Editor’s note: Boris Chan is a principal at Xtreme Labs who leads product development and innovation efforts.
Apple finally unveiled the iPad mini last week. Perhaps its main selling point is that it runs the same apps as the iPad and works just as well with the same screen resolution despite its smaller size. → Read More
Recovering from Hurricane Sandy is no small feat as most of Lower Manhattan is still in the dark without power. I talked with a couple of people working in startups who had to find a place to get back work. But the most difficult part was probably to set aside the devastation and get the businesses back on track. Those companies are fragile and can’t risk a companywide blackout for a week. → Read More
Digital marketing company Kenshoo has raised $12 million in new funding.
The round was led by late-stage investment firm Tenaya Capital, with participation from all past investors, including Sequoia Capital, Sequoia Growth Fund, and Arts Alliance. A Kenshoo spokesperson told me this brings the company’s total funding to $30 million. → Read More
Happy iPad mini day. Since my review a few days ago, by far the number one question I’ve been asked about the device is: how does it fit into my life? Do I really need another iPad — let alone a smaller, less powerful one with a non-retina screen? Will I use it alongside the regular iPad? What about alongside a MacBook? Instead of those devices?
This question keeps coming up, of course… → Read More
Nick Bilton of the New York Times is reporting that Twitter is working on adding filters for photos to its product. This is clearly an attempt to add to its current capability to upload photos. At first blush, you will think that this is purely a defensive move against Facebook and Instagram. While that might be partially true, adding filters to photos does not cancel out Instagram whatsoever. → Read More
Foursquare has been taking VC meetings recently, looking into raising a Series D round of funding of between $50 million and $100 million according to multiple sources. In previous rounds, the company has brought in over $71.4 million in financing from Andreessen Horowitz, Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures and others.
From what we’re hearing the company seeks to flesh out this round at a… → Read More
It may not have a cool name like “Siri,” but you can’t accuse Google’s Voice Search app of lacking personality. Or self-awareness, for that matter. In case you missed it, Google upgraded its iOS search app on Tuesday with improved voice search functionality – it’s the closest iOS users can get to a “Google Now“-like experience. The new app can return information like weather, stock quotes, sports… → Read More
Facebook’s executives gained the right to sell stock this week and three are now starting to cash out. SEC docs show COO Sheryl Sandberg is selling 352,904 shares to pull in $7,474,506.72. That’s just 1.91% of her current, massive stake. General Counsel Ted Ullyot is selling a little too. However, Chief Accounting Officer David Spillane is selling over 61%. That’s 256,000 shares out of the 416,000… → Read More
The iPad mini may have a display that’s being singled out in most reviews as below Apple’s recent standards, but a look under the microscope by Repair Labs affirms what I’ve been noticing in person: while the mini definitely doesn’t offer the same kind of quality as an iPad with Retina Display (3rd or 4th gen), its screen is a big step up from the 2nd-generation iPad. → Read More
OMGPOP founder Charles Forman has raised some money for his new venture Picturelife, according to an SEC filing. The startup, which is focused on backing up, storing, and providing access to all of your photos in the cloud, closed a $4 million in new funding. The app works by syncing photos from multiple devices, and giving users the ability to access them from anywhere. Users can also import and… → Read More
Apple’s minor bug-zapping update for iOS 6, iOS 6.0.1, is already making up 7.5 percent of mobile web traffic as measured by ad network and analytics firm Chitika, just 24 hours after release. If you’ve been following, you’ll note that that’s just half of the 15 percent adoption rate iOS 6 saw a day after being in the wild, but this is a minor update, making that uptake rate impressive. → Read More
Nexage is hoping to expand the capabilities of its mobile ad exchange with the launch of a new service called Nexage Connect.
Mark Connon, the company’s executive vice president of corporate and business development, said advertisers and publishers can do a number of things (largely related to targeting) in the desktop world that they don’t have easy access to in mobile, due to restrictions on… → Read More
Silicon Valley might be in for a big weekend. The Giants won the World Series. Oh, and quite a few new Facebook millionaires were minted. The social network’s employees got a $3.1 billion bonus this week as their RSUs turned into shares they can actually sell. COO Sheryl Sandberg scored about $400 million herself, and just sold off $7.4 million.
