for Google. Where will search grow in the future? Mobile. And rumor has it, Yahoo's CEO Marissa Mayer wants it. More to the point, Mayer wants Apple's mobile search business. Badly.

Transcendence and Analytics: What If the End of Mankind as We Know It Were a Good Thing?

I saw the movie Transcendence last week, and it was an impressive telling of what might happen were we to achieve singularity. Given this is likely where AI research is taking us and that analytics is a major component to getting there, I not only recommend the movie as entertainment but also as a means to wrapping your head around what we must correct before we take that next big step. The problem resides in us. Much of the world operates on lies. Governments, religions, employers, coworkers and relatives all lie at times.

Zynga Heads Back to the FarmVille Trough

Zynga is once again plowing the furrow of its greatest success with the launch of FarmVille 2: Country Escape. The latest title from the casual gaming studio is a mobile-focused effort. Zynga has launched the game globally on iPhone, iPad and Android devices. FarmVille 2: Country Escape was crafted from the ground up as a new mobile experience with redesigned crop times, touch controls and animal interactions. Zynga has reformatted the game board with the intention of making sessions of all lengths enjoyable to players.

Cognoa’s App Will Evaluate Children’s Risk For Autism From Videos And Other Data

There are life-changing technologies that are being developed at the intersection of health evaluation and diagnosis. For example, Neurotrack has developed a cognitive test to predict and diagnose the onset of Alzheimer's Disease. And a new startup, Cognoa, is launching to help evaluate children's risk for Autism. Read More

Google App Engine Gets GitHub Push-To-Deploy Support

Last summer, Google started allowing developers to use git to get their code onto App Engine to deploy their applications instead of using Google's usual SDK. Starting today, developers who use the popular GitHub service to manage their code repositories will be able to do the same. Read More

Counterforce Protests Tech Using Tech

Rising income inequality is quickly becoming the most prevalent issue of our century, "the defining challenge of our time," according to President Obama. No where is this more acute than in San Francisco, where rents growing at 3 times the national average are squeezing out the lower and middle classes in favor of tech workers who can pay astronomical housing prices. Read More

NASA and Google Do the Tango

Google's Project Tango smartphone, which is jam-packed with sensors, soon will be used in the International Space Station. The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration will swap out the smartphones it has used on two volleyball-sized free-flying satellites since 2011 with the Tango devices. NASA, which announced the Tango tie-in back in February, has flown modified Tango phones several times on an aircraft that can simulate microgravity by taking a parabolic flight path.

Ask A VC: Next World Capital’s Ben Fu On Engineer Recruiting Challenges

In this week’s episode of Ask A VC, we hosted Next World Capital’s Ben Fu in the studio to talk about big data, recruiting and more. Fu, who has backed Datameer, Datastax, and Good Data among others, talked about the talent crunch, and the challenges founders face when recruiting engineers, especially in the enterprise world. Check out the video above for more! Read More

In Just A Few Minutes, SpaceX Will Attempt To Launch A Reusable Rocket — Watch Now!

Quick! Tune in! SpaceX is about to attempt something pretty historic: launching a rocket in such a way that much of it can be reused in later launches. If successful, this launch will head up to the International Space Station, drop off a bunch of supplies, then a controlled fall will bring it back to earth with a set of extendable legs deployed. Even if the legs deploy properly, the landing is… Read More

Google This: Yahoo Wants Apple's Search Business

Google has dominated the world of search for years, so much so that "Google" is not only synonymous with searching -- it's a verb, too. Who hasn't told someone to google something? That's awesome mindshare, and its power is translated to billions of dollars of ad-related revenue for Google. Where will search grow in the future? Mobile. And rumor has it, Yahoo's CEO Marissa Mayer wants it. More to the point, Mayer wants Apple's mobile search business. Badly.

German Media Mogul Rips Google in Open Letter

The chief executive of one of Germany's biggest media companies penned an open letter criticizing Google, saying that his company is afraid of Google and its ever-swelling power. The letter, written by Mathias Dopfner, the chief executive of media giant Axel Springer, opines that Google's technology platforms spread more quickly and more efficiently than anything in the world -- save "biological viruses." Dopfner also asks whether Google plans to create a "superstate" in which antitrust and privacy laws don't exist.

About.com CEO Neil Vogel Discusses The Challenges Of Evolving An Established Brand

About.com has never been the coolest website on the internet. With a grayish background and an ugly logo, it was the place you landed when you searched for help with something, but you rarely went there on your own. This is the product that Neil Vogel took over one year ago, when he was made CEO of About.com. Not much has changed on the outside, save for a few subtle design tweaks and the… Read More

Zynga Heads Back to the FarmVille Trough

Zynga is once again plowing the furrow of its greatest success with the launch of FarmVille 2: Country Escape. The latest title from the casual gaming studio is a mobile-focused effort. Zynga has launched the game globally on iPhone, iPad and Android devices. FarmVille 2: Country Escape was crafted from the ground up as a new mobile experience with redesigned crop times, touch controls and animal interactions. Zynga has reformatted the game board with the intention of making sessions of all lengths enjoyable to players.