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Field Testing Microsoft’s New Surface 2, And Surface Pro 2 Tablet Hybrids
Microsoft has two new Surface tablets that are currently up for preorder, and a crop of refreshed accessories. I’ve had the Surface 2, Surface Pro 2, and new Touch and Type covers for a few days now, and can report on their performance. The above video clip has all the hardware specifics that you could possibly want. TechCrunch’s previous coverage of the new tablets, including an… Read More
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AmEx Partners With VeriFone To Allow NYC Taxi Passengers To Pay For Cab Fares With Rewards Points
Similar to other credit cards, AmEx card holders have been able to use the rewards points they earn for flights hotels, retail purchases and access to concerts and sports events. Today, AmEx is taking this a step further by allowing users to access membership rewards points at point of sale, via a VeriFone integration. In a new partnership announced today, AmEx will allow card holders to use their… Read More
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Ketchuppp Is An App That Wants To Help Friends Catch Up In Person — Not On Facebook
Are you spending too much time looking at what your friends are posting on Instagram and Facebook, and not enough time hanging out with each other IRL? The founders of Ketchuppp think so. Their answer to this problem is of course another app -- one that’s designed to help you meet your buddies when you happen to be near enough to do so. In other words: a proximity-based social networking app. Or… Read More
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OKpanda Lands $1.4M From 500 Startups, Mafia Wars & Tapjoy Founders To Bring Better English Language Learning To Asia
That's how a new startup called OKPanda hopes to stand out from the noise. Co-founded by serial entrepreneur and app developer Adam Gries and Nir Markus, the former co-founder and CTO of popular multiplayer-games-as-a-service startup PlayerDuel, OKPanda wants to help change the way people learn English in Asia, beginning with Japan. To support its mission, OKPanda has raised $1.4 million in a… Read More
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HTC’s CEO Sheds Some Operational Responsibility To Focus On Product Amid Falling Market Share
Today the Financial Times reported that HTC's CEO Peter Chou will relinquish some of his daily operational responsibilities to Cher Wang, another of the company's founders. Chou will use his now freer schedule to focus on HTC's smartphones. Read More
In Case You Missed It
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What Games Are: A Farewell To Games Stores
They still hang on in there selling used games and new releases, but the long-predicted death of the video game store has not wavered. It's happening inch by inch, but may speed up considerably with the release of new game consoles. As we all go 100% digital in our games, game stores will eventually just go away. Read More
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Apple Pushes New Version Of OS X Mavericks GM To Quash Last Minute Bugs
The consensus is that Apple currently plans on announcing the details of OS X Mavericks availability and pricing during this week's event in San Francisco. We're hearing that, in order to kill some last-minute bugs, a quiet update has been made to the Gold Master version of Mavericks previously shipped out to developers. Read More
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VCs Try A New Method: Curated Events
VCs have long thrown events for portfolio startups to share knowledge, and learn from each other and from previous successful entrepreneurs. Last year’s Kleiner Perkins CEO Summit featured fireside chats with Bill Gates, Colin Powell and Al Gore. Google Ventures CEO Summit last year included Sergey Brin and Ron Conway, among others. And most other firms hold similar CEO and founder summits… Read More
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The NSA Hacked Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s Email While He Was In Office
Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden demonstrate that the National Security Agency (NSA) hacked the email of former Mexican President Felipe Calderon while he was in office, according to a report in Der Spiegel. The operation, dubbed “Flatliquid,” exploited a mail server to garner access to the account. The compromised system was also in use by other Mexican… Read More
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Cooliris Reports Big Growth in Asia And 3B Connected Photos
Over the past year or so, photo service Cooliris has been announcing a number of international partnerships with companies like Renren, Yandex, and most recently Baidu. Earlier this week I met with Cooliris CEO Soujanya Bhumkar and VP of Business Development Sebastian Blum, who told me that these efforts have been paying off. There are now 3 billion photos connected to the Cooliris service, and 1… Read More
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Silicon Cloud
- Size Not available
- Round Angel
- Investors Not available
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convoe
- Size Not available
- Round Crowd
- Investors Not available
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Wishberg
- Size $150K
- Round Seed
- Investors India Quotient
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Teads
- Size $5.1M
- Round Unattributed
- Investors Partech Ventures, Elaia Partners
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SiSaf
- Size $757.6K
- Round Seed
- Investors Not available
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QuantuMDx Group
- Size $1.5M
- Round Grant
- Investors Not available
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Chukong Technologies
- Size $50M
- Round D
- Investors GGV Capital, Sequoia Capital, Steamboat Ventures, Creaturk, Northern Light ... See More
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Tapstream
- Size $681.7K
- Round Seed
- Investors BDC Venture Capital
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Labfolder
- Size Not available
- Round Unattributed
- Investors Investionsbank Berlin, Vogel Ventures, Jan Bohl
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K2 Learning
- Size $1.3M
- Round Angel
- Investors Radheshyam Agarwal
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M-DAQ
- Size $11.7M
- Round B
- Investors GSR Ventures Management, Citi Ventures
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CIS Biotech
- Size Not available
- Round Angel
- Investors Not available
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Mode Analytics
- Size $550K
- Round Seed
- Investors David Sacks
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Wilocity
- Size $35M
- Round Unattributed
