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Sunday, December 1, 2013
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Between launching a charity-friendly buying program, announcing Sunday deliveries, and gearing up for the first wave of frenzied holiday shoppers, Amazon has been busy these past few weeks. But that didn't stop CEO Jeff Bezos from spending a decent chunk of time talking to Charlie Rose on 60 Minutes about something, well, new.


60 Minutes has been more than happy to tease the unveiling with a clip of Bezos leading Rose into a room to show him something that elicited an “Oh my God!” from the veteran TV journo. The exclamation seemed to stem from a place of pleasure rather than worry, but the segment just aired and the truth is out.


So what did Bezos' have up his proverbial sleeves? Amazon PrimeAir drones that could feasibly be used as autonomous delivery vehicles. To hear the chief executive tell it, those electric drones - or “octocopters” as he referred to them - could make for delivery times as low as 30 minutes. Naturally, the size of those drones means there's a strict upper limit to how much cargo they can carry, but Bezos says they can carry packages of up to five pounds for round trips as long as 10 miles. Thankfully for Amazon, that means nearly 86% of the items that it carries can be lashed onto one of its sky-bound couriers.


Just don't expect to see one of them land on your doorstep any time soon. The FAA still hasn't given its blessing to domestic drones yet (though it just recently laid out its vision for such a situation) which means the earliest Amazon will be legally able to bring PrimeAir online is in 2015 - a launch window that Bezos says is “optimistic” at best.


primeair-2


This is a developing story, please refresh for updates.







5:27 PM

Between launching a charity-friendly buying program, announcing Sunday deliveries, and gearing up for the first wave of frenzied holiday sho...

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Today in “Things Your Tech Service Shouldn't Do” we present YourFreeProxy from Mutual Public AKA We Build Toolbars, LLC. The company, which offers proxy servers for routing around firewalls and censorship, has been secretly using its tool to mine Bitcoin using their customer's computer. This “feature” even appears prominently in their terms of service.


[blockquote]COMPUTER CALCULATIONS, SECURITY: as part of downloading a Mutual Public, your computer may do mathematical calculations for our affiliated networks to confirm transactions and increase security. Any rewards or fees collected by WBT or our affiliates are the sole property of WBT and our affiliates.[/blockquote]


EULAProof1


While I suspect they'll change this once they all wake up from their Thanksgiving slumber on Monday to a swirl of Internet invective, given the processor power required to mine Bitcoin and potential for system degradation, this is a massive affront to the user and a clear abuse of the freemium model. In fact, one user reported to Malwarebytes that they saw a 50% increase in processor usage when they installed the “toolbar.” WBT uses the program jhProtominer run by Monitor.exe to do its dirty work and you can't delete it thanks to traditional malware persistence techniques.


“In my opinion, [they] have gone to a new low with the inclusion of this type of scheme, they already collected information on your browsing and purchasing habits with search toolbars and redirectors,” writes Malwarebytes' Adam Kujawa. “They assault users with pop-up ads and unnecessary software to make a buck from their affiliates. Now they are just putting the nails in the coffin by stealing resources and driving user systems to the grave.”


The worst thing, in my opinion, is that mining software could soon be flagged as malware, a problem that could reduce its availability in some settings. In short, it's bad for everybody, even these WBT scammers.


via Malwayrebytes







4:08 PM

Today in “Things Your Tech Service Shouldn't Do” we present YourFreeProxy from Mutual Public AKA We Build Toolbars, LLC. The company, wh...

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With travel ramping up over the holiday season, we thought it wise to bring you a taste of Ostrich.


The Ostrich pillow, to be exact.


It's a clever little pillow that slips over your head and covers everything but your nose and mouth. Though it doesn't offer much by way of neck support, you can lay your head down and slip your hands in the holes on the top for a nice desk-style nap.


The one major caveat: it's $75. For a pillow. For a frame of reference, I bought the best possible neck pillow I could find before flying to Germany last year and it was $50.


Still, the Ostrich Pillow could come in handy for someone who travels constantly or happens to be allowed to take naps at work. Of course, most work buildings in which naps are allowed come with facilities to do so, but the Ostrich pillow is a nice way to keep out light and have a nice nap, even when sitting up.


