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Tuesday, February 18, 2014
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Here are the do’s and don’ts of wearing Google Glass. Right from Google.


Apparently — and I know this might be a shocker — you’re not supposed to stand in the corner of the room and record people with Google Glass. That would make you a glasshole, according to this list.


At this point, Google’s challenge is not building the Glass platform, but training the general public to welcome Glass wearers into society. Glass’s future rests largely on the public’s acceptance of the technology. If, like Bluetooth headsets, it’s deemed nerdy or, worse, if Glass is lumped in with the NSA privacy scandle, the technology will be an also-ran. A lot is riding on Google Glass Explorers.


Google introduced Glass with a bang, but the company has not advertised the technology to the general public. For most people, their only interaction with the device is with a random person wearing Google Glass. These so-called Explorers, for better or worse, are Glass advocates. The “no glass allowed” campaigns clearly state that these advocates are not putting Glass in the best light.


As the last point in this do’s and don’ts list states:



Don’t Be creepy or rude (aka, a “Glasshole”). Respect others and if they have questions about Glass don’t get snappy. Be polite and explain what Glass does and remember, a quick demo can go a long way. In places where cell phone cameras aren’t allowed, the same rules will apply to Glass. If you’re asked to turn your phone off, turn Glass off as well. Breaking the rules or being rude will not get businesses excited about Glass and will ruin it for other Explorers.






11:07 AM

Here are the do’s and don’ts of wearing Google Glass. Right from Google. Apparently — and I know this might be a shocker — you’re not suppo...

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On-demand delivery startup Postmates has brought on a new round of funding to help roll out service in new markets. The Series B funding round totals $16 million and was led by Spark Capital, with Spark venture partner Nabeel Hyatt joining the board.


Other investors in Postmates include SoftTechVC, Matrix Partners, Scott Banister, Naval Ravikant, Russel Simmons, Thomas Korte, Shervin Pishevar, Dave Morin, and David Sacks. Altogether, the company has raised a little more than $22 million.


Postmates has built a mobile app and logistical network of couriers, enabling customers to place orders from local merchants and have goods delivered generally within an hour. Its revenue model is pretty simple, as it makes money through a delivery small fee paid on top of orders.


That value proposition — getting lunch or groceries delivered in a short period of time for a fixed fee — has proven to be really sticky with customers. Co-founder Bastian Lehmann told me that the company is averaging thousands of deliveries per week, but the more important metric is how often customers are placing orders.


About 28 percent of its total order volume comes from “whales” who use the service 10 times or more each month. And about half of that volume comes from users who order at least five times a month.


The service is now available in four different markets throughout the U.S., but is looking to continue expanding in a city-by-city fashion. The company launched in San Francisco and later added service in Seattle, New York City, and Washington, D.C. Not surprisingly, each new market has grown more quickly than the previous one, with D.C. order volume at 2.5 times the size of New York City’s after 60 days.


With the new funding, Postmates is looking to expand its operations team and launch in even more cities soon. In particular, Lehmann said the company is in the market for a senior exec to take over management of its on-the-ground operations. The startup has more than 2,000 couriers in its multiple markets, and is onboarding about 200 new couriers each week.





10:50 AM

On-demand delivery startup Postmates has brought on a new round of funding to help roll out service in new markets. The Series B funding ro...

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Maybe they aren't fighting words, but they sure aren't friendly. China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying, said that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's remarks about Chinese Internet freedom were, shall we say, a bit base. Kerry had a half-hour-plus chat with bloggers Saturday in Beijing, during which time he expressed support for more online freedom in China. This prompted Hua to retort that China's affairs should be decided by Chinese people.


10:09 AM

Maybe they aren't fighting words, but they sure aren't friendly. China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying, said tha...

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I spoke last week with a woman who built a house in Belize. Apparently it was burglarized several times. After she moved away, her husband mysteriously died there -- he had stayed to protect the house before they sold it. Then I got a visit from a friend who'd retired to Brazil but badly wants to come home. He recently had his gold chain ripped from his neck while he was on a private beach. I was thinking this was a Central/South American thing, largely because I was being told that U.S. citizens were being targeted.


10:09 AM

I spoke last week with a woman who built a house in Belize. Apparently it was burglarized several times. After she moved away, her husband...

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Online video distributor Hulu announced today that it has hired Sony Network Entertainment International SVP Tian Lim as its new CTO. While at Sony, Lim ran North American engineering and service operations, which was responsible for building and managing the PlayStation Store on the web, PS3, and PS4. Prior to that, he was on the Microsoft Xbox team for eight years, where he led development of the Xbox Live, Xbox 360 operating system, and Kinect. Lim replaces former CTO Richard Tom, who left Hulu along with former CEO Jason Kilar to start work on a new project together.





9:53 AM

Online video distributor Hulu announced today that it has hired Sony Network Entertainment International SVP Tian Lim as its new CTO. Whil...

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Zynga stock rallied this morning to a 52-week high price of $5.15 after King Digital Entertainment, the European social gaming giant best known for Candy Crush Saga, filed a public F-1 with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission for a planned initial public offering.


We’ve still got several hours left in the trading day, but Zynga is already showing the strongest stock market performance it’s seen in more than a year (although it is still trading well below its $10 per share IPO price.) Perhaps King’s IPO filing has increased the stock market attention to the hit-driven online gaming business in general — we’ll see how long this rising tide buoys Zynga’s boat.





9:53 AM

Zynga stock rallied this morning to a 52-week high price of $5.15 after King Digital Entertainment, the European social gaming giant best kn...

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Samsung has a new flagship smartphone coming soon, likely at Mobile World Congress next week, and new details are emerging about what the next smartphone from the Korean mobile giant will be packing. It’ll have a sharper, larger 5.2-inch display according to Bloomberg, better battery and camera, and possibly both eye- and fingerprint-scanning technology.


The fingerprint scanner report comes from Sammobile, a company-focused site that has a decent track record when it comes to Samsung hardware rumors. The site confirmed yesterday that Samsung’s Galaxy S5 will feature a fingerprint sensor, which is able to register up to eight different fingerprints for use in performing different tasks, from unlocking the device to launching specific apps, as well as opening special personal folders and enabling a new Private Mode that unveils hidden files and apps. You swipe your finger across the home key, where the sensor is located, to use stored fingerprint functions, unlike on the iPhone 5s, where only holding your finger on the sensor is required.


As for the other features reported by Bloomberg, they include the standard sorts of improvements Android OEMs put into their generational updates. The display is said to be 5.2-inches diagonally, which is 0.2 inches larger than the current Galaxy S4′s screen. It’s also said to be “sharper,” which presumably means it’ll get a higher resolution than the current 1080 x 1920 (which still amounts to a whopping 441 ppi).


Details of the improvements to camera and battery tech aren’t included in the Bloomberg report, but previous reports peg the rear camera t 16MP, and battery capacity rumors range from a fast-charging 2,900 mAh lithium ion battery to a more capacious 3,200 mAh.


We won’t have to wait long to find out who’s right: Samsung’s Unpacked5 event happens on February 24 at 8 PM CET, and we’ll be providing you live updates of what’s announced as it happens right here at TechCrunch.





8:09 AM

Samsung has a new flagship smartphone coming soon, likely at Mobile World Congress next week, and new details are emerging about what the ne...

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