Now the question is whether Facebook employees… → Read More
Apple’s 4th generation iPad boasts a faster processor, the new A6X chip, which makes it twice as fast as the 3rd generation iPad, based on benchmark tests, in terms of raw processing power and graphics. That sounds good, but what does it mean in practice? Well, there’s a noticeable boost all around, but we’ve got a hands-on video with three scenarios where you can see the differences. → Read More
Originally a Kickstarter project, Ubi is a ubiquitous computing device. Designed to plug into your wall and remain dormant until you talk to it, this little computer can perform searches, wake you up, and even sense environmental conditions in every room. → Read More
Chris Anderson, the longtime editor-in-chief at Wired magazine, is leaving the tech journalism stalwart. The news was announced at an all-hands meeting held at Wired’s offices this morning, we’re hearing. It has also started to leak out on Twitter (you can’t trust writers to keep anything secret, I tell ya.) → Read More
The iPad mini hit store shelves today, and I got the chance to get one for myself. The device is a terrific consumer tablet, but it has a lot of potential to be an even more impressive player in retail, restaurant and industrial applications. The iPad mini’s big brother has done a good job of making headway in businesses and customer service, but the iPad mini has a strong chance to help drive… → Read More
In a cool report by the Georgian Government, Georgian CERT researchers claim to have nabbed a hacker by infecting his PC with malware and tracking him down by grabbing his files, photographs, and even viewing him at work. The hacker ran the Georbot Botnet, a botnet designed to spy specifically on Georgian citizens. → Read More
A new study shows that the media can significantly reduce partisan bias by simply making the text more difficult to read. Researchers found that participants in two different studies became more moderate on issues of Muslim rights and capital punishment when they were forced to read an eye-straining, light-grey, vertically stretched front. “Not only are people considering more the opposing… → Read More
As you know, the devastation of Hurricane Sandy has hit millions. Many turned to Twitter to discuss what they were going through. Today, the company shared some interesting facts and numbers having to do with Hurricane-related activity on the site.
What does this tell you? Twitter was a fine replacement for cell phones and landlines that weren’t working. The interesting thing about these… → Read More
Digital metrics firm comScore today released its most recent mobile market share report, detailing trends in the mobile industry for the three month period ending in September. The survey of over 30,000 mobile subscribers in the U.S. revealed that smartphone penetration topped 50 percent for the first time ever in the study’s history, with Android and Samsung leading the charge. → Read More
The founders of LitPick have known each other since birth. Seth Cassel and his dad Gary founded their first company, FlamingNet in 2002 when Seth was in fourth grade. Designed as a book review site, Seth and his dad Gary built the site themselves and began taking a profit. → Read More
Can’t say it’s a huge loss, but it looks like Apple is finally going to starting removing apps whose sole purpose is to offer emoji, the emoticon characters popular with the younger text messaging crowd. Some developers are reporting that their emoticon-enabling apps are now being kicked out of the App Store, with Apple citing native support for emoji as the reason for the app’s removal. → Read More
A Facebook phone doesn’t make sense. Mark Zuckerberg said it himself on our Disrupt stage just a few months ago. But that doesn’t mean the rumors won’t continue to fly.
The latest comes by way of Pocket-Lint, which claims to have source confirmation that the HTC Opera UL phone popping up in benchmarking results is, in fact, a Facebook phone. → Read More
Whelp, there you go. The MS Surface is one of Oprah’s favorite things, thus winning the oh-so-important housewives demographic. But no iPad mini. She said “The Surface, Microsoft’s first tablet, feels like a Mercedes-Benz to me, people!” → Read More
Microsoft plans to offer devices based on Perceptive Pixel technology that uses both pen and touch to create what is equivalent to the human as the user interface.
Microsoft General Manager Jeff Han, who sold Perceptive Pixel to Microsoft earlier this year, hinted at the news with a slide in a presentation at this week’s Build conference in Redmond. It said “Devices *are* coming” along with an… → Read More
If new Facebook users understand their privacy on the site, they’ll trust Facebook more and share more too. So Facebook has just made privacy education a central part of the sign-up flow. New users are taught about their default controls, how to limit the audience of their posts, and how ads and apps work. Facebook also added in-line privacy controls so users can customize their settings right… → Read More
The European online swapping service, Netcycler, which uses an algorithm to match up multiple people with mutually sought after goods to trade, has acquired U.S. rival Swap.com, which offers simpler, one-to-one trades. The acquisition took place back in late August but has only just been confirmed. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed. → Read More
It seems like ages since Google and HTC first kicked off the Nexus experiment (it was 2010, but who’s counting?). Now here we are, over two years later, and we’re on our fourth Nexus smartphone. There’s no question that the hardware has gotten progressively better, but these past few months have also seen some notable changes in the Nexus brand itself.
With devices like the Nexus 7 picking… → Read More
This week, Google announced a new lineup of devices that would be running its Android OS, Jelly Bean version 4.2. Those new devices are a phone and a new 10-inch tablet, called the Nexus 10. I’ve had a chance to play with both devices, specifically the Nexus 10, and I actually surprised myself with how the device has fit into my daily routine. → Read More
The 6th Annual Crunchies Awards
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