John, not surprisingly, is unimpressed. He thinks the impaired vision and lack of neck support make the Ostrich pillow uncomfortable. He may be right, but he's also not using the pillow correctly, either.


I, on the other hand, give this baby a fly if used in the right circumstances. If you're addicted to napping and have $75 to burn, go for it. Otherwise, you probably don't need this.







12:08 PM

With travel ramping up over the holiday season, we thought it wise to bring you a taste of Ostrich. The Ostrich pillow , to be exact. It...

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We heard that Black Friday online spending possibly reached record numbers over the weekend, and today comScore has released an actual amount that was spent on one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Black Friday 2013 (November 29) saw $1.198 billion in desktop online sales, making it the season's first billion dollar day and heaviest online spending day to date, up 15 percent from Black Friday 2012. Thanksgiving Day (November 28) rose 21 percent increase over Thanksgiving Day last year to $766 million.


comScore says that for the holiday season-to-date, $20.6 billion has been spent online, marking a 3-percent increase versus the corresponding days last year. But comScore cautions that the 2013 holiday shopping season is shorter, so the numbers may be skewed. Interestingly, comScore is also differentiating desktop spending vs. mobile spending, which should also reach record amounts.


comScore reports that 66.1 million Americans visited online retail sites on Black Friday using a desktop computer, representing an increase of 16 percent versus year ago. Amazon, unsurprisingly, ranked as the most visited online retail site on Black Friday, followed by eBay, Walmart, Best Buy and Target.


Spending on Apparel & Accessories is seeing a surge this holiday season, ranking as the leading product category to date, accounting for 28 percent of online spending. This is followed by Computer Hardware (19 percent), Consumer Electronics (7 percent), Consumer Packaged Goods (5 percent) and Shipping Services (5 percent).


Because comScore is counting desktop, and doesn't seem to be incorporating mobile, it's still going to be interesting to see what mobile engagement and spending looks like by the numbers. IBM said that mobile traffic grew to 39.7 percent of all online traffic, an increase of 34 percent over Black Friday 2012. Mobile sales reached 21.8 percent of total online sales, an increase of nearly 43 percent year-over-year.


On Black Friday, PayPal was reporting a 121 percent increase in global mobile TPV compared to Black Friday 2012 and a 99.24 percent increase in global mobile shoppers compared to Black Friday 2012.


And of course, we'll look to see how spending increases this year tomorrow, which is Cyber Monday. This day usually produces billion-plus sales for retailers. Stay tuned.







10:23 AM

We heard that Black Friday online spending possibly reached record numbers over the weekend, and today comScore has released an actual amo...

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Saturday, November 30, 2013
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Last we heard from the founders of Bonaverde, they had just launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $135,000 to produce a coffee maker that turns green, unroasted beans into a cup of coffee in under 14 minutes.


At this point the startup has raised $465,475 with eight days to go, so we caught up with founders Hans Stier and Felix Artmann when they were in New York to check out a prototype of the machine. You may be wondering if this was just an elaborate ploy to get a free cup of coffee. The answer is yes.


As far as user experiences go, the Bonaverde is about as easy to manage as the Keurig you bought for your dad on Black Friday - although presumably less so on the cleanup. A couple spoonfuls of green coffee beans go in the hatch on top, you hit “On,” and the machine does its thing: roasting, cooling, grinding, and brewing the beans.


Unroasted beans stay fresh for months - much longer than the pre-roasted beans you might otherwise buy - so flavor is one of the claims on which Bonaverde is staking its business. Turns out their machine brews really solid coffee that's neither stale-tasting nor bitter. Some critics have pointed out that roasted beans should be allowed more time to air before they are ground, and while that may be optimal, Bonaverde's coffee was still really good.


When it launches Bonaverde will also serve as the online marketplace for the raw beans, meaning coffee farmers can connect directly with their end consumers. Down the line, the site will feature all of the producers that shoppers can buy from.


Note that coffee maker in the video is just a prototype of the one that will go to market, which has a much prettier exterior.







2:38 PM

Last we heard from the founders of Bonaverde , they had just launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $135,000 to produce a coffee maker t...

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Paul Bragiel, the batshit crazy awesome VC who has been training for months in the Arctic Circle to compete in the Sochi Winter Olympics, has a side charity project up his sleeve.


