Millions of people are downloading iOS 6 right now, and many will use the Facebook contact sync feature to pull in photos and current phone numbers. But rather than your real email address they’re going to pull in hundreds of @facebook.com addresses. These addresses don’t actually deliver to your email, but instead to your Facebook Messages Inbox.
Why? Because with little notice, Facebook changed everyone’s email address visibility settings in June to hide the Gmail or other addresses we purposefully shared with friends, leaving just our @facebook.com addresses. If you don’t want to miss out on email from friends, here’s how you undo Facebook’s change.
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Facebook engineer Sean Lynch has built a mind-blowing, custom server-monitoring tool for the company that uses heat mapping to keep tabs on a huge number of servers at a glance. Lynch is part of the cache performance team at Facebook. When things go wrong he needs to know quickly whether problems are being caused by caching or something else. Off the shelf monitoring tools just weren’t good enough. → Read More
We’re hearing that Nils Puhlmann, the cloud security expert who has worked as Zynga’s Chief Security Officer since 2009, resigned from the company yesterday, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Details on Puhlmann’s supposed departure are scarce at the moment, and we’ll update this story with more information we receive. When contacted this morning, a representative for Zynga declined to issue a confirmation or denial, and said the company was “not commenting” on the matter…
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Courtesy of a new partnership with Buffer, users of the ‘make-your-own-online-magazine’-styled service, Scoop.it, can now schedule social media updates at the same time as they curate their topic-based news. As is now traditional with just about every new Buffer integration, I’m told that the tie-in with Scoop.it was a much requested feature by users.
Buffer CEO, Leo Widrich, writes breathlessly on the company’s blog: → Read More
One of the worst things about getting drunk far from home is having to abandon your car overnight which you then have to painfully retrieve it the following day, hangover and all. Sometimes, the car isn’t even where you left it – it’s been towed. A startup called StearClear launched earlier this spring to address that problem by offering a designated driver service that uses driver teams who drive you home in your own vehicle, with another StearClear driver following behind.
Today, the company is announcing some numbers related to its initial traction and an additional round of $600,000 in funding, bringing its total funding to date to $1.1 million. → Read More
A theme is emerging Marc Benioff’s keynote. Man, machines and social networks are part of the next evolution in technology and compares to the movements of the past forty years dating back to the mainframe.
The talk began with a video that featured a woman who tells her car she wants to go to work. It showed a man using an immersive environment and gestures to command a network of automated operations. → Read More
Apple introduced an update to OS X alongside the iOS 6 update today, version 10.8.2. It offers Facebook integration, allowing users to sign in with their Facebook integration at the system level and share links and photos directly from the OS, as well as see Facebook information in the Contacts apps and receive Facebook notifications in Notification Center. → Read More
So, iOS 6 is upon us and people are going to start getting their new iPhones this week as well. What they’ll soon (maybe) realize is that Maps for iOS is no longer powered by Google. And it sucks something fierce.
I’m not going to go into tons of technical detail as to why this is, but let me just say that when consumers are used to an experience for, oh, five years, and you all of a sudden change it, people are going to be angry or confused. I’m betting on both happening with the Maps app. → Read More
iOS 6 is here, and you’re probably in some stage of trying to download or install it on one or more device if you’re reading this, or at least contemplating an upgrade. Some might be thinking about hanging back, waiting to see if the changes result in a net gain or not. Well let me tell you upfront: this is an update that should please most, if not all, with the possible exception of a single area where growing pains are still apparent. → Read More
Apple has pushed iOS 6 live, meaning you can update now, either by visiting Settings > General > Software Update on your iPhone 3GS or later, iPod touch 4th gen or later, or iPad, or by plugging into iTunes and checking for updates. The update offers a long list of new features, including some highlights like system-wide Facebook integration, Apple’s new Passbook app, a much more generally useful Siri, and many more besides. → Read More
Today at HTC’s press conference, the company introduced two new phones. The Windows Phone 8X is the bigger brother, the flagship device. With a 4.3-inch display and competitive specs, it is no surprise that the device looks bulky.
