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Thursday, February 6, 2014
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Google LGBT Doodle

Hours before the 2014 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony is set to kick off, Google is putting some of its most valuable real estate — their logo — to good use: to show their support for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transexual olympians on their way to Sochi.


As pictured above, the standard logo has been replaced with a rainbow of color, with each hue silhouetted by a winter sport athlete.


In the off chance that you’ve somehow missed it, LGBT rights with regards to the Olympics happening in Russia has been a concern for quite some time. These concerns grew particularly strong last year, after the Russian government enacted a law banning the distribution of any material on the topic of gay rights. Meanwhile, homophobic violence in the region has reportedly surged. The International Olympic Committee has gone back and forth on whether or not Olympians were allowed to express themselves on the matter.


A quote at the bottom of the page highlights a particularly poignant section of the Olympic Charter:



“The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.” –Olympic Charter



Meanwhile, the logo itself links to a search for the Olympic Charter in its entirety.


Good on you, Google.


Screen Shot 2014-02-06 at 5.24.54 PM





5:39 PM

Hours before the 2014 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony is set to kick off, Google is putting some of its most valuable real estate — their l...

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snippit

Snippit is a just-launched app offering a twist on photo-sharing.


The idea is pretty straightforward — instead of sharing a photo on its own, Snippit allows users to add a 4-to 10-second clip of their favorite song. The song can be something that’s downloaded on their phone, or they can select from the 30-second song previews that are available on iTunes (yep — a clip of a clip). And they can also add text captions, location check ins, and tag friends.


Co-founder and CEO Joe Grano said he first started thinking about this on a trip back to New York (he currently works in Los Angeles), when he realized that instead of just declaring “I’m in New York!” or posting an NYC photo on Facebook, he wanted to share a clip of a relevant Jay Z song. More broadly, he suggested that this is a way to give a picture more personality and emotion than it would have on its own, “in the same way that a filter on Instagram can change how a works.”


This is one of those social media ideas that might be a little too simple, but hey, simplicity can be an advantage, particularly in smartphone apps. The photo/music combinations that I saw in the app today were pretty fun, and the limit on the clip length makes it easy to browse the feed without bogged down.


The length, Grano said, also means that Snippit’s usage falls under fair use, so the company doesn’t need to negotiate deals with the recording companies (and can therefore avoid the licensing costs that other online music services struggle with). At the same time, since users can buy the full song from iTunes (earning revenue for both the record company and a small affiliate fee for Snippit), he suggested the company could start making promotional deals. with those same companies.


Given Snippit’s dependence in downloaded music and iTunes, I asked Grano how he felt about the rise of subscription music services like Spotify. He replied that with the iTunes preview integration, users don’t have to own a song to use it, and that if Spotify or other services want to release an open API, “I think it would be great for the app.”


The company has raised $500,000 in seed funding. It was basically “an internal family round,” Grano said, with investors including his father Joseph Grano, CEO of Centurion Holdings and former chairman of UBS Financial Services.


Apparently, Grano has been building Snippit while also working as an executive assistant at production company Leverage Management, whose credits include the TV show Entourage. It’s been like “doing two full-time jobs,” he said, but in about a month he’ll leave Leverage to focus entirely on the startup.





3:38 PM

Snippit is a just-launched app offering a twist on photo-sharing. The idea is pretty straightforward — instead of sharing a photo on its ow...

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PressFriendly logo

Today in software eating the world: Software eating PR!


As you might expect, I receive a ginormous number of stupid PR pitches each day, most of which come from people who are specifically paid to send me those pitches. But some of them are from well-meaning entrepreneurs who want coverage but just don’t know how to pitch.


The result is a lot of emails that are pretty much instantly archived without a second thought.


For startups, there’s usually a choice between hiring someone to take care of your PR — which usually means retaining an agency — or doing the work yourself. PressFriendly seeks to provide an alternative, in which startups can have more effective communications with the press through software.


To do that, the company has built a platform that walks a startup through all the things they should do before they begin to do press outreach. It also builds custom media lists for startups based on what their product is and which reporters might be most interested in the story.


The whole thing works like a kind of virtual agency. Rather than meeting with a human PR team, startups enter their information into a PressFriendly “pitch builder” which helps them to hone their messaging before they go out to press. And then there’s the media list, which I mentioned before.


But it’s not all software-driven: PressFriendly also provides consultation with professionals who can help work out the kinks and generally provide more advice. But like other companies that are trying to make more efficient use of people’s time, those folks will talk less to more people, rather than the traditional PR model of having dedicated teams for specific companies.


The whole point is to replace an agency as much as possible and do the work yourself, says PressFriendly co-founder Joel Andren. By doing so, founders can drastically reduce their costs: PressFriendly is a SaaS platform that costs between $99 and $999 a month, depending on how much consultation time startups plan to use.


The platform was founded by Andren, who was a co-founder of Bitcasa and head of marketing and BD at HelloSign, along with

Paul Denya, who was the second developer at HelloSign and worked at global ad firm Euro RSCG.