After seeing dozens of other younger Olympic contenders struggle to raise funds for training, he felt he needed to do something to help out. Some friends over at Belarusian and Lithuanian gaming studio On5 offered their talents pro bono to develop a game called Team Paul Skiing.


It's a beautiful, little side-scroller that takes a player through Bragiel's training as he skis in Finland (where he's done the bulk of his preparation). Then it shifts to Colombia, the country that gave Bragiel citizenship to compete on behalf of their Olympic team, and finally it ends in Sochi, Russia, where the Olympics will be held next year.


They set a low goal of raising $10,000 in the next seven days, and half of the proceeds will go toward different youth sports foundations in Finland and Colombia while the other half will go toward game development. But they hope to raise somewhere between $25,000 and $30,000.


Bragiel, who started i/o Ventures out of San Francisco, decided earlier this year to realize his lifelong dream of competing in the Olympics.


But there were many hurdles. For one, he didn't have a sport. Then, he was also pretty old for an Olympic hopeful at 36 years of age.


But he's hacked his way so far. After considering everything from curling to the luge, he settled on classical cross country skiing, which is a more traditional Winter Olympic sport that has more lenient rules around qualifications.


Then he secured citizenship in a warm, tropical country that is less competitive for winter sports - Colombia.


Now he's in the middle of qualifying races. To make it to the Olympics, he must be able to finish five qualifying races where he's not more than 10 minutes behind world's top cross-country skiier - no hard feat. He's competed in his first qualifying race already, which was a miss. But he's definitely not deterred. There are plenty more to come.







1:23 PM

Paul Bragiel, the batshit crazy awesome VC who has been training for months in the Arctic Circle to compete in the Sochi Winter Olympics, ...

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The Internet wasn't kind to media. Huge media corporations have managed to transform their businesses, for the most part, but independent media, often playing a vital role in emerging countries, are seriously threatened by the lack of available funds.


IndieVoic.es hopes to change that. Founded by Sasa Vucinic, V Media Ventures CEO and a former Editor-in-Chief of B92 (Serbian media corporation which played important role in the overthrow of Milosevic), the project is essentially a crowdsourcing platform focused on providing necessary funding to independent media in developing countries.


Just like Kickstarter or Indiegogo, IndieVoic.es uses a familiar concept. Media owners can create campaigns and specify the amount of money they need to run their venture. Contributors from all over the world can fund their campaigns in return for valuable prizes (ranging from a postcard to a dinner with former Prime Minister of Thailand).


However, crowdfunding isn't the only way IndieVoic.es aims to help independent media raise money. By announcing no-interest loans and mini-loans for 2014, the platform will enable its users to choose the best funding option for their media. Think of it as a mix between Kickstarter and Kiva.


"Our goal is not just to fund independent media. We want to engage the audience and democratize the ownership of media. It is the only thing that hasn't changed about this industry in the past 20 years" stated Vucinic in an interview for Netokracija.


And he should know a thing or two about financing media. Vucinic co-founded Media Development Investment Fund which he ran for over fifteen years. During that time, MDIF has raised 123 million dollars and funded more than 220 independent media projects all over the world.


Much like MDIF, IndieVoic.es supports different media outlets ranging from investigative journalism reports and local radio stations, up to specialized blogs covering various topics of interest. Although anybody can submit a project, only those which are curated and checked will actually be eligible for a campaign. We are ensured that this is necessary to maintain a certain standard of funded media.


Despite all this, IndieVoic.es is not your ordinary crowdfunding platform. Unlike Kickstarter or Indiegogo, this service is not looking to cash-in on their revenue any time soon as it is specifically trying to operate as a non-profit.


"Our goal is to break-even beginning 2016. If our revenue is higher than expected, we will definitely lower our initial cost per campaign", Vucinic added.


Although media isn't every investor's cup of tea, “there are those who might find interesting opportunities in specialized media covering a range of interesting subjects”, stated Vucinic. Is IndieVoic.es leading the revolution independent media owners have been waiting for? It sure seems like it.







1:23 PM

The Internet wasn't kind to media. Huge media corporations have managed to transform their businesses, for the most part, but independen...

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