The real killer feature seems to be the 2.1-megapixel front facing camera that is capable of recording 1080p movies with an f/2.0 lens. Yet, looking at the pictures on the 720p screen is not the best way to judge of their quality. → Read More
The Windows Phone 8S isn’t necessarily the most impressive of HTC’s latest line-up, being baby brother to the 4.3-inch 8X and all. It’s design, on the other hand, looks and feels great. HTC has a knack for using an unibody design and the right materials to make an excellent feeling phone, and the 8S is certainly at the right size for almost anyone to use it with one hand.
The 4-inch WVGA display isn’t stellar, but the vibrance of Windows Phone 8 on the display seems to make up for that. I’m also quite fond of the color flavors this little bad boy comes in: black/white, grey/yellow, red/orange, and blue/purple. The grey/yellow combo and blue/purple in particular really catch the eye, and I see this phone gaining some serious popularity among teens. → Read More
Apple is launching iOS 6 today and one of the changes that will likely spark a lot of discussion is the new Maps app that does away with Google Maps and replaces it with Apple’s own (and by most accounts inferior) mapping solution. Google, of course, isn’t sitting still, and as the New York Times reports, Google Maps for Android is set to get an update later today. According to this report, the main feature of this update is that Google Maps searches will now sync across devices. → Read More
Good Magazine, the publication aimed at socially-conscious consumers, has been through some ups and downs in the last year — buying social media platform Jumo (up), getting rid of editorial staff (down) and, now, pivoting the company (jury still out): today sees the official launch of a new version of Good’s site, away from that of an online magazine, and now refocused as a social media platform based around good causes and good karma.
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If you don’t know about HaulerDeals, you probably should. The network of YouTube personalities has more than 5 million subscribers and a billion video views in total, and is quickly establishing a new model for social commerce based on recommendations from its panel of fashion experts.
So what is a hauler? And how is HaulerDeals tapping into this fashion culture? HaulerDeals is a bit of a niche network for young women interested in fashion. These “haulers” go out, buy a bunch of stuff, and then showcase their “hauls” to a video audience. HaulerDeals has designated a view of these girls as “gurus,” promoting them within its video network. → Read More
Stripe announced today that it is expanding its service to Canada, marking its first launch outside of the U.S. and the first step in a larger strategy of broad international availability. The Canadian launch should make quite a splash, because the online payments space is dominated by long-established incumbents here like Moneris, and at least as primed for the kind of shake-up that Stripe has managed in the U.S., if not more so. → Read More
If you’ve ever needed a better way to manage your contact lists directly on your iPhone, a new app called Ringya (yeah I know, kind of a dopey name, but stay with me here) can help. But what makes this Address Book replacement app interesting is one of the methods it supports for adding contacts to your groups: you can just take a picture of a contact list that’s printed out on paper. That may seem like a niche use case (who uses paper?!), but it’s actually surprisingly helpful. I’ve already found a handful of paper lists sitting around my house, and for business users, it’s likely even more common.
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HTC just revealed its family of Windows Phone 8 devices and HTC says mid-range 8S model is aimed squarely at the general consumer. But it’s missing a lot of features. Apparently the general consumer wants last year’s phone repackaged and sold as new.
The 8S is a large step down from HTC’s 8X hero device (and Nokia’s new handsets) and depending on the price, could have a hard time gaining sales. Hell, I’m not sure carriers could even give away this phone for free. → Read More
There are a handful of startups that are going to build mobile-social gaming platforms or die trying. Los Angeles’ Scopely is one of the latest. The company, from AdSense Co-creator Eytan Elbaz, is closing $8.5 million in funding in a round led by Anthem Venture Partners. Over the past year, the company has grown to about 30, luring engineers with promises of $11,000 in bacon-wrapped cash and spear guns. (No joke. See the picture to the left. And they gave hires their own personal oil portrait too.) → Read More
HTC has been one of Microsoft’s longest-standing mobile partners (think back to the Windows Mobile days), and today the Taiwanese company officially pulled back the curtains on the newest fruit of that partnership: the Windows Phone 8-powered HTC 8X.
Let’s get one thing out of the way up-front: the 8X is slated to hit the market in early November (just after Windows 8 gets its official release), but surprise surprise — there’s been firm word on exactly when it will launch, or how much it’ll cost once it does. That said, HTC President Jason Mackenzie has just confirmed that the 8X and its little brother will soon hit AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. → Read More
Here we are, in New York City, prepping for HTC’s New York press event. Three phones are expected, all of which will run the very capable Windows Phone 8 OS. The invitation gave nothing away, simply asking us to “see what’s next.” And that we will.