The idea is that these guys and their software will be able to help get startups in line and ready to launch before they start emailing someone like me. Will it work?


God, I hope so.





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Today in software eating the world: Software eating PR! As you might expect, I receive a ginormous number of stupid PR pitches each day, mos...

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The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today officially granted permission for Google to acquire Nest, the connected devices company best known for making a smart home thermostat. Google first announced its plan to acquire Nest for $3.2 billion in cash back on January 13.


Sources tell TechCrunch that Google now plans to position Nest’s technology and team as its “core hardware group.” Apparently as part of that strategy, two weeks after announcing plans to acquire Nest, the search engine giant sold off its Motorola Mobility segment to Lenovo for $2.9 billion.





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Today, alongside a fourth quarter earnings report in which it beat Wall Street estimates yet again, LinkedIn announced its intentions to acquire data-savvy job search startup, Bright.com, for $120 million. The deal, which was 70 percent stock and 30 percent cash the company said, will be completed during the first quarter of this year.


In a statement today, LinkedIn said that “several members of Bright’s team,” which now numbers over 50 –particularly those on its engineering and product teams — will be joining LinkedIn in the coming weeks. However, one notices that the announcement conspicuously leaves out any mention of Bright’s founders and whether or not they will be joining LinkedIn’s team in Mountain View.


Either way, what is clear is that, unfortunately for Bright.com users and loyalists, as a result of the acquisition, access to the startup’s job search products will continue until February 28th, at which point it LinkedIn will pull the plug.


Why did LinkedIn buy Bright, you ask, and whatever happened to that Monster.com fella? While we can’t answer for the latter, we do know that the Bright.com purchase is the latest in a fairly short string of acquisitions LinkedIn has made over the last two years. No Yahoo by any means, LinkedIn has been methodically and strategically picking off startups that will either help expand its growing professional content network or its talent solutions products.


Updating





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Today, alongside a fourth quarter earnings report in which it beat Wall Street estimates yet again, LinkedIn announced its intentions to acq...

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Apple is preparing for a big push in sapphire crystal display manufacturing, according to some new information unearthed by 9to5Mac and told to TechCrunch via a source familiar with the company’s plans.


9to5Mac, with the help of analyst Matt Margolis, has obtained documents that report Apple placing an order with partner GT Advanced technologies for large quantities of furnaces and chambers used in making sapphire displays. Our source informs us that a large order placed at Meyer Burger for wire-based diamond cutting systems (useful in handling ultra hard material like sapphire) was actually for Apple for delivery in 2014, though they aren’t named as a customer.


Regarding the furnaces, Mark Gurman at 9to5Mac reports that GT Advanced has already taken delivery of 518 units, which could allow it to build as many as 116 displays of roughly five inches in size per year, with another 420 machines still on order, for a total potential capacity of around 200 million display panels at a size around one inch larger (rumors suggest new models will be bigger) than the current diagonal proportions of the iPhone 5s screen. Apple sold around 150 million iPhones in 2013 to put that in perspective, so doing the math, it could indeed be the case that Apple is putting the pieces together for a production run that spans the entire next generation of iPhone hardware.


Gurman’s report adds that GT Advanced has ordered a large quantity of Sirius Sapphire Display Inspection Tool components, which helps manufacturers using sapphire in displays specifically for smartphones and other mobile devices by increasing yield numbers and making sure only high quality sapphire makes it into the production stream.


Back when the GT Advanced deal, which saw Apple contribute $578 million to build a manufacturing plant for sapphire crystal in Arizona, our own Matthew Panzarino explained that it made sense for Apple to invest early in the tech should it plan to use it in large volumes later own. At first, it seemed likely that short-term, Apple’s focus would be more on small screen production with sapphire (for existing components like the camera lens cover and Touch ID sensor), but Gurman seems to believe iPhone displays are at least as likely.


That’s backed up by a tidbit also reported by Matthew around the time of the revelation of the GT Advanced deal: Apple filed a patent recently for manufacturing sapphire laminates, which can help greatly reduce the cost of production for use of the material in touchscreen devices. Now, Apple seems ready to build the infrastructure necessary to turn its R&D into a key component advantage for future iPhone hardware.


We’ve reached out to Apple for comment on these new reports around sapphire component manufacturing, but we have yet to hear back. We’ll update if new information comes to light.





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Apple is preparing for a big push in sapphire crystal display manufacturing, according to some new information unearthed by 9to5Mac and tol...

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An amputee was able to feel sensations in a prosthetic hand temporarily wired to nerves in his upper arm. Silvestro Micera, Ph.D., led a team of researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switerland and Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Italy in testing the bionic hand prototype last year. Dennis Aabo Sorensen, a Danish man who lost his hand in an accident nine years ago, participated in the experiment. Early last year, a team of surgeons and neurologists implanted electrodes into the nerves of Sorensen's arm.


1:14 PM

An amputee was able to feel sensations in a prosthetic hand temporarily wired to nerves in his upper arm. Silvestro Micera, Ph.D., led a t...

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