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Monday, February 24, 2014
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Hello, and welcome to Moviefone!!


The early 90’s was a strange time.


Computers were becoming fairly commonplace, but the Internet still wasn’t. We pumped out new technology that defined our lives for a week, only to be forgotten the next. We were still trying to figure out what the future looked like.


So many things seemed brilliant at the time, only to be rendered useless by the end of the decade. Remember pagers?


Remember when we didn’t have a universe of information tucked into a little box in our pocket?


Remember when dialing a phone number to get information from a robot was mind blowing?


Remember calling 411? or POPCORN? or Moviefone?


In the coming weeks, that last one will stop answering.


In a statement to the New York Times, Moviefone confirms that they’re going to be shutting down the dial-in number that launched the company back in 1989.


Why? Because, as you might expect, usage of the phone number has tanked. You can hardly get people to call each other any more, much less get them to call a number for something they could find online in a heartbeat.


Moviefone as a company will stick around, albeit refocused around its web services and apps.


Alas, “Movieapp” doesn’t have the same ring to it.


(While we’re waxing all nostalgic: Remember away messages? Remember when you used to be able to get away from the Internet?)


[Disclosure: AOL owns Moviefone. AOL also owns TechCrunch.]





2:24 PM

Hello, and welcome to Moviefone! ! The early 90’s was a strange time. Computers were becoming fairly commonplace, but the Internet still was...

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silicon valley

That HBO Silicon Valley show has a new trailer out, which you can watch above. (Or, go to YouTube and check it out there. I don’t care, either way.)


Anyway. This time we learn a little bit more about what’s happening with the group of nerds engineers in the show. For instance, we learn that what they’ve built is some sort of a compression engine or algorithm for sending content over the Internet.


“All those YouPorn ones and zeroes streaming directly to your shitty little smartphone, every dipshit who shits his pants every time he can’t get Skrillex in under 12 seconds — it’s not magic, it’s talent and sweat. That’s what the fuck we do,” says one character in the show.


Ok, then.


We also learn that venture capitalists are dicks. One offers $200,000 for 10 percent of this world-changing little startup company? Yeh, no thanks. We’ll hold out for a Clinkle-like seed round.


There’s still the bit about Silicon Valley being the center of innovation in a *snicker* TED Talk, and the main character still gets beat up by a little kid. But thankfully there are no dick jokes in this trailer.


The fun starts April 6. I’ll be tuning in.





2:04 PM

That HBO Silicon Valley show has a new trailer out, which you can watch above. (Or, go to YouTube and check it out there . I don’t care, eit...

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Rovi

Rovi has announced that it will soon add advanced voice search to its portfolio of tricks, through the acquisition of video discovery startup Veveo. Rovi will pay $62 million in cash for the company and its IP at closing, and up to $7 million in additional payments based on certain performance milestones.


With Veveo’s technology, Rovi will be able to add a whole new voice search capability to its video discovery platform. The startup, which was founded years ago, uses a mix of natural language processing and semantic technologies to plug intuitive search and recommendation features into video discovery applications.


The voice search engine can follow a wide range of conversational commands and learns as it goes, so that users don’t have to keep repeating themselves when searching through a bunch of videos. It can understand when users are searching for a specific movie, cast member, or genre, and can refine searches within those parameters based on additional information that the user provides. Over time, it can even offer personalized recommendations based on previous searches.


In short, Veveo is basically like Siri, if Siri actually worked.


Already, Veveo is being used behind the scenes by a number of device manufacturers and service providers, and it has more than 80 patent applications filed, with 50 granted to date.


It’s that combination of IP and customers that probably has Rovi really excited. By combining Veveo with its own metadata offering, Rovi should be able to get more customers to use its video discovery services, which can be embedded in connected devices, set-top boxes, and third-party video apps.


Rovi announced that the acquisition will likely lower its adjusted pro forma income per share by 3-6 cents, but that it would contribute double-digit revenue growth and be accretive in fiscal 2015.