The lights are dim, with random barcode-esque graphics running across the screen. Perhaps that’s a hint toward some NFC? Maybe? We’ll have to wait and see. → Read More
Last week it was revealed that personal data management app Evernote would integrating Skitch – the image-editing app it acquired last year that has now seen 10 million downloads — further into its service, grandfathering Skitch.com in the process. Today, the company showed off what that will mean, with the launch of Skitch 2.o, with new features like pixelation, instant integration with your existing Evernote account, and, for the first time, availability on iPhone and iPod touch. (That also puts it in closer quarters with Snapseed, the iPhone-based image editing app bought earlier this week by Google.)
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Munich, Germany-based company, Carpooling.com, whose ride-sharing service helps shift more than a million people around Europe each month, has launched a new Android app — adding a PayPal payment option and a push notifications messaging system, among other new features. → Read More
Just when you thought you had settled on your preferred news magazine for the iPad (be it Flipboard, Zite, Currents, or something else entirely), another new contender enters the ring. Today, the NewzSocial app is launching its own version of a social news magazine for iPad, but is offering a different take in order to stand out from the rest. In other magazines, you subscribe to read news from various sources (blogs, newspapers, online magazines, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) or you can pick from an editorially selected bundle of sources (like Flipboard offers with its sections on “Home,” “Travel,” “Photography,” “Tech,” etc.). But in NewzSocial, you, the reader, curate your own sections which can be as broad (healthy eating) or as narrow (Gluten-free recipes) as you want. And you can collaborate on these sections with friends. → Read More
Gnip is announcing a new product today that provides access to the full database of public tweets from the beginning of time — or rather, the beginning of Twitter. The company says that’s only available to Twitter, the Library of Congress, and now Gnip customers.
President and COO Chris Moody tells me that this kind of historical data has been a big request from customers. → Read More
LG’s new top-tier Optimus G certainly looks like a contender on paper — its 4.7-inch HD IPS display, 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, 2GB of RAM, 13-megapixel camera, and LTE support make sure of that — but one thing the company hasn’t been willing to talk about so far is U.S. availability.
But it seems the company has just become just a bit more chatty. At a small press event in New York, LG representatives confirmed that the device will make its U.S. debut in Q4 2012, though exactly which carriers will sell the device is still up in the air for now. → Read More
StumbleUpon is releasing a new version of its iOS today — I’ve played with a little, and it’s a good-looking, intuitive-feeling app that could make the content discovery service more addictive than ever.
Cody Simms, the company’s new vice president of product, tells me this is the first big product update since he joined the company in June, and it reflects three general ideas that StumbleUpon will be focusing on moving forward. First, it will be to giving users more of a personal identity within the service. Second, there will be them ways to “stumble” through content. Last, Simms aims to add more ways for users to find recommended content. → Read More
Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia investor conference today, Time Warner Cable’s president and COO Rob Marcus explained during a webcast session that the cable provider is willing to sacrifice control over user interface when it comes to broadening its services to third-party platforms, including Apple’s, but won’t give up direct relationships with customers. That’s something Apple has heard before, from both the music and magazine industries. → Read More
Heroku has added Java for a new enterprise focused service so companies and IT organizations can build and run Java applications in the cloud.
In a press release, Heroku boasts it will allow companies to deploy mission-critical apps in minutes instead of months. That’s quite an assertion but the platform as a service (PaaS) market is showing the enterprise that developers need ways to quickly put up apps without always having to be managed through IT. Heroku Enterprise for Java is part of the Salesforce Platform – its play to offer development environments for social and mobile apps. → Read More
As we reported earlier this year, VC Charlie O’Donnell, who has worked as at both First Round Capital and Union Square Ventures, launched his own venture firm, New York-based Brooklyn Bridge Ventures. Today, O’Donnell is announcing his first close of $3.5 million in LP commitments.
The funding was anchored by Two Sigma Ventures and KEC holdings (led by Jeff Citron). Individuals who also participated include partners from First Round Capital and Wilson Sonsini, Wiley and Allison Cerilli, David Rose, Tom Wisniewski, Chad Stoller, and Ramesh Haridas, among others. → Read More