- Investors Vintage Investment Partners, Jerusalem Global Ventures
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ParStream
- Size $8M
- Round B
- Investors Khosla Ventures
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LUXA
- Size $3.3M
- Round Unattributed
- Investors KDDI Open Innovation Fund
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Anaqua
- Size $25M
- Round Unattributed
- Investors Bessemer Venture Partners
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AppLift
- Size $7M
- Round B
- Investors Prime Ventures
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Biodesy
- Size $15M
- Round A
- Investors 5AM Ventures, Pfizer Venture Investments, Roche Venture Fund
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Mintigo
- Size $10M
- Round C
- Investors Adams Street Partners, Sequoia Capital, Giza Venture Capital
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SolarVista Media
- Size Not available
- Round D
- Investors Nokia Growth Partners, TusPark Ventures, Northern Light VC, China Ease ... See More
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Viridis Learning
- Size Not available
- Round Unattributed
- Investors Comcast Ventures, Ulu Ventures, Expansion Venture Capital, Blue Ridge ... See More
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Stitch Fix
- Size $12M
- Round B
- Investors Benchmark
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OpenNews
- Size $4M
- Round Unattributed
- Investors Knight Foundation
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Mach 1 Development
- Size $1M
- Round Seed
- Investors Not available
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Swift Biosciences
- Size $7M
- Round B
- Investors Fletcher Spaght Ventures, Renaissance Capital Manitoba Ventures Fund ... See More
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Data Elite
- Size Not available
- Round Seed
- Investors The Social+Capital Partnership, Andreessen Horowitz, Formation 8, Ron ... See More
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MyBuys
- Size $4.5M
- Round Debt_round
- Investors NXT Capital
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FireBlade
- Size Not available
- Round Unattributed
- Investors Blue Ant Investments
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Proterra
- Size $24M
- Round C
- Investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, General Motors Ventures, Hennessey ... See More
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Rethinking The Seductiveness Of Mobile-First
Editor’s Note: Semil Shah works on product for Swell, is a TechCrunch columnist, and an investor. He blogs at Haywire, and you can follow him on Twitter at @semil. For the past few months, my weekly column here has been focused on some aspect of “mobile.” There’s no denying the scope of the platform shift, user volume, and consumer attention. Yet, for startups, being… Read More
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Skim Is Snapchat For Text
Serious question: Which would you prefer? To have all of your chat conversations instantly deleted upon receipt (Snapchat-style), or to keep a record of each and every word forever on the internet? A new app, Skim, is looking to answer that question. Not unlike Ansa, a Disrupt alumni, the app automatically deletes the message as soon as it's opened. When a user sends a message, it's gone… Read More
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How Healthcare.gov Doomed Itself By Screwing Startups
Healthcare.gov, a government-run e-commerce website for the Affordable Care Act, does not actually need to exist. The still-dysfunctional federal site could have offloaded all of the work to startups, which were already building more sophisticated price-comparison alternatives to the official site, just like Orbitz does for airline companies. Healthcare.gov was supposed to be an information hub… Read More
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Apple Product Placement Architect Suzanne Lindbergh Confirms Departure To Jawbone
Apple executive Suzanne Lindbergh, who has been with the company for 25 years, confirmed via email today that she has accepted a new position with speaker and Bluetooth accessory maker Jawbone. The marketing specialist had the official title of "Worldwide Director of Buzz Marketing" at Apple, which put her in charge of making sure Apple products showed up front-and-center in both big and small… Read More
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Twitter’s #Music App Could Be On The Way Out, Says New Report
Twitter's #Music app, which offered social music discovery culled from activity on the 140-character sharing service, is reportedly nearing the end of its brief life, according to a new report from AllThingsD. Twitter is "strongly considering" shuttering the mobile app, after its download and usage numbers have dropped precipitously following a respectable launch. Read More
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In Which Jack Dorsey Reads Us Some Poetry And Lists And Plays Us A Jazz Tune
Jack Dorsey seems to be at the tech world's center of attention over the last few weeks, thanks to a series of articles and an upcoming discussing the early days of Twitter, and whether or not he screwed over friends and coworkers in the early going. But the co-founder of Twitter, which also just happens to be in a quiet period while it prepares for IPO, sidestepped any unnecessary or awkward… Read More
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Airbnb Has Now Served 9M Guests Since Being Founded, Up From 4M At The End Of Last Year
Airbnb continues to grow at an amazing pace, and now has served a total of 9 million guests in the five years since being founded. At Y Combinator's annual startup school today, Airbnb co-founder and CTO Nate Blecharczyk demonstrated what hockey stick-like growth looks like after several years in a row. Read More
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Loop: The Future Of Mobile Payments Or A Temporary Fix?
Loop is a new mobile payments startup making some fairly big claims. The company says it has invented a technology that lets you pay with your phone at nearly any point-of-sale across the U.S., without requiring merchants to upgrade their hardware. Nor do you have to own a particular device, like those NFC-based smartphones required for mobile payment services like Google Wallet or Isis. Instead… Read More
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CrunchWeek: Earnings Week Winners And Losers, Netflix Cozying Up To Comcast, Path Layoffs
This week felt like a long one, am I right? But Saturday is finally here, and along with it is a new episode of CrunchWeek, the show that brings three writers, three TechCrunch TV cameras, and a whole lot of opinions together to dish on the most interesting stories from the past seven days in tech news. Read More