1:09 PM

Rovi has announced that it will soon add advanced voice search to its portfolio of tricks, through the acquisition of video discovery start...

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Nokia on Monday confirmed months of speculation with the unveiling of its X family of smartphones running Android. The X, X+ and XL are priced at $123, $136 and $150, respectively. Like Nokia's low-end Asha line, the X devices come in bright colors. They borrow some of Asha's other well-received features as well. Unlike the Asha smartphones, however, the X series will not be available in the United States. The product line is aimed at Europe, the Asia-Pacific, India, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa.


12:38 PM

Nokia on Monday confirmed months of speculation with the unveiling of its X family of smartphones running Android. The X, X+ and XL are pr...

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dropbox crunchies

A regulatory filing seems to confirm reports from the past couple of months that Dropbox has raised a large round of additional funding.


Back in January, the Wall Street Journal said that the cloud storage and sharing company had raised an additional $250 million at a $10 billion valuation. Then, in February, it updated that number to $350 million (at the same valuation) from investors including BlackRock, T. Rowe Price, and Morgan Stanley. However, Dropbox did not confirm the stories.


The filing says that the round could be up to $450 million, with $325 million raised so far. It seems that $350 million is a likely number, since that’s what Fortune has heard, too.


Dropbox had previously raised a little more than $250 million. I’ve reached out to the company and will update if I hear back.


By the way, Dropbox co-founders Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi won the founder of the year award at the Crunchies this year, presented by myself and Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom. (I cropped myself out of the picture above because otherwise it just felt weird.)


Update: And a source with knowledge of the funding has confirmed to me as well that Dropbox has indeed raised a $350 million Series C from existing investors and major mutual funds at a $10 billion valuation.





12:38 PM

A regulatory filing seems to confirm reports from the past couple of months that Dropbox has raised a large round of additional funding. Ba...

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ohcomeon

Samsung just unloaded its mobile product pipeline in Barcelona. All at once, the company revealed the Galaxy S5, Gear 2, Gear Nano and Gear Fit. These are legitimately exciting products.


The Galaxy S5 packs new sensors and is finally waterproof like Sony’s smartphones. It’s pushing into phablet territory with a 5.1-inch, 1920×1080 display, and it comes with a fingerprint reader on the home button, as well as a heart rate monitor around back near the camera flash. The Galaxy S5 is also dust and water-resistant, which may be the most useful new feature to ship on the phone.


Then there are the new Gear watches. Rebranded from Galaxy Gear, the Gear 2, the Gear Nano, and best of all, the Gear Fit, are fine iterations from the original Galaxy Gear. They pack new capabilities and thanks to the use of Tizen instead of Android, feature three times longer battery life.


The Gear Fit is especially interesting since depending on the price, it could steal a serious chunk of the marketshare away from Fitbit, Pebble and Jawbone.


But that’s the thing. Samsung didn’t announce any prices. For anything. The Gear Fit could be $17,000. The Galaxy S5 could be twice the price of the S4.


This is standard practice for Samsung. The company will throw a big festive for a new product (remember the Broadway show for the S4?) and then not announce the price. This is by design, as it wants to watch the competition react and then to drum up more press by announcing the price at a later date. Plus, to Samsung’s credit, pricing does vary per market.


However, this is the one thing Samsung should copy from Apple: Announce the product, reveal the capabilities and then announce the price and ship date. Please.





12:12 PM

Samsung just unloaded its mobile product pipeline in Barcelona. All at once, the company revealed the Galaxy S5, Gear 2, Gear Nano and Gear ...

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Deliv, the startup which hopes to provide same-day delivery with the help of a peer-to-peer network of shoppers and delivery people, has raised another $4.5 million. The funding comes from a number of strategic investors, including mall operators Simon Property Group, General Growth Properties, Macerich, and Westfield, as well as existing investors Upfront Ventures, RPM Ventures and others. It follows $7.85 million already raised by the company.





11:40 AM

Deliv , the startup which hopes to provide same-day delivery with the help of a peer-to-peer network of shoppers and delivery people , has